Darion's heart rate jumped.
He stood completely still and looked at the man behind the tree.
His first thought was that he had believed everyone was inside.
He had examined the barracks before starting and had seen the guards at their posts, the night watch doing their rotations in and out of the building.
He had tracked the exterior guards through the perspective glass for an hour and accounted for all of them.
There had been no one moving in the treeline, no one between the barracks and the tree line, nothing to suggest anyone was out here.
And yet here was a man with a full beard like a viking warrior, pressed against a tree fifteen feet away, staring at him.
Darion hadn't expected that he would be caught. He had just expected to climb down from the tree, find his horse and zoom off to Percvale.
He hadn't known that someone had been watching him.
How long had he been there, he thought.
