wicked dagger in one hand, a look of distaste on his face. Colin watched as he seized one of the long, pointed horns in one hand, wrenched the animal’s head to the side so the horns were out of the way, and slit the deer’s throat. On the far side of the depression, the other half of the group of deer that had been caught in the wedge had angled southward as well, heading back toward the main herd, now a dark splotch on the plains, like a shadow. Arten and the workhorses were galloping toward the kills. Men on all sides were yipping and calling out in elation, everyone converging on the bodies, on the scent of blood.
Then someone roared, “Look!”
The warning in the voice sliced through the elation like a blade.
Colin spun and saw someone pointing toward the northeast. His gaze flicked in that direction, focused on the black-purple storm in the distance first. He frowned in annoyance, ready to call out in derision that it was just a storm And then his eyes settled on one of the hillocks between them and the storm, the highest hillock.
There, in full sunlight, easily visible, stood a group of men.
“Who are they?” someone asked as Colin scrambled up the slope to join his father and most of the men as they gathered on the far bank. The rest remained below, beginning the processing of the strange deer. The scent of blood became thick and cloying in the heavy air, to the point where Colin began breathing through his mouth so he wouldn’t have to smell it.
“I don’t know,” his father responded. “People from one of the previous expeditions?”
“Something’s wrong with them,” Sam said, his eyes squinted. “They’re… too big to be men, too tall.”
“How can you tell at this distance?”
Sam shrugged. “I can’t. But something about them isn’t quite right.”
“Didn’t Cutter and Beth say that the people they saw were shorter?”
“Yes.”
No one said anything to that, but Tom frowned. “How many are there?”
“I can see five… no, six. There’s someone standing mostly below the hillock they’re on.”
“It looks like one of the men in front is carrying some kind of spear,” Colin said. “He’s got it angled out away from his body. And now he’s pointing it toward us.”
The men around him shifted nervously.
Arten had pulled his group of horses up about a hundred paces away, facing the unknown figures, but now he spun his horse about and trotted up to Tom, dismounting smoothly. “Send some of the men back to get our swords and any other weapons they can carry.”
Tom’s brow creased. “They’re too far away to do anything. We don’t even know if they’re a threat.”
“The other wagon trains never returned, right?”
Tom turned to order a group back to the wagons to retrieve the swords.
“We’ve gotten rather lax with the sentries and other defenses,” Arten continued, terse and all business. “I’ll double the Armory in the guard at night. You might want to do the same with the men from Lean-to.” He considered for a moment, not taking his eyes off of the distant group. Then he swore. “I guess it was too much to assume that this land would be completely uninhabited.”
“Tom,” Sam said, his voice layered with warning. He’d shifted his gaze back to the wagons, where the men were gathering the weapons, their motions a little panicked. He motioned to where Walter and Jackson were climbing the bank. “Here comes Walter.”
Walter arrived before Tom could answer. Most of the others from the expedition drifted away, shooting Walter and Jackson dark glances.
“Who are they?” Walter demanded.
“We don’t know. They’re too distant to make out clearly.”
“Then send someone out to meet them! If they’re from another Company, if they think they’re going to lay claim to this land-”
Arten broke through the beginning tirade, his voice calm but hard. “I don’t think they’re from another Company. I don’t even think they’re men.”
That brought Walter up short. He glared at Arten uncertainly, to see whether he was serious, then snapped his fingers at Jackson. “Jackson, the spyglass.”
Jackson slid a cylindrical case from behind his back, the strap across one shoulder, and opened it, withdrawing another compact cylinder, handing it over without a word. The Company representative’s face was set, jaw slightly clenched, lips pressed together. He glanced toward Colin as Walter took the spyglass, his eyes a deep green. He held Colin’s gaze a moment, then turned away dismissively, running one hand through his dirty blond hair before shifting his attention back to Walter, who had extended the spyglass and raised it to one eye.
Walter’s body suddenly stiffened.
After a moment, he lowered the spyglass.
“May I?” Tom asked, one hand held out.
Walter considered briefly, then handed over the spyglass without a word.
Tom raised it to his eye, frowned as he peered through it, adjusting it slightly.
And then he grew still as well.
He lowered the glass slowly, eyes flashing toward Arten. “They look somewhat like us, but they certainly aren’t from Andover. Set as many guardsmen as you want. We’ll circle the wagons around the kills. It will take time to butcher the animals and prepare the meat and hides. We’ll camp here tonight, set up some defenses in case those.. . people decide to come closer.”
Walter bristled. “I’m the Proprietor. I’ll decide where we’ll camp and what we’ll do.”
Colin’s father met Walter’s gaze, his eyes full of withheld fury. “You lost those rights back at the Bluff, at the burial.”
As he spoke, one of the men still watching the distance gasped.
Everyone turned sharply, the Armory reaching toward weapons that they didn’t have yet, the rest drawing knives or daggers.
“They’re gone,” the man who’d gasped said with a swallow. “They were there one moment, and then the next…”
Uneasy murmurs arose, the group unconsciously pulling in tighter to one another. Colin suppressed a frustrated shudder. He’d desperately wanted to look through the spyglass, had willed his father to hand it to him, but now it didn’t matter.
Instead, his father handed the spyglass back to Jackson.
“You can’t do this,” Walter spat. “This is my expedition, given to me by my father-”
“This isn’t Portstown,” Tom said, anger creeping into his voice. Anger Colin realized he’d held for days, since they’d left the Bluff. He turned to Arten, ignoring Walter. “Circle the wagons and set up the defenses.”
“No,” Walter said. “We’ll butcher the animals, but we’ll move on after that. Arten, go tell the others.”
Arten didn’t move.
Walter spun. “Do it! You work for the Carrente Family! You work for me!”
Arten shook his head. “Not any more. Not since we left Carrente lands.”
Walter turned, caught the black expressions on everyone’s faces, all except Jackson’s. Rage filled his eyes, smothering the shocked disbelief. He drew himself upright, fuming.
His gaze fell on Colin, jaw clenched, a moment before he stormed down the bank, back toward the wagons. Frowning, Jackson followed.
Colin’s father let out a long, heavy sigh.
“It needed to be done,” Arten said as the men carrying the Armory’s swords and other assorted weapons arrived. “The rest of the expedition would never follow him, not after what he said at the Bluff.”
“I know. But I was hoping he’d change.”
Arten snorted, strapping his sword around his waist. “No one changes. Not that drastically anyway.”
Colin had finished passing out some of the cooked deer meat to the guards on sentry duty and was headed back toward the camp when Walter found him. He never even saw the Proprietor’s son or Jackson. Darkness had settled, the last of the light fading from the sky to the west. As he stepped into the shadows thrown by the wagons and the campfires of the expedition inside their protective circle, a hand reached around his neck from behind and clamped tight to his mouth, fingers digging in with bruising force. An arm reached across his chest from the
