CHAPTER 11 - THE TRACKER

Gideon underestimated the toll that loneliness and the constant fear of being caught would take on his spirit.

The cave that the voice had shown him on the first night was damp, but it let him get some much needed sleep. He didn’t dare to light a fire, and instantly passed out on the cold ground. The following morning brought a late Autumn chill, making him thankful that he had been wearing his overcoat the day before.

Stealing some linens hung out to dry in a nearby town, Gideon tore them into strips and did his best to clean the wound over his eye and the stab to his leg. Even if he found someone with a Healing Gift, he had no way to pay them for their services, which always ran steep. Those Gifted with that ability were always snatched up as personal Healers for guard corps, hospitals, and noble houses, and paid well to do so.

For days, Gideon Eldridge walked south, although the voice did not reach out to him. He foraged during the day, tried to keep himself hydrated, then would wash his wounds and apply fresh bandages before bedding down for the night. The wound in his leg especially caused him grief and limited his mobility.

He had to take special care to not leave anything behind, and to hide anything he had to. He was very aware of the tracking skills used by Trace Gifted, and knew that Dorian recruited several of them into the Knights of the Silver Moon. One touch of an object he left behind, in the hands of a Tracer, would literally lead them right to him. A discarded bandage, a strand of hair, even a single drop of blood on a leaf could give him away. Thankfully, the lands he journeyed through were teeming with animals, ones that would scavenge most of what he may accidentally leave.

Almost two weeks had passed, and the sound of a naying horse woke him up in the middle of the night, after falling asleep in an unguarded barn. We woke up with a start, his eyes darting open while the rest of his body remained still. He had positioned himself on a bed of straw, and any movement would have made noise. The group carried some kind of light source, and Gideon could see its faint glow through the weathered slats of the barn walls.

“Do you see anything?” one voice asked out loud.

“Does it look like I can?” another retorted with attitude. “It’s dark as hell out here. Where are we, anyway?”

“You’re the Tracker,” the first voice replied. “You told the Master that you could Track the traitor. Now I’ll ask again…where is he?”

Gideon did his best to control his breathing. Based on their volume, they seemed to be across the road, at the northern entrance of the property. But it was hard to tell.

“First of all,” the Tracker answered. “He’s not my Master. He hired me because his own Trackers were on a mission and this was urgent. Hence my emergency pay. Which I still haven’t gotten yet!”

“You get half when we find him, half when we bring his head back,” the first voice said flatly. “Just use your Gift and tell us where he is.”

“Do you want to go ahead and wake up whoever is in that farmhouse?” a third voice came out of nowhere. “Because if you keep shouting at each other at whatever bloody time it is, you might as well. I’d rather not deal with civilians.”

Gideon remembered that third voice. It belonged to Ozhriath, the Vintelli archer of the Knights and one of the few inside the organization that used the Second Stance: Binor. His skill with a bow made him an excellent hunter, and his presence told Gidon that Dorian didn’t want anyone going toe to toe with him. Oz, his nickname at Grenfield, was an excellent tracker in his own right, even without that specific Gift.

If I could take them all out, I’d be able to escape, he thought. Oz is weak at melee combat, and the Tracker probably is as well. I don’t know the first voice, though.

What would happen if you killed them all here? The gentle voice asked, as if it wanted an answer.

Then…Dorian will find the bodies, think that the people who lived here aided me, and kill them. Damn.

The voice did not respond, but Gideon could understand the reasoning. His offensive training needed to take a step back if it meant he could think outside the box.

“I told you both before we left,” the Tracker continued. “I need a big piece of something he’s left behind. If it’s small, like this, then it will only give me a rough estimate.”

“I could work with that,” Oz chirped. “What range does that strip of bandage give you?”

Gideon cursed. He had carefully buried all his used bandages, but a piece must have fallen off while walking. Or maybe an animal dug it up.

“About a hundred yards,” the Tracker answered. “Give or take.”

“So you’re telling me,” the first voice began, an edge creeping into his tone. “That we’re in the middle of nowhere, it’s pitch black out, and we have to search what looks like an entire farm?”

“And he’s probably heard us by now,” Oz interjected.

“Thanks for pointing that out,” their leader said, his voice dripping with anger and sarcasm. “I’m going to check the farmhouse. I didn’t want to involve whoever is inside, but we don’t have a choice. Oz, come with me. Tracker, head towards the western edge of the property, maybe you’ll get a better sense of where he’s hiding.”

Gideon’s hiding spot was on the southern edge of the property; he had chosen it because he had a feeling that any pursuers would come from the north, and the hunch paid off.

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If I intercept the Tracker, I could take the piece of bandage he found. They’d be stuck here with no direction.

He heard the leader and Oz pounding on the farmhouse door, but didn’t wait to see what would happen. Instead, Gideon stalked carefully and quietly towards the empty stables on the west side of the farm. He huddled behind the nearby well, tapped into his Sight Gift, and scanned for the Tracker. He found him, pacing back and forth, looking down at the tiny scrap of bandage in his hand. As Gideon moved closer, the Tracker’s head rose up, his eyes flicking around in the darkness.

“Ugh…you’ve got to be around here somewhere,” the Tracker muttered to himself, then turned towards Gideon’s direction. Gideon swiftly moved back behind the well again, listening carefully as the Tracker walked closer and closer.

The Tracker, in the darkness of the night, cast the lantern he was carrying forward. The well in front of him illuminated, with Gideon hidden in its shadow.

“They won’t mind if I take a minute and refill my waterskin, our guy isn’t going anywhere when it’s this dark,” the Tracker said to himself, after taking a cursory glance around. He put down his lantern, then pushed the bucket from the lip of the well towards the middle. It fell, scraping the sides on its way down until it sent off a distant splash. The Tracker reached his hand out towards the crank, to retrieve the bucket when Gideon’s own hand shot out and grabbed his arm. In a swift motion, he spun the Tracker around and put his other hand over his mouth.

The Tracker fought for a moment, then went rigid. The two crouched, bound in darkness weakly flicked away by the lantern, until the Tracker’s breathing slowed down from a panic.

“If you say a word, you’re dead,” Gideon whispered into the Tracker’s ear. “Then whoever lives in that farmhouse will die when Dorian investigates. So I’d rather not. Nod if you understand.”

Nod.

“Are you a Knight of the Silver Moon?”

Head shake.

“Do you know who I am, or what I did?”

Head shake.

Good, Gideon thought. He’s not invested.

“Are you the only party Dorian sent after me?”

Head shake.

Damn it. Wait…

“Did he send a party in every direction?”

Nod.

Well, that’s something. He doesn’t know exactly where I went. But if this group reports back, he’ll concentrate his efforts.

“Have you reported back to the Knights about finding my trail?”

Head shake

Gideon breathed a quiet sigh of relief from his nose.

“So you must have found the bandage recently. Yesterday?”

Nod.

“Where is it?”

The Tracker made a shaking motion with his left hand, and Gideon looked. He was impressed, in the split second he was about to be captured, the Tracker managed to hide the shred of bloody bandage in his sleeve. Gideon pulled it out, stuffing it into his pants pocket.

A clattering noise shattered through the night air from the farmhouse, as the two searching Knights ransacked the inside. A elderly man and woman sat on the steps in front of the door, embracing each other as they trembled in fear.

Gideon tapped into his Sight Gift and saw their terrified faces, and it made his blood boil.

Patience, the voice reminded.

“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,” Gideon began, adding an edge of confident hostility to his voice. “I could have easily killed your entire search party a dozen times by now…that’s why the man who hired you sent an archer; he knows no one he sends can beat me in melee combat.”

The Tracker’s nervousness ramped up, as he began to shake almost as badly as the farming couple.

“If you want to live, you’re going to do exactly what I tell you. Nod if you understand.”

Nod.

“Good,” Gideon replied, tightening his grip on the Tracker’s wrist to accentuate his point.

“Where is your Parsell?”

The Tracker wiggled his middle finger, and the nearby lantern’s light glinted off a thin, gold ring. Gideon pulled it off, then dropped it into the well. A barely-audible plunk of a splash dribbled out of the murky void. The Tracker continued to stay crouched, his hands not bound, so Gideon decided to not bother grabbing them again. The man knew when to submit.

“There’s an old horse blanket in the barn. You’re going to take a piece from it, then lead those two to the west until the trail runs cold. You never saw me. And your ring fell off while you were filling that waterskin. Nod if you understand.”

Nod.

“If I see you again, I will kill you, " Gideon continued, more edge laying into his whispers. “If I find out that ANYONE was hurt in your pursuit, I’ll find you and kill you. I doubt the commission you’re earning on this hunt is worth your life.”

Head shake.

At least he’s not stupid, Gideon thought. But the others will report that a trail was found at some point. Have to match some adjustments.

“The first town you come to going west…find a hunter and pay him to say the bandage was his. Do whatever it takes to prevent the other two from sending back a report until this happens. If anyone from Grenfield finds me, I’m blaming you and you’re dead.”

An enthusiastic nod followed the final threat.

Gideon shuddered inwardly. He hated threats, and was grateful the Tracker didn’t call his bluff and try to attack him.

“Now, I’m going to let you go. Stay right here, tell them you’ve been trying to get your ring this whole time. If you say ANYTHING…”

A frantic head shake ensued.

“Good, you’re a smart man,” Gideon replied. He carefully took his hand away, the Tracker’s eyes wide, following Gideon into the treeline nearby. The pursued man skirted that treeline back to the southern point of the farm, then waited. No call from the Tracker burst through the night, and once the two Knights were finished, they wordlessly left the farmhouse and met up with the Tracker. Gideon tapped into Sight to see the Tracker pointing furiously down the well, and nowhere else.

Satisfied, Gideon silently continued south, and spent the remainder of the night in a hollowed out tree, grateful that a bad situation didn’t become much, much worse.