Free In All Places (Stripling Warrior) by Misty Moncur Page B

the stakes in tight.”
    What he meant was that our camping there was only for show. Our orders were simply to rest, but waiting for the Lamanites’ reaction to our presence would make resting difficult.
    Still, we had all learned to sleep under difficult circumstances—soaking wet, cold, hungry, hot, dehydrated, frightened. We were prepared. We were prepared to lay siege, we were prepared to retreat if it would lure the enemy out of the gates, and we were prepared to give battle.
    N o one knew how far Helaman’s men would have to retreat if the Lamanites came out to battle or how hard Gideon’s and Teomner’s men would have to fight.
    We set up the tents anyway and prepared a simple evening meal.
    I had truly spent the day being hauled like a sack of provisions on the backs of the men in my unit. When Corban set me down I gingerly tried my ankle, and it felt just fine—a little weak, but not painful. The healing tissue of my javelin wound hurt more than the ankle.
    “It’s hardly fair,” I told him. “Nobody carried you when I hurt your ankle.”
    He laughed. “If you only knew how long every guy in this unit has been dying to get his arms around you.”
    “Really?” I asked, the heat of embarrassment stealing over my cheeks.
    “Well, yeah . I mean, we all know about Zeke and Gid, but Ket, you’re the best thing about this war.”
    I grinned at him. What else could I do?
    “And besides, did you think we didn’t know what you were doing with your rations? We would carry you to the moon if we could.”
    My grin faded. I thought they hadn’t known.
    Corban scratched his ear. “I don’t know if the small amount of food made a difference, but the fact that you did it…” He gave his head a hard shake and didn’t finish.
    I felt myself flush again and stooped to enter the tent Lib and Ethanim had just finished putting up for me.
    Kenai and his men would be moving still, getting a view of the inside of the city. They would need to glean a lot of information from what they could see, and I knew from my spy mission into Antiparah that they weren’t getting their information from a distance. I knew Darius and Jarom would be with Kenai, scouting around the city, and I prayed they would be safe. I also prayed they could bring Captain Helaman the information he needed.
    T he men at Cumeni had not come out to battle, and the men at Manti might not either. Waiting for them to decide could take days or even longer. We were only camped a half an hour’s walk away from the city. Their scouts would report our numbers, and they would know we were easily conquerable.
    I thought I would not be able to rest with the enemy so near, but after the long march, sleep was both necessary and inevitable. Knowing that Kenai and his men had eyes on our enemy put me at ease, enough to close my eyes.
    Before I had even opened them to the dark pre-dawn, I heard Lib at the door of my tent.
    “Get up, Ket. We’re moving out.”
    The Lamanites were already moving. Our scouts had done their job. If we were to have a chance at taking the city, we had to be gone before dawn in order to set the snare.
    We dropped the tents but left them behind when we slipped swiftly and silently into the wilderness behind Gideon and Teomner. Teomner’s scouts had already been out, probably weeks ago, to find the perfect place to hide four hundred men. The whole stratagem depended on it.
    We traveled north for an hour or so. Teomner and his men fell away to the west into a shallow gully covered with thick vegetation. We watched from the road as they hid themselves until Gideon was certain the passing armies would not see them.
    Gideon led us a little farther north, stopping at a place where the east side of the road fell away into a deep ravine.
    He spoke to Seth. “Tell your men to slide to the bottom.” Then he jogged to the rear, presumably to tell Enos the same.
    Most of the men had no trouble sliding down the steep hill, but we all had to shake the