They didn't go looking for a route around.
Will angled them back through the treeline in a wide circle, keeping low. Inside his mind, Khan tracked the boys' positions with effortless precision.
Fifty meters. Bearing left. Don has stopped moving. Curtis hasn't. The information arrived clean and certain—the instincts of a man who had spent his life commanding battlefields.
They came up behind Don from the east.
He heard them at the last second and spun, his hand dropping to a weapon he didn't have. For a split second, his face was pure animal panic. Then he registered who it was, and his expression shifted into something worse.
"I'm sorry," Don said immediately, like he'd been holding the words in his teeth. "He's my brother."
Will looked past him.
Fifty meters down the slope, visible through a gap in the brush, Curtis was walking into the slaver camp. His hands were slightly raised, chin up, projecting the practiced, non-threatening openness of an actor walking into an audition.
Curtis gestured back toward the treeline.
The lieutenant listened without reacting. One of the guards turned, looking exactly where Curtis had pointed.
Curtis kept talking. His hands moved once, then again, smaller the second time.
The lieutenant finally spoke. Two of his men moved. They didn't walk past Curtis toward the trees. They walked toward Curtis.
Curtis's hands dropped.
The lieutenant looked away, dismissing him. The guards grabbed Curtis by the arms and dragged him toward the heavy wheeled cage at the edge of the camp. They popped the lock and shoved him inside with the women and children.
Maddie watched from the brush without blinking. "Idiot," she whispered.
Allison's gaze flicked from the cage to the remaining guards. "Two stay with the cart. Three move," she breathed. "That's their split."
The lieutenant took his remaining two men and turned exactly where Curtis had pointed. Will's direction. He tossed a short command to the guards staying behind, then vanished into the treeline. They moved with the quiet efficiency of hunters who expected to find prey.
Down, Khan ordered, flat and immediate. All of you. Now.
Will was already moving. One hand signal to Maddie and Allison. They dropped into the dense roots and moss, three bodies becoming part of the hillside.
The lieutenant and his two men passed fifteen meters to their left.
Will watched through a gap in the roots. The lieutenant moved well. He hadn't learned to navigate the field post-System; he was trained, experienced, and completely comfortable in the terrain. He scanned the brush with systematic patience.
Then, he stopped.
Will stopped breathing.
The lieutenant stared at the hillside for four full seconds. He looked directly at the patch of undergrowth hiding them.
Then, he looked away. And moved on.
Will waited until their footsteps faded south before letting his lungs work again.
Your Luck, Khan noted quietly, continues to be a theological problem.
They crept back to Don.
He was exactly where they'd left him. He hadn't run. He hadn't hidden. He was just standing in the trees, waiting for a consequence.
He looked at Will, then at the girls. His face was doing several things at once, all of them miserable.
"I told him to stop," Don said. "I told him it was a bad idea. I told him..." He choked on the words. "He's my brother. I didn't know how to stop him."
Maddie looked at him for a long moment, then looked away.
"What use would they have for us anyway," Don muttered. "A bunch of twenty-year-olds. He thought they'd want us. He thought..." He trailed off.
Down in the camp, Curtis sat in the cage with the women and children. He had found a corner, pulled his knees to his chest, and was staring blankly at the dirt.
Will looked at the camp. He looked at the escape route he'd marked in his head. He looked at the chained men on the picket line.
Three options arranged themselves. Leave and survive. Whatever Curtis had told them about Will and a powerful artifact would eventually go stale. Probably. Option two: go in now. Five armed, coordinated men against Will's rusted rebar, Maddie's raw [Strength] stat, and Allison's sharp eyes. Option three: follow them. Find out what the harvest was for, and who had ordered it.
The blue interface suddenly flickered to life in the center of his vision. The text didn't scroll; it locked into place with a sharp digital chime.
[DYNAMIC QUEST TRIGGERED: The Wolf's First Bite]
[Description: The bloodline of the Conqueror does not flee from thieves. It claims what it wants and subjugates the rest.]
[Objective: Dismantle the slaver vanguard.]
[Bonus Objective: Leave no survivors among the captors.]
[Reward: +1000 EXP, Bloodline Resonance (+5%)]
[Penalty for Refusal: Cowardice Debuff (-50% All Stats for 24 hours), Khan's Disappointment.]
Will stared at the floating blue text.
Khan's disappointment? Will asked internally. Are you writing these?
I am not, Khan replied, sounding immensely pleased. But I find I am growing very fond of this System. It has excellent priorities.
Will rubbed his face. A fifty percent stat reduction meant dying to the next mutated coyote they tripped over. The System wasn't offering a choice. It was holding a gun to his head and calling it an opportunity.
Maddie was watching him. Ready.
Allison was tracking the camp, measuring exits and distances, waiting to see which problem he chose to solve.
Don was just watching him, knowing he had forfeited the right to an opinion.
Well, Khan murmured, with the patience of a man who had made this exact decision a thousand times. What kind of Khan are you going to be?
Will looked at the cage.
At Curtis behind the bars.
At the chained men on the line.
And then at the treeline where the lieutenant had disappeared.