Dragon Clan #6: Anna's Story

CHAPTER FOUR

Anna dangled from his fist without struggling too much. Each movement hurt her scalp. To defend herself and warn the attacker of her fighting skills would only make him wary as he held her tighter. Better to hold off until she stood a better chance of success by surprising him. For now, she would act younger than even the twelve she pretended to be. She wailed and protested. She cried. She moaned loudly. When none of those worked, she screamed loud enough to draw the attention of the coyotes she left behind in the drylands.

He slapped her across her face, but not too hard. It was a warning.

While one of his hands was tangled in her hair and holding her up, he had let go of her hand—the one resting on the hilt of the knife--to slap her. She tensed, ready to pull the knife free, but recognized something was wrong. It was a trap. His eyes were watching for her to make a grab for it. So instead, she cried louder again, and in the process allowed her hand to move away from her knife. She could reach for it later, but her hand fell to her thigh, and her thumb touched the thin hilt of the other knife under the material. When the time is right, don’t hesitate.

“Your purse. Don’t be telling me you don’t have one.” The sour reek of his body was only over-ridden by the putrid stench from his mouth.

The pain of being suspended in the air by her hair had increased as she wriggled and twisted, but her actions were more for effect than to escape. From the corner of her eye, she saw another figure lurking in the dark. Her chances of escape were nil. Two of them would make escape impossible, so she reconsidered how she might make it work. Maybe she could turn one against the other.

“Hold still, girl,” he growled, and another slap followed across her mouth, this time, hard enough to draw blood.

Anna said, “I’m just a poor girl from a dirt farm. I don’t have any coins.”

He hit her on the side of her head with the heel of his palm, causing her to black out for a second. Then he shook her until her eyes crossed and refocused. His hand went to her waist, stopping at the bulge of the small purse inside the waistband of her pants. He didn’t know enough to feel the hem of her shirt or the straps of the backpack on the ground. “No coins, huh? Then what’s this?”

“Let me go! My big brother will hunt you down for this.”

Oddly the second man in the shadows hadn’t spoken or taken part in the attack. He had stood in deep shadow under the edge of the trees and had now moved closer, behind the man holding her. His movements were stealthy and careful. He held something in his hand. A piece of firewood? A short branch? He lifted it as he moved closer, and she started to scream for him not to hit her. But something in his actions made her hold off.

The first man was trying to pull her purse free didn’t seem to know the other man was there. As the idea formed in her mind that they were not working together, the firewood was raised higher. She couldn’t take her eyes off of it, even though it risked warning her attacker. Then the firewood swung down. A solid thwack sounded as it struck the back of his head.

The fingers in her hair relaxed as his knees collapsed and he fell forward on his face in the damp dirt. Anna felt herself being dragged to the ground with him, but as she landed, she twisted and brought the large knife up to defend herself from either of them.

Her attacker did not move. Neither did her savior. “Who are you?” she hissed into the darkness where he stood. If he wanted her or her purse, he would have to fight for it. She dropped into a fighting crouch, the blade of the knife held upward so she could slash instead of stab.

“Thief.”

“What? Thief? It’s you? Why are you here?”

“I followed.”

She stood upright, breathing hard and only now realizing the danger she had been in. Her heart pounded as she wiped the blood from her lip where he had slapped her. That small action brought the incident to reality. She had been attacked. Thief, the stranger from the desert had saved her, but anger welled inside. Thief was the only one near enough to strike out at. “I thought I told you to go off into the drylands and leave me alone.”

“I came. To watch you.”

“Well, I’m glad you did, but you shouldn’t have! Do you know who that man is?” She waved an arm at the figure on the ground.

“Bad man.”

Anna pulled herself together and dabbed the blood from the corner of her lip. She couldn’t tell if Thief had known the man before, but it made little difference. He’d saved her.

She knelt at the side of the bad man, as Thief called him. Placing the back of her hand in front of his mouth, she determined he still breathed. He lived, and he might wake any time and attack them. Digging into her backpack, she found a shirt she could spare. Her knife cut it into strips, and she tied him hand and foot, resisting the impulse to slap him as he’d slapped her, only more so. She really wanted to punch him. Maybe a few kicks to make her feel better. Her hands shook with emotion.

Thief removed one of the strips she’d tied and retied it more securely. The material was thin, and the ‘bad man’ could rub it against a tree or rock and eventually set himself free, but not so fast that he could follow her. On impulse, she checked between his shoulder blades and found a knife, reasonably sharp and well-made, too large for the kind usually hidden there by those who needed a secret weapon. She smirked and remembered she also had a knife hidden.

“You take this knife, Thief,” she said, holding it out to him.

“His knife.”

When Thief made no move to accept the other man’s knife, she shrugged with understanding. It didn’t belong to Thief. Pulling hers from the scabbard at her side, she held that one out to him. “Then take my old knife. It has served me well. I would consider it a favor if you used it. Otherwise, I may have to throw it away because of keeping his.”

The smile reappeared as he reached for her knife. Pulling it from the scabbard, he checked the edge with his thumb and nodded in appreciation. She felt the edge on the other, and it was dull and chipped. But she’d have the other knife sharp as her old one as soon as she had time to work on it. She remembered there had been a metallic jingle when she had removed the knife from her attacker. In the dim light, she felt his waistband as he had felt hers.

Her fingers located it. A leather purse came free. Inside were two thin copper coins and one full copper. Enough for a loaf of bread, a meal, and a few mugs of ale. She slipped them into her purse, not because she needed or wanted them. It just felt like justice to take from him what he wanted to take from her. She found her purse beside his hands and replaced it inside her waistband.

Standing, she said to Thief, “Hungry?”

Thief nodded, and slid the knife into his new scabbard and pulled it free again, a smile still intact, his hand touching and retouching the hilt of the knife as if he couldn’t believe it was his. Thief wore no belt so she unbuckled the one from her attacker and said, “Put the scabbard on the belt and wear it. No argument.”

He stood unmoving, as if not knowing if he should obey her.

She impatiently snatched the knife from his hand and slipped the belt through the leather loop on the scabbard. Then she reached around Thief with the belt and buckled it in front. “Come with me,”

Anna found her way in the darkness to gather her things. The road lay just over a small rise. Once on the road, she started walking, Thief at her side. She set a quick pace, wishing to be well away when the man woke, freed himself, and tried to follow. Or maybe he was not that stupid.

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.

James motioned for all of them to walk again, then said, “It is there at the palace I’ll leave you, for I’m bound further north. I’m heading for the Northlands.”

“Three traveling together is safer than two,” Anna said, keeping her destination to herself for now. Castle Warrington was in the Northlands near the sea. She may or may not wish to continue traveling with James past today, let alone once they reached the Summer Palace. Familiarity allowed for slips of the tongue offering clues that often tell a tale different than she wanted him to believe. Small mistakes that revealed large lies.

James settled in on the other side of Thief. He said, “Why don’t you tell me about how you got your name?”

Thief glanced at Anna. She gave him the smallest nod, and he said, remembering the story she’d told him, “I followed the mule tracks. The thief went to sleep. I stole it back and took it home.”

“Now that’s how to cut a story down to size, my new friend. Do you like apples?” A large red one appeared in his hand from somewhere inside his coat, and he held it out to Thief as they walked.

Thief thought about it for a short three-count, then snatched the apple from James’ hand and took a bite so large almost half the apple went into his mouth. He chewed with his mouth open. Anna reached up and held her hand over his lips. “Manners. Chew with your mouth closed. We’ve talked about this before.”

“We have?” Thief managed to ask as he chewed.

“You know we have,” she said. “Remember three days ago when I told you the same thing?”

Confused, he shook his head. Anna would have to be careful in stretching her stories around Thief in the future. It was a good lesson to learn. Thief wouldn’t be very helpful when she needed support for her lies, but on the other hand, most people wouldn’t understand that Thief didn’t remember because they had not yet met three days ago.

James peeked around Thief. “If I might ask, what is your business at the Summer Palace?”

“You may not ask,” she said in a snippy tone, then looked straight ahead up the dirt road to where an open farmer’s wagon approached, rattling and bouncing on the rough surface of the road. It was a response she would often use while playing her part, but never in real life. If her Grandma Emma ever heard her talk like that to an adult, especially a stranger, there would be a trip to the woodshed, literally. Her Grandmother was all for decorum and manners.

A farmer sat high on a seat in the wagon being pulled by an ugly horse with patches of fur missing or falling out. Its back was swayed and the pace agonizingly slow. The wagon and farmer looked in about the same shape. Still, he tipped his straw hat as he neared them and wished them a good morning.

After it had rumbled beyond, Anna said, “James, what is it you do?”

“You dare ask me my business while denying me the same answer?”

She shrugged, knowing she had built a house of her own and refused his entry, so why would he allow her in his? She fell back to her lie. “All right. I guess there is no harm in telling you that I’m going to help my mother’s mother. She fell.”

“A noble cause, young lady. I, on the other hand, am simply a wanderer of these lands who occasionally plays a game of Tiles or Flip at the local pubs.”

She eyed his wide smile and remembered his easy ways in talking. “How do you pay for your room and meals at those inns?”

“There are sometimes small wagers made on the games.”

The answer confirmed what she had suspected. “You must win a lot of the time.”

He flashed another smile, this one making the face with the big nose look surprisingly like that of a snake about to swallow a mouse. “If I lose too much I sleep outside and go hungry.”

“And if you win too much, you find yourself walking down a road to another village, or running as the villagers chase you.”

Casting her a sideways glance, he said, “You are far too smart for your age.”

The comment put her off. James was a gambler. That meant that he had to see things in other people and use those to win at his games, assuming he didn’t outright cheat all of the time. But to win regularly, he had to be a keen observer of people. He was not the companion for a secretive pair such as she and Thief.

However, she was not as innocent or young as he might think. To win enough money to live on over time, he had to consistently win far more than he lost, and even if he was an honest player, others would begin to doubt him. Traveling with a man and a reputation such as he wouldn’t help her blend into the background.

She asked as if it was another idle question, “Have you ever been to the King’s Summer Palace?”

“Many times,” he bragged.

Anna wondered how many of those times he’d been asked to leave. They came to a wide, shallow stream with a green meadow beside the road. A freshly used fire pit and trampled grass, gave evidence of others who had paused there, probably for the night. She said, “Let’s rest and eat.”

James said, “We can’t linger too long, or we won’t reach the palace before nightfall.”

“Thief and I are hungry,” she used her petulant voice while watched his eyes. His smile might divert others, but she looked past it and didn’t like what she saw. “Besides, we have walked too far for one day. This might be a good place to spend a night.”

When he spoke, any irritation was gone, or skillfully masked. “Okay, we’ll stop, but only for a while.”

Anna didn’t like the way James had assumed control. In fact, she was beginning to not like much about him. The large nose aside, his laughter came too quick, his questions were too penetrating, and he reeked of falsehoods each time he spoke. She found herself wondering if every sentence was a lie, and if she could not trust a single sentence, she needed to find an excuse to be free of him.

She spread her food on her blanket and offered it to James and Thief. She ate little, deciding the next step to move on without him.

James stood, brushing himself off. “Come on, let’s get moving.”

Her defiance bubbled over, but she kept her voice sweet, “I got very little sleep last night. You know, the animal sounds and all. Thief, I want you to watch over me while I take a nap. Don’t let me sleep all afternoon, because you know I can.”

She giggled as she looked at Thief, but watched James from the corner of her eye. James’ face flushed, and his smile wilted.

He said cheerfully, “Come now, you can walk the afternoon. I’ll treat the two of you to a room in a good inn tonight, one with a real bed. But we have to leave now.”

She fell back onto the blanket and sighed, “I’m so tired.”

“I cannot leave you here beside the road. It’s too dangerous,” James said, his voice now ordering her.

Anna opened her eyes, looking at Thief, who was turning to James, his hand again on the hilt of his new knife. Softly, she said, “Thief, let him be on his way.”