responding.
The table got quiet as all of the men avoided looking in her direction. Shea’s fork didn’t pause as she methodically continued to eat.
At this point, she’d become inured to his insults. He’d have to do better than that to get a rise from her.
Paul turned his attention to new prey.
“How’d it go?” he asked Dane.
Dane shook his head and settled his elbows on the table. Zrakovi had appointed him the leader for the expedition, and recently he’d earned nearly as much hostility from Paul as Shea.
Normally James was the diplomat on these type of trips, but the elders had kept him back and sent Dane instead. She thought it might have something to do with Edgecomb.
“It didn’t,” Dane said before taking a bite of his roll. “We got the runaround all afternoon. Same as yesterday and the day before.”
There was a large sigh around the table as they realized they were stuck in Goodwin for another night.
Nobody wanted this.
Paul didn’t take the news well. He looked like someone had spat in his food and then told him to eat it. He sat back, folding his thick arms across his chest as he glared down the table.
In the beginning, the stalled negotiations hadn’t bothered anybody, but as the days passed and the mood in the town became more and more tense, the men grew edgy and combative.
“Something’s happening in the Lowlands.” Witt’s voice was grim.
They nodded. It was growing more and more obvious that something wasn’t right.
Paul scoffed. “Something is always happening in the Lowlands. The wind changes direction, and they think the next cataclysm is upon them.”
“Not like this,” Shea inserted. “There’s talk of Edgecomb.”
Dane’s eyes shot to her as she carefully placed the fork back on her plate. He knew she suspected the men they rescued had been Trateri. The elders had ridiculed her suspicions, and even the guild had expressed doubt when she sent a missive recounting the events of last fall.
Everybody agreed it was probably one of the bandit groups that occasionally claimed the Badlands as home. Shea hadn’t been convinced. She still wasn’t.
Needless to say, the elders tried to place the blame on Shea for everything that went wrong. To her surprise, James stood up for her and even wrote a letter to her guild explaining his part in the events.
The village elders had gotten a slap on the wrist and a warning to start abiding by the contract or else lose their pathfinder.
This had only increased the general sense of disgruntlement the villagers felt and had sent the hostility shooting through the roof. She’d dealt with difficult expeditions all winter long. No one wanted to listen, even when it concerned their safety. Two men had been injured after ignoring her warnings. That had only made things worse, and now the people of Birdon Leaf thought she was incompetent as well as lazy.
“What about Edgecomb?” Dane asked softly.
“People are saying it’s gone,” Burke, one of the more easy going members in the group, interrupted, his eyes alight at the prospect of sharing juicy gossip. “Burned to the ground. No survivors.”
Fallon’s face flashed before Shea. She wondered if he had something to do with that. He seemed perfectly capable of punishing those who crossed him, and his men had looked disciplined and trained.
“Nobody knows how it happened?” Dane asked.
Burke shook his head.
“They do,” Witt interrupted. “Just not telling us. Too scared.”
“Whole village is scared,” Sid said into his plate.
Nobody disagreed. They’d all seen it.
“We need to leave,” Shea finally said. It had been weighing on her mind all day. Something in the townspeople’s behavior wasn’t right, and her instincts were screaming it was time to go.
Dane and Witt considered her statement carefully, though Burke openly scoffed and Paul rolled his eyes. Those two could afford to be disdainful. Dane and Witt knew better. Edgecomb had been a lesson they wouldn’t soon forget.
“We can’t leave,” Paul argued. “We haven’t completed negotiations yet. If we go back, the elders will have our heads.”
Shea wanted to groan. Typical Highlander response. Ignore the danger in favor of possible profit. Just once she’d like to lead people who had an instinct for survival.
Paul turned to Dane. “If you fail here, you won’t get another chance like this. The elders will never trust you again. Do you really want to be stuck in the village while James gets to experience Lowland luxuries?”
Dane’s jaw hardened. Everybody knew whoever established reliable trade routes with the Lowlands would have their fortune made. The expedition participants,