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Eavus looked back, and almost swore at how far Revni had fallen behind. She had paused for yet another pee break, and she struggled with adjusting the backbasket as she rejoined him. The wooden top flap had a tendency to cut into the spine if you pulled the straps tight enough to make the heavy load more comfortable. Eavus waited for her to catch up with a patience that should have earned him his final commendation.
“Do you want me to carry it?” he asked tightly. She’d been flagging all morning.
Revni shook her head, steadying herself against a tree.
“I don’t even know how far we still have to go!” It was impossible to keep the exasperation out of his voice. He was starting to wonder if bringing her along was still a good idea. Yes, the evidence of the Isfolj girl would confirm his story—but if she delayed them so much that he missed the chance to even tell it, it wouldn’t matter.
“You’re too loud,” she growled.
Eavus grit his teeth. “Am I ruining your enjoyment of our little nature walk?”
Revni laid a hand on the knife handle at her belt, and Eavus immediately stiffened, laying his own hand on the hilt of the sword at his hip.
“You’re too loud,” she repeated. And then, her own teeth gritted so her lips were a thin, unmoving line: “I think someone has been following.”
Eavus’ spine went cold, as if just by voicing the mysterious someone, they’d appeared at his back. “Caerdeneii?”
“I do not know. Not following, because I don’t think they’ve seen us. Looking.”
Eavus tried to listen. People always talked about a forest as being quiet, but they’d obviously never stood still in one. Birds called back and forth, unknown creatures buzzed and chirped and whooped, squirrels chittered and scurried, every claw smashing onto every branch like a catapult on a siege wall. Even the trees moaned.
“What do we do?”
“Berae said the Caerdeneii would not cross the river.” Not the Braided, not yet, a different one that marked a Caerdeneii boundary. “We keep going until we find it.”
Eavus flexed his jaw, assessing. They needed to make up time—especially if someone was looking. He cursed himself for letting them make a fire last night, for cutting branches that were in their way instead of going around. They’d left a damn trail.
“We should cut across.”
“Cut across what?”
“Look—” he said quietly, squatting to draw in the dirt—or hide from someone who might be watching. “Algae said we follow the second line of mother trees southeast, right?”
“Elge.”
He ignored her. “And then we’d come across the river we need and follow it back up until the crossing. But the route is like two sides of a triangle. And if that river—” he poked the stick into it again. “—is the one the Caerdeneii won’t cross, why wait?” He drew a third line, straight across the top. “Let’s cut across. We could be to the river by this evening, instead of spending an extra two days in enemy territory.”
“What about other clans? Creonus, you said. Selgi.”
“Who are the Selgi?”
“The Selgi fight with their children first. The young ones approach, and if you are not a friend, they take the knife from their belts and cut you here—” She indicated the tendon at the back of the knee. “Or here.” The one at the ankle. “And they scurry away before you even realize that you are now done with walking.”
Revni’s matter-of-fact tone sent a shiver down Eavus’ spine.
“The Selgi do not welcome strangers to their settlements.”
“Well, are any of these settlements near here?”
“No,” she admitted. “And Berae told me the right words to say if we meet them.”
By Hirene, what else had the girl gossiped about while he’d been sleeping? But the fact only made Eavus’ argument more urgent.
“If there are other clans around, then it’s even more important we cross that river sooner. We still have to find the Braided River after that.”
This whole thing made him uncomfortable. He was basing their whole journey on camp gossip from road-builders. On a third language translation of enemy information from someone who had been on this island for less than a fortnight. Prisoners, while they were at it, were not supposed to get a say in the route.
Revni squatted next to him, examining his sketch. Eavus suppressed the faint squeamishness her long reluctance was creating. But Aleteria had not conquered half the world by trusting natives. Or by taking the long way round.
