Piper, and Xander sleeping in the tent, or even when we’d decided to try to free New Hobart. It went further back. To the island, and the massacre there. Or to the tank room underneath Wyndham, when I’d chosen to free Kip, and we’d set out together.
Further back still: to Zach, and the day he’d succeeded in having me sent away, the brand still a fresh wound on my forehead. That day, the first that we’d been separated, had set us both on our paths. There was no going back. Zach had shed me, like his old name, to become the Reformer, and conjure his dark fantasy of the tanks. All that I could do was ride onward, into the thickening dark, and do whatever I could to stop him.
A shout came from ahead, and then it all happened quickly. Soldiers converged, stepping out of the darkness. A ring of raised swords. If I’d moved a foot in any direction I’d have been skewered.
“I’m here alone,” I shouted, throwing up my hands. “I need to see the Ringmaster.”
One of them grabbed my bridle, and another half dragged me from the horse. My dagger was ripped from my belt. A soldier raised his lamp close to my face to inspect my brand. “It’s one of them,” he said, his face so close that I could see the patch of stubble on his jaw that his razor had missed when he shaved. “Might be the seer—can’t see anything else wrong with her.” As he patted me down for other weapons, his hands lingered on my body.
“I don’t think my breasts are a threat to your boss, do you?” I said quietly.
One of his companions snickered. The man said nothing, but he moved his hands on, rubbing them down the outside of my arms, and kneeling to pat down my legs.
“Stand down,” said the Ringmaster. He was panting as he ran up the gully. His black jacket had a fur-lined hood, so it was hard to tell where his curls ended and the fur began.
The swords lowered.
“Bring her in,” he said. “But double the guard on the perimeter. Make sure she came alone.”
He didn’t wait for my reaction, just turned and led the way down into the gully. I followed him, a soldier at each side, while the third dropped back, still holding my horse.
I’d thought it was dark before, but as we descended, the gully cloaked us in a second layer of darkness. The tents were pitched at the very base, shielded by the growth overhanging the cliffs on each side. Horses were tethered in a row by the largest tent, stamping and whinnying as soldiers rushed past us, carrying lamps.
The Ringmaster threw back the flap of the central tent and strode in. “Leave us,” he said to the soldiers, who stepped back into the night.
He might have been camping, but the arrangement bore no relation to the makeshift camps I’d occupied for the last few months, or the sagging tent-city that housed the resistance troops in the swamp. The Ringmaster’s tent was thick white canvas, tall enough that he could stand upright. A blanket of fur covered the raised bed in the corner, and close to the entrance stood a table and chairs. A lamp was mounted on the pole in the center of the tent, throwing warped and darting shadows on the canvas.
He pushed back his hood. “Do your resistance companions know you’re here?”
I shook my head.
“Sit,” he said. I remained standing, but he sat, and leaned back in his chair to stare at me. “It’s dangerous for you to be traveling alone. Don’t you know how many people are searching for you?”
“Don’t patronize me,” I said. “I know exactly who’s searching for me, and why. But this was the only way. Why are you watching New Hobart?”
“The same reason you are. Your brother and the General are interested in this place. That means I am, too.”
I made an effort not to quail under his stare.
“I knew you’d change your mind,” he went on. “What information do you have for me?”
“I haven’t changed my mind,” I said. “I’ve come to give you a chance. If you really want to stop the tanks, I need your soldiers and their swords. I need your army.”
This time he laughed.
“You’re offering me nothing, and asking for something you know I can’t possibly give.”
“I’m not offering you nothing,” I said. “I have information for you. We’re going to attack the town.”