burned on the moorland floor, and the slaves continued forging weapons. Now that they were higher, they could see the campfires in detail. They carpeted the land for as far as the eye could see. Lucian’s heart skipped a beat every time he laid eyes on the vast tracts of conflagrations, like bobbing fireflies. He had no idea that there were so many people out there.
There must have been at least ten thousand people, and they were all fixing to march south. Time was running out.
*
The riders from New Canterbury crested a rise and came to a plateau cut into the mountainside, still some thousand feet from the summit. Norman half expected fanfare. The other half expected a hail of gunfire.
But there was nothing over that ridge but more black sparkling rock, petrified tree stumps, and rivulets of melt water from the higher snowdrifts.
Robert had corralled them into a rigid tactical formation with the marksmen at the front and the fastest riders at the rear. Rifles had been raised, shoulders tensed, foreheads greased with sweat.
Norman had been ready to find the emissaries of their saviours, or death. But to find nothing threw him completely. It felt as though somebody had planted a fist squarely in the seat of his stomach.
“Tell me we haven’t been had,” Richard whined.
“The distress call was broadcast. Somebody sent it,” John said, though hurriedly. He plucked at his sleeve while his bushy eyebrows twitched in spasm. “Are we sure these are the coordinates?”
“Yes, I’m bloody sure!”
“Calm down,” Norman said. “They could still be here.”
“Like arsing hell they could. Those campfires down there can only be one thing. The army is here, Norman. We’ve walked right into the hornets’ nest.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Stop playing, Norman. I haven’t seen a friendly light since we left Leeds—and that place was the terminus of the train to fucking nowhere.” Richard spat at the ground under him and snarled. Norman had never seen him like this. He’d put Richard down as a petal of a man.
It seemed he wasn’t quite like his master. While John looked terrified of all that moved, every windswept leaf, and every shadow thrown down by the passing clouds, Richard looked fit to tear the world a new one.
“We didn’t ride out here into the middle of nowhere just so that we could turn around and go back home empty handed.” Richard was breathing deep, almost hyperventilating. “We didn’t leave everyone back home wide open when those bastards could be coming to kill—”
He caught himself, his lip trembling, and looked away.
The others shifted uncomfortably as Norman urged his mount and cantered forward, milling to and fro as he scanned the mountain. But Richard was right. There was only the black rocks and mossy scree. No sign of an encampment, nor any sign that anybody had come this way. Not even a message scrawled in the dust.
It was as though nobody had been up here for centuries.
For all we know, that could be the truth of it. No, it can’t be. It can’t!
He bit his tongue to keep the very same lamentations as Richard’s from spilling out, but he could do nothing to stem the fitful, raging thoughts from shooting through his mind.
We have to find them—find them or die. I can’t go back to those faces, all those staring faces, and tell them we found nothing.
Suddenly, he realised he had been relying on this so much that he had no idea what to do. He had assumed that they would either succeed or die. He hadn’t anticipated that they might have to lope all the way home and stand beside their brothers and sisters and await the coming droves after all.
The thought of that was enough to drive bile into his throat.
I can’t go back to Allie with nothing.
He couldn’t watch the hope fade from her eyes.
“I hate this place,” he muttered.
The others were muttering audibly now, their formation breaking. Cries of frustration and disgust were carried on the wind—the deep, gurgling murmur of unrest from a crowd about to abandon good sense.
John was attempting to talk Richard down, pulling the map toward him and consulting their notes. But his apprentice was inconsolable, and in a sudden surge of rage, Richard tore the map to shreds, throwing it to the wind before John could utter a wail of dismay.
The muttering quietened and turned to sighs that were so much worse than anger, for they were sighs of resignation.
Norman’s heart leaped.
No. I can’t let them go. I have