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Gregor met her gaze at that. “If I think he even suspects it, he won’t live to see the end of this trip.”

Chapter 20

They were too late.

Bintinya was burning, and from the hill above, Luc saw a group of soldiers riding away through the trees.

The village lay below, roofs smouldering. There was no sound other than the crackle of burning thatch.

“I don’t see any Cervantes below. Where would your friends and family be hiding?” Luc asked Frebo, as much to steady him at the sight of the carnage as to get the information.

Frebo drew in a breath and pointed left and down. “There’s a tunnel built into the hill on the far side. They’ll be hiding in there.”

“Then go find them, put out the fires, and tell Massi I’ve gone after the Jatan. I’ll leave a trail for the unit to follow.” Luc paused. “If you want to stay and help your village recover, I give you leave. You can join us later, or wait for us to fetch you on our way back.”

Frebo opened his mouth, closed it, and then nodded. “Thank you.”

Luc didn’t waste any more time. He picked a path down to the village and easily picked up the Jatan’s trail.

Their saddlebags must be overflowing, because they dropped a few things along the way.

If he were to guess, he was minutes behind them. Half an hour at the most.

Luc wondered if they were going to keep to the road, but within fifteen minutes of the village, they clearly turned north, through thick forests and rising hills.

They wouldn’t be able to move quickly through this landscape, and they were weighed down with the things they had stolen from two villages.

There were enough of them choosing the same paths through the trees that staying on their trail was easy. In some places they had snapped off branches or cut them away to make passing through easier, and he had the benefit of their work.

It would slow them down, help him move faster.

He didn’t know this part of Cervantes well. He had grown up on the central plains, deep inside the country’s borders. But the trees were the same, and the birds he could hear calling were familiar.

And then they went silent.

He slowed his mount and moved more carefully through the trees, keeping to the shadows.

The way ahead became denser and denser, and eventually he had to slide off his horse and lead it behind a thick copse of bushes, and move forward on foot.

He could see boot prints in the damp soil, and followed them to a trail where the soldiers had had to dismount themselves and lead their horses in single-file beneath a tangled arch of branches.

He stepped off the narrow path, making his way through choked stands of trees to eventually find the Jatan camp.

It was an interesting choice for a mustering point.

There was nowhere to run here.

If they were attacked, they would be trapped.

But the Jatan’s enemies would have to find them, first, and it would be difficult to mount a full assault. The camp was surrounded by thick forest and there was only one way in for horses. Any rider would have to be lying low in the saddle to avoid the overhead branches, making it difficult to attack.

Luc moved through the trees carefully, trying to judge how many Jatan were here.

Maybe a hundred, he guessed, when he’d made a full circle of it. At the very most.

That included Tuart’s thirty soldiers. Luc had caught a glimpse of the general himself during his walk around the settlement, which meant Tuart had known about this place all along.

There was no way he could have come to this hidden place so unerringly in the time it had taken him to sneak off in the night and ride for Cervantes, unless he knew it was here.