SWNOVELS Chapter A Plan To Move Them
“Women. Specifically.” Tev shot Ser a warning look.
“Oh, I remember…” She crooned. “I’d know that face even in the dark.”
Tev snorted. “Ser…”
She jerked as if coming out of a reverie to beam up at Tev. “Though not as charming as My Wolf, of course.”
Seeming duly consoled he took her hand and linked fingers with her.
“What exactly are we going to have them do?” Acharius asked harshly.
“What she’s good at.” Bast said simply. “Hunting demons.”
“They’re drawn to her now.” Tev warned.
“Perfect.” Bast said. “We’ll put her in back to draw them to our tail rather than the vulnerable head.”
“I don’t want to be the head.” Rhyers looked over his shoulder to reiterate for the fourth time.
“We don’t care.” Bast and Acharius said at the same time as they headed back into Acharius’ personal chamber to finish packaging the artifacts.
“But I do!”
“We don’t care.”
“I think perhaps since Bast is wounded he’d be better-”
“No.” Acharius shook his head. “He’ll be fine. They’re all going to be after you.”
“Yes. That’s the part I’m not fond of.” Rhyers grumbled. Before his face brightened cheerfully as he pointed to Tev over his shouder. “I’m no longer the fastest one here!”
“What are we talking about?” Tev asked.
“You’re fast?” Ser asked him. Frowning in disappointment that she didn’t know this.
The other three men all slowly turned to look at her.
“You don’t know?” Rhyers asked stunned. “How could you not know? Have you never seen him move?”
She frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t think so…Have I ever seen you ‘move’?”
“No.” Tev said flatly.
“Why not?”
“There has not been a need.” Tev sent the other men an annoyed glance.
As though we betrayed him.
“I want to see how you ‘move’?”
“Not today, Sweet.” Bast said off-handedly. “We’ll need Rhyers to do the ‘moving’.”
“Why does it have to be me?”
“Because your plan does not just require speed but agility. The ability to maneuver through them when they swarm.” Acharius said.
“Are we saying I can’t do that?” Tev who was utterly uninterested a moment ago, now sounded affronted.
In typical fashion. Let him do it.
“When I told you my plan, I didn’t expect that I’d be the pivotal carrier.”
They shrugged.
Nobody seems to care that I think I’m ill-suited for this, other than me.
“I am faster than him.” Tev reiterated.
“We’ll put you in-front, Little Brother.” Acharius said. Knowing it’d assuage Tev’s pride while also sufficing as creating a full block around Rhyers.
“Little Brother?” Serdephe asked.
Tev groaned.
“There’s much you haven’t told her.” Acharius said over his shoulder.
“I’m noticing that!” She declared.
“Thanks for that.” Tev said snidely over her head.
Only Rhyers caught Acharius’ grin as he resumed wrapping artifacts.
“I don’t like this plan anymore.” Rhyers felt the need to say it aloud.
“We don’t care.” Bast and Acharius said simultaneously.
Did they rehearse that?
Rhyers was standing just beyond the cave entrance in the cradle of dense trees. What Dread Hideout is known for.
Things can be invisible a matter of feet away if there’s not a trail to them.
We could be surrounded by Sarabis and Targue already. He grimaced.
“What is it?” Acharius asked from a distance behind him and to his right.
“I think this is not an ideal plan.”
“We don’t-”
“I know!” Rhyers put up a staying hand to silence both men.
“It makes sense.” Bast said from a distance behind and to his left. “You’re the quietest, you leave no tracks and you’re the second fastest of us. We need to get them to WaterRose without a track.”
“I hate you both right now.” Rhyers was watching the trees alertly. The sack strapped to his back with a string of ropes wrapping his torso in every direction.
I look like a glorified Holiday gift. He grunted.
“I don’t hear anything.” Tev said after a moment. Standing a distance ahead of Rhyers on the path of their trajectory.
“Ser?” Tev called back.
She was further back. Crouched on the ground with one knee. The other behind her in a stance she liked to take when racing her dogs. “I got nothing back here.”
“Let’s go.” Tev shouted and took off.