"Men!"
"Oh God," I whispered to Ari. "Here he goes again."
"Men!"
Parffet clapped his meaty hands together. "You know what's going on today," he snarled. "We're chasing that bitch Yelena across this forest. I have the best team in Commander Ambrose's army. I expect to find her within an hour, or I'll be extremely disappointed."
Parffet glared at all of us. "In other words, find the bitch or clean the latrines for a living."
He turned to Porter. "Got your dogs ready?" he asked him.
Ari and I exchanged a look. Neither of us liked Porter, with his uncanny ability to command those hounds like they were his brothers. But Parffet respected him, and since he was our leader, we had to respect Porter as well.
"All right. Meet up at the lake around sun-high. Now march!"
Porter and the other men scrambled out into the Castletown woods, hounds baying and men crashing around in the underbrush like dying deer. Ari and I exchanged a grin.
"Ari! Janco!"
We looked at each other once more and then walked up to Parffet.
He glared at us. "Commander Ambrose has requested that you two be a separate team, looking for the bitch using skill instead of strength, am I correct?"
Ari nodded, but I felt bold.
"Her name is Yelena, sir. Yelena the poison taster."
Parffet's chest puffed up like an offended parakeet's. "What did you say?" he bellowed. Ari stifled a grin.
"I said 'yes, sir.'"
Parffet's eyes narrowed. "You two sweethearts think you're above the other men because the Commander issued you two as the brains of this operation. But I am not impressed by you two. Not at all."
Parffet looked at his watch. "Oh. Pity. You've lost some time to the others. I'd hurry, were I you, because if you two find her before my men I won't give you as hard of a beating as if you don't find her at all."
Ari and I rushed out into the forest. Once we were a safe distance in, Ari snorted.
"Nice, Janco. Oppose our foul-mouthed leader and stick up for the murderer we're attempting to pursue."
I shrugged. "Anything to oppose Parffet."
Ari rolled his eyes. "Shall we, then?" he asked, sweeping his arm out to the forest.
I nodded. "Which direction do you figure she'll head for?"
Ari thought for a moment. "Parffet told us earlier that she was probably headed south or east, did he not?"
I nodded. "That's exactly what she wants them to think, though. This Yelena is probably headed in a different direction, trying to confuse them."
"Let's head east," Ari suggested.
I shrugged my shoulders. "Hey, don't look at me. It's not like I know her personally or anything."
Ari sighed. "East it is, then," he said, and began to hack through the undergrowth with a resigned look on his face.
Half an hour later, I wiped the sweat off my forehead and looked around.
"Damn, she's good," I muttered, looking around for Ari. "You see her anywhere?"
Ari shook his head. "Sneaky, she is. We'll never find her."
"Most likely the other team has already found her and Parffet is laughing, waiting for our return at dusk."
"Well, she's not here, Janco. Let's keep going."
Suddenly a hound crashed into Ari's legs, sending him flying towards the ground. Porter laughed. I whirled around to face him. "Just what do you think you're doing?" he asked us in an amused voice. "Why are you headed east?"
I snarled, "Because you dog boys are going south, that's why."
Porter looked angry for a second. "Hounds lost her scent," he told us abruptly. "The only thing we have is the chance that she went south, headed to Sitia."
Ari shook his head before Porter was finished. "No, I don't think she's headed that way. Parffet told us that she has plenty of incentives to stay near the castle."
Porter barked a laugh. "Let's see. This girl is the poison taster for the castle. She makes enemies easily, or so Liza tells me. Valek is threatening her night and day. The only one who's kind to her is Rand. Why on earth would she want to come back?"
"Porter, Porter, Porter. Don't you trust Commander Ambrose?"
"I do trust him, but I don't trust Valek."
"You should," Ari said, a threat in his voice. "Because Ambrose trusts him a hell of a lot more than he trusts you. Valek is a thousand times more important than you and he can kick your ass at almost everything."
"Valek is a spy and a murderer and you know it."
Ari growled and pulled out his switchblade. "Valek assigned us to these jobs."
Porter glared at Ari. "Don't tell me you trust him," Porter spat.
"I trust him to keep Yelena from running!"
Porter called for his dogs. I pulled Ari back.
"It's no use killing him now," I reminded him. "You can kill him after Parffet yells at him for loosing Yelena's scent."
Porter's face turned up in an ugly grimace and he spat at Ari's feet. Ari growled and lunged forward. I grabbed the back of his uniform and pulled him back. Porter and his dogs disappeared from sight.
"One of these days…" Ari spat. I let him go and he put his switchblade back in place.
"We're going east," Ari informed me. "I am not going within a foot of that old rat. If you ask me, he should be fired for even having a doubt about Valek's authority."
I rolled my eyes. "The best reward would be to find her before he does."
Ari nodded reluctantly, still glaring at the tree Porter had disappeared behind.
"Let's split up," he suggested. "Call out if you find her."
I saluted him mockingly and began to hack away at the dense undergrowth.
"See anything?" I called to Ari, whacking away a bush. A squirrel rustled in the trees overhead.
Another hour of labor had passed. The sun was high in the sky, directly overhead. Noon. We'd been out since dawn and hadn't found even a hair yet.
"No. All clear," replied Ari, annoyed. I hacked my way through some of the underbrush until I reached his voice. He leaned against a tree, frustration on his face.
"Stupid idea, coming east. She's probably at the southern border by now," Ari grumbled.
"That's what the dog boys figured, even though the hounds lost her scent," I countered.
"I don't know if I follow the logic of going east," Ari snapped.
I sighed. "You're not supposed to follow the logic. The Captain ordered us east; we go east. He seems to think she'll head deeper into MD-5. Familiar territory for her."
"Well, what if she doesn't come back? Another stupid idea, using the food taster," Ari complained.
I shot him a look. He'd just defended her to Porter a few hours ago.
"She's a criminal," Ari reminded me.
"That's not our concern," I said patronizingly. "That's Valek's problem. I'm sure if she got away he would take care of her." Ari grimaced as I used his old argument against him.
"Let's go," I snapped. "We're supposed to rendezvous with the Captain at the lake."
Ari and I exchanged a short, exasperated look as we contemplated how pleasant this meeting would be.
"Oh, and try to keep the noise down. You sound like a panicked moose crashing through the woods," I added.
Ari smirked at me. "Oh yeah. Like you could hear me over your specially trained 'woodland-animal footsteps,'" Ari joked. "It sounds like two deer humping each other!"
We both headed towards the lake through the brush, laughing.
We weren't laughing for long.
"Eleven bloody hours!"
Porter and his troop looked down. Ari and I cleaned our switchblades.
"Eleven bloody hours and you still haven't found the bitch!"
"Her name's Yelena," I muttered under my breath, not loud enough for Parffet to hear.
"You had better find her, you rats, or I'll tear your throats out. Ambrose will be livid."
Parffet threw his paring knife to the ground. "Go. Go now. Find her now."
Ari and I jumped out of our seats, rushing for the woods.
"We're headed east," I informed Porter.
He sneered at me. "Well, we're headed south. I suppose you're just scared to actually find this Yelena, or you wouldn't be looking in the wrong direction."
Ari snarled and I pushed him back. "Let's go," I hissed to him, and we headed into MD-4 to begin our search again.
The sun stopped being a nuisance when it went down.
"Parffet's going to kill us," sang Ari sarcastically.
I hissed, "Shut up and keep looking. If we find her then we'll only have to scrub latrines for a day and not a week."
Ari grimaced. We both looked up.
Stars dotted the sky, casting an eerie light upon the forest floor.
"We'll keep looking until we find her," I reminded Ari for the hundredth time. "If we go back to camp without her, we'll be skinned alive."
"I still say that Porter and his troop of dog boys found her and they're laughing at our pain back at --"
Something moved behind me.
"Shut up!" I shouted.
I ran towards the source of movement and pinned the skinny poison tester to the ground.
"Got you!"
Ari grinned at me as I yanked her hands behind her back and put her in manacles.
"Isn't that a bit much, Janco?" Ari asked, still smiling.
I got off her back and pulled her to her feet. She glared defiantly at me, her black hair framing her pale face like a dark halo.
"She was too damn hard to find. I don't want her getting away," I told Ari grumpily, smiling all the while.
I turned to Yelena. "You made us look bad," I informed her. "Every solider out there is probably going to be reassigned. We'll all be cleaning out latrines 'cause of you."
Still, Ari and I smiled at each other. This meant that Porter and his men hadn't found her, which was a victory within itself.
Ari grinned again. "That's enough, Janco. We won't be scrubbing floors. We found her. And look at that getup."
I looked at Yelena more closely. She'd coated her black and red uniform with leaves, stuck to her body using Rand's glue. "No one expected her to go camo, that's why she was so hard to find," Ari crowed. "But, still, the Captain's gonna crap when he sees this!"
Yelena spoke for the first time. "And the Captain's back at the castle?" she said in a smooth, prodding voice.
"No. He's leading a line farther southwest. We'll have to report to him."
She sighed, looking away. "How about you send Janco here to find the Captain," she said, nodding to me, "While we head to the castle?" she gestured to Ari.
"Sorry," Ari grunted, "But we're not permitted to split up. We're required to travel in pairs, no exceptions."
"Um…" I said, and then decided not to ask.
"Yelena," she said, thinking I didn't know her name. I decided to ask anyways.
"Why are you so anxious to get back?" I prompted.
"I'm afraid of the dark," she said calmly.
Ari laughed. "Somehow I doubt that. Janco," he said, turning to me. "Take the cuffs off her. She's not going to run away. That's not the point of this exercise."
didn't want to. Parffet was probably already throwing darts at our picture. Putting cuffs on the fugitive was part of the standard procedure, and I didn't want to aggravate our Captain more.
"You have my word, Janco," Yelena said, staring at me with her big green eyes. "I won't run if you take off the manacles."
I sighed and took them off.
"Thanks," she whispered. I realized she didn't know Ari's name.
As payback for making me take the cuffs off, I pointed to him and said, "He's Ardenus."
Ari rolled his eyes. He hated his full name. "Ari, for short," he said, and then surprised me by shaking hands with Yelena. Shaking hands acknowledged an equal.
We went to find Parffet. I didn't expect a good meeting, and so I sighed and looked up at the stars.
Please, Lord, I prayed. Don't let Parffet kill me. I'll be better. I won't lie so much. I saw Ari laughing at my unmiliteristic stance. I didn't care.
I was sure what was waiting for us was hell.