Page 70 of Ties of Legacy

“Rats in the barn!” Frank screeched, flying overhead and disappearing into the trees.

Avery, Elliot, and Mattie turned their mounts as one, following Frank off the road and among the trees. They had yet to encounter anyone else on the abandoned roads, and none of them wanted to meet whoever was coming their way.

They didn’t go far, however, stopping among the trees where they still had a partial view of the road. Several men walked past, their appearance making Avery shiver. There was nothing obviously wrong with them, but they had the same feel as Rene and his men. If she’d been asked to make a guess, she would have confidently pegged them as mercenaries.

“Are they after us, do you think?” Elliot asked.

Avery slowly shook her head. “If they are, they’re incompetent. They won’t get far on foot.”

“Unless they have a camp somewhere nearby?” Mattie suggested, sending a shiver of unease down Avery’s spine.

But once the men had disappeared down the road, the three of them continued on their way with no further sign of any fellow travelers, mercenaries or otherwise.

They camped in the trees not too far out of Thebarton, but Avery slept fitfully. Whether because of her dreams—far too many of which featured Elliot—or the men they had passed, she wasn’t sure.

She was awake before dawn and decided to rise since there was no point lying awake in her bedroll. She prepared for the day as quietly as possible, taking pains not to wake Mattie or Elliot who had both slept better than she had.

She was just repacking her saddlebags when a distant commotion met her ears. She looked up, lines appearing between her brows as she tipped her head to the side, straining to hear.

Someone else was definitely in the forest with them, and whoever it was seemed to be in the middle of a noisy dispute. Curiosity tugged at her. Was someone in trouble?

Or was it the men they had seen earlier? If she could find their camp, would she learn anything about their intentions?

Acting on impulse, she stashed the lamp behind her bedroll and took off into the trees. The noise could stop at any moment, and they were far enough away that she needed to move quickly or risk losing track of the noise’s location. There wouldn’t be any danger to her as long as she stayed out of sight, and her mother had taught her to move silently through forests when she was only a girl. The potential intelligence that could be gained was worth the small amount of risk.

After all, she had a parrot on her side.

Chapter 24

Elliot

Elliot woke slowly at first and then quickly as he absorbed the sense that something was wrong. He didn’t know what, but he felt it as certainly as anything.

He sat upright, looking around their small camp. Mattie still lay peacefully sleeping inside her bedroll on the other side of the fire, but Avery was gone. And not just gone from her bedroll. The entire thing was gone as if Avery had never existed.

He bolted to his feet, his heart hammering as he looked around the small clearing they had chosen for their camp. Nutmeg still stood with the other horses, and a flash of blue and red pinpointed where Frank slept in a nearby tree. But there was no sign of Avery.

He scooped up his sword from the ground, drawing it from the scabbard. The action was an instinct rather than any logical thought, but taking action of some kind calmed him enough to notice details he’d missed on first examination.

Avery’s bedroll was gone from the fire, but it was rolled up neatly beside her saddlebags, not vanished completely. She must have woken up early and decided to start packing. There was every chance she had merely stepped into the trees to complete her morning’s preparations—an idea that was strengthened bythe fact that he hadn’t been hit by any weakness or illness yet. She had to be close.

But as the minutes drew on, his confidence waned. He examined her saddlebags and bedroll more closely, his heart sinking when he found the lamp stashed behind them.

She had left the lamp behind once before when she was abducted, but the same scenario made less sense in their forest camp. If she’d had time to stash the lamp, she would have had time to wake him and Mattie. The logical conclusion was that she had left by choice, knowing she was going too far to take it with her. But where would she have gone?

He would have to wake Mattie and Frank and initiate a search of the surrounding forest. But even Frank wouldn’t be much use with the tree canopy blocking his line of sight.

Shouts and the crashing sound of running footsteps met his straining ears. He dashed toward the noises, not getting far before his knees weakened. He’d forgotten to grab the lamp.

Reluctantly he stopped and backed into the clearing again. If it was Avery he could hear, she sounded as if she was running toward them. He needed to wait for her where he had the strongest position.

He darted behind a tree only to change his mind and step back to the center of the clearing. If someone was pursuing Avery, he would show them that she wasn’t a weak target.

Avery dashed headlong between two trees, panting from her run. She slid to a stop, her head swiveling until her eyes fell on Elliot.

“Oh good!” she exclaimed between pants. “You’re awake.”

Elliot reached her in two strides, sweeping her behind him just as two rough men burst into the clearing in pursuit. The first staggered to a halt at the sight of Elliot and his sword, the second colliding with his back.

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