She drifted in that odd in between place of sleep and consciousness.
"The elders have a plan, I tell you."
"They'd better. No one wants to go the way of Edgecomb."
Shea kept her eyes closed, though she stopped drifting.
The first speaker's reply was muted.
"They do, and I'd bet anything those strangers are factor into their schemes."
Another response that Shea couldn't make out.
"Let them pay the tribute … ." The second speaker's voice faded as he moved out of hearing range.
Well, wasn't that interesting? It wasn't much, and Shea hadn't understood most of it, but she was surer than ever that something was very wrong in this town.
She opened one eye and grunted. The sun had begun to set, scattering stripes of reds, oranges and blues in wide arcs. It was probably best to head back to the lodging before full sunset.
She rolled off the bench, grimacing at the tight knots in her back, and stretched. Perhaps a bench wasn't the best place to sleep.
The walk back to her temporary home went quickly. She passed few people, and the ones she met refused to meet her eyes, keeping their heads tilted down or turned away.
She entered the two story house that served as a part time inn. It was part time because the town didn't have many visitors. As a result, there wasn't enough room for the ten in Shea's party. The men slept three to a room while Shea got her own chamber.
Some of the men had had a few snide remarks to say about that, but Shea mostly ignored them.
She'd have been just as happy in the stable, but the innkeeper had been aghast that a woman would even consider such a thing. No, a lady must have her own room.
Shea wasn't a lady. She was a pathfinder.
Still. That bed was something else. Soft. Comfortable. And the sheets felt amazing against her skin. It was like sleeping on a cloud. A great, feathery cloud.
Yeah, Shea wasn't too put out at accommodating the Lowlander's sensibilities.
"Where have you been?" Burke said from his seat at the table.
Shea suddenly found herself the center of attention from those filling their plates full of food. Shea's stomach rumbled, reminding her that the only thing she'd had since breakfast was a peach.
"Thought I'd check out the market. See if I could pick up any information."
Shea grabbed a plate and frowned at the food. The meat looked stringy and the vegetables wilted. She tapped a roll against the table. It was hard.
Unsurprised, she placed it back on its plate and dished out small portions of the meat and vegetables.
She should have grabbed a meat pie while at the market.
"Oh? Learn anything?" Dane asked.
Shea settled at the table. It was a tight fit with all of them gathered and two of the men had to eat by balancing their dishes on their laps.
The inn's matron bustled out of the kitchen, the swinging door giving a brief glimpse of the large cast iron, wood burning stove and the built in brick oven. It looked homey with its yellow painted walls and white trim. Herbs hung from drying racks and the meal's makings littered the wooden island.
It didn't look like the sort of kitchen that would produce such substandard food. It looked like the sort of place where the woman of the house might spend a lot of time doing something she genuinely loved.
Shea murmured a "thank you" as the woman set a pitcher of mead on the table along with several clean cups.
She waited until the woman retreated back into the kitchen before responding to Dane's question.
"Nothing concrete."
"So you wasted the entire afternoon on nonsense?" Paul rolled his eyes.
Shea shrugged. If that's what he wanted to call it.
This was the first time she'd had Paul on one of her trips. It'd be the last time too. He was a large man who always seemed like he was sucking on something sour. Nothing amused him, but everything seemed to annoy him. He complained the entire trip to Goodwin of Ria.
Shea had been reduced to making up excuses for why she had to scout ahead so often. His near constant bitching had tempted her to break her oath of never abandoning or causing intentional harm to her charges.
"Useless," Paul muttered when it became clear Shea had no intention of 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, with the exception of Shea, all got a cut of the profits.
Shea's lips tightened. They were going to ignore her advice. Again.
She forked up some vegetables and stuffed them in her mouth to avoid saying something unwise.
"It's true that it would look bad to return without finalizing the agreement," Dane said slowly. His eyes flashed to Shea who was chewing busily. "What makes you think we should leave?"