Read Online Pathfinder's Way by T.A. White - Free Book Online Page A

and
stood before glancing at the sharp hills and buttes before her.
Fallon and the danger he represented fell from her thoughts as she
was confronted with the reality in front of her. The Badlands. A
place she thought she’d never see again.
    She turned back to the canyon. People were
waiting for her. They counted on her to do her job. That meant
putting her unease and trepidation about being back here into a box
and then burying it to be dealt with later.
    True, the last time she’d visited the
Badlands she’d nearly died. A lot of people HAD died. This trip was
different. They weren’t going into the heart but rather skirting
along its edges.
    Her feet turned towards Dane, Witt and the
others. She settled into a slow jog, dodging around sparse brush
and uneven rocks. Time to get to work and lead her group home.
     
    Fallon stared after the woman long after she
was gone. Shea, he thought he’d heard one of her friends call her.
It was a pretty name. Kind of sharp but feminine at the same time.
Like her.
    She was a unique existence to him. Calm in
the face of danger with an air of command that demanded obedience
from men who clearly didn’t enjoy listening. Two of the men she’d
had with her didn’t look like the type to easily follow orders. Yet
when she spoke, they listened. The way she had disrupted the
execution spoke of strategic and creative thinking while under
pressure. A rare talent. She’d made the most out of the tools she
had and then executed her mission flawlessly. If she were a
Trateri, she would have made a fine general with a little training
and guidance.
    He found that fascinating.
    When he’d first seen the hood yanked back to
reveal her disheveled hair and wide eyes that were equal parts
scared and annoyed, he’d felt his entire attention zero in on her.
This tiny figure had darted past several huge men to take the
execution platform like one of the warrior goddesses his
grandmother had spoken of when he was a boy.
    She should have been the last thing he
noticed, and yet she’d been the only thing he could see.
    “I have to say, I’ve never seen anyone scale
a cliff quite that way,” Darius said, walking up to steady the
horse as Fallon dismounted.
    A tall man with high cheekbones and a broad
nose, Darius always seemed to find amusement in life. Even in
battle with enemies attacking from all sides, his eyes would
crinkle at the corners while a fierce grin stretched across his
face. His blue eyes were very noticeable with his dark skin that
was tanned even darker by the sun. It was his horse Fallon had
appropriated to race after the woman.
    “I told you she was tricky.” Wilhelm ambled
up to them with his head tilted back to eye the cliff face with
mild bemusement. He’d seen many flee before the Trateri, but never
up a cliff.
    “That’s what makes it interesting,” Darius
returned. He patted his horse’s neck and fed him a slice of an
apple before checking over the saddle and reins.
    “Indeed,” Fallon said softly. It had been a
long time since he’d found anything besides battle interesting.
Especially a woman. His gaze sharpened on Wilhelm. “Take several
men to her friends’ hiding place and retrieve them. She’ll go back
for them. Catch her if you can, but I don’t want her harmed.”
    Wilhelm gave a slight smile and spun on his
heel gesturing for five men to follow him. Without another word, he
swung onto a horse and rode down the canyon, leaving the others to
trail behind.
    “Did you get what you needed?” Darius asked,
changing the subject and clapping Fallon on the back.
    Fallon glanced at his friend “Yes, but it
wasn’t the answer I wanted.”
    “Oh?”
    “The Trateri will be able to take the
Lowlands easy enough, but from the information we gathered, there
is no easy way to breach the Highlands. Every route we found
involved a climb. It’d be near impossible to get the horses up
there, and there’s no easy way to get a large army, equipped with
supplies and