She felt satisfied with the outcome of the encounter, as a conqueror in the stories of the old days, but the lack of the prickle of a nearby dragon on her back still kept her uneasy. If not for Thief she would have lost her purse, and perhaps other things. Calling down a dragon in times of danger was a luxury she didn’t have for now. She half-closed her eyes and concentrated. Still no dragon nearby, or even at the extreme range that she could sense. Now she felt all the more alone. Her eyes turned to Thief in the dark. Maybe she was not all alone. She might be young, small, and afraid, but she had an ally, a confederate to support her.
Anna didn’t think Thief was going to leave her, no matter what she said or threatened. She had fed him and given him a good knife. He was better off than he had been. He had rescued her, so she was better off, too. A nice trade.
“Thief, do you have any plans for the next few days?”
Thief gave her a puzzled look. He shrugged as if he hadn’t considered the question any more than a poor joke.
“I will pay you to travel with me and be my protector. How does that sound?”
He gave her one curt nod as if that settled the subject, and indeed, it did. “We need a story to go with us. You are now my neighbor who lived on a farm down by Shrewsbury.”
He gave her the nod again.
She continued, “I can’t call you Thief. What name should I call you?”
“Thief,” he said after a pause long enough for each of them to walk eight or nine steps.
“Okay, I’ll call you Thief, but are you sure there isn’t another name that will suit you better?”
“Thief.”
That settles that matter. Any people she met that needed an introduction would notice right away that Thief was slow and more than a little awkward. She needed a cover story for why he was called by that name. She didn’t want people to think he would steal from them. Her mind went to work.
He could be called a Thief because once a highwayman had stolen their plow horse on the farm. Thief had followed the hoof prints and ‘stolen’ their horse back so ever since then, they called him Thief as a respectful name. And don’t you forget it, she snarled in mock anger at the horse thief.
The story would work. Simple. Direct. The kind of thing that evolves in most families. A thief who steals from a thief. She said, “I like your name. But we want others to like you so I’m going to tell you a story and I want you to listen.”
She went on talking with his entire focus on each word as if he was a child and she the mother telling him a wonderful fairy tale. He listened to the story in the way a child listens and appreciates new things. After finishing, Anna convinced him to pretend the incident she described, had actually happened. It would be fun, she told him.
“I’m a good thief,” he smirked.
Anna laughed aloud with him. “Not a good thief, but a good Thief! And you’re a good man, I believe.”
“I go with you?”
“Yes, we go together. But you don’t even know where we’re going.”
He shrugged.
Does it matter? It will be better than trying to survive in the drylands. He had managed to attach himself to her and would probably follow her anywhere and be happy about it. She started walking again, Thief taking up a position beside her, the smile now a permanent fixture. He softly hummed a song, and the cadence of his feet slapping the road matched the beat. She knew the song and joined in singing along with the familiar words as his tentative voice grew louder.
Later, she asked him to walk ahead on the road, while she took time to think. “Keep your eyes open.” Thief walked briskly ahead while she delayed, trying to put together a plan for Thief, as well as reviewing the information from the elders and the council.
She knew where she ultimately wanted to go, and even how to get there. The messenger from the Highlands Family had told them about what Tanner and Carrion found when they traveled across the sea to Breslau. There was an empty city, and the others along the great river, as well as the fleets of ships preparing for the invasion. He also told them Tanner owned a ship, and as such, it would sail where he wanted. There was no longer only one ship to sail across the Endless Sea. He called his ship a fast ‘packet’. It was too small for profitable cargo, but faster than any other, except perhaps one of the King’s navy.
The ship was key. Since Tanner owned it, he could determine where it would sail, and she would have to convince him to allow her as a passenger. Above all, she wanted to sail to Breslau across the sea and find out for herself what needed to be done. She wanted to understand how to stop the invasion, and that meant finding out who ordered it and why, plus the plans. But her mission boiled down to those three words: how, why, who.
The messenger had said the Breslau army planned to invade at a small port named Shrewsbury, but she already knew that after traveling there with Gray. All had been ready and waiting for the ships, the supplies, the barracks, the armor, and weapons. But Carrion had flown his dragon there after Gray and Anna sailed north to Fleming, and he had burned the small seaport town to the ground. Then, with the help of his dragon, he burned the monastery that housed their weapons cache.
Those actions might slow them for a while, but how long? A season or two? Or a year? But what then? If nothing else slowed them, the invasion was sure to be successful, and the war all but lost. She walked on, deep in thought.
“Can you hear me with those ears of yours, I said?” A male voice demanded from only a few steps behind her. Thief still walked a hundred paces ahead.
The question was directed at her. She turned to find a small man with an enormous nose almost shouting at her from a few steps away. She curled her lip in the way of twelve-year-olds, her best weapon to trade insults. “Can you smell with that big nose?”
His hand went to his nose automatically before he barked a laugh. “That I can, and very well. Do you think I carry this around on my face just to make me look pretty?”
Thief had wandered back and was confused with the wordplay, his hand already resting on the hilt of the knife Anna had given to him. She stepped between them. “Being pretty is worth the tiring task of carrying all that extra weight?”
He took a step back as if insulted, but the smile never left his face. He said, “Has anyone ever accused you of being snappish?”
“If snappish means telling the truth, yes. My name is Anna, and this is my close friend. We call him Thief.”
“Because he steals, I assume?”
It was the perfect time to try out her new deception about his name and find if it worked. “You assume wrong. It is because he once thieved our family’s mule back from a thief.”
“I suppose that name is better than being called brigand, highwayman, or murderer, huh? Fortunately, it was a thief, after all.”
“You are very quick for a man who has not yet told me his name.”
He stuck out a mitt of a hand to shake. “James, they call me, but I won’t promise that has always been my name, or the only one I’ve used.”
The attitude and quick wit impressed Anna. He seemed a pleasant sort, and another traveling companion wouldn’t hurt, especially one who talked for a change. “Well James, are we going in the same direction?”
“To the King’s own Summer Palace?”
Anna nodded, even though she would leave the road and continue on to the Castle Warrington further North by several days. Thief had relaxed and attempted a smile when she looked at him. But he quickly returned to watch James, who he clearly didn’t trust or like.