Brand new day

Shayn yawned and stretched, ready to get up and face another day. One without burned food in it. That was something to look forward to, certainly. 

And they were almost to their destination, where he could be proven right and rub his superiority in that smug Walter's face. 

There was no possible way he and Kyler had messed up. Certainly not on the scale of the discrepancy between the maps. Walter was clearly the one in the wrong, though Shayn hadn't said so lately. 

Walter was already up and had probably headed straight into the woods before dawn, as was his custom. The old man didn't have the strongest bladder in the world. He was a grump, and it wasn't worth arguing with him over the map issue until they got there and could make him see it for himself. 

Now Simone was different. She was worth arguing with. 

Kyler was slowly stirring, and glanced at his younger brother. 

"What are you thinking about?" He asked.

"Huh?" Shayn blinked at his half-asleep elder sibling. 

"You had sort of a funny smile on your face. I just thought you might be thinking about something funny. Or pretty." He shrugged. 

Shayn considered the other man, debating whether to say anything. Perhaps it was a simple comment, and maybe, just maybe…

"Come on, Kyler. Fess up." He decided to go with his intuition. 

"What?" The elder asked a little too innocently. 

"What's the deal? Why have you been maneuvering to get me around her?" A thought occurred to him. "Did Mayra put you up to this?" 

"She may have threatened me a tiny amount, but I stand by my own thoughts on the subject," Kyler smirked. "You called dibs on the first blonde, and there she was. She's all yours, Brother." 

"Ky…" Shayn warned. 

"Now now, I'm not interfering beyond letting you two have a little more time together than you might otherwise. Have I made any comments in front of her that you can fault me for lately? I'm by far the least irritating member of our family on this kind of thing." 

The younger frowned. "You should be doing nothing at all." 

"Maybe. But I'm comfortable with the low level of minor interference I've engaged in. My conscience is perfectly clear," Kyler began to get dressed and ready for the day. Shayn helped in the usual needed ways with barely a thought about the routine. 

"I'm sure it is," Shayn's upper lip curled in distaste. "You're very convinced of your own virtue." 

"You would be, too, were you as virtuous as I," Kyler smirked. 

"Indeed, I'm sure," The younger rolled his eyes. "Just… quit it, ok?" 

"You don't like her at all? Not even a little?" He reached for his crutches to get ready to leave the tent. "Sparks seem to fly when you two get together." 

"Sparks are signs of fire and destruction, not romance," Shayn countered. 

"Mmm perhaps. Fire run rampant is dangerous, but if you can set it in a fireplace, it heats the whole house quite nicely." Kyler observed. 

Shayn remained silent, staring at his brother for several long moments. Was the man serious? This didn't seem like another way to aggravate him. 

"You really think that spoiled, arrogant, prim librarian and I…?"

"I'm relatively sure of it. I'm not nearly so good at these things as Mayra claims she is. But then, perhaps no one is as good as she claims she is." He chuckled, and Shayn let out a snort. 

"Keep it to yourself, all right? Things are awkward enough without you spreading your infectious matchmaking ways to Victoria." Shayn shook his head. 

"I would never reveal my ways! She lacks my subtlety." Kyler raised his chin with pride, and for that, the younger brother was at least a little grateful. He suddenly felt bad for accusing the man in front of Simone so long ago, true though it turned out to be.

"Although, she's more of Simone's problem than yours, I would say. I'm sure they stay up late talking about your dreamy eyes and the waves of your hair… oh no, that's probably the way you're dreaming about her. My mistake." Kyler winked and left the tent just as Walter ran up, panting. 

"There's no breakfast." He said.

"Simone ruin it again?" Shayn looked around the older man, but saw nothing amiss. Well, he saw nothing at all. 

"They're not there. They're always done cooking when I come back in the morning, but nothing today. I called to their tent to make sure they were all right, not sick or anything, but there was no answer. I got worried enough to peek inside–"

"Really? That's in rather poor taste," Kyler interrupted. 

"They're GONE! Aren't you listening? They're not here!" Walter finished.

The younger men absorbed this information with less panic than the elder had delivered the news. 

"Maybe they went–"

"And wouldn't have made it back by now?" 

"Perhaps they just—"

"Without telling any of us?"

"Did you hear anything in the night?" 

"No, not really, not even the—"

"The horses! Walter, you notice the women were gone, but not the horses??" Shayn demanded. 

"I was slightly more concerned about our human companions than our equine ones, now that you mention it!" The man fumed. 

"What could possibly have happened?" Kyler shook his head and looked around in all directions. 

"I very much doubt they took the horses and ran off in the night with them." Shayn said, running to the wagon and looking inside. The valuables had been looted, the wagon itself stripped of its supplies. "They seem to have left the wagon behind because that surely would have woken us. Why didn't we set a watch?" 

"We never needed to," Kyler said, blinking in horror. "The countryside out here was safe–" 

"For two grown men surveying. Bringing women changed that. We should have known better." Shayn could kick himself. 

"I never had the luxury of setting a watch since I traveled alone," Walter said. "Why didn't the women scream or anything?" 

"It must have been sudden," Shayn reasoned. "They must have caught them already asleep." 

He cut a harsh look at the pond they had decided to camp by. The frogs were particularly musical here, which he had found rather soothing last night, but now cursed the creatures for covering up the noise of the bandits who had taken the women, the horses, and many of their valuables. 

"I'm not fast enough to give chase," Kyler admitted. "Shayn, if you can–"

"I'll see what I can do. Walter, master tracker, you set out that way and see if you can find any tracks, I'll do the same over here and we'll do our best to get the women back." 

A lump formed in his throat, and he gave a sharp whistle. The horse he rode was specially trained to resist unfamiliar riders. Hopefully the beast was able to get away and… he listened, and the sound of hoofbeats met his ears. 

"Excellent," He smiled for the first good news of the morning. 

He grabbed his saddle from where it still lay next to the banked campfire. Apparently his horse had trotted some distance away before they could even get it properly harnessed. 

"Next time, would you make enough noise to wake me?" He shook his head and got his horse saddled and bridled. The gelding stood still, as if in apology for failing to get enough attention. 

He strapped a sword to his side that he had kept in the tent, put a sheathed dagger in his boot, and mounted quickly. 

"You wouldn't happen to have seen which way they went, would you?" Shayn asked. The horse snorted and turned Northeast. 

"There's nothing out that way. We already passed the last village. That's all wilderness," The man mused, then called over his shoulder. "Walter, you keep looking for signs. Whistle three times if you find anything, I'm going to see where the horse takes me and hope it's the right direction. If I don't find anything, I'll be back before noon to regroup for a new plan." 

Touching his heels to the horse's flanks with the reins held loosely, he let the animal take the lead. "Please, help me find them." 

The steed moved into a quick walk, out of the treeline and into open space, towards the distant Northern mountains. That didn't make sense at all. No one lived out there. There was no tree cover for bandits to hide. 

Surely, there was no reason for this to be the correct direction, and yet, he could see the vague imprints of horse tracks here and there in the dirt. 

"Good boy," he patted his mount's neck and spurred him into a trot. How long had passed since they had left? He refused to let himself panic over what could have happened to the women in the minutes or hours since their abduction. 

Even so, the emotions roiled under the surface of his tenuous control. Rage at whoever had taken them. Anger at himself for sleeping through it. Terror at what they were experiencing now. Unease at the thought that something more could be going on behind it all. 

He couldn't let this day end without finding them.