A New View

Bye Bye Latamer

Tobias glanced Sage's way. "You're bleeding."

He brushed at the cut mark on his neck and said. "It's mostly stopped."

That was as much concern as he wished to invest. "Do I know you?"

"I stayed here about six months ago."

"Yeah, I remember. Locked the headmaster out of the orphanage for an entire night, didn't you?"

The grin on his face said everything, I rolled my eyes at Sage but he did not notice. "You have to admit, we ate well that night. For once."

"It's not funny," Tobias scolded. "Maybe we don't eat well most of the time, but it's because there's not a lot of food to go around. You gave out a week's worth of food that night. It was a very long, very hungry week after you left."

Sage's grin faded. I felt a little bad for him because he hadn't known that.

We rode for over an hour through a lonely plain covered in gorse and nettle. Tobias remarked that he found it beautiful in a desolate sort of way. I kept talking with Latamer about his family, his hobbies, and his life. Eventually, it became dark enough that Mott suggested we find a place to stop for the night. took us a ways farther until the vegetation changed and he found a small clearing surrounded by tall willow trees and thick bushes.

"They're hiding us," Sage muttered to me and the other boys.

Roden shook his head back at Sage and said, "It's safer here than out in the open. They're protecting us."

Mott jumped off the wagon and began shouting orders at each of us for what to unload from the wagon and where to put it, mostly blankets and, I hoped, food. Connor told me to follow him. Confused I asked him where we were going

"Somewhere private," he said

He turned to look at me and I felt a hand placed firmly over my mouth and another bring my elbows up behind my back.

"Now Phillipa," Said Conor cooly. "What happens in the next few days will stay private. If you tell anyone you will be killed. And I won't make Cregan take his time. Also who would help your sister, your family, or you? Do you understand Phillipa?"

I nodded so hard that my head might of fallen off. The man behind me let me go and I fell to the floor.

We headed back and I started to help with unpacking. While we worked, Conner stationed himself on a fallen log to peruse a tattered leather-bound book. Every now and then he'd glance up, studying the boys with more than a casual examination, then return to his book.

Cregan got a fire going, and afterward, Mott instructed us to gather around so that Conner could talk to the boys.

"Talk to us?" Sage said. "When do we eat?"

"We eat after the talk," Conner said, closing his book and standing. "Come, boys, sit."

Sage had squeezed onto the edge of a log Roden and Tobias had dragged near the fire. I stayed standing behind the long the boys were sitting on. Latamer squatted on the ground and coughed a little.

Conner coughed too, although his was the kind meant to get our attention. The cough wasn't necessary. We were already watching him.

"I haven't said much as to why I've collected you boys," Conner addressing the boys began. "I'm sure in your heads you've created every sort of speculation, from the likely and plausible to the wild and impossible. What I have in mind is closer to the latter of those."

Tobias sat up straighter.

"I can't deny there's danger with my plan," Conner said. "If we fail, there will be terrible consequences. But if we succeed, the rewards are beyond your imagination."

I wasn't sure about that. But I knew more than Conner did.

"In the end, only one of you can be chosen. I need the boy who proves himself to be the closest fit with my plan. And my plan is very demanding and very specific."

Tobias raised his hand. "Sir, what is your plan?"

"Excellent question, Tobias, but it's also a very secret plan. So what I'd like to do first is offer any of you the chance to leave now. You may leave with no feelings of regret or cowardice. I've been very up-front about both the danger and the rewards. If you don't feel that this is for you, then this is your opportunity to leave."

Roden looked at Sage. He wanted Sage to leave, that was clear. And I hoped Sage wouldn't. Thankfully he kept still.

Latamer raised his hand. Not because he'd been trained to, but because it had worked for Tobias. "Sir, I think I'd like to leave. I'm not fit to compete with these other boys, and frankly, I'm not one to face danger, even for great rewards."

"Certainly you may leave." Conner politely raised a hand toward the wagon. "Why don't you get back in there and I'll have Cregan drive you to the nearest town."

"Tonight?"

"The rest of us have more to discuss tonight, so yes, go right now."

Latamer gave an apologetic smile to us and thanked Conner for understanding. I turned toward the fire knowing what was about to happen, and refusing to look anywhere but at the fire in front of me.

I could hear Sage shifting. Looking for Cregan I assumed when he stood and yelled, "Latamer, stop!" But I knew without looking that the warning only gave Latamer time to turn from climbing into the wagon. I knew what happen at that moment. An arrow whooshed past Sage and pierced Latamer's chest. Latamer yelped like a wounded dog and fell backward on the ground, dead. I saw it all happen without looking and a single tear trickled down my face. Then I turned.

With a furious cry, Sage leapt toward Cregan, who was still partially hidden in the shadows behind us, and tackled him to the ground. Cregan went for the knife at his waist, but one hand still held the bow he'd used to kill Latamer, so Sage got the knife first. With his body crossways over Cregan's, he started to crawl off him, but Mott lunged at him from behind and he collapsed facedown into the dirt. Cregan took a deep breath, then sat up and easily wrested the knife from Sage's hand.

"You killed him," Sage growled.

Conner knelt beside him and lowered himself so that Sage could see his face. His voice was eerily calm. "Latamer was sick, Sage. He wasn't going to get better, and I think he proved a good lesson for the rest of you. Now you can get up and rejoin the other boys, or you can take a wagon ride with Latamer. It's your choice."

Sage thrust his jaw forward and glared at Conner, then finally said, "I suppose Latamer won't be much company now. I'll stay here."

"Excellent decision." Conner clapped a hand on his back as if we were old friends. He nodded at Mott, who let him go, then added, "I'm sure Latamer's death is a shock to you, but it was important for you three to understand the seriousness of what we are doing."

When Sage sat up, his face was wight. Unwisely I looked at latamer and almost threw up. He was lying there by the cart with an arrow sticking or of his chest and fresh crimson blood was seeping through the wound.

"Bury him deep," Conner said.

Still, on the log, Tobias was pale and perfectly still. Roden looked as if he was having trouble breathing.

Conner's smile was a thin line on his face. "Sage, I believe your question earlier was why we had the meeting before we ate. This is why. So we wouldn't waste our food." His eyes passed over to Roden and Tobias. "How about it, then? Does anybody else want to leave?"