Chapter 63. The Polite Thing to Do When Followed Is To Pretend That You Aren’t

Chapter 63: 63. The Polite Thing to Do When Followed Is To Pretend That You Aren’t

On the second day, I discovered that the countryside was talking if you knew how to listen.

I’d been paying attention to the road ever since we left Elarion, in a way I never had before.

A few weeks earlier, I’d have looked at a dirt track and seen a dirt track.

But now... I looked at it and saw a hundred small stories, written in hoofprints and bent grass and broken twigs, and every one of them had been put there by someone.

Laura had taught me that on the way to Elarion.

’A road is a record,’ she’d said. ’Everything that travels leaves a note.’

I’d thought it sounded pretentious at the time. But it seems like I’d been wrong... and I was rapidly becoming annoyed at how often she was right.

That’s my cold girlfriend to you.

It started with a hoofprint.

We’d stopped to rest near a clump of tall grass at the edge of the road, and I’d gone to look at a patch of bare mud.

The mud held the print of a horse’s hoof, a clean, deep impression, only a day or two old. But something was wrong with it.

A normal horse, especially a cavalry mount or a traveler’s, would have been shod. This hoof had no mark of a shoe.

There was no U-shaped ridge from the iron, no row of nail holes, and no flat plate at the heel.

An unshod horse, I thought.

That was a poor man’s horse, or a wild one, or one that had been bred for silent travel. A horse that left no ring on the stones.

I stood up and looked around, and then I began to notice other things.

A branch hung broken, at about the height of a rider’s shoulder, with the torn end already starting to dry.

The brambles on the left side of the road had been pushed aside, as if someone had ridden through them, and then carefully put them back.

And a little way up the slope, just off the road, there was a flat patch of ground under a few trees that looked almost too clean.

The leaves had been swept into a pile. And the dirt had been smoothed.

But... There wasn’t a single footprint on it.

Nobody tidies a resting place that well unless they’ve got something to hide.

I’d walked about fifty yards up the slope before Combat Instinct stirred in the back of my skull, and I realized that I was being watched. Well, not directly.

It was the faint prickle at the nape of the neck that you get when someone is looking at you from a long way off, with patience.

I didn’t turn around. I kept walking, and I pretended to study a rock, and I let the feeling wash over me for a few seconds before I headed back down.

"We’ve got company..." I said quietly when I reached Alicia.

"How many?"

"I don’t know... One, at least. Maybe two." I looked around. "They’ve been following us since the first day, I think... at about half a mile back, and they’re careful about it."

"Scouts...?"

"Yep. That’s my guess."

Sharon had overheard. She’d come up behind us with her sword on her shoulder and an expression that made me glad I wasn’t the one being hunted.

"I’ll get them," she said. "I’ll circle around through the trees, and I’ll take them from behind, and I’ll bring you back a very apologetic scout!"

"No."

She raised an eyebrow. "No...?"

"If you take them out, whoever sent them will know that we know..." I said while holding my chin to think through this. "They’ll realize we’ve spotted the tail... and with that, they’ll stop sending scouts and change the plan."

"So...?"

"So the plan is the only thing keeping us ahead." I looked forward. "Right now... they think we’re a nice, obedient little escort, walking into their trap with our eyes closed."

"If we kill the scouts... we tell them otherwise." I shook my head. "I’d rather they report that everything is normal."

Sharon looked at me for a long moment. Then she lowered her sword and let out a slow breath.

"That’s cold," she said.

"It’s called being patient."

"It’s the same thing, in a pleasant coat."

"I’m learning from the best."

She grunted, which I took as a yes.

Laura had joined us, and she was frowning thoughtfully. "If we’re being watched, they’ll expect us to camp near the ford on the third night."

"It’s the logical place... There’s a wide meadow on the near bank, with fresh water, and that’s where convoys always stop."

"Then we don’t stop there," I said. "We find somewhere else."

"Where?"

I thought about the map that Alicia had drawn, with its neat little marks. I’d studied it for an hour the night before.

"There’s a ridge about four miles short of the ford... a rocky hill, with a flat top, steep on three sides."

"You can see the river from it, and you can see the road... and there’s only one good way up."

"It’s a pain to climb, and it’s got no water... so nobody would camp there by choice."

"Which is why they won’t expect it," said Alicia, and I could see her smile forming. "We carry our own water!"

"We put the wagon in the middle, with shields around it, and we pull the horses up behind!"

"It’s easy to defend and nearly impossible to surprise!"

"I can set the glyphs," said Laura. "Light ones... Just enough to ring a warning bell if somebody steps over a line."

"They won’t show up in daylight."

"I’ll plan the rotations," said Alicia.

"I’ll do the glaring," said Sharon.

I looked around at the three of them, and I felt that odd... warm swell again, that sense of being part of something I hadn’t earned.

It was impossible not to smile.

"When you’re being followed," I said while posing a smug pose, "the polite thing to do is pretend that you’re not!"

"That’s... the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard," said Sharon.

"It’s also the best advice you’ll get this week from the one and only! Roland Ravenshield!"

"Don’t get cocky."

"Heh~! I would never."

She cuffed the back of my head lightly with a hand like a shovel, and I decided it had been worth it.

...

That night, we camped in an ordinary place, a perfectly reasonable clearing beside the road, with a stream and a flat patch of grass.

It was exactly the sort of site that any traveler would choose.

I made sure that everyone saw us settle in, light the fire, and unroll the bedrolls. I even made a show of yawning.

Then, once the camp had gone quiet, three shadows slipped away through the trees.

I’d picked the spot myself, a good half mile from the fire, in a narrow gully where a fallen log had made a natural seat and where the walls blocked the wind.

Alicia and Laura were already there when I arrived, in dark cloaks, with their breath fogging in the cold air.

"No sword," said Laura, as I came near.

"I just brought it for comfort... I’m not going to use it."

"Good. Keep it sheathed."

"Why are we meeting in a ditch?" I asked.

"Because Alicia has an idea," said Laura. "And I’m still deciding whether it’s a good one or not."

"It’s a great idea," said Alicia.

She looked, in the dim light, like a child about to show off a new toy. "We’ve been learning to use each other’s abilities one at a time."

"But we’ve never tried using them together! Not on purpose, anyway."

"The Bond," I said.

"Exactly! Three of us, linked to each other!"

’There should be some kind of effect, don’t you think? Something that links our powers, like a... like a..."

"Resonance," I said, and the word came out before I’d thought about it.

I closed my eyes, and a faint chime sounded in the back of my skull.

[Detecting multiple active bonds in proximity.]

[Bond Resonance: Preliminary calibration available.]

[Warning: This is not a combat application.]

[Please do not attempt anything dramatic.]

I opened my eyes. "The curse says we can try a preliminary test."

"What does it say exactly?" asked Alicia, who couldn’t read the panel.

"It says that we shouldn’t try anything dramatic."

"Aww... That’s no fun."

"That’s the curse’s opinion."

"What do we do now?" said Laura.

"We hold hands," I said. "I think... in a circle."

It sounded absurd, spoken aloud.

I’d have felt embarrassed, except that Alicia was already stretching out her hands, and Laura was already taking one of them, and then the two of them were looking at me expectantly.

"Look at you having us all by yourselves." Alicia said with that darn smile as usual.

"Do what you have to do, Roland," Laura said while looking at me with that usual face.

"Alright..."