knew, she’d be just as immobilized.
Two soldiers came around from behind the tents, walking around the perimeter. He was too far away to call out to her to warn her. But then, it didn't look like he needed to.
She saw them as she climbed down from one of the carriages and quickly tucked herself underneath as they passed.
Handers stood up. What was she doing now? She had crawled out after they'd passed and was following them! Why? This wasn't going to end well for either of them, he was sure of it.
To his surprise, she broke off before they noticed her and disappeared between the carriages. Where was she going now? After a moment, she reemerged closer to him. She was coming back! She crawled back under the same Carriage she'd left under.
Handers grabbed her. "What are you doing!" He whispered. "They'll kill us if they see us! Do you understand that?”
She stared up at him, dumbfounded.
He wanted to know what she saw, if anything, but he didn't want to encourage her for running off. She seemed to have been making a habit of it.
"He's not there." She said after a moment.
"OK." He said.
" But those men said some of the people went up the mountain. They took Grandpa with them." She said.
"They did? Did they say why?" He asked.
"Lots and lots of Petra are here too. So they have to stay down here and be quiet."
"Petra? Great!" Handers wasn't particularly fond of the Petra. But then again, who was? Other than Rinacht, of course. He’d surprised himself when he hired Rinacht. Never thought he'd ever work with a Petra let alone take one in by choice. But then, Rinacht had seemed a little different from other Petra he'd met. Less smug. Turned out to be a mistake after all.
The bitterness resurfaced. Rinacht had become his closest friend. The one he trusted above all others. How could he have let that happen? How had he allowed himself to end up with a Petra as his one good friend? He knew better than that! Somehow, somewhere inside him, he knew this was going to come. Not this specifically, but the betrayal. It was inevitable. But that wasn’t fair, was it?
He simply trusted too easily. Take Moslin, look at the damage she'd caused him. It was hard for him to admit now, but there was a time when he had felt quite close to her too. He trusted her like he trusted Rinacht. Now it was clear. Trust was a mistake.
And what of Bedic and Sinesh? They're her family! But he owed Bedic. If he turned on him now, he'd be just as guilty as the Rinacht and Moslin. He'd be unworthy of trust himself. As Bedic, no doubt, felt he was already.
"Lets go around the camp and keep going up the mountain. They can't be too much further." He told her.
-
They'd been climbing up the road another twenty minutes, keeping close to the trees in case they needed to hide, when they heard a faint thumping sound, like the beating of an incredibly large drum, pounding out a slow, steady pulse. Boom. Boom. Boom.
"What is that?" Sinesh asked.
"Someone who wants others to know they're here." He answered. The thumping grew louder as they pushed up the road.
"Should we hide?" She asked.
"Now you want to hide?" He laughed.
After another switch back the trees one side ended abruptly. It appeared they’d come to a sort of ridge where the mountain side beyond the road leveled then dropped down out of sight. The thumping had become so loud Handers was sure whom ever it was, was just over the ridge.
They stepped off the road and climbed up the embankment carefully, so they could see down over the ridge without being seen. Beyond the ridge the mountain side dropped down into a small valley bowl before resuming its steep ascent to the summit still a considerable distance above them.
To Hander’s dismay, in the valley was not empty. Two columns of Petra soldiers marched down the center of a road that wrapped around the perimeter of the small valley. A solid mass of tents and military equipment filled in the rest of the open space from one edge to the other.
Loaded wagons and carts, twice the size of anything he'd seen and made of what looked like some kind of polished stone, were spread throughout the tents. It looked like they were still moving in supplies. And lots of them.
Another group of stone soldiers, in regular