“Mount up!” Locke called.
I swung into the mare’s saddle and followed Locke and the others out through Juniper’s gate. Twenty more horsemen waited outside for us, and they fell in behind, two side-by-side columns, as we turned left and cut through the army camp. Ahead, perhaps five or six miles away, I could see the dark line of trees that marked the edge of a dense forest. The land had been cleared for farming all the way to its edge, but no crops had been planted and the military camp didn’t extend all the way to its edge. It seemed an ideal place from which to spy on us.
When I glanced over my shoulder, I spotted extra guards just now coming out onto the castle battlements, and the two men normally stationed at the gates had grown to eight.
I caught up with the captain who’d found the hell-creatures. His wounds had been cleaned and dressed, and the minor burns on his face gleamed with ointment.
“I’m Oberon,” I told him.
“I am called d’Darjan, Lord.” He inclined his head. “If it pleases you.”
“These spies you found… had you ever seen their like before?”
He hesitated. “No, Lord.”
I had the impression he knew more than that, but didn’t want to speak too openly to me. After all, he had never seen me before today and didn’t know my loyalties. And who knew what rumors were circulating among the guards about me… one overheard insulting remark between Davin and Locke might well fuel a dozen stories among the guards and soldiers of my treachery, cowardice, or worse.
I let my mare fall back, and he spurred his to catch up with Locke. They talked in low voices, with Captain d’Darjan pointing ahead. Then Locke glanced back at me and nodded, and I guessed d’Darjan had asked what he could safely tell me. Nothing to do but wait, I thought with growing impatience.
A thirty-minute ride brought us to the edge of an ancient forest. A thick hedge of gorse bushes and blackberry brambles, threaded with trails, grew along its edge.
I studied the tall oaks and maples, many with trunks as wide around as my arms could reach, that towered a hundred feet over us. They would provide ample vantage points for spying, I thought.
I rode forward to join d’Darjan and my brothers. The rest of the soldiers reined in behind us.
“This is it, General,” Captain d’Darjan said, indicating what looked like a deer track that wound between the gorse bushes and circled out of sight. It would be a prickly, uncomfortable ride, but I thought a horse could make it through. “There is another path on the other side, but it is no larger.”
“Fan out into the forest and keep watch,” Locke called to the soldiers behind us. He dismounted. Davin and I did the same. “Be on your guard. Shout if you see anything unusual. If you spot the enemy, fall back at once.”
His men wheeled their horses and began moving slowly into the forest down various trails, sharp-eyed and ready for battle. I didn’t think anything or anyone would be able to sneak up on us.
“Let’s take a look at their camp,” Locke said. He tethered his horse, drew his sword, took a deep breath, and marched into the thicket.
Davin followed him, and I followed Davin. Captain d’Darjan brought up the rear.
I had to admit the hell-creatures had chosen their hiding spot well. From the outside, you would never have guessed their camp lay hidden within the thicket. The trail, little bigger than a deer track, widened after a few paces and a turn, and only there did I spot the impressions of horse hooves in the soft earth.
We circled in toward the center of the thicket. There, an area perhaps twenty feet across, with a tall oak at its center, had been cleared with small axes.
The hell-creatures had clearly left in haste, abandoning three bedrolls, a small coil of rope, and a wickedly barbed knife. They had even dug a small firepit and rimmed it with large rocks to hide the flames.
I found a stick and stirred the ashes, uncovering the well-gnawed bones of what looked to be rats or squirrels. A few embers still gleamed faintly orange-red.
Rising, I looked at the tree. A broken branch at eye level still oozed sap, I found. From the evidence, they probably hadn’t been here more than a day or two, as captain d’Darjan had said.
“Here’s where they tethered their horses,” Davin said, squatting and examining the markings. “Three of them, all right.”
I turned slowly, looking for anything else out of the ordinary. The oak tree at the center of the thicket had several more broken branches about twenty feet off the ground.
“They climbed up to spy on us,” I said, pointing.
“Take a look,” Locke said.
I grabbed a sturdy looking limb and pulled myself up. It was an easy climb, and sure enough, when I reached the broken limbs I discovered I could see both the military camp and the castle with an unobstructed view.
“Well?” Locke called up.
“I can see everything,” I said, squinting. “Troops, horse pens, even Juniper.”
“So they know how many we are,” Davin said, “and where we’re placed.”
I began to climb down, then dropped the last five feet. “And they know the lay of the land now,” I added. “They were scouting for an attack.”
“They may come back,” Locke said. He hesitated, looking up the tree, then down the trail. “We’re going to have to clear out all the brush at the edge of the forest and post sentries. This can’t happen again.”
“Burn it off?” Davin asked.
I left them and went to the abandoned bedrolls. When I picked the first one up, something small fluttered down from its folds… a Trump, I realized from its blue back, complete with gold lion. I glanced at Locke and Davin, but they hadn’t noticed.
“No,” Locke was saying. He had turned to face the other way, toward the heart of the forest. “We can’t risk a fire spreading out of control and reaching the camp. It will have to be done by hand.”
Carefully, trying to avoid attracting my brothers’ attention, I turned my back to them, picked up the card, and flipped it over.
It had Locke’s picture on it.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled with alarm. I glanced over my shoulder, but he and Davin were busy talking and weren’t paying the slightest attention to me. They hadn’t seen my discovery.
And I couldn’t let them see it. I saw the need for great care; in this family, it seemed I could never trust anyone if there was an alternative.
“I’ll get a detachment out as soon as we get back,” Davin said. “It’s going to be a two-day job, possibly three.”
I tucked the card into my sleeve, then rejoined them with a sigh of mock disgust.
“Nothing else here,” I announced.
Locke gave a nod, then turned and led the way back toward our horses. The cool touch of the Trump against my arm was a constant reminder of my discovery.
Locke…
Why would the hell-creatures have his Trump… unless they needed to contact him?
And why would they contact him… unless he was the traitor?
Chapter 16
On the trip back to Juniper, I ranged ahead of the others, leaving Locke and Davin with their men. I rode neither hard nor fast enough to attract undue attention, but managed to get back a good ten minutes ahead of them.
All the way, winding through the tent city of their soldiers, crossing the drawbridge, and into the castle’s courtyard, I kept turning the implications of my discovery over and over in my mind.
We had a traitor in our midst. Ivinius’s presence—and the disappearance of his body—proved it. And the traitor had to be someone capable of using Trumps… which meant a family member.
But Locke?
Well, why not Locke?
He had been nothing short of hostile until this morning. And since Dworkin—I still found it hard to call him Dad—trusted him with the defenses of Juniper, his betrayal would be truly disastrous.