The Thief's Gamble

Ryshad reached for his spy-glass and cursed briefly when he realised it was now a prize for White-hair, back at the keep.

I had seen enough. 'There's no way we're going to get to a boat there. We'll have to try for a fishing village or something.'

'No, wait,' Aiten said.

I didn't bother turning my head as I surveyed the coastal paths leading away from the harbour. 'We've got to get clear of here. It's going to be dawn sooner than you think.'

'We do need to talk this through,' Ryshad said slowly. 'We need to have a plan.'

I looked round and heaved a mental sigh; one of the few things my mother had been proved right about was her assertion that men will always come up with inappropriate ideas at the most inconvenient times.

'We have to get out of here first. Come on!' I hissed at him.

'And once they find we're gone? We'll have them on our trail in no time and we'll be back where we started,' Shiv countered.

'We're going to need a distraction,' Ryshad said firmly. 'It has to be a good one too.'

'All right, it would help, if we can manage it without digging ourselves any deeper into this shit-hole,' I admitted. 'I was thinking along the lines of a little judicious arson, myself.'

Shiv shook his head. 'Fire's going to be hard for me at the moment. I really should save my strength in case we need another covering illusion.'

I raised a hand to silence him. 'Remember Harna's table? I found Geris' list of little spells — I can do it myself.'

'The aetheric cantrips? What about his notes? The books? What else did you find?' Shiv asked hopefully.

'Later,' Aiten interrupted him. 'We need something more than bonfires. I know what I'm talking about; there are some Lescari tricks we should use. We need to cause trouble and we need to have them think it was their own enemies. You were saying how much strife there seemed to be over borders here. We can make this bastard think the ones in the brown did it.'

'This is too complicated,' I objected. 'We don't have time for anyone to waste proving how clever they are.'

'Just listen, will you?' Aiten's voice was rising so I shut up. I was beginning to regret giving him back his boots. Warm feet were obviously draining the blood from his head.

'When I was fighting for Parnilesse, a group of us were trapped between Triolle's men and a fort held by a contingent from Draximal. We would be cracked like a nut come daylight, so five of the old hands slipped out and found the Triolle camp followers. They butchered the whores and left some Draximal insignia from our booty lying around. So you see, while Triolle's troops were ripping into the Draximals they thought had done it, we were able to get clear.'

'You just want to pay them back in their own coin, Ait. Revenge is a fool's game.' Since Halcarion decided not to strike me down for hypocrisy, I continued, 'I'm not starting some needless slaughter. I'm not into random murder and, anyway, I can't think of a quicker way of rousing the keep, short of finding a hunting horn.'

There was an uncomfortable silence until Ryshad spoke.

'It doesn't have to be a killing, does it?' he mused. 'How about taking a hostage? We could take a woman or a child or, if it looks possible, one of those with the gorgets, an officer.'

I stared at him in disbelief. 'I thought it was Shiv got the knock on the head? Have you any idea how much trouble a hostage can be? One hostage means one of us taken up completely looking after him. There are only four of us and Shiv still hasn't got all his pieces on the board, has he?'

'If we've got a hostage, we've got something to bargain with,' Ryshad insisted. 'If they catch up with us, we might be able to deal our way out.'

'If we do get clear, a hostage could give Planir invaluable information,' Shiv said thoughtfully and I realised with a sinking feeling that he was starting to dance to the same tune.

I pulled the documents out from the breast of my tunic. 'These are aetheric spells.' I brandished the sheet at him. 'I can do them, Rysh, I can set fires from a distance according to Geris' notes. How about I start on those ships over there? Won't that make them think a rival's been busy?'

I was making no impression.

'Let's get out of here first,' I pleaded. 'You've all played Raven, haven't you? You don't take on all the Forest fowl at once, you deal with one flock at a time.'

I could see the sky growing brighter and urgency lent authority to my voice.

'All right. Let's get clear and then we can take on whoever they send after us.' Ryshad's crisp agreement broke the sullen silence and if I were closer, I would have kissed him for it.

A long estuary carried the sea away to our right and a stretch of higher ground rose to hide the shoreline from the keep. We moved rapidly over the close-cropped turf and sandy tracks, my skin crawling as I waited for the shout that would betray us, but Shiv's magic kept any casual glance sliding over us once again. We reached the meagre shelter of a row of hillocks and dunes and crouched down as we paused to reorient ourselves.

'This way. We'll have more chance of finding a boat.'

I have no idea what made Aiten so confident, but he was the man from the coast so we followed his lead. As the curve of the shore and the height of the dunes rose, we headed down for the beach where we could make better speed across the firmer sands.

'Wait a moment. I need to get my breath.' I turned and was shocked to see how far back Shiv had fallen. His colour was still grey while the rest of us were now rosy-cheeked in the brisk breeze.

'Are you still keeping the illusion up?' Ryshad asked abruptly and I cursed myself for not realising how much the magic was draining him.

'We'll have to risk moving without it,' he said decisively as Shiv nodded tiredly. The air around us crackled briefly as Shiv dropped the spell. I felt uncomfortably exposed.

'Let's get closer to the dunes.' I led us back to the boot-catching sands above the tide line and we ploughed on. Shiv was still lagging behind and I saw he was caught in a no-win game; slogging through the sand was going to tire him as thoroughly as working magic.

'Dast's teeth, you're stuffed, aren't you?' Aiten caught Shiv under one arm and Ryshad moved to support him from the other side and looked over at me with a grimace of frustration.

'Scout ahead a bit, Livak. Find out what we're heading for.'

I nodded and put some distance between me and the three of them, climbing a little higher into the tussocks of spiny grass to get some vantage on the terrain around us.

We made better speed this way but the reverse of the runes was the worrying inability of the others to react fast if someone came upon us. My eyes were going like a frog's in all directions as I tried to keep watch everywhere at once. I might as well have saved myself the effort since it was my nose that alerted me to potential danger ahead when I caught the sickly-sweet smell of dung fires on the fitful breeze. I stopped and waited for the others to draw level with me at the base of the dunes.

'I think there's a village or something up ahead. Come up here — I'll go and take a look.'

Shiv sank gratefully on to the soft sands and I exchanged a worried look with Ryshad before starting to work my way through the clumps of grass, back down on my belly and elbows as I recalled every lesson I'd ever learned in moving without being seen. I found a hollow at the edge of the dunes and peered cautiously through the tussocks.

A stream wound its way across the sands and just looking at it made me thirsty. I forced myself to concentrate and saw the rivulet made its way through a break in the line of hillocks which rose again on the far side, soon climbing much higher and marching off to join a chain of steep outcrops. On the landward side of the rising ground, early morning smoke spiralled from a couple of chimneys jutting out of roofs thatched with the coarse grass that was surrounding me. That made sense, the village was well in the lee of the higher land and so sheltered from storms coming in off the water. I looked hungrily at the long low stone building exposed on the seaward side of the rise. No one was going to be living there, not with a cosy little village tucked away round the corner. It had little, unshuttered windows and huge broad doors taking up most of the facing end; it positively shrieked boathouse and I crept forward, one alert eye towards the village as I did so.