The Rogue Lady

Chapter Thirty One

     Despite having ridden hell-for-leather for a day and a half, we still arrived too late. The sun had set about an hour ago when I finally noticed the light in the sky rising from the city we were heading to. It still took us a while before camp came into view as a dark silhouette in the night. We didn’t know yet what we would find there but once me saw it, we pushed a little harder. I was surprised to see the moving dots of light at camp, and, at first, I had hoped that William hadn’t attacked the city, but it soon became clear that it were not our usual guards. Women were on guard duty; smart idea not to leave camp seemingly defenseless. And although it was our camp as well, we approached with caution. After all, we were riders in the night, and they normally didn’t bring good news.

     The first one to notice us seemed to be a little girl. She cried with joy after I threw back my hood and she recognized me. She ran off to go and get her mother; I could see that much in the dark. When we finally actually made it to camp, there were already women waiting for us. I looked around but had no idea who was in charge. Luckily Eric knew. He was off his horse fastest and approached a woman, who blended in perfectly with the night without even using a cloak.

     The rest of us got off as well but before I joined Eric, I asked no one in particular, “Who is she?”

     Alex flung an arm around my shoulder, pulling me into his side. “Watch out, Svana, you almost sound jealous,” he teased.

     “Try curious,” I told him flatly, annoyed that he thought this was the time to joke.

     “That is Yvette, “Tom interrupted.

     “Whenever the men leave camp, William leaves her in charge; he likes her and if we weren’t at war they would probably have been married already,” Darrick added.

     I smiled; that was sweet. Then I turned serious again and pushed Alex’s arm off me and went to Eric’s side. “Please tell me he didn’t attack the city at nightfall, Yvette,” the magician almost begged the woman. The hint of desperation was clear in his voice; none of us had wanted to believe anything we had heard thus far, but the desert camp gave us all the answers we did not want.

     “He did. Why? What’s wrong? They didn’t even know there was going to be an attack,” Yvette frowned at him.

     “Yes, they did. We have a spy at camp,” I told her, agitating my arms frantically. Then I sighed and took a deep breath to calm myself down; I couldn’t lose my cool right now. “So William went ahead with the attack. The Queen’s men knew they were coming. If this doesn’t turn out disastrous then we have been blessed.”

     “What do we do now?”

     “I suggest we go and save their lives.” Was there really anything else we could do at the point?

     “Svana, there are seven of us and most likely hundreds of them. How do you suggest we pull that off?”

     “We need a plan of attack.”

     Then I turned to Eric, who took a moment to notice. He was closest to William so it seemed only logical that he would be the one making the decisions. When he finally noticed, he held up his hands and shook his head vigorously. “Oh no. I’m a magician, not a commander. I do magic, I don’t lead people into battle. If you want to save them then you have to come up with a plan and you lead us.”

     I grinned at hearing those words come out of his mouth. “That was exactly what I had hoped you would say. And I already have a plan.”

     “Of course you do, and if you didn’t you would improvise along the way,” Bram mumbled before flashing me a smile as I glared at him.