Pathfinder's Way (25 page)

This wasn’t going according to plan, but that
was the way life went out here. You start with one idea and then
something happens that totally fucks everything up.

Eamon, Buck and Clark had formed a group and
were fighting the beasts as a unit, relying on each other to watch
the other’s back against the devious things. It looked surprisingly
effective as they killed one beast after another.

Shea turned her head, looking around the
clearing. There had to be something that might make a difference.
She reviewed what she knew of the beasts. They were pack animals
and might or might not be afraid of fire. Not that it mattered,
because she had no way to make fire.

Shapes moved in the trees beyond the
clearing. Darting in and out of shadows with only the occasional
reflection of light glinting off their eyes. She’d thought this was
the entire pack.

She’d been wrong.

As the humans fought the beasts in front of
them, the rest waited until their prey had spent its strength and
thought victory was close at hand.

“Back, back. Reform the lines,” Shea
screamed.

It was a lost cause. Shea knew that even as
the words left her mouth. The fury of battle had left the men
disorganized and slow to react. Even as some tried to fight their
way to place their backs against the cave mouth, the remaining
revenants surged forward, cutting them off while their pack
brothers streamed from the trees.

Shea felt her breath still in her lungs as
the revenants formed a black wave against the ground. There must be
nearly a hundred. It was going to be a massacre.

Men streamed past her to form hasty lines.
Eamon appeared at her side, his eyes wild with adrenaline, and his
teeth bared in a macabre smile. Buck let out a loud war holler
right beside her and raised a weapon coated nearly black from the
beasts’ blood.

“Tough fuckers, aren’t they?” Buck
yelled.

Eamon’s eyes glinted as he leaned slightly
forward, anticipating the impact from the revenants sprinting
towards them.

“Don’t mind him, boy,” Buck said, without
taking his eyes from the beasts. “When he gets in battle mode he
gets fixated and doesn’t talk.”

Shea hadn’t been concerned much about Eamon’s
silence but rather about their current problem.

“They’ll write stories of this battle.”

Shea’s eyebrows flew up. “Only if someone
survives to tell it.”

Buck chuckled even as he swung his sword down
in a two handed chop severing the head of a leaping revenant.

After that, they were too busy to talk as
they hacked and sliced at any body that came near. Clark joined
their little group and, together, they rotated constantly,
protecting each other’s backs.

Shea lost count of how many revenants had
attacked and been turned back. Her arms felt like lead weights and
each time she lifted her sword it got harder and harder to lift it
again.

She fell into a rhythm, lift, slash, lift.
Again and again. Until she reached a lull in the fighting. She
looked up and realized she was all alone. The others were several
feet away.

Between her and them a revenant lifted his
head from his latest prey. Blood dripped from his face as he stared
at her. He was huge, bigger than any other revenant in the pack and
had scars all over his sides and legs, an ugly looking slice on his
muzzle and another next to his eye where his enemy had missed.

The monster lowered his head, his lips
pulling back in a crazy grin as if to say come and get me. He leapt
over his snack. Nearly two hundred pounds of pure muscle barreled
into her.

She protected her body with one arm, feeling
the pressure of his fangs against the cloth and leather, and
stabbed into his side with her other hand. Blood coated her hand as
she pulled it away and stabbed again. It had little effect on the
beast as he snapped his head side to side nearly tearing her arm
from the socket.

She screamed at the pain and sunk the blade
in again. A hand caught hers and guided the blade below the ribs
then helped her plunge it in deeper, finding the heart and giving
the blade a twist.

The light faded from the revenants eyes as
his body softened on top of hers.

Hands grabbed the revenant and lifted it off
her.

Shea blinked dumbly at the dead beast. Barely
able to process that she wasn’t dead. That somehow she was still
breathing. Her arm throbbed. It was good to be alive, to feel
pain.

Blood and gore coated her from head to toe.
It was in her hair, on her face, ground into her clothes. She
looked like someone had slaughtered a dozen pigs right on top of
her.

“On your feet, warrior,” a voice above her
barked.

She looked up into a set of fierce,
whisky-colored eyes.

Fallon.

Her mouth opened and closed several times as
his frown deepened. She belatedly realized that they were still in
the midst of the fight and popped to her feet. It was difficult
since her arm didn’t want to support her.

The battle had turned as men streamed from
the trees on stallions that seemed to take great delight in
trampling any revenant unlucky enough to be in their path. Shea
watched as a man leaned almost casually down from the side of his
mount, and with a flick of his wrist, buried an ax in a creature’s
head.

Shea’s party had pulled back to the cave to
watch the strangers work.

Finding herself out of immediate danger, Shea
found her gaze returning to Fallon. What was he doing here?

He frowned as his men cleaned up the
remaining revenants.

Shea found herself studying him. She had
never thought to see him again.

Tiny lines feathered out from his eyes. His
mouth was a flat line as he surveyed the battle. He was so absorbed
in his surroundings it was tempting to think he’d forgotten all
about her standing there at his side. That was a trap. It was
evident by the way he held himself alert that, despite appearances,
on some level he knew she was still there, and he was ready to
react in any way should she move against him.

Somehow, though, she had thought his reaction
to meeting her again would be slightly different. Slightly more.
Not this barely acknowledged existence.

Fallon bared his teeth and strode forward,
leaving her standing and staring after him in consternation. Then
it dawned on her that he didn’t recognize her.

She didn’t know if it was her attempt to look
like a boy, the gore caked all over her face and clothes, or just
her general insignificance as a rank and file soldier, but he
hadn’t looked twice at her.

A laugh broke from her and was quickly
stifled. The glee bubbled up and escaped until she was laughing so
hard that she was nearly crying.

“Shane,” Eamon roared, “We don’t have time
for you to have a break down. Get your ass back on the line.”

Her laughter died abruptly, and she looked
over her shoulder to see Eamon glowering at her from his place in
front of the ragged line that had formed at the mouth of the cave.
Her eyes went from the haggard looking men to Fallon’s
warriors.

Though the tide had turned in the Trateri’s
favor, the fight wasn’t over. Shea was standing unprotected close
to the tree line, easy pickings for any stray revenant. Even as she
delayed, a clump of riders with revenants snapping at all sides
shifted towards her.

“Move, Shane!”

She didn’t hesitate again and hauled ass back
to the dubious safety of Eamon and the others. They waited and
watched as Fallon rallied his men and drove the revenants towards
the warriors waiting by the cave.

Eamon gave a war cry and tore forward, the
rest of the men following as they hacked their way through the
beasts while Fallon’s men on the other side did the same. Caught up
in the wave, Shea followed, trying to stay close to Clark as they
once again engaged the revenants.

The death cries of wounded beasts assaulted
Shea’s ears as she hacked and sliced her way through body after
body. After what felt like an eternity, but was likely only
minutes, of furious battle, a peculiar silence fell over the group
when the last revenant was killed. Panting filled the air as each
man looked around noting, finally, that it seemed to be over. That
they’d won.

Shea knew her face reflected the same
astonishment and bloody triumph as those around her.

A single cry of victory rose from Clark,
nearly deafening Shea in its intensity, since he was standing at
her shoulder. A second cry followed, and then all the men were
screaming their triumph at the sky.

A slight smile graced Shea’s lips as she
looked around. That smile froze on her face as her eyes found
Fallon watching his men with arms folded over his muscled chest.
His normally stern face radiated power and an intense
satisfaction.

Briefly, his eyes met Shea’s, pinning her in
place for a timeless moment before moving away.

Shea’s heart stuttered and then slammed into
triple time.

A hand grabbed her good arm and pulled her
back, turning her to face a blood coated Eamon and an injured
Buck.

She hadn’t noticed them with her thoughts
turned to Fallon.

“Boy, next time I say move, you don’t just
stare dumbly at me as if you got nothing but rocks in your brain,
you move.”

At odds with the angry tone of his voice,
Eamon pulled her injured arm gently away from her body and picked
the ragged pieces of cloth out of the wound. She hissed in pain and
tried to take her arm back. He held it tighter and gave her a
warning look.

“You need to pay better attention,” he
informed her grimly, dumping the contents of a canteen over the
wound. A shrill sound escaped Shea, and she nearly passed out. That
wasn’t water in there. “You could have gotten yourself and others
killed today. Normally I couldn’t care less if a dirt grubber gets
himself killed, but right now you’re our scout. If you get yourself
dead, I’d have to explain to the quartermaster why he’s having to
find me a replacement since the last one wasn’t smart enough not to
go off by themselves during a battle.”

Shea didn’t think that required a response so
she kept her mouth shut.

Buck handed him some gauze to wrap the wound
with, and she nearly whimpered again. His version of care hurt more
than the actual injury.

All the while Eamon dressed her injury he
lectured her on everything she had done wrong. Buck handed Eamon
the supplies he needed, his face a grim mask.

By the time Eamon was finished, Shea’s arm
wasn’t the only thing that was stinging. Her pride was too. Her
eyes smarted, though she attributed that to the pain. She bit her
lip hard against the words she wanted to say.

“Do you think they’ll come back?” Buck
asked.

Eamon paused in the midst of wrapping Shea’s
arm and looked at the tree line. “I don’t know.”

“Finish patching him up and then get ready to
leave. Perry says we’re joining up with Fallon,” Fiona said walking
past them.

With one last pass around her arm, Eamon tied
off the gauze and then helped her smooth her sleeve over the
bandage. Finished, he handed Buck the rest of the gauze and
stood.

Shea joined him, shambling over to her gear.
Her body was one massive bruise, and her forearm throbbed in time
to her heartbeat. Gingerly, she holstered her sword.

“How can those creatures have been this
deadly?” Clark asked, gazing at the wounded who were being loaded
up on the horses.

Several men crouched beside their fallen
comrades performing the same burial rite that Eamon had when they
lost men to the shadow beetles.

Shea didn’t answer, ducking her head and
busying herself with preparing to move out.

His gaze felt heavy on her bowed head as she
fumbled with her pack. She didn’t look up.

“Shane,” Clark sounded hesitant. “Eamon’s
just worried. He can be gruff when someone under his command puts
themselves in danger.

Shea turned away.

Clark walked around to stand in front of her,
his brown eyes worried and earnest. “You need to let it roll off
you. It’s his job as a leader to correct your actions. It might
seem harsh now, but it’s supposed to. You’ll get used to it.”

No. No, she wouldn’t.

“Shane-“

“I’m fine, Clark.” Shea didn’t want to talk
about this any longer. In answer to his previous question, she told
him, “They’re beasts.”

“What?”

“You asked how they could be so aggressive.
They’re beasts.”

He looked unsure at her answer, whether that
was because she was changing the subject or because he didn’t
understand the significance, she didn’t know.

For a Lowlander or Highlander that would have
been all the explanation needed.

“Beast,” he said softly, testing the word. He
went back to staring into the distance. He and the rest were
beginning to learn just how terrifying a word that really was.

Shea reached into her pack and pulled out a
notebook just a little bigger than hers. The leather cover was new
and unscratched, and the pages were crisp and clean. It had come
with the pack.

She held it a moment before looking up at
Clark.

Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea. In
fact, it was probably stupid. It wasn’t exactly the best time
either with the wounded and dead all around them and the threat of
another attack hanging over their heads.

“What’s that?” he asked, taking the decision
out of her hands.

“It’s yours.”

She handed it to him and avoided his gaze as
he opened it. What was she going to do with the notebook anyway? It
would just be dead weight during her trip back to the Highlands.
Might as well give it to the boy.

He looked back up at her when he saw the
drawings and explanations.

“I didn’t really have time to copy
everything, but I figured I’d start you off with a few of the more
fierce beasts you’re likely to encounter. This way you can update
it with your own observations.” Seeing the slightly dumb struck
look in his eyes, she slumped. He probably thought it was stupid.
“It’s just, you seemed to like mine so I thought you might want one
of your own.”