Page 24 of The Taking of House Westwood

“Sounds like Corporal Endek delivered our gift.”

Taidon grinned, his teeth gleaming in the moonlight.

“The men will have to feed all they can tonight,” Valery said holding up the parchment. “Our plans just changed.”

“Sir?”

“It would appear the Consul has decided to move faster than we’d planned.”

Taidon shook his head, looking down.

“Let the men rest for today, Taidon. We’ll need them first dark tomorrow. We have less than a week.”

“A week! Marshal, that’s half the time we’d planned.”

Valery shrugged. “There is the Night Road. That would save us two days at least.”

Taidon shook his head. “We wouldn’t get through one checkpoint. Those cursed dogs always smell us out.”

“Then it’s off the Road we stay.”

“In less than a week, Sir? We’d never make it, having to cross open terrain.”

“We have to, Lieutenant.”

Taidon raised his arms, palms up. “I don’t think we can push the men that hard, Sir. Plus, we have a bigger problem.”

Valery glanced at his Lieutenant. “Oh?”

Taidon nodded. “Food. The men won’t last long without feeding soon.”

“That can be remedied, Lieutenant.”

Taidon tilted his head, considering. “Perhaps the captives? Other than mine, of course…”

Valery chuckled, shaking his head. “Consul wants live captives. Apparently, the pens of Druas need some fresh bloodlines. These will do.”

“Only a few of them look strong enough.”

Valery tapped his Lieutenant on the arm with the parchment. “Consul didn’t say they all had to be alive.”

“Yes, Sir,” Taidon said, flashing his grin again. “But even with the ones we feed on tonight, it still won’t be enough if we travel that fast. We’ll need more.”

“Then we’ll feed at our destination,” Valery said, turning to his Lieutenant. “We don’t have a choice, Taidon. We must succeed. If we don’t, we may as well meet the daylight.”

Chapter Nine

McClearn Farmstead

Owen paced outside the stables, fingering the ridiculous black habit he wore. He’d seen the traveling mendicants before, of course, and had always found them an odd mixture of both unsettling and sad. Now, he was going to try to impersonate one!

He stopped, his arms crossed over his broad chest, and stared off to the west. The setting sun was turning the fields a striking mixture of pinks, purples and sienna. West was where they were heading, where she was.

Sophie.

Just the thought of her had him pacing again, his flimsy cloth slippers squelching in the dirt of the stable yard. He needed to get her back. Gods knew what that evil witch Lady Westwood was doing to her. He’d gotten a taste of it himself at the hands of the corrupt noble’s soldiers. When they’d dragged him out of the barn, he’d found himself stripped to the waist, tied against one of the poles that supported the roof of the stable block, and beaten savagely. He’d thought he could hear the cries of poor Sophie, but really they could have been his own, interspersed with his snarled oaths and threats of vengeance. The brutes had paused to gag him with a foul smelling cloth, and then whipped him anew. It was only when his back ran with blood, and he slumped in his bonds, did they relent.

He had little memory of the next few days.

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