Heni, standing behind her leader, lowered her hood to reveal hair of the same color, though worn up in two twisting knots. Fen blinked again, then turned back to the Wild Dog. The number of people around should have alarmed him but perhaps Fen was still too tired to think clearly. This was a gathering, a camp, in the middle of woods that The Acana would claim belonged to him. It did not sound loud enough to be an army, but regardless, The Acana would not view it as harmless.
Fen had to agree. But he stayed in place, staring up at the man holding the end of his rope.
“You snore,” the Wild Dog remarked, stunning Fen momentarily silent although Fen wasn’t sure what he would have said anyway.
“I do?” he finally heard himself ask and didn’t know what to make of Heni’s amused scoff.
“Ati!” Race shouted. “Dol needs your hands, oh wise one!”
Fen peeked to the side to get a look at Dol and discovered a large man, shaped rather like a pear, with dark curls and a frown on his handsome face as he watched Race dart away from him. Someone in a long robe and pants emerged from the camp’s one tent and approached them. This was apparently Ati, who must have been a healer. Ati was likely only a fingertip taller than Race and had hair of a shade that did not exist outside of crushed blueberries. That meant fae blood in this Ati and very likely in Race as well. Fen should have realized sooner.
Fen whipped back around to face the Wild Dog and found the Wild Dog had disappeared. Fen was alone except for Heni.
“Come on, flower.” Heni made the order an invitation but took hold of the length of rope to draw Fen along with her as she led him toward the fire pit at the center of the camp.
“It’s Fen,” Fen told her, because she had asked about his name all those hours ago.
“Fen,” she agreed without glancing back. “Stay where we tell you and don’t try to run… not that I think you will. But you’d rather take your chances with Lan than with the wolves and big cats.”
“Yes, I know,” Fen answered quietly, glancing at the many bedrolls and small piles of armor that meant more people slept here than he could currently see. “That’s why I suggested I be his captive.”
Heni turned all the way around to give him a stare with her eyebrows raised. “Not fear of your father?”
Fen allowed himself to speak recklessly again, a little, because his limbs ached and his stomach was so empty it hurt. “The cats and wolves and the Wild Dog might kill me. The Acana will send me back to The Geon.”
Heni’s eyebrows did not go down. “You said you weren’t being forced.”
“That time I wasn’t. Next time I would be.” Fen rolled his shoulders gracefully. “What is the Wild Dog going to do to me?”
Heni abruptly lowered her brows to scowl. “That’s up to him. But if you’re wise, you won’t refer to Killan as the Wild Dog where he can hear. It’s a gift from the Earls that he did not ask for.”
Killanwas the Wild Dog’s name. Killan, called Lan by his people. Fen held the knowledge inside as though he had been given a trusted secret and nodded his gratitude to Heni. “Thank you for the warning. I won’t.”
“So, youdocare if you live or not.” Heni studied him for another moment, then seemed to remember she had hold of his rope. “Come on then. Might as well rest while we wait for him to make up his mind.”
Heni told Fen to sit not far from the fire, on one of the downed logs that surrounded it which several others were also using as seats. Most stayed only long enough to eat a portion of the stew cooking over the fire, then traded their places with others. After Heni handed Fen a full bowl and a spoon, she left too. Fen emptied the bowl and could have had more but didn’t get up to serve himself.
The sun began to set and the air chilled quickly. Fen stayed in his seat instead of scooting closer to the fire. Most of those around the fire gave him long looks, confused or angry, he couldn’t tell. Both, probably, if they could also tell in a few glances that he was noble and an Earl’s son.
More people came and went from the camp and the fire. The camp had only one tent and it seemed to belong to Ati, not to the… not to Lan. Guard and hunting dogs wandered freely through the site, occasionally responding to their owners’ calls and dashing off or lying down. One, a large, shaggy thing in a spiked collar, of a length and size that said it could probably keep pace with wolves, curled up at Fen’s feet right before the sun set. Fen resisted the urge to pet it no matter how friendly it seemed.
Race came to the fire to eat, sitting across from Fen and smiling but not engaging in conversation. Heni didn’t return, and Dol had gone into Ati’s tent and never reemerged.
Fen observed cloaks in colors that came from dyes in the far north, and hair shorter than his, like the Tial reportedly kept theirs. Although the Tial were supposed to be fiercely insistent on keeping their distance from their more powerful familial connections in the South. If that was true, he couldn’t believe any people like that would take orders from anyone, including the Wild Dog.
Tial or not, those with the short hair in the camp all seemed to be on the smaller side and kept to themselves. He heard some of the older tongue again, woven smoothly together with the modern tongue as if some in the camp had grown up speaking both. Many others had their hair up and braided like Heni and Lan. Fen assumed that meant they were all from the same region—The Maben’s territory, or former territory.
Although there were many people, this was still not an army. Fen did not even think they had been here or planned to stay here for long. Ati’s tent was nowhere near as complex as the one The Acana used for hunting and was likely easily taken down.
They were waiting, he decided, although he didn’t yet know for what. Hiding where no one would expect them and waiting before they moved on again, perhaps to join the rest of the Wild Dog’s forces. Which, if they were anything like this group, would be a mix of people from many parts of the North. Sothatrumor was true; the Wild Dog had welcomed those who didn’t want to fight for nobles who would risk their lives for pride or a strip of land.
No one seemed to be giving orders here, either, although Fen supposed he might miss such a thing if they all communicated as quietly as Lan had with Race and Heni. Maybe everyone understood what they were meant to do and orders would only come before a battle.
The Acana might truly be Lan’s next target. If so, The Acana couldn’t be left to live. Fen wondered if Lan knew that. The Acana was not The Maben and would not stop being a danger even if trapped within his own holding.
Fen wished he knew more of weapons. Not how to use them; he would be useless there and all knew it. But the make of them. The weapons he saw also seemed to come from many territories, and some were more than mere guards’ weaponry. Either these people had taken swords and shields from nobles they had killed or other nobles were in the camp, on the side of the Wild Dog.
The storiesdidsay that the Wild Dog was a noble too. Probably an ignored child from a lesser house, but still a noble. He wouldn’t have been the first child not chosen as heir to rebel and take what they felt they were owed.
