At the camp, Marcel was getting nervous. Victor had been gone longer than he usually was when he went hunting and there was a nagging voice that told him he had been deceived in some way. He went to Remus, another of the guards, and told him what happened."You had better go and tell the captain," Remus said to him."He will have my hide for letting Victor out of camp. You tell him.""You are the one who did it, why shouldn’t you be the one to fess up?""Fess up to what?" asked Ian who had walked up behind them."Um..." Marcel started, "Well..." Ian fixed him with a piercing stare. "About a half hour ago, Victor had his bow and a quiver full of arrows and said he was going hunting," blurted Marcel. Ian’s look changed to worry as he waited for Marcel to continue, "I have not see

Then she told them, "I will adhere to your modesty as much as possible," and paused. They could not see how anything could be left to the imagination on this one. "Help me to sit down. I am going to save as much strength as I can, so untie these laces." She pointed to the laces down the front and at the wrists of the leather outfit she was wearing. They could barely be seen in the shadows they were in, but Mikail knew them well and could see in his mind just where they started near her neck and where they ended a little ways down her left leg breaking at the waist where the top and pants met."Don’t take the laces out, just loosen them," she instructed. When they were loose enough, she told them to help her out of the top of the scouting armor. When they did, to their relief, they found that she was wearing another of the corsets they had both seen. "That has to come off, too, if I am to become Victor again." Both th

"Yeah, he ate some bad stew going through an enemy camp a week or two ago. Seems like ages now, though. He was out for three days and hated the two day recovery where the captain gave orders that he was not to do anything." Rowell laughed at the memory of Victor sulking around camp looking for anything to do. Emmett tried to picture it, but having only seen Victor in what he was told was a rare, but foul mood he could not imagine the kid begging for anything. "He gets restless fast.""Yeah. That much I could tell about him even through the bad temper yesterday." He walked around the camp with Rowell telling him how things were under Captain Tane’s authority. There was something different about this captain, but he couldn’t identify what. Then again, he had been told this captain was different more than once before he ever left the last camp. One thing Rowell said that struck him was that he would have a private

Chapter 13 The Letter  When he opened his eyes and saw that she was missing, he jumped up and started for the opening of the tent only to run into her as she was returning."Where have you been?" he asked accusingly."Good morning to you, too, Captain. Did you rest well?"Her mood has improved, he thought. "No. What have you been doing?" he asked in slightly softer tones."I have been outside of this tent," she replied. The way she moved told him that no matter how he questioned, she wasn’t going to give in and tell him where she had gone or why. He did the only thing he could think to

"No, just give me a few hours and change your course to the south for a few miles. We are still near the border. I think I can make sure they are not able to cross the bridge."He studied her for a few moments. She looked like she believed she could do it. From what she said, that was their only chance. "Alright. I will head south for a few miles. Just make sure you don’t get yourself in to deep," he told her quietly. She looked up at him for a second, and then took off.She flew through the forest with all the speed and agility she couldn’t use in the confines of the chain mail she had left on the horse she couldn’t bring with her. When she was in sight of the approaching force, she cursed under her breath in four languages. They were bringing the equipment slowly over the bridge as she watched and were setting camp just this side of it.