Page 83 of Sword & Sacrifice

As the sun set, the forest darkened around them. Soon they would have to decide whether to continue traveling as night fell or make camp and continue tracking the Bellacostans the next day.

Norwin paused and signaled: lights.

Archer narrowed his eyes as he peered through the trees and spied the flicker of firelight. From this distance, he couldn’t tell if it was a guiding torchlight or a campfire. He signaled to dismount. Continuing on horseback would draw too much attention.

Carolin and Mahler hadn’t returned or crossed paths with them yet. Archer scanned the higher trails, searching for a glimpse of them but couldn’t see anything. Either their path had diverged too far from Archer’s, or they were well hidden in the trees.

Norwin signaled to Archer: kill or capture?

Capture, Archer signaled back. Live soldiers could lead them back to whichever traitorous adviser commanded them.

They separated, staying within sight of each other, but keeping some distance between them. If one person triggered an ambush, they wouldn’t both be caught in the trap. Though Archer was a large man, his steps were soft as he left the path and circled around the trees, eyeing the firelight. It never moved, making him suspect that the Bellacostans had camped for the night.

They crept slowly closer to the campfire until Archer saw a glimpse of bright blue through the trees. He signaled Norwin to stop, and they watched as someone paced a perimeter around the camp.

“—not responding—” Fragments of the conversation floated to them on the night’s breeze.

“What if—dead—furious.”

“—heartbeat.”

The voices cut off as the figures moved out of range.

Norwin signaled: attack?

Archer shook his head: listen.

After a few minutes, the speaker’s patrolling circle brought them back around. “Check her again.”

Her? Archer’s brow furrowed. The Bellacostan Army had no female soldiers. The traitors looked so far down on women that they hadn’t even tried to recruit Silas’ only female adviser. For soldiers on the run, any women with them were potentially hostages.

As soon as the patrol passed out of hearing again, Archer crept forward. He peered around a trunk, caught a glimpse of a blue uniform and quickly hid himself. The perimeter of the camp was closer than he’d expected. He waited, but when no one cried out an alarm, he took another look.

A woman knelt in the center of the camp, her hands tied behind her back and her head slumped forward. One soldier guarded her, sword held loosely at his side, while another cooked something at a campfire.

Archer’s jaw tightened as he recognized the woman’s auburn hair and delicate frame: Adelaide.

A third soldier leaned against a tree not far from Archer’s hiding place, arms crossed and expression bored.

Footsteps warned Archer that the patrolling soldier was approaching again, and he ducked out of sight.

“I’m telling you,” the patrolling soldier complained, “if she’s dead, that pirate bastard will turn his men on us.”

“She’s not dead,” the soldier guarding Adelaide said in the weary tone of a man repeating himself.

“Then why isn’t she moving? It’s creepy. After all that searching, we just find her sitting in the middle of the woods, unconscious with her eyes open?”

“What did you expect from someone called ‘the witch’? Of course she’s creepy.”

“Sure, but I expected ‘old lady who speaks in rhymes’ not ‘empty shell.’” The soldier stopped a short distance away, too absorbed in the conversation to continue his patrol. “This is a trap. I can feel it, like someone’s about to jump out and gut me.”

The soldier had surprisingly good instincts. Archer’s muscles tensed, waiting to see if the man would follow them into the woods.

Instead, he started walking away again, whatever he said lost in the distance.

Only four out of a dozen soldiers were accounted for. Where were the others? Higher up the mountain? Had they also split off in their hunt for Adelaide?

And where was Penn? If the soldiers had to hunt the witch down, that meant she’d escaped from Niall and Valerian, but Archer couldn’t imagine her leaving Penn behind.