We waited in the barn while Yauri made her preparations. I wanted to sit still, but kept feeling the need to keep moving, so I paced. When I came up with this plan, I expected us to be on the road by now. I never knew what went into preparing for the three-night voyage to Casi, but I didn’t think it would take this long. Did Yauri get nervous and decide to turn us in? Or perhaps she never intended to help, only saying she would to trick us into trapping ourselves in a barn with only one exit.

  “You’re making me nervous,” Kiri said.

  I halted for a moment, then started pacing again. “I’ll feel better once we’re on the road.”

  “Maybe you will.” Kiri stared at her shoes. “I can’t imagine traveling with hogs for that long.”

  “It won’t be that bad.” I shrugged. “You’ll get used to the smell after a while.”

  Her breathing sped up, as if she were about to panic. “How do we know they won’t try to eat us?” Kiri asked.

  I suppressed a chuckle. “We won’t be riding in the same cart as the animals. Yauri usually brings three wagons. Two with hogs and one with hay to feed them. I’d imagine we’ll be in the hay wagon.”

  Something in my periphery caught my attention. The apprentice moved in place faster, tugging at the rope Sani had tied to a barn post. It wasn’t just his speed that bothered me, but the direction in which he was trying to walk. Instead of heading toward one of us, he seemed to be trying to sprint into a barn wall.

  Kiri stood up. “Something isn’t right.”

  My eyes darted toward her. “We can’t be certain of anything right now, and we have little choice but to play it out. No reason to worry until we need to.”

  The expression on her face had already moved past concern, and was now on the verge of panic. “Do you feel it too?”

  “By it, are you referring to my concerns over this plan?”

  Her eyebrows raised. “What concerns?” She shook her head. “We’ll get back to that. I felt a sense of worry wash over me, but it wasn’t mine. The sasquatch is trying to tell me something.” She closed her eyes. When they popped open, she said, “He showed me two images. One doesn’t make sense.”

  “What were they?” I asked.

  Kiri said, “The first was Canus tied to the tree, still dressed as the Casi soldier. The second was of Dante with burns on his face and two of the apprentices at his side.”

  I glanced at the apprentice. He still walked quickly toward the same barn wall. Considering the orientation and our location compared to the gate, I put the puzzle together. “Dante isn’t dead, and he can somehow control the apprentices.”

  “What?” Sani jumped to his feet. “Can he enter the mind of yaksha?”

  “I don’t think so, but look at the apprentice. He is obsessed with trying to go in that direction. Which would lead directly to the gate. Kiri saw an image of Dante. The sasquatch must have seen Dante.”

  Kiri’s eyes widened. “Dante is at the gate!”

  “That means Canus is in trouble.” I pointed at Kiri. “Send the sasquatch a message, have him cut the rope and take off with Canus.”

  Kiri closed her eyes. When she opened them, her face was beaded with sweat. “He freed Canus, and they have escaped Dante.”

  “Yauri better be ready soon.”

  Sani interjected. “What happens if the soldier peers out the gate window and doesn’t see anyone standing out there?”

  “I’d imagine the soldier relieving Canus had already left the gate to find the watch captain. When they get back there, they’ll think whoever was out there left. Then they’ll wonder what happened to Canus.”

  Kiri asked, “What if they think he deserted? They might check everything going out of Palla Cahua, including our wagon.”

  “I doubt they will.” I stopped pacing and faced her, happy to have a distraction from my nervous thoughts. “Yauri is one of the richest non-nobles I’ve ever met. I know her property doesn’t look like much, but this village is where she stages some hogs marked for Casi. She has farms in several villages.” I shrugged. “I don’t know why she lives here instead of one of her nicer places, but she brings a lot of money into this little village, and a lot of other villages rely on her trade. If we were going to ride with anyone else, I’d be nervous. But as long as she isn’t double-crossing us, then we shouldn’t have much of a problem.”

  “What?” Kiri stood from her seat. “When you explained the plan, you sounded certain that she wouldn’t. You said she might tell us no and insist that we leave, but she wasn’t the type to alert the guards.”

  “I know what I said, and I believed it.” After clenching my jaw, I continued, “I still believe it. Just...”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Just what?” Kiri asked.

  “What if Lar promised her a seat on the council? Hell, what if she is like Lar? A few nights ago, I would have said Lar wasn’t the type to frame a friend for his crime.” I threw my arms up. “How can I be certain?”

  “Leadership isn’t about always being right,” Sani said. “My father taught me that when he still thought I’d be a warrior like him. He said I could lead men into battle one day. When I expressed doubt about my ability to make the right decisions, he told me leadership means picking the choice you believe is best in the moment and not second-guessing yourself. If you don’t trust you, then how can your men?”

  I knew he was right. When Avian had insisted we have a single leader, I declared myself to be it, but I didn’t think about what that really meant. My grandfather used to tell me stories about influential leaders of past wars. He always stressed confidence, something I haven’t displayed to my team. “This will work.” I forced a smile. “Yauri can be trusted. She is nothing like Lar.”

  The barn doors swung open. Yauri stood in the opening with a man on each side of her. They both stared at us while holding pitchforks. My muscles tightened, and my heart sped up. I wasn’t sure who was with her, but I knew neither were her husband. He was a much larger and older man.

  Thinking of her husband made me second-guess my opinion of the woman. When considering her trustworthiness, I had gone off her reputation in town, and what Duclos had told me. But the information I knew from a first-person account was that she had cheated on her husband. If she was deceiving the person closest to her, why would she refrain from doing the same to a complete stranger. My hand fell to my hilt.

  “Load the hay in the third wagon,” Yauri said.

  The two guys nodded, then walked into the barn, moving past us. They didn’t say a word as they used their pitchforks to start filling a wheelbarrow with hay.

  I let out a deep breath and move my hand away from my sword. “Are we nearly ready?” Once the Watch Captain gathered a team, he would go outside the wall and investigate. They would quickly realize the yaksha tied up was their guard, not one from Casi. Canus will have no choice but to tell them we are inside, which he might be happy to do after the beating. Then they would sound the bells. Even someone as influential as Yauri wouldn’t be able to leave town when the bells were ringing.

  Yauri pointed at Sani and Kiri. “You two, help my men load the wagons.” She motioned for me to follow her. “The hogs are loaded. Let’s iron out the details while they finish the hay.”

  I kept pace with her. “Are those two guys trustworthy?”

  She nodded. “They’ve been with me for many winters.” She grinned. “I didn’t tell them who you are, not yet. I didn’t want them to look nervous if we are stopped.”

  “Why not just sneak us in the wagon without them knowing?” I watched the two men push the wheelbarrow to the wagon. They had already set up some wooden crates with air holes for the three of us to ride in. The crates didn’t look new, making me think that this wasn’t the first time Yauri had transported yaksha. She likely also moved other secret cargo. With an operation her size, it made sense.

  “Do you want to ride in a cramped crate under a pile of hay for three nights?” She scoffed. “After we’re safely out of town, you’ll ride on the wagons. If I had lied to them, I would lose the trust I built over the years by pulling you out later.”

  What she didn’t say was that they were used to transporting secret cargo. She didn’t have to. All I had to do was see how calm they were, and how nervous Kiri and Sani still looked. It was obvious they had been doing this a lot longer than us. Yauri wasn’t going to tell me any of that. She had no reason to trust me. And someone like her stayed in business for all these winters by not spilling secrets to those she didn’t trust.

  Yauri stopped beside the second car. “Wait here a moment.” She walked to the front cart, where her husband was repairing a wheel. They discussed something, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

  Yauri was the most known person in Palla Cahau. As such, rumors about her, her business, and her husband were common. From what I had heard, when he met her, she was selling flowers from a basket and he repaired wagons. Their business came together, him running the big picture as she tagged along. Until his mind started to slip. Then, she took over the operations.

  He glanced back at me. I turned away, pretending that I wasn’t looking at them. The two workers had finished loading the hay and were giving instructions to Kiri and Sani. I was about to join them but turned back to Yauri instead. I nearly fell over when I came face-to-face with both her and her husband. They must have walked over when I turned away.

  “Before you join them, let's finalize this deal,” Yauri said.

  Her comment took me by surprise. I thought we were all in agreement. She gets us out of Casi, and we clear her lover’s name. Then again, now that her husband was standing here, I couldn’t mention Duclos with him here.

  “Crossing through Borra will be expensive,” she said. “But I have a way to get you funds to start out with, along with adding some coin to my pockets. I’m sending a locked box with some goods inside, to be sold in Borra. A man I work with will meet you in Norfield, at the Salty Dragon. Give him the box, and he’ll give you half the profit.”

  “I’m not familiar with a village called Norfield.”

  She shrugged. “It’s in the borderlands, so it doesn’t officially exist.”

  “I’m guessing the Salty Dragon is a tavern.” I paused. “How will I find your guy?”

  “Ask around, then wait. He’ll find you.” She raised her eyebrows. “Do we have a deal?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But one more thing.”

  She crossed her arms as she waited. Her husband mimicked the stance.

  “A friend of mine is meeting us on the road, a few shots after we leave town.” I paused. “She’s a Brigand soldier who is helping me.”

  “Good to know you have some muscle.” She dug something from her jacket pocket. “When you find my guy in Norfield, show him this.” In her palm was a gold coin with a symbol I didn’t recognize. It had a circle in the middle, with two lines running through it, like an ‘x’. A ‘t’ sprouted from the top of the circle.

  I took the coin and flipped it over. The other side had a large ‘YV’, nothing else. Did it stand for her husband’s name, Yori Vilca?

  “Show that to anyone who works for us, and they will know you are a friend,” she said. “But never sell it or give it away. It is for you and only you. Not even a member of your crew should use it.”

  Someone whistled loudly up by her cottage.

  She stopped, then turned toward the direction of the sound and said, “Hurry, under the hay.”

  I moved without asking any questions, figuring she had someone standing by the road as a lookout. As I climbed into the cart, I noticed that this wasn’t the type of plain straw I often saw at local farms. This looked more leafy, with purple mixed in. Before I could ask what it was made from, one of her two workers grabbed me by the arm and pushed me under the hay.

  “Stay down,” he said. “Someone is coming.”