Easy Pickings

H. Earl Wilkinson

Two brilliant suns blazed golden heat down on my head, almost as hot as the heat radiating from the burning back door of the Wailing Woman Inn. I knew I should run straight for the caravans and make my escape, but I just had to know how much gold I had lifted from the old men first.

My old teacher Meize would have thrown his hands up in disgust, wheezing about how a greedy thief never lived to spend their take.

This time, though, he would've been wrong. Greed had nothing to do with it, nor did a lingering sense of guilt. Those plainsmen back at the inn had deserved what they got, turning a blind eye to my suffering. So what if the brawl I had started between the ex-warrior drunkard and the crippled wizard had started the blaze?

I didn’t care. The wizard and warrior’s coin pouches would ensure my passage home after two years of daily abuse and exile.

Still, the screams and shouts from those trapped inside the inn broke my focus. Angry voices on the inn’s far side called for water and dirt teams to form. Someone shouted that the street might go up if the fire claimed the tannery.

I clenched the two coin pouches resting on my knees hard enough to hurt. Best to wrap this up and leave. It would be awkward indeed if the inn owner returned now or if a survivor remembered my role in the blaze.

Besides, the old warrior and wizard were with the gods now and beyond anyone's aid.

Adando's pouch, strangely enough, proved the heavier and was made of a fine leather which begged to be stroked. I was surprised. The threadbare wizard hadn't looked wealthy enough to carry this. Perhaps his coin would be less disappointing than his magical performance in the brawl.

Slicing the knotted drawstring with my belt knife, I yanked the pouch’s mouth open. Cloying rotten-egg stench gushed out of the bag, pouring into my face. I lost my knife as I doubled over, blinded and gagging, but I still managed to stow the other pouch into my skirt’s waist pocket. A girl had to cut her losses, after all.

Something huge and soft hit the ground beside me with a thump.

“Rotten wizard’s tricks,” a familiar voice hacked out through the smoke. After a year of serving that fool Rendev beer, I’d know that voice anywhere. “Once I figure which way’s up … I’ll fight you ….” The sound degenerated into dry heaving.

A strangled gasp followed. “Some warrior you are, you stupid, fat cow! She’s here and we agreed to a truce until we get her!”

The smoke cleared and revealed Rendev and Adando sprawled across each other in a tangle of limbs, stained leathers, and threadbare blue robes, obviously at the height of their dignity. Overbalanced by his massive blacksteel sword, the warrior kept rolling over but couldn’t quite make it all the way off of the red-faced wizard, who was gasping like a fish under the weight.

I slammed my balled fists into my thighs, aghast at this unbelievable sight. The little luck gods didn’t favor anyone this much! “Elder gods and the seven greater demons forefend. You buffoons should be dead!”

A tiny part of me, though, was relieved to see that the only two decent men from the inn had survived. I told it to go jump in a privy.

On his feet now, Rendev stumbled towards me. I was too busy staring at the bulging fat rolling over his leather belt to recognize the danger until my wrist was lost in his massive pasty hand. Damn. He pulled me in close, forcing me to look him in the eyes.

His ancient blue eyes, clear of alcohol for once, radiated pure rage from his wrinkled, weathered face. My eyes flicked to the sword across his back and then over to Adando’s thin, poised fingers. His chicken-legs, thank the little luck gods, were covered once again by his robes. These men might be pathetic and decades past their prime, but they still had teeth enough left to tear me to pieces.

My curiosity was going to kill me yet. I should have run the instant they appeared.

“Dead, my dear Lleciena?” Rendev snarled. “Theft I had expected, but putting the entire street at risk with the fire from your pet brawl? You have some explaining to do.”

“As do you, Master Adando. I travel weeks to make a private trade meeting with you, only to discover that you’ve run out the back to escape me with the lowest of riffraff in tow?” a bass voice growled from behind me, radiating stern confidence and every expectation of obedience. “How dare you offer such disrespectful treatment towards an emissary of the Great Nation of Deep Machines and Delvings!”

Rendev stiffened, dropped my wrist, and started reaching back for his sword.

My spirits sank into my sandals. So I'd jumped out of the frying pan only to land in the fire. Complications were never good in confined spaces like alleys. Who was this stranger to horrify the old wizard and warrior so?

If I survived this, I would make one massive appeasement offering to the little luck gods. I'd find the incense and flowers even in this uncivilized land for the occasion. Taking a deep breath, I turned around.

Four sweating, leering mercenaries filled the alley behind me with their dull chain mail, broad shoulders, and high-collared green cloaks. Only Erontes company would be so loyal to each other and coin to wear that sweltering gear in this heat. For some strange reason, they stood clustered together and strained to hold up something between them on heavy poles. It would only take moments, however, for them to drop the poles, draw their swords, and cut me down...assuming the wizard and warrior didn’t do it first.

I gave the mercenaries my best, sweetest smile, wondering how I was going to get out of this alive. Meize would have laughed his head off. This mess was my fault. I'd lingered here, caught between greed and guilt over those fools I'd consigned to the far, and made myself an easy target for everyone.

A horrible shriek from my left, muted by a thin wall and the crackling of flames, snapped me from my regrets. Of course, the nags trapped in the burning shanty barn next to the main inn were screaming in fright. I swallowed hard. I knew how they felt.

“Let me down from here, you overgrown muscle-heads! I shall deal with them myself!” The voice came from behind the front row of mercs.

The Erontes men smashed their faces up against the alley walls, revealing a gem-encrusted sedan chair holding the tiniest of men. He looked like a child’s doll complete with a hat, high-collared coat, and miniature chain mail. Jumping down, he strutted forward with his nose up in the air. The little twit didn’t even come up to my waist!

“You may look upon the Gnomish Negotiator, girl,” the tiny man declared, twirling a strange black pouch in his left hand as he made this announcement.

I snickered. “Sorry, didn’t see you there, little boy.”

“Boy? I am Napolisha the Great, gnomish negotiator extraordinaire!” The “gnome” glared up at me, ruddy-faced. His bulging eyeballs looked like they might explode in their sockets. “If you grovel now, I will contemplate sparing your life.”

My snickers became full-fledged laughter. I’d heard of gnomes in tales … along with quite a few other legendary beings like dwarves, elves, mermaids, water-horses, selkie, and changlings which I didn’t believe in either. This little man was insane. Was I supposed to believe he was a character from my childhood stories come to life?

Napolisha began bouncing and swearing as his face grew more and more red, the spittle flying. The little madman finally threw the pouch he had been twirling in his hand against the weaver shop wall.

“You tall-folk will learn to respect the majesty of the gnomish kind!” He pulled a huge hammer off of a back harness and swung it up over his head in a two-handed grip. I snickered when the weight threatened to knock him backwards. “Gnomish power will rule the plains!”

Humorous or not, that hammer could crush me if he managed to swing it the right way and I was not dying, now or ever, at the hands of a maniacal midget. Nor was I letting more potential gold slip through my hands! Snaking my right foot out, I hooked it around the crate remains I’d been sitting on. Waiting for that weapon to begin its downward swing took forever. Just what was Napolisha trying to compensate for, given the size of that ram-shaped hammerhead?

I yanked the crate between us just as he committed his hammer to its downward arc. The weapon did an admirable job of smashing through the crate. Dragged along by his momentum, the gnome tumbled into the crate head-first.

Napolisha’s booted feet were wiggling upside down in the air, but his muffled roar rang throughout the alley. “Capture those three so I can skin them alive!”

“So sorry, but I’ve an urgent meeting with the rest of my life!” I countered. Darting forward, I grabbed the gnome's discarded pouch and spun on my heel back towards Adando. The old men was leaning against a wall, muttering under his breath. Was it too much to hope for a spell from him?

Then it dawned. Rendev was already gone? Well, good for him. Perhaps he’d had more sense than me and the wizard and already run for it.

Thunk-Thunk-Crunch! Shrieks of horses and the heavy dankness of burning dung and rotten wood rolled over me from my left. This time, the sounds were sharp and true without the muffle of a wooden wall between us. Was that the warrior over there, chopping an escape route for the horses? That was impossible. Not even Rendev was stupid enough to use fire-crazed horses as a distraction.

I broke out in a cold sweat despite the heat. That old man's foolishness stood a good chance of killing us all. Nothing turned a fire-crazed horse! The cursing, advancing mercs vanished from my considerations.

“Let’s go!” bellowed Rendev. He shoved his way past me in his best approximation of a run. His sword, which he dragged behind him in the dust, was as long as my arm..

I knew only a real idiot would waste time turning around right now...but the urge to see was just too strong. Expecting a broken, burning shanty wall and horses bursting through it to escape the fire was one thing. Staring down a fifteen-hand nag with white-rimmed eyes galloping straight for me in a blaze of heat and sparks was something else.

I shut my mouth, spun on a heel, and ran for it. You have to live, girl, I ordered myself, so I can kill Rendev if the horses don’t!

Sprinting for my life, I cursed the day I had first decided that the former warrior and ex-hero was the perfect, easy mark. Multiple equine screams and accompanying pounding hoofs followed me down the alley, but I also heard a voice bellowing, “I am the Gnomish Negoti – faster, you fools, they’re gaining!” going in the other direction.

So the horses had spilled out both directions into the alley. At least the gnome might get trampled down to his true size. It almost made this nightmare worthwhile.

A moment later, the most unlikely voice in the world came from above me. “Give me Napolisha’s pouch and we’ll call it even?” Adando suggested.

I screamed and stumbled. After the horses appeared, I’d clean forgotten about the old wizard. But, he was lame from a ghoul attack decades ago, according to his stories back at the inn. Adando ought to have been trampled in the first ten seconds of the stampede and been out of my hair for good by now.

I needed to say focused on the one door always open in this alley. The bakery never locked or even closed their back door so they could coax the slightest bit of moving air into their kitchens. It was a mere twenty feet away, swaying in the slight breeze at my back.

Keeping one’s eyes on the prize, Meize had always told me, meant the difference between life and death.

Twenty feet melted away in fifteen. I might make it!

Why was the wizard still alive? My curiosity finally defeated my common sense and I looked up and over my shoulder. Had he cast a spell earlier? Had it saved him?

Adando was six feet aloft, just above my head level, and sat cross-legged on a silvery disc which zoomed through the air. The old man was a lot better off right now than I was! His green eyes met mine and gleamed with dark amusement at my plight. This old man wasn’t foolish or broken anymore as I'd seen him at the inn. Interesting.

That glimpse behind me, however, revealed Rendev and his blacksteel sword. This old fool's “heroics” back there had gotten him in real trouble. Grunting and huffing red-faced, he was loosing ground faster every moment to the oncoming horses. The alley widened before it reached the Foreigner’s Road which gave the beasts more room to run.

Focusing ahead again, I saw that I had reached the precious inn door. A pox on the fool wizard. He could fly right over our new four-legged friends and make his own getaway. I grabbed the door's iron knob with both hands and spun on it to stop myself.

I just needed to jump inside the bakery and close the door. That would ensure my escape from the warrior, the wizard, Napolisha, and the stampeding horses. The only cost would be Rendev's life. Local rumor held that he had been a hero not so many years ago. The Wyvern Knight, the Fanged One, had fallen victim to the undead and been withered into his current aged body decades before his time.

When the old warrior had freed those horses, had he been trying to save himself from Napolisha....or me?

I was glad Meize couldn't see me now. At the thought of Rendev dying, something inside me bent for the first time since I was young. What was one more mistake today, after all the others I'd made? I turned and ran back to help the warrior.

The sweating horses were barely ten feet from him. I’d never appreciated how big horses were...thick, powerful shoulders, huge teeth, with hooves like steel ingots.

I put my hands over Rendev’s and helped him pull the sword along without saying a word. I understood why he risked all for it. His sword was his last connection to his glory days, just as my memories of the coup and my vow of revenge were all I had left.

The bakery doors drew closer and closer. Was that Rendev’s breath on my cheek or that of the grey mare leading the chargers?

The old warrior and I fell together inside the bakery door in an inglorious heap, his sword on the ground side us. I spent a long moment gulping precious air at the feet at one of the bakers who was busy yelling something about “what was going on?” and “are you trying to get us killed?” Outside, I heard the horses gallop past the open door. The alley's width must have made it a more attractive place to run than over us.

Besides, I had survived the impossible so why should I care what fool baker thought? I still had Rendev's and Napolisha's pouches. Once I got to the caravan masters, I’d buy passage with their coin and shake this city’s dust from my sandals forever.

Then I felt the warrior’s hand sliding down my hip and his leg pulling out from between mine. He might have been trying to extricate himself so he could stand up. Maybe.

I planted both hands on his chest and shoved the dirty old man away, hard. How could I ever have thought him a former hero?

“Oh, it’s Rendev, is it? Take your foreign whore outside now! We aren’t a place for trysts!” Two browned men clad in green short leggings and nothing else heaved the old man to his feet. One on each arm, they escorted him past the flour-splattered tables and the open oven mouth towards the selling room in the front and the main street.

I glared daggers into Rendev’s back as I followed them, having no where else to go. The bakers could throw the warrior back out into the alley for all I cared. Foreign whore indeed! The local women thought they knew what happened at the inn and made their opinions plain to the rest of the town. I refused to care about their hateful rumors, but having two smirking bakers in your face was another matter indeed. I yearned to beat some respect into them.

I’d been on the edge of power in my home-city before the coup. That made my current helpless in the face of their shameful words cut all the deeper. As the plainsmen said, the higher the sun, the further the fall.

I followed right behind them, feeling my face redden just like the ovens.

The whispering and muttering started in the selling room, just as I knew it would. The women in the red and orange wrap-skirts clutched their children close, pointing at the ‘drunken fool and his foreign whore.’ Since everyone focused on Rendev, I took a chance and tucked two small goat pasties into my skirt’s back pouch. They’d be a little greasy, but goodness knew were dinner was coming from today.

Rendev stumbled out first onto the street. Goodbye and good riddance.

The fresh air, as I took my first free steps outside of the bakery, was wonderful. Now that I'd gotten rid of my problems I could see about making my getaway from this town!

Two steps later the door, a rapier materialized across my throat from the right. Freezing, I eased just my head over to see a man with tedious symmetrical features and flat brown skin grinning back at me.

My heart pounded against my ribs. I’d expected Bronn, the owner’s pet assassin and godforsaken poet, in about three hours or so when the owner figured out who had burned down his inn. How had the moron known to appear now, within the first half-hour?

“Bronn, by the Sly One’s fingers, what are you doing?” I did my best to keep the question respectful. This wasn't the right position to be making demands. What had I done to anger the little luck gods so? It wasn't as though they had temples to visit every few blocks out here in the plains!

“Bringer of doom and tribulation dire, you shall now suffer for starting that fire!” His flat, expressionless tone grated through my brain almost like a different sort of rapier.

Not only did he know what I’d done, he was going to make me listen to his bad poetry first? Everyone knew Bronn was the inn owner's pet killer, but I had no idea that he was this much of a sadist. Death was bad enough. His sorry excuse for poetry could only make it worse. Much verse. Argh, now I was doing it too!

There was only one card for me to play with him having the upper hand like this. I’d almost prefer the rapier’s kiss. “Wait, Bronn. It wasn’t me. It’s not my fault. How can you do this to me? I never missed one of your recitation nights at the inn.” Unlike the patrons, I hadn’t had the option of running for it.

In answer, Bronn grabbed my bicep, moved his blade aside, and then twirled me into his arms. His touch, when he replaced the rapier across my throat, was almost tender. “I know, my dear, dark beauty,” he breathed, “but we were across the street and spoke with the Yaris brothers when they escaped the fire. I promise I’ll give you a fine performance before I satisfy the inn owner’s contract on you. It’s the least I can do for a devoted fan.”

The inn owner and his pet poet-killer had been visiting the nearby brothel when the fire had broken out? I was dumbfounded. How much worse could my luck get?

A sudden male growl caught my attention. Rendev was glaring up at us from the street just below the bakery’s porch. What was he still doing here? Was he trying to get his coin pouch back?

Something in his worried eyes told me gold was his least concern right now. But, what good could a flabby, decrepit warrior do me? At least he hadn't tried to raise his sword yet. Maybe he had finally figured out that he was only a danger to himself these days.

A sudden knee in the backside brought me returned me to more immediate concerns. Bronn never had liked to share the stage. “And so fair beauty learns of gloom as she marches to sure doom!” he growled in my ear.

His strong grip and firm weapon made it clear to me that I'd find no easy escape here like I had with Napolisha. Fifteen minutes later, and I'd give anything to have those killer horses back. The gods had a strange sense of humor.

Bronn forced me forward two steps.

Cold sweat broke out on my face. All he had to do was march me into the nearest alley and run me through with that steel. It wasn’t considered polite to kill people in broad daylight even in the poorest sections of the town of Azonuli’s Heart.

Rendev finally stepped aside when Bronn and I reached him, muttering curses about “bastards who touch unarmed women.”

Sorry, old man, you can’t save me this time.

I scanned the street, desperate for anything or anyone to use as a distraction. Women with children and babes in tow, young men in knots, old-timers milling about, all sharing a studied and prudent disinterest in us … .and a certain quartet of Erontes mercenaries jogging our way with a tiny man in a sedan chair between them.

I bit my lip, hard, against the urge to kick the dusty street in frustration. Napolisha and his flunkies should have been bloody pulp under the horses' hooves by now! Well, if they wanted my hide, they’d have to wait until Bronn was done putting holes in it.

Rendev sounded like was fighting back laughter! “You ought to look up, young man.”

I heard Bronn snarl behind me and inhale. “Drunken wretch out on the street ….”

Porcelain shattered just behind my head and something soft plopped across my shoulders. Startled, I jumped forward without thinking to escape. Bronn’s rapier had lowered at the noise, but I still caught my arm on it, leaving a sharp throbbing in its wake.

“ … By the First Wand, you really are an idiot!” Adando’s voice grumbled from overhead, finishing the killer's wretched verse.

Rendev pulled me clear of Bronn and introduced the staggering bastard to one of his big, pasty fists. The sight of him punching the poet-killer was beautiful. I barely felt the bits of broken flower pot biting through my sandals.

“You’re hurt,” he rumbled, pulling me closer. His eyes softened and the lines in his fleshy face deepened in obvious concern.

I hesitated. Somehow, his pathetic physical state made his care and sympathy so genuine that even I was tempted to accept it. My past life had taught me, however, time and again, that trust was the same as climbing the stage for the Last Jump.

Adando, still on his silvery disc, flew down until he was a mere three feet off of the ground. “Look, Lleciena, I just saved your life. Give me that pouch you picked up in the alley and we’ll call it even?”

The moment broken, I stared at the old wizard. Twice now, when he could have done the sensible thing and flown off for his life, he had come back for Napolisha’s pouch. What was so important about it?

“Cut the little disrespectful whore and her followers down to size!” came Napolisha’s furious cry from down the street.

I choked back crazy laughter. Well, at least he knew who was in charge around here.

“Come on! We’re leaving!” I turned on a heel and shoved a teenage boy out of my way. That boy, who had been about to get in my face about it, spotted Rendev and ran the opposite direction.

Perhaps big, meaty escorts had their high points after all. As I started my sprint, Adando zoomed down close to me, grumbling about foolish southern women. I started to dart around a clutch of old women who had been clucking to each other at a vegetable stand. The trio caught one glimpse of Adando, made the sign against evil, and hurried away.

I kept running straight ahead, grinning. It looked like the scrawny wizard had his uses in clearing my path, too, until his disc spell dissipated.

I led the wizard and warrior on a merry sprint down the Foreigner’s Road, through stores, behind the outlying peddlers’ stands, and even over a few wagons. Napolisha and his flunkies showed no signs of slowing, however, and screamed every step along the way. The angry people we left in our wake were our greatest ally since they clumped together into muttering crowds and slowed our pursuers.

It helped that streets were crowded this late summer season. The Sunheart Festival had pulled people of every class into the city from surrounding farms, mines, and villages, and I meant to follow the traffic flow right into the massive yellow tent-city now erected at the town center. There, I should be able to loose Napolisha and Bronn but....I would be the only one to escape.

The old warrior and wizard would be left to their own devices. That was how it should be, right?

Adando seemed quite capable of taking caring of himself in a bind, but I knew local political well-enough to realize that Rendev wouldn't make it if I left him behind. His family considered him a liability, a waste whose one useful commodity of fame had been used up a long time ago. Napolisha would bribe the watch, Rendev’s family would not, and that would be the end of the old warrior. And that was assuming Bronn didn’t catch up with him first. That poetic pain in the ass wasn’t forgiving of critics of any kind.

Gasping and woozy, I stopped at the edge of the city’s center to survey the place. The massive clumps of carry-baskets, wagons, and oxen immediately drew my eyes, even before the billowing folds of the half-mile wide tent-city. The caravans promised safety, comfort, and sure transport back home, but I had to get rid of my immediate past before I could consider doing anything else.

“Twenty years, before the ghouls' attack, this would've been nothing,” Rendev wheezed, doubled-over with his hands on his knees.

The old man’s face was the color of wine and I wondered if this run would kill him. It was easy to forget that he was only forty years old despite his wizened appearance. Frustration rolled from his words. I understood, only too well. It was a hard thing to remember days of greater strength.

“A little further, old man, and we’ll loose them in the tents,” I gasped, putting a hand on his shoulder. Exile in the plains was changing me in more ways than I cared to think about. When did I start caring whether or not old fools were frustrated?

Adando snorted with irritation. “If you give me that pouch, I’ll invoke the wand and get you out of this mess.”

I flashed back to the brawl and the will-o-wisps he’d conjured with that wand. “No way! That fire started because of your...lousy wand ….” I panted at him. Maybe I was stretching the truth a little, but I didn’t care. After this mess, I refused to give up one of the few valuable things I had managed to acquire today!

Napolisha’s bellow cut right over the pointing, muttering crowd cursing as they shoved their way around us. “Keep going! We’ve almost run the voles to ground! A ten gold bonus to the man who brings me their heads!”

So much for Napolisha’s promise to skin us alive. I led Rendev on a lumbering run through the families and old-timers on day-trips to the big town for the mouth of the billowing tent complex. Adando kept right beside us on his silvery disc, cool and comfortable as could be.

Why couldn’t that wretch do something useful like conjuring discs for all of us to ride on, if he wanted Napolisha’s pouch so badly?

The disc seemed to read my mind. It vanished and dumped Adando on his backside on the ground. Of course, this was right beside the main entrance to the tent-city where six men of the Watch lurked in their blue-hooded half-cloaks and spears.

Great. Now I had an old lame man on my hands and the Watch was getting more interested in us every moment we delayed. I hesitated. I could turn away right now and pretend I didn’t know this irritant. Rendev and I could keep running, assuming he didn’t keel over and die, and leave the wizard to slow down our pursuers.

Adando caught my eye and gave me an evil smile. “But, you want to know why Napolisha’s pouch is so important, don’t you, Lleciena? You’re intelligent enough to know that information is worth more than its weight in gold.”

So Napolisha's pouch didn't contain gold after all. I was torn between frustration and admiration for Adando, who had read me like a book. The wizard couldn’t explain the value of whatever I had stolen if he was dead.

In the end, the decision was easy.

I slipped an arm around Adando’s shoulders to give him support for his bad leg. “Come along, sir, and I’ll help you inside. Grandfather, won’t you lead the way?” I spoke a little too loud for the Watch’s benefit.

Rendev’s snarl at the word ‘grandfather’ was quite gratifying. Make people think me a whore, would he? Let’s see how the shoe fit on the other foot.

Three steps inside the doorway we dropped the pretense of respectability. It would take Napolisha a few minutes to explain his demands and the size of his purse to the Watch.

“Go ahead and draw your sword.” I couldn’t believe I was saying it, but our pursuers were too close. We needed more distance right now. “Cut your way through the walls.”

Rendev obliged me and drew his blacksteel weapon. Everyone within ten feet of the former warrior screamed and ran when they saw the size of his sword. I smiled, imaging what Napolisha's jealous reaction might be.

Speed and confusion then became our best allies. Adando was a hindrance, but we won time from the crazy, spinning route we steered through the tent-city and the frightened and angry people we left in our wake. My world started to drift away in time to my throbbing, bleeding arm. How long had we done this? Shuffle along the old man, duck and turn through the new opening in the tent wall, throw aside the trestle table, and then start the whole cycle over again.

In the end, the Watch recruited the foreign merchants' personal guards and the extra man-power turned the tide of the chase against us. Gold was nothing, I now understood, against the desires of Napolisha's ego. We were cornered in the animal bazaar section by the crazy gnome, his Erontes mercenaries, Watch members, and assorted foreign guards.

I felt their eyes and their anger at my back. I scanned this particular tent, looking for any way out, but the thick-glassed lanterns revealed wicker animal baskets full of geese, ducks, lambs, goats, and rabbits lining three walls. As matters stood, we couldn't cut our way out of this one.

Coughing, I gagged on the thick reek of dung. The animals around us began squeaking, squawking, and flapping in protest at the disturbance. I swallowed down my scream of frustration. If I was outmaneuvered today, I meant to meet the Sly One in the hereafter with my dignity, at least, intact.

A merchant guard in rich purple livery advanced with his broadsword leading. “Drop your weapons! Hands on your heads!” he ordered.

Soft murmuring reached me. Adando had shifted behind Rendev, whose heavy gasping masked the wizard’s voice.

The old wizard winked at me.

Not the wand. Please the gods above, let his brilliant idea be anything but the wand. What good could that cursed item do us now? A horde of will-o-wisps or a shower of rose petals do weren't going to cut us a path through this crowd.

Adando twitched his arm and a small key appeared in his hand. “Klophen mas!” he shouted.

One heart-beat passed and nothing happened. Then a second heart-beat passed.

Click-snick! Dozens of tiny sounds fired off at the same instant from all over the room. It took a moment for me to understand what had happened, but, once I did, I burst into delighted laughter. Every buckle and clasp in the fighters’ armor had opened in an instant, leaving every fighter and even Napolisha struggling to hold their dignity intact.

Then my laughter turned to a yell of protest as I felt my skirt sliding down my hips and my halter flying free.

That was when the hundreds of animal cages behind us burst open.

The air almost exploded with feathery, squawking beasts and the hoofed creatures charged right around us in a mad dash for freedom. Holding my skirt up in one hand, I danced through the beasts until I reached the wall of now-empty cages.

I tied a rough knot in my belt and let matters above the waist go, so to say. I could worry about my own dignity later if I lived. I shouted orders as I threw cages behind me. “Rendev, cut us a hole as soon as I clear these away. Adando, be ready to move!”

The old wizard was proving too useful in a tight spot to give him up. Besides, I was dying to know what was in that pouch and why it was so important.

When neither responded, I snarled and spun around. The old wizard and warrior alternated between trying not to stare at me and preserving their own dignities.

Blushing, I turned back to the last cage and threw it aside. “Don’t stare, move!”

The next tent proved to be an abandoned tailor’s shop. Finally, we had had a piece of good fortune. This place could be useful and our pursuers would need time to recover from the pandemonium that Adando’s opening spell had created. This shop was strewn with cloth forms on dummies, bolts of bright material, and half-finished garments. It even had the good taste to be empty!

Old instincts took over and, after rescuing my halter, I checked the counter for the tailor's money box. I pulled it out from the shelf beneath, but it made a disgusting empty thud when I dropped it on the counter. A pity the tailor was thinking when he ran.

A idea struck me as I looked at the cloth and I snatched up a discarded set of shears. Cloaks would help hide us and might win us a little more time. I fingered the fine, thin green material. It was rich, too rich for what I had in mind, and so different from anything I’d known in the south. Cutting out three long lengths, I draped one around each of us, using large pins to hold the almost-disguises in place.

I also took the time to cut another piece of cloth and wrap it as a bandage around my sliced arm.

We left through the proper exit this time, just one more family escaping from the dreadful ruckus in the tents. It turned out, though, that we were behind the times. Apart from a few trinkets and stragglers, every tent in turn was empty.

I kept Adando leaning on my shoulder again as we moved, and he favored me with choice scowls. I didn’t care. He owed me answers and was going to stay alive to give them or he could eat his favorite wand for all I cared.

After several minutes, I heard men shouting at each other about the Warder’s orders. Wonderful. Now the tents where being systematically searched and the personal guards of the ruling family were involved. How much better could this get? Napolisha had been busy. My only consolation was imagining how the gnome's stories, at least, must have grown wilder and wilder with every retelling.

“My husband, High Lord Ruska, requires assurance that the ship lumber will be available before he begins mass construction. Your cooperation, if you want the morphiate drug ban lifted, is expected.”

Only a tent wall separated us from that aristocratic voice. My husband Lord Ruska …? The Ruskas ruled the city! And what purpose could ship lumber possibly serve here? No navigable river crossed the plains to join the South and North. All merchants had to travel overland on the caravans to reach the Eastern Seas. It had always been that way.

I knew I should press on, but curiosity consumed me. I remembered the Lord Ruska’s powerful wife, who was the de facto ruler of this city, from her appearance in the Sunheart parade just yesterday. She was a stern, silver old woman whose arrogance radiated from her in waves.

Dark indeed must be the dealings if she would meet someone in such a common venue.

Adando scowled again. I waved for him to limp over to Rendev and leave with him.

“The assurance is being delivered now,” a tenor voice promised. “My lord will be pleased that you agree to the drug trade terms. He needs proof, however, as to the viability of your plan. Will your ships truly fly?”

Ships … fly? Were they high on some drug right now?

I had to see for myself. Ridding myself of Adando on Rendev’s shoulder, I pulled out the shears I’d kept from the tailor shop. I held the tent flap steady under my sandal and cut a strip straight up. For this job, they were better than a true dagger.

On my elbows and knees, I held the cloth apart and peered up into the next room. I couldn’t see much through the short slit, but I did see carved table legs, fine rugs, and even the silver threads in what had to be Lady Ruska’s skirts. This had to be a private dining room.

“Here is my husband’s functional model,” Lady Ruska declared.

I leaned back, straining for a view of the tabletop. A model of what? A ship?

“Amazing! These will speed the trade routes through the plains a thousand-fold. Whoever controls that fleet … will control the continent.” The stranger’s voice grew very quiet..

I needed to see that tabletop. If this information, if this ship, was for real, then I was on the edge of truly explosive information beyond price.

“That power is why my husband will allow those filthy morphiates to return.” Lady Ruska snorted. “The drug should do a nice job of purging the overgrown lower masses.”

“You wretched power-mongering whore!” Rendev cut her off with a roar.

No. The single word became my own private prayer to the Sly One. We did not want the Ruskas interested in our precious heads. Their wrath reached even beyond the plains, and those she didn’t have executed in the City Center were left staked out at the city gates for the hawks and vultures.

Rendev grunted and swung his sword through the tent wall. His support gone, Adando yelled as he began to fall. It all happened so fast that it felt like a bad dream.

The warrior’s stroke freed a huge flap which fluttered down and reveal the haughty face of Lady Ruska and a bald fellow in black robes. Behind them, I could see two guards flanking the entryway into the next tent-chamber.

My eyes then settled on the tabletop. A model ship rested there....but it was floating in midair. I tried to remember why that was important, but my racing mind could not get beyond my terror of these two nobles. They were as far above me as the stars, and I had moved into forbidden ground. Even Meize had seldom bothered the noble-born.

For a moment, I gawked up at them on my knees. Then I remembered the condemned enjoyed a similar view during their executions.

“Spies! What are you doing, you lazy dogs? My husband’s secrets demand protection!” Lady Ruska shouted.

The guards in the next room jumped and hurried toward the sliced open tent wall.

Behind me, I heard Adando start chanting in retaliation. Perhaps the little luck gods hadn’t abandoned me. The old wizard was proving to have a knack for timing.

A whiz-bang fired and I whirled about to face down a growing herd of a dozen and more green, two-humped cows thundering straight towards me and Rendev.

“You’ve the timing a naked drunk on a three day bender during a Sunlord service!” I screamed at Adando as the old warrior grabbed me and pulled me out of the way of the oncoming beasts. This was insane. Whoever heard of getting run down by herds of animals in a city twice in the same day?

What had I done to offend the little luck gods so?

The green cows trampled right through the half-tent wall separating us from the nobles and their guards and showed no interest in stopping. Tent walls, support struts, tables, and especially the thick-glassed lanterns all fell victim to their onslaught.

And the cows kept coming … .twelve … sixteen … and then twenty.

The tent ceiling above us began to collapse and I smelled smoke from an eager fire nearby.

“I’m going to break that wand!” I dove for the old wizard’s hand.

Rendev caught me. “Forget it. Be ready to help Adando as soon as I finish cutting us a way out.” He heaved his blade forward one more time and sliced us a passage out.

My hands twitched for something more lethal than the shears. Grumbling, I held up the tent as best I could with one hand and supported Adando with the other. Did Rendev, in his brilliance, also have a way to pass Ruska’s guards at the city gates after this disaster? Or a way to evade the bounty hunters in our future, assuming we lived long to have one?

The old warrior led us out of the tent-city and over to one of the minor peddlers on the city center’s edge. Behind us, Adando’s cow herd continued running amok. The beasts were interested in nothing except trampling everything and everyone in their path. Most of the tent-city had collapsed now, becoming piles of golden cloth with lumpy debris beneath it. Three different areas of debris were now ablaze and threatening to turn the entire thing into a raging inferno.

The cows were now doing laps around the city center. Ahead of them ran the screaming crowds who had remained to watch the situation unfolding at a ‘safe’ distance. Peddler stands were being overturned, the goods strewn out into the crowd, and people tripped and clawed over each other to escape the cows.

The entire Sunheart festival, the biggest merchant event of the entire year, was totally destroyed. How had the three of us done that?

Adando was quiet as he leaned on my shoulder. Was he afraid of attracting my notice, or was it something more? I tried to meet his eyes, but he turned his face aside. “You knew,” I guessed. His lack of reaction said it all. I heard my voice grow shrill, but I didn’t care. “You knew! How could know about the shi ….”

The old wizard clamped an iron hand around my mouth. “Not now, woman,” he hissed in my ear. “How you stumbled onto all of the pieces, I’ll never know … but I cannot explain now. When we’re free, when we’re alone, I will. I promise.”

I stared into his green eyes. There was a solemnity that calmed me more than any words might. Adando, whatever else he might do or scheme, would keep his given promise.

The old wizard lowered his hand.

Of course, it didn’t hurt matters any that I couldn’t hear his explanation unless I made sure Rendev brought him along, too, on our escape.

“Done?” I suddenly heard Rendev ask.

“Done!” a stranger agreed.

The old warrior tugged at my new cloak. His and Adando’s were already draped over one of his arms. “I need everything of value you have, including my pouch.”

I folded my arms. “Why?”

“Do you wish to live, girl?” Rendev’s grip became iron.

Sighing, I unwound the cloth and passed him both cloth and coin pouch. Meize had told me once that dead thieves never got rich.

“And the rest?” Adando, now leaning on the peddler’s wagon, offered me a wicked grin

The Sly One take the old man’s clever eyes. I pulled out the discarded trinkets I’d 'acquired' in the tent-city during our frantic flight. I’d take my loot’s price out of their hides later, if we lived.

Turned out that Rendev had done the peddler’s father a favor in his younger days, and the son was willing to reciprocate … for a price. Hiding under a tarp in his wagon, covered with every sort of stinking garbage imaginable, I wasn’t convinced he was doing us any favors … .but, still, escape was escape. Many farmers took a load of animals and vegetables in for sale and took a load of garbage out for coin.

Dry retching from the stench, I fought to stay conscious.

If the guards didn’t catch and kill Rendev at the gate, I certainly would!

Half an hour later, though, I found myself alive and free of the city if not the reek of rotten things. All I had to my name were an old warrior, an old wizard, and a sack of pathetic supplies from the peddler. Oh, and how could I forget the smashed goat pasties I'd stolen from the bakery this noontime.

Time for Adando to talk, at shear-point, as it were.

He raised his hands and lurched a step back from my ‘weapon,’ although I had a sneaking suspicion that he was humoring me. “I promised you answers, Lleciena. Go ahead and open the gnome’s pouch.”

I did and poured out three flat stones onto my palm. Each grey rock, lined with silver, floated two fingers’ widths above my hand. “It’s– it’s just like that model ship! The ones the Ruskas will build.” I whispered the words, feeling my eyes grow wide. Adando was right. This rock was more valuable than gold. It was the secret behind the greatest power the plains had ever seen.

“The ships that’ll start a war,” Rendev snarled. Startled, I turned. His words held the certainty and anger of a much younger man. “And no one on the plains will win except the nobles. My home will become its staging place and my people will be devoured whole.”

Like how someone close to you was devoured by the morphiate drugs? I wanted to ask, remembering his reaction to Lady Ruska’s words, but I knew I hadn't earned the right.

“The Ruskas hold the plans to the ships, the North has the wood required, and the gnomes currently hold the mineral. For now. I arranged that meeting with Napolisha to acquire samples and win trading rights for my lord,” the old wizard explained. “Whoever holds all three will be able to build unsurpassable merchant vessels to carry goods to the Eastern Seas. They also could become weapons beyond compare.”

“And just who is your lord, the late-comer to this game?” I demanded.

Adando smiled. “Crown Prince Lyam.”

I mouthed the name, aghast. “But, but that’s the heir to the throne in my own country!”

The old wizard just kept on smiling.

Frustration won out over my common sense and I grabbed Adando by the shoulders. “You ball-less son a sea-snake, you deep-dweller bottom–licker, you …! I yelled as I shook him and shook him.

At some point, Rendev pulled me off of Adando. I yelled at him, too. It felt good to yell. Anything was better than realizing the depths of my blindness. How had I failed to spot a spy from my own home country?

“So we’re in a position to change the course of a war.” The old warrior grinned. “Don’t worry so, girl. We’ll find a way to keep the peace in the plains and make gold enough to appease your lovely head. Trust me.”

Trust him. How many thieves had taken their first step towards the Last Jump in such a fashion? Of course, at this point, it wasn't like I had much to loose.

I laughed and took a seat on the scratchy, coarse grass, pulling out the goat pasties. Well, why not try trusting him, in the name of the elder gods? I was trapped out on the wretched plains with two decrepit and dangerous old men. Three different parties would be hunting us down to kill us tonight and my companions traveled slower than snails.

How could things get any worse?

The little luck gods had to relent sooner or later and send me something better than three floating stones half the world would kill to own.

Right?

When I settled down for a cold camp with the two men that dusk, I had a horrible feeling that I could be discovering the answer to that question all too soon.