In truth, it made sense to speculate that these heartlanders might be Prince Astaylin’s agents. For all she knew, Prince Gevulin was the instigator of a feud that the other prince had been forced to respond to. Or maybe the archon’s goals had nothing to do with a feud for power. Maybe it was just about money. Underutilized copper mines might be of interest to a prince eager to expand sources of personal revenue, and the archon might simply be protecting her monopoly over them, or some deal she’d made with an official. If that was the case, then the archon’s party would walk on to the mines and not trouble them further. Yet, the first attempt to drug them had come soon after they’d arrived, surely alerted by the palace messenger.

Elen waited for the group to pass out of sight, then waited yet more. Below her, no one spoke. Finally, she climbed down and, in an undertone, said, “There are heartlanders marching with the archon’s group. They’re all armed. Whatever her reasons, it sure looks as if the archon intends to harm His Exalted Highness somewhere in these hills. Afterward, she can claim he vanished and was never seen again.”

“Now what?” asked Simo.

“We retrace our path.”

“Isn’t the cutoff to the trail that leads to the rope bridge about four miles farther on? That’s the way you and I went,” Kem asked. His suspicious tone stung. As if he suspected she might be misleading them on purpose.

She kept her tone bland, to disguise the hurt she felt. “So we did. But this time we are taking a steep shortcut with a lot of climbing. I hope the archon’s people are headed to the mines. But even if they are, they’ll soon discover we didn’t go there and figure we turned north to the smugglers’ crossing. We need to beat the other group to the rope bridge. If we can do that, we’ll make it over.”

“If we can’t?” Simo asked.

“Then I guess we’ll find out how well you wardens can fight.” She grinned.

“Excellent,” said the haunt, sounding invigorated at the prospect of fighting.