“We are still being followed.” Scevola pointed back along the ridge where the river disappeared into the canopy of trees below them. A flight of white birds had just exploded up out of those same trees, and monkeys were chattering fiercely in an effort to drive an intruder from their territory. Far less activity had been raised a few hours before when their own caravan had passed through that area. Whatever force was moving through there now must be large, indeed.
Xaenja barked out a harsh laugh. She was tied in place on the driving seat next to Scevola, and glared bitterly at the group around her. “I am far from the only Consortium vulture looking to pick at your bones. I was simply not foolish enough to be duped by your ruse.”
“Hush, witch,” Elsbeth muttered, “or I shall leave your carcass to distract them with.”
“Enough,” Scevola cut in. “They are only four hours behind us, and they have the advantage of not being slowed by wagons loaded down with goods. Out here you obey my rules, and I say ride! Ride as though your lives depend on it, and be happy with the four hours sleep you got the last few nights. Tonight you will get less!” He snapped his reins and whistled shrilly, and his two horse team leaped into motion.
The pace Raimondo Scevola had set from the beginning was one that kept people from doing anything other than concentrating on following him. Now he seemed to drive his team to an even greater speed, one that seemed near suicidal, considering the state of the trail they were following. The two other carts and pack horses that made up the caravan matched him, and the adventurers had no option but to fall in line behind. They were five days northwest of Bloodcove, days of dusty, dirty running and riding as the scoundrel whipped his horses and wagon drivers to go ever faster and deeper into the night. To his credit, the scoundrel seemed a changed man within the vastness of the jungle. Gone was the drunkenness and sniveling, replaced instead by a hard edge that brooked no argument and accepted no excuse. The only time he slowed the pace was to check the horses and be sure that they were still capable of maintaining the push to Azlant Ridge. He was always the last to bed down, and always the first to rise.
Late the next morning, coming out of the forest canopy atop another in a long series of rises that marched their way into the Terwa Uplands, Scevola paused again. Ahead, the most imposing ridge yet cut above the trees, a sheer cliff draped with green and dripping with the runoff of hundreds of tiny rivulets. The valley between echoed with the calls of birds, animals and insects. Only the ever present chatter of monkeys that seemed to permeate every other part of the jungle was missing, a decidedly odd counterpoint to what the group was used to. As Scevola checked over each of his horses, he periodically glanced back the way they had come, looking for the tell tale signs of pursuit. When he finished with the last horse, he stood for a long time, staring over the valley behind them.
“They may have finally given up,” he said at last, throwing a grin at his employers. “Come. We are close. Your destination is at the top of that cliff, backed up against the next rise. We will be in view of it by nightfall. You may even have a proper bed tonight.”
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