Chapter 38 Signs in the Dust

Chapter 38 Signs in the Dust
Elias
The road should have erased the tracks.
After a storm like the one that had rolled through the night before, the ground ought to be churned beyond recognition—wagon wheels, horse hooves, mud sliding into itself until no pattern remained.
Instead, the prints were clear.
Too clear.
Elias crouched beside the edge of the road, brushing damp soil away with the edge of his glove.
One horse.
Light-footed.
Riding the harder strip along the shoulder where the mud didn’t hold impressions as deeply.
A careful rider.
Someone who knew how to follow without leaving a trail.
He straightened slowly.
Behind him the caravan creaked forward through the trees, wagons groaning under the weight of supplies. Drivers shouted half-hearted curses at their mules. Leather harnesses jingled softly.
Normal sounds.
But the forest felt… watchful.
“What do you think?” the scout asked.
The boy leaned in his saddle, studying the ground with exaggerated seriousness.
“Could be bandits,” he added.
Elias wiped the mud from his glove.
“Could be.”
The scout grinned, clearly hoping it was.
Bandits meant a quick fight, a story to tell later over cheap ale.
Elias swung back into his saddle.
“Keep your eyes open.”
The boy nodded eagerly and rode ahead.
Elias turned his horse and followed the length of the caravan.
The wagons stretched through the trees in a slow, uneven line. Mud sucked at the wheels with every rotation. A broken branch cracked somewhere in the forest as a mule brushed past it.
Routine.
Ordinary.
Exactly what whoever followed them would want.
His gaze moved down the column automatically, cataloguing small details.
A loose strap on the second wagon.
A guard walking slightly off his assigned position.
A driver nodding sleepily in his seat.
Then his attention snagged somewhere near the center of the line.
The omega wagon.
He hadn’t meant to look for it.
Still, his eyes found it easily.
She sat near the rear opening, her posture straight despite the wagon’s uneven jolting.
He realised with an absurd snort that he didn't know her name. Even after months of travel.
Most people slouched after hours on the road.
She didn’t.
Her hands rested loosely in her lap, fingers curled into the fabric of her skirt. The movement of the wagon forced her to brace one foot against the wooden floor to steady herself.
Her injured leg.
He noticed the careful way she shifted her weight when the wagon hit a rut.
Not complaining.
Not drawing attention.
Just adjusting quietly so no one would see.
A gust of wind lifted the edge of her cloak.
Silver flashed beneath the dark fabric before she tucked the strands back into hiding.
Elias looked away.
She wasn’t his concern.
She was a passenger. Cargo, technically.
A political knot someone else would eventually have to untangle.
His responsibility ended when the caravan reached the border.
That was the sensible truth.
His instincts refused to accept it.
A shout broke through his thoughts.
“Move.”
Elias turned.
One of the guards stood beside the omega wagon, his patience clearly running thin.
She had climbed down from the wagon and was trying to step around him toward the water barrels.
The ground there was slick with mud.
Her foot slipped.
Not badly enough to fall—but enough that she caught herself on the wagon’s side.
The guard grabbed her arm.
Rougher than necessary.
“You’re blocking the path,” he snapped.
Lyanna pulled her arm free.
I’m moving.
Her hands was calm.
The kind of expression people used when they refused to give someone the satisfaction of seeing them react plastered on her face.
The guard stepped closer anyway.
“Then do it faster.”
His hand came up—not striking, but close enough to make the intention clear.
Elias had already started forward when another soldier stepped in.
“That’s enough,” the second guard said quietly.
He caught his companion’s wrist before it could go any farther.
The first guard scowled.
“She’s slowing us down.”
“Then walk around her.”
A few nearby soldiers had started watching.
The first guard jerked his arm free with a curse.
“Fine.”
He stalked away down the line.
The omega didn’t look after him.
She had already crouched beside the water barrel, dipping a cup beneath the surface.
Her movements were slow. Careful.
As if the moment had never happened.
Elias remained where he was.
Watching longer than he meant to.
She drank slowly, then poured another cup over her hands, washing the mud from her fingers.
When she stood again, her weight shifted carefully onto her uninjured leg.
The small adjustment told him more than any complaint would have.
She was hurting.
And she refused to let anyone see it.
Elias turned his horse away.
The caravan kept moving.
An hour later he called the offending guard over while the wagons were being reorganized around a narrow bend.
The man approached with the relaxed confidence of someone who assumed this was routine.
“Yes, Commander?”
“You’re rotating to rear patrol.”
The guard blinked.
“The rear?”
“Yes.”
“That’s two wagons back.”
“I’m aware.”
A brief pause.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Elias met his eyes.
“No.”
“Then why—”
“Because that’s where I need you.”
The guard hesitated, clearly dissatisfied with the answer.
But rank was rank.
“Understood.”
He rode off without another word.
Elias watched him go.
Discipline.
That was all.
Nothing more.
He ignored the quiet voice in the back of his mind that suggested otherwise.
The forest thickened as the afternoon wore on.
Tall pines crowded the road, their branches knitting together high overhead. The light beneath them dimmed into a green-gray haze.
Another scout rode in from the flank.
“Commander.”
Elias slowed his horse.
“What is it?”
The scout gestured toward the tree line.
“Found something strange.”
They rode a short distance off the road.
A wooden post stood among the roots of an old pine.
Or what remained of it.
The top half had been burned black.
Elias dismounted, running a hand along the charred wood.
Signal marker.
Someone had destroyed it recently.
“Bandits?” the scout suggested.
“Unlikely.”
Bandits stole supplies.
They didn’t blind roads.
Elias swung back into the saddle.
The uneasy feeling in his chest sharpened.
“Keep the men moving,” he said.
The scout nodded and returned to the caravan.
When Elias rode back onto the road, his gaze drifted again—unbidden—to the omega wagon.
Lyanna sat in the same place as before.
But she wasn’t watching the road anymore.
She was watching the forest.
Carefully.
As if she sensed something out there.
Elias frowned slightly.
Most of the others in the wagon were chatting quietly among themselves.
She wasn’t.
She sat still, eyes moving over the trees with quiet focus.
Interesting.
A soldier walked past her and said something Elias couldn’t hear.
Lyanna answered with a brief nod.
Nothing more.
She returned her attention to the woods.
Elias forced himself to look away.
Late afternoon shadows stretched across the road when another scout approached.
This one didn’t slow until their horses rode side by side.
“Commander.”
“Yes.”
The man kept his eyes on the road ahead.
“Someone’s behind us.”
Elias didn’t react.
“How many?”
“Two riders at most.”
“Distance?”
“Far enough they think we haven’t noticed.”
Elias glanced back once.
The road behind them twisted through the trees, empty and quiet.
“Tracks?”
“Careful ones.”
Of course.
The scout lowered his voice.
“You think it’s bandits?”
The third person to suggest that. Probably because this was bandit territory, but he knew better.
“Maybe.”
The answer satisfied neither of them.
Elias turned forward again.
“Signal the caravan.”
“For what?”
“We’re changing routes.”
The scout frowned.
“Why?”
Elias pointed toward a narrow trail barely visible between two leaning pines.
“That path.”
The scout stared.
“That’s barely wide enough for the wagons.”
“Exactly.”
Understanding flickered across his face.
A hidden trail was harder to follow.
Harder to ambush.
Harder to predict.
He nodded.
“I’ll relay it.”
As the scout rode off, Elias took one last look down the caravan line.
The wagons began shifting, drivers shouting as they redirected their teams.
At the center of it all, the omega had stood in the back of the wagon.
Watching.
Not panicking.
Just observing the sudden change with quiet attention.
For a brief moment her gaze lifted.
And met his across the distance.
Neither of them looked away immediately.
Then the wagon turned with the others, disappearing into the shadowed trail.
Elias exhaled slowly and followed.
Because whoever rode behind them—
He intended to make the hunt very difficult indeed.