They reached a rise overlooking a long valley by midm morning and Ayanna called a brief halt, checking Chaitton's wound with hands that had gone steady again despite the fear still visible in her eyes. He needs rest, she said. Real rest, not just riding wounded across half the territory. Can he make it the rest of the way? He has to her jaw set hard.
There isn't another option. Chaitton, drifting in and out, managed a thin, ragged attempt at humor. Disgusting me like I am not right here. You're barely here, Ayanna said. Though her hand found his shoulder, gentle despite the words.
Save your strength for staying that way. They pressed on. And it was during the stretch exhaustion fraying every nerve that Ezra noticed something that made his blood run cold. movement, distant riders cutting across the valley floor at an angle that would intersect their path well before they reached open ground. "Ayanna," she followed his gaze, and he watched her face go rigid. "That's not Crane's main group," she said slowly.
"Too few riders, too clean a formation." "Then who?" "I don't know." Her eyes narrowed against the distance, but they're moving to cut us off deliberately, which means someone told them exactly which direction we'd be riding. The realization hit them both at the same moment. Cold and awful. The rescue, Ezra said, "Last night, we got chen out, but but we were seen doing it." Ayanna finished the thought, voice flat with dread. Crane knows exactly who came for his camp.
And he knows exactly which direction leads back to ours. He's not just reacting anymore. No. She looked back toward the distant riders still closing, still deliberate. He's ahead of us, and we have a wounded man, 200 exhausted horses, and no time left to plan anything at all.
They pushed the herd faster, angling away from the approaching riders toward rougher ground, where Crane's men would have to slow, buying precious minutes they desperately needed. Chaitton's breathing had grown shallower still. His grip on consciousness fraying, with every jarring stride of the horse beneath him. "We're not going to make it to camp before nightfall," Ayanna said, calculating distance and daylight with visible desperation. "Not at this pace. not with him like this.
Then we find somewhere to hold until dark, somewhere defensible. And if they catch us before we find it, Ezra didn't have an answer for that. Neither of them did. All either of them had was the herd thundering beneath them, a brother and friend bleeding out with every mile, and an enemy who'd stopped underestimating them the exact moment they'd proven dangerous enough to be worth taking seriously. By late afternoon, they'd found a shallow box canyon, walls high enough to offer some cover.
A single narrow entrance easy enough for two determined people to hold if it came to that. They settled Chaitton in the deepest shadow. Ayana working over his wound with practiced, desperate hands, while Ezra kept watch at the entrance, revolver drawn, eyes fixed on the empty ground beyond. "He's fading," Ayanna said quietly. And for the first time since the arrow had split the dark two nights ago, her voice carried something close to true fear.
The bleeding slowed, but he's fading. Ezra, I don't know how much longer. He'll hold, Ezra said, though he had no way of knowing that. No right to promise it. You don't know that.