Unhappily Ever After

Chapter 12 - Something Reckless

Ready for the worst plan ever concocted? No? Well, tough, cause it's happening. Baked beans and tea-towels ... honestly I'm beginning to regret my choices.

Dafydd told me to go to the campfire. I wasn't keen on that, but I did go. And I sat with the raiders and learned their names. They weren't curious about who I was, accepted the name Joe King without question, but Tomos sat across the campfire from me and stared steadily all evening. He knew differently. He wouldn't defy his grandfather by saying anything, but he knew and didn't let me forget it.

We ate hare and wild greens which had been slow-roasted over the flames. The conversation went over my head, mostly, full of strange words and raiding plans. They made an effort to include me, though, when they heard that I knew Lee and that I had been trespassing earlier in the day. These were the men I'd avoided at the first campsite, a grinning Mortimer among them. It wasn't unpleasant.

Still, as soon as I felt it was socially acceptable, I excused myself. Then I mind-linked Eira. It was strained across so much distance, even for us, and not made easier by her lingering resentment. She barely said two words during the whole conversation, and what she did say was insulting.

I didn't mind one bit. At least she was talking, and by the time we stopped linking she had agreed to come and find me if it meant the chance to kill people. Dad could be left at the castle: it wasn't like he was defenceless and, besides, it wasn't like she could bring him.

"What are you doing?" someone asked amiably. I straightened up, brushed dirt from my jeans and turned to see Tomos. There didn't seem to be any malice in his voice or face.

"Nothing much," I replied, well aware that it would make him suspicious.

His eyebrows rose. "I'm glad to hear that. You can help me with the firewood."

"Happily," I said, unhappily. Chores weren't the issue. He wouldn't have invited me, of all people, on a trip into the woods unless he wanted a quiet conversation, away from prying ears. So it was reasonable to assume that my heritage would come up.

We walked from the moorland to the copse in silence. Although Tomos clearly wanted to say something, he refrained while we found armfuls of damp logs and while we tied them into bundles to carry back. Finally, when the trees were far behind us, he stopped to crouch on a patch of sandy soil and squinted up at me.

"We're here," he said, stabbing a finger into the ground. "These are the Silverstones. The lake's west of us. New Dawn is south."

To accompany every sentence, his finger etched shapes into the ground. I frowned without saying a word. This was ... not at all what I had been expecting.

"You came from Silver Lake Pack — by here. The other four packs ..." Swiftly, he marked crosses scattered across the rough map. "Riverside, Ember, Pine Forest and Lowland. Now you can ask."

"What am I supposed to be asking?" I asked cautiously.

"Questions, of course," Tomos snorted. "Whatever you want to know. You didn't grow up here — and that's fine — but you'll need to know the north as if you did."

I pressed a hand to the damp earth beside the New Dawn cross, marking its place in my mind. While I did that, Tomos added more details: rivers, mountains and lakes. The shape of the Snowdonia National Park began to appear, roughly at first, becoming more defined with every new mark. Pack land took up less than a tenth of it.

"Why are you trying to help me?" I asked after a while. There were countless other questions I could have asked, each of them nagging at my mind, but this was the one which struck me as most important.