You look upset,” Erick said as we rode out of Libeth only a few minutes later. Beside me, the other thieves were quietly celebrating, counting the number of drinks they could buy with their share of Harlowe’s money. It was disgusting how they already considered it theirs, and how they congratulated me as if I’d done something good.
“Smile,” Erick said. “This is a time to celebrate.”
“He saw my face,” I mumbled.
“Is that all?” Erick’s laugh was crass and made my muscles tense. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. What’s Carthya going to do about us? Nothing! You must know the reputation of their king.”
“Eckbert’s gone. They have a new king now.”
“That’s who I’m talking about. Eckbert’s son. What was his name again?”
“Jaron.”
“That’s right. I don’t know much about him, but from what I hear, we’ll have all the freedom in Carthya that we want.”
For some reason, I couldn’t help but chuckle. “What’s wrong with Jaron?”
“They say he’s wild and reckless, always has been. Everyone knows he was missing for a long time, but now he’s come back to rule. What could a boy with that history possibly know about ruling an entire country?”
“Probably not much.” I knew just enough to understand that I’d already made plenty of mistakes. Riding here with Erick right now was undoubtedly the biggest of them all.
“Exactly.” Erick chuckled. “But all we care about is that our own stupid Avenian king can deny knowledge of what we do.”
“Does he know?”
“If he does, we’re too small for him to care. When he wants something done without getting his own hands dirty, he’ll use the pirates.”
Which Vargan himself had all but admitted. Avenia wanted my land. The pirates wanted my life. They were a natural team.
Erick didn’t seem to notice my distress. Beside me, he chuckled to himself, then said, “Vargan’s main target is Carthya. You should know that if he finds out you’re a pirate, he might use your knowledge of Carthya to help him destroy it.”
Yes, that I knew.
Getting little response from me, Erick rode forward to tell the others more details about what had happened inside Harlowe’s home. He even pulled out the pocket watch to show them, then tucked it back inside his shirt without the slightest care for its real value. I couldn’t understand why Harlowe had given it up so easily and cursed myself for not keeping control of it.
We were almost back to our camp when my irritation turned to sudden anxiety. As we approached the ridge of a hill, we saw at least a dozen horses standing across the road, much farther down, blocking our passage. With one look at who was astride the horses, I knew I was in serious trouble.
I halted Mystic and said to a pockmarked thief beside me, “Are those King Vargan’s men?”
He squinted to see better, then frowned. “Looks that way. I suppose the good king has decided it’s time to collect taxes again.”
Erick was already riding toward us. “Everyone, back up your horses.”
We obeyed until we were protected from the soldiers’ sight. Then Erick gathered us closer and pulled from his saddlebag the sack of coins I had stolen from Harlowe. “Everyone take a share and hide it wherever you can,” he said. “In your boots or beneath your saddles, or wherever. Hurry!”
“Let’s just go another way,” I said, barely able to hide the concern in my voice. “Or wait until they’re gone.”
The thief nearest me laughed. “Sage doesn’t know the king’s tricks.”
I emphatically disagreed. I probably knew his tricks better than anyone here and had far more to lose than a handful of garlins. I absolutely could not go forward and risk any encounter with Vargan’s soldiers.
“They’ve probably already spotted us,” Erick said. “If we don’t go riding down that hill soon, they’ll come after us and make things much worse.”
For my part, I couldn’t see how things could get any worse.
Sensing my despair, Erick said, “We worked hard last night, and I know it bothers you to lose the coins. I hate this too, but we can’t avoid it. Now take some handfuls and let’s hope we get through with at least something left to us.”
I dreaded the thought of going forward. But equally risky was that if I abandoned Erick now, I’d lose any hope of getting to the pirates. Erick held out his saddlebag again, and when I reached into it, I noticed some rags beneath the coins and asked what they were for.
Erick shrugged. “In case one of my thieves is injured while we’re away from camp.”
I reached in again and withdrew the rags, then began unrolling them to their full length.
“The tax is the same whether or not you’re injured,” Erick protested. “Besides, there’s dried blood on them from the last time they were used.”
“Even better.” I began wrapping the bandages around my head, covering one eye and cheek and all of my hair. I made sure the part with the blood landed directly over my eye.
“Take that off,” Erick said. “You look ridiculous.”
“I look injured, which is completely different.” I ripped off an end of the fabric, then stuffed it in my mouth, between my cheek and gums. I hoped it gave me the look of having my cheek swollen. “There, now I look ridiculous,” I said.
Erick cursed under his breath, then told his men to stay relaxed and perhaps everyone could get through the barrier untouched.
The soldiers sat at attention when they saw us coming and commanded us to halt and dismount. I kept my head down and slid off Mystic, then backed into the group of seven or eight thieves.
“We’ve got nothing of value,” Erick said to the soldiers. “We’re just trying to get back to our camp.”
The soldier nearest Erick harrumphed, then ordered us to line up and lay any weapons we might be carrying on the ground. I was reluctant to move, but the men around me were already forming into a line. I stood beside Erick, and he motioned that I should set down my knife. I did, but put a toe of my boot over it, at least to keep that bit of control if a fight started. Not that it would help much. There were many more soldiers than us, and all of them better armed. Maybe I’d need these bandages after all.
The soldiers began by searching Erick. They immediately found Harlowe’s pocket watch and tossed it onto a cloth on the ground. Then they dug into his saddlebag and found the coins the rest of us had not divided. With that discovery, a soldier struck Erick hard across the jaw, knocking him to the ground.
“You would lie to your king?” the soldier said.
“I lied to you.” Erick groaned a little and wiped blood from his lip. “You have no right to our property.”
“But I do,” a voice said.
I quickly turned, then immediately buried my chin to my chest. King Vargan emerged from a carriage that was stopped in the shade of some tall trees. With my head down, I hadn’t paid much attention to it before, but now that I looked, it was clearly the same carriage he had taken to my father’s funeral.
Vargan stepped forward and surveyed us. The other men went to their knees, but I turned away from him to help Erick off the ground. If Vargan noticed that I hadn’t knelt, he let it go. Instead he said, “A glorious day is coming for Avenia. Soon, my friends, we will be more than a great country. We will be an empire.”
I gritted my teeth. He intended to achieve his glory on the backs of my people — and with the help of the pirates. Unless I found a way to stop them.
“Throw down your coins now, and there will be no punishment for attempting to hide them from me,” Vargan continued. “Then be grateful that you were given this opportunity to contribute to Avenia’s greatness.”
The men around me quietly grumbled, but their king was in front of them now, and nothing they said would matter in the face of his greed. They withdrew the coins from wherever they had been hidden and dropped them on the cloth. Much as it infuriated me to use Harlowe’s wealth to benefit my enemy country, I handed over my coins too. The last thing I needed was to draw Vargan’s attention my way.
Vargan surveyed the collection of wealth on the ground, then stepped over it to look us over. Luckily, all the men had their heads down as I did, so other than the bandages, we all looked the same.
“I have more good news.” Vargan’s tone mocked us. Whatever he was about to say, we all knew it would be anything but good news. “In addition to these taxes, I am also looking for men to join my army. You’re nothing but thieves now, mere rodents. But you can come with me today and I will make you into heroes.”
I nearly laughed at that. In what way was attacking a peaceful neighboring country heroic? He degraded Erick’s men for being thieves even as he planned to steal all of Carthya from me. My fingers itched to pick up my knife and start the fight. It would’ve meant a certain death sentence for all of us — a definite disadvantage — but a part of me wanted Vargan to know I was here.
Vargan pointed to the man on the other side of Erick. “He will volunteer. Take him.”
The thief was a large and muscular man who had only twenty minutes earlier promised a round of ale to everyone in celebration of what I had stolen from Harlowe. He backed away from the soldiers, but they grabbed him and at knifepoint dragged him into the back of a wagon beside the king’s carriage. Vargan then pointed out two other men, one who I thought seemed like a close friend of Erick’s, and another, quieter man whom I’d barely paid attention to since I came to the thieves. He went without complaint, but Erick’s friend shouted, “I won’t fight!” He drew a knife from a pocket, but the soldiers were quicker and instantly had six swords on him. Both men were deposited into the back of the wagon, then a barred door was shut, locking them in.
It was no wonder that Avenia’s armies were so much larger than mine. If this was Vargan’s method of recruiting soldiers, then he could have as large an army as he wanted.
“You will fight,” Vargan sneered, then gestured at the rest of us. “You all will.” To his currish soldiers, he waved a hand and added, “Take everyone. For what’s coming, we’ll need every man we can get.”
With their swords drawn, soldiers immediately began to direct us toward the wagon, but I held my place. Beside me, Erick wasn’t moving either, and his fists were clenched so tightly I knew he was debating whether it was worth trying to resist. A soldier answered that question a moment later when he stopped beside Erick, then whacked him across the back of his knees with the blunt edge of his sword. With a grunt, Erick collapsed to the ground. I was struck next, and the force of it jarred my muscles enough to send me down beside Erick. Soldiers grabbed Erick’s arms and began dragging him toward the wagon. Another few went for me, but I had my knife in hand by then. However, Vargan told his soldiers to wait a moment and walked up to me.
“You’ve been injured.”
Without looking up, I shook my head.
“Stand up, boy.”
I did, but would not meet his eyes. He studied me for what seemed like hours. I was certain he must recognize me. It was true that when we’d last met it had been dark, and I was far dirtier now. Yet I felt so obvious here, as if the bandages called even greater attention to the fact that I was trying to hide my identity from him.
But it wasn’t that. In fact, the bandages may have had just the opposite effect, distracting him from looking at my face at all. He stared at them, trying to figure out why they were there.
“If it’s not an injury, then what are these wrappings for?” he asked.
Other than a mediocre attempt at disguise? I smiled at him, which hopefully looked pretty grotesque considering the ball of cloth still stuffed between my cheek and gums. In a hiss of a whisper, I said, “Plague wounds.”
Which was all that needed to be said. In whatever way the plague traveled from one person to the next, we all knew the hazards of being near someone so diseased.
Vargan nearly leapt away, and for better effect I groaned and raised a hand toward him. The way he twisted to get away from me would surely increase any back pain he had felt before. At least, I hoped it did.
“There’s plague with these men!” Vargan shouted. “Release them all!”
The soldiers dropped Erick as if he burned their hands and emptied the wagon almost faster than I could blink. They rushed their king into his carriage nearly as quickly. Within seconds, he and his military escort had left us behind in the dust of the horses’ hooves.
The men let out a cheer as I unpeeled the bandages, but Erick only stared at me as if I’d done something wrong. He finally folded his arms and said, “You owe me an explanation.”
That was probably true. But he wasn’t getting one. I only said, “If I hadn’t done that, we’d all be waking up tomorrow as Avenian soldiers.”
“Maybe so. But that’s not why you did it.”
“I did it because someone here had to have a plan.” With that, I replaced my knife in its sheath and began walking over to Mystic. I climbed astride and without looking back, continued on the trail to the thieves’ camp. The other men followed my lead, and after another minute, I noticed Erick had taken up the rear on the trail, the stolen coins jangling again in his saddlebag. Only when we had left that area of the road did I allow myself to breathe freely again.
It was late morning when we returned to the camp. Fried eggs and biscuits were prepared, and I forced them down only because one of the men I had saved from recruitment — the pockmarked thief — insisted on it. Fink sat beside me, full of questions about our adventures away from camp, and disappointed because I didn’t answer any of them. His rat was back on his shoulder, eyeing my breakfast.
“You’re family now,” he said. “That’s what the men are saying.”
“I have no family.” And if I did, they wouldn’t be thieves.
Fink only chuckled at whatever thought was breezing through his brain. “Told the king you had the plague? Ha! When I’m your age I’ll be just like you.”
“Go away,” I growled. “You don’t want to be anything like me.”
He was unconvinced, and continued to eat his meal by my side. After I’d finished, he pointed to a bedroll near some tents. “Erick said if you’re tired, you can sleep there. I’m supposed to keep watch on you.”
“I thought I was family.”
He shrugged. “Erick just wants to make sure you’re not the kind of family who runs when we’re not looking.”
“I’m not going to run, Fink.”
“I know. But I’m supposed to watch you anyway.”
True to his word, Fink parked himself on the ground with a direct view of my bedroll. I lay down and closed my eyes but sleep was impossible. After a short while, it must have looked like I was asleep because Erick approached Fink and whispered, “What do you make of him?”
There was a brief hesitation, then Fink said, “He’s no ordinary thief, not like any of us.”
“I agree. He didn’t want Vargan to see his face. Why do you think that is?”
“Dunno. You said he’d be more open with me, because we’re both young. But he doesn’t act young. And he doesn’t tell me anything.”
“He’s probably seen a lot in his life, and learned to keep his secrets. But you were right — he is a good thief. Which means he must have some very interesting secrets. Keep an eye on him until I figure out what he really wants. I don’t think he cares a devil’s inch for the treasure inside that cave.”
In fact, I cared plenty about it. Most of the wealth of Carthya was stored there. I’d let the pirates kill me before I told them where it was.
There was a backup plan. Before I left Drylliad, I’d asked Kerwyn to order extra soldiers to guard the cave. If I failed, I wanted to make sure nobody would get at Carthya’s wealth. But if everything went well, my plan would be complete long before it came to having to reveal that location.
I finally drifted off to sleep, with a pit in my stomach reminding me that since the night of the funeral, nothing had gone well for me.
