[This post is from Thom’s point of view.]
The head count was off by one.
“Where’s Matt?” Thom asked as he swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. Cameron looked at him, blinking slowly.
“When he didn’t show up in the tunnel with you and Marin, I figured he was out holding the line,” the other man said as he gingerly pushed himself to his feet. “Are you saying he didn’t do that?”
“He went back up to the forge,” Thom said. “Something about extra blades. I thought I told him we didn’t need them, but either he didn’t hear me or he ignored me.”
“Maybe he stayed up there after the all clear was sounded,” Neve suggested. Even with the hopeful words, though, Thom could hear a note of doubt creeping into her voice—the same sort of doubt that was coiling alongside dread somewhere deep in his gut.
I don’t like it. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. He checked his sword and exhaled quietly. “If Marin and Phelan come back and they’re looking for me, I went up to the forge.”
“Would she have had a reason to go after him?”
Thom winced at Aoife’s question. Seamus grimaced and Leinth hissed.
“She wouldn’t have,” Leinth said, but this time there was doubt in her voice, as if something had just dawned on her, as if she’d suddenly realized they’d made a grevious tactical error.
He was the Ridden Druid once upon a time and he and Marin come from Teague Vaughan’s bloodline.
“Hell,” Thom breathed in the heartbeat before he was on the move.
“Thomas—”
“Move faster if you’re coming with me, Seamus.”
He didn’t break into a run until he’d cleared the tent, though there was no doubt left in the minds of anyone that saw him that he was rushing, that some new crisis had probably reared its fair head and he was off to deal with it. Seamus caught up with him a dozen strides away from the fire and kept pace with him as they headed for the hill where the forge stood.
Cameron caught up with them when they were a few steps away from the door of the forge. Thom had hoped to hear the sound of Matt starting to wake the fires, maybe the sound of the sharpening stones or his hammer.
Instead, there was only silence except for the soft dripping of water from the forge’s roof down to the bricks they’d laid along the front of the small building, a steady but arrhythmic sound that might have been comforting if not for the circumstances.
“He’s not in there, is he?”
Thom’s heart gave a painful squeeze at Cameron’s words, this throat almost too tight to speak. He shook his head slowly and croaked, “I don’t think so, Cam.”
His hand was shaking as he reached for the door. Seamus took it gently and held it shy of the door.
“Let me,” the former Taliesin said quietly. Thom let his hand drop, nodding. He could taste salt on his lips from tears he hadn’t felt begin as they’d run through the misty rain to get to Matt’s forge.
He’s my brother and somehow I’ve failed to protect him. This is unforgivable.
Cameron grasped his arm as Seamus pushed the door open, as if he knew that Thom was abruptly unsteady.
She won’t ever forgive me. I’ll never forgive myself.
I should have made him listen, should have made sure he’d heard me.
Why did I let him walk away? Why didn’t I see the threat?
Thom felt sick, dizzy, light-headed.
There was no one inside.
