She was quiet for a while. “It’s not conscious. All I do is focus on the mission at hand.”
Sounded like a One-Trick, but only a master-level magician would know for sure.
Onora appeared suddenly. She stared at her hands as she laced and unlaced her fingers over and over. “It didn’t work when...Captain...Timmer came for me. I couldn’t hide...from him...no matter how hard I tried.”
“Because you were afraid. Just thinking about him has made you lose your camouflage.”
She glanced up in surprise.
“No need to be scared of
him. He’s locked in the Commander’s dungeon and is scheduled for execution in a little over three months.”
“Even if I’m not there to kill him?”
“Yes. The Commander might not be in full control of his mind, but one thing he loathes is sexual predators.”
“What if Owen releases Timmer or he escapes?”
“Then, when all this is over, we will hunt him down, strip him naked, tenderize him with a few dozen holes and leave him for the snow cats to find.”
Onora grinned. “Good plan.”
“I thought you’d like that.”
They lapsed into silence. After an hour, the familiar thrum of horses reached them. Valek whistled the signal. Soon the two scouts rode into view and passed Valek and Onora’s position. The scouts spotted the rutted road and slowed, glancing to the left and right. Smart enough to know this was an ideal spot for an ambush, but not experienced enough to look up.
Yelena and Sladen released the camouflage nets. They fell at a slight angle and swept the riders from the horses. The victims landed with an oomph. Using the net ideally avoided any major injuries. If they’d shot darts filled with sleeping potion, the riders might topple, and falling from a moving horse could be lethal.
Hanni and Faxon jumped on the struggling men and poked them with the potion. In thirty seconds, the soldiers stilled. Yelena and Sladen hauled the net back into position while Valek and Onora caught the two horses. Then they helped drag the two sleeping men into the woods. After Valek led the mounts to Kiki, he returned to his position. They reset the trap.
The next part would be a bit harder. About twenty minutes later, a slower beat of horse hooves sounded, along with the creak and rumble of a wagon. Bantering voices floated on the light breeze. Once again, Valek signaled them to be ready.
Two riders led the way. Two others sat on the wagon’s bench, and the final two followed the caravan. A tarp had been draped over the cargo area, and Valek hoped Mara and Esau had been hidden underneath it. As the group reduced speed and lumbered past, Valek shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. He held a dart laced with sleeping potion in each hand.
When they reached the washout, the nets were dropped on the leaders, and Onora shot the two on the wagon with darts. The ones in the back froze upon seeing their companions attacked. Valek and Onora snuck up next to them. He stabbed the dart into one man’s leg and yanked him from the saddle while Onora did the same to his partner. The soldier hopped up and drew a short sword. Valek stayed just out of reach until the man wobbled and crumpled to the ground.
The ambush was a complete success. Bodies littered the road, but no one appeared to be injured. Yelena and Sladen climbed down from the trees as Valek pulled back the tarp. Mara and Esau had been bound to the wagon and gagged. Esau’s face turned red as he struggled to speak.
Hyper-alert, Valek spun and drew his dagger. The soldiers they had just neutralized sprang to their feet with weapons in hand. Yelena yipped in surprise as one of the scouts lunged from the woods. The scout grabbed her and pressed a knife to her neck. The desire to rip him apart flowed through Valek, and he gauged the distance to the man.
“Drop your weapons or I’ll slit her throat,” the scout said.
12
HELI
Heli reread the note from Fisk. While glad she didn’t have to watch the rather boring comings and goings of the Stormdance garrison any longer, she wondered why Fisk thought it was too dangerous to remain. It had only been a month, but his other operatives...
She grinned at the word operatives. The kids working for Fisk were much younger than her own eighteen years. However, they’d fled the garrison like seagulls before a big storm. Something must have happened and, while she had to be on the coast soon to harvest the heating season’s storms regardless, she thought Fisk might be overreacting. Especially when she considered his missive.
He believed Zethan, Zohav and Teegan were in danger and needed to relocate to a safer location. As if there were such a thing. Fisk had never been to The Cliffs, so he had no idea just how difficult it would be for an army or even a person to sneak up on them. With four Stormdancers on the beach, there was no way anyone could traverse the narrow path down The Cliffs without one of the Stormdancers blowing them out to sea. Ridiculous.
Oh, well. She shrugged and abandoned her post by the garrison’s main entrance. Stopping at the inn where she’d been staying, Heli packed her knapsack and paid her bill. She considered swinging by her parents’ house, but that would add two days to her travel time. And there was no way they’d let her leave after only three or four hours. They’d pepper her with a million questions and insist she stay overnight, bringing the total to three extra days. Fisk was probably being overly cautious, but she had to give the guy credit. He had planned and executed a killer rescue.
Remembering that night, Heli straightened with pride. Zethan had called the storm and Heli controlled it, keeping a safe path open for Yelena and Valek and a bunch of their friends to escape the Krystal garrison. It’d been the hardest thing she’d ever done with her Stormdancing magic, and it’d been both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. And it had been empowering. When Zethan’s twin sister, Zohav, started flattening the guards with giant balls of water, she’d believed the three of them could beat the Cartel on their own. Of course, reality arrived the very next day when they hadn’t been able to help anyone because it was dry, calm and sunny.
Heli swung by the stables and saddled her horse, Thunder. The gray-and-white stallion twitched with energy. However, like his namesake, he started out strong but soon faded with distance. She’d been working on his endurance, and riding him was still better than walking, but she wished she had a Sandseed horse like Kade. Moonlight could reach The Cliffs in three days, but Thunder would be lucky to make it in four.
* * *
The morning of the fifth day on the road, Heli mounted Thunder. Her bedroll did nothing to soften the hard shale of The Flats and made her cot in the main cavern seem like a featherbed in comparison.
They reached the edge of The Cliffs later that afternoon. A fresh, damp breeze greeted them. Heli breathed in the tangy scent of the sea far below. The strident call of the gulls interrupted the rhythmic shushing of the distant waves. Sunlight painted the water with diamonds.
Home.
Heli soaked in the beauty of the landscape for a moment. The wind had carved a rippling pattern into The Cliffs, leaving behind wings of stone and arches of rocks. Water had drilled holes into them, and the Stormdancers used the caves for living areas, sleeping quarters, storage and housing the glass kiln. The sweet aroma of white coal and molten glass laced the salty air. Helen, the glassmaker, was probably busy making the orbs for the upcoming storm season.
Thunder refused to move when Heli urged him down the narrow trail. No matter how many times he’d been here, he wouldn’t descend unless Heli walked beside him.
“You’re a big baby,” she said, dismounting. “Come on. If we hurry we might be in time for some of Raiden’s seafood chowder.” Her stomach rumbled just thinking about it.
Halfway down, she spotted dark gray clouds gathering well out to sea. A storm would be here in a few days. Early, but one of the many things she’d learned about storms was that they didn’t follow the calendar. Heli glanced down. Kade stood at the end of a rocky outcropping. Waves rushed past but parted before crashing into his favorite perch.
By the time Heli and Thunder reached the sand, Kade had traversed the rocks and was heading in their direction. She waited. He was her boss, after all. Wearing a cautious expression, he strode over the sand with ease. His shoulder-length brown hair blew in the breeze. Heli tucked her own long brown strands behind an ear. The sun and sea had streaked both their hair with blond highlights.
“You’re here early,” he said once he’d drawn closer.
“We
ll, hello to you, too.”
“What happened?” he asked.
She suppressed a sigh. Kade was always too serious. And she was only five days early—her Stormdancing shift started on the first day of the heating season.
“I received a message from Fisk,” she said, then told him about Fisk’s concerns.
He huffed. “They’re safer here than anywhere else in Sitia.”
“I know. Where are they?”
Kade gestured down the beach. “Zethan is surfing...or rather, trying to, while his sister is swimming.”
Heli shivered. “The water’s freezing.”
“Not to them. They say it’s warm in comparison to the waters off Ixia’s coast.”
“And Teegan?”
“Helping Raiden.”
“What should we do about Fisk’s message?” she asked.
“Let’s wait until everyone is together and discuss it over supper.”
Heli led Thunder to the small stables on the beach. When the weather turned nasty, as it frequently did during the heating and cooling seasons, they moved the horses up to the storm cave to shelter them from the elements.
Moonlight whickered a greeting. The black horse had a white moon on his forehead. Smoke, another gray horse, poked his head out. Heli didn’t recognize the third horse—a cream-colored mare with a blond mane. The new horse matched the sand on the beach. After grooming Thunder and ensuring he had fresh grain and water, Heli trudged up to the main cavern.
The familiar fishy scent of seafood chowder wrapped around her like a soft blanket. A large fire burned inside the cave. Teegan cracked open clam shells while Raiden stirred a tall pot bubbling on the coals.
Raiden beamed at Heli when he spotted her. All her fatigue was forgotten as she raced in for a hug. Heli had been dancing in the storms since she was twelve, and the forty-five-year-old camp manager was like a surrogate father. Although he tended to father all the Stormdancers whether they wanted it or not, and he was the voice of reason when arguments sprang up. Even Kade deferred to his experience most of the time.