Siege of Pailtar (17 page)

“Scary but civilized … are you sure you know what you are talking about?”

“Yes. Pailtar is not like Meron. In Meron, killing one thug marked me as dangerous, but that was the end of it. In Pailtar, the thug could be a meager thief or an assassin, but it could also be a member of the Guild. Killing a member of the Thieves’ Guild would be very unproductive. We need information and allies. The Guild is what we need.”

Severa sighed, “How do we find this Thieves’ Guild then?”

“We don’t, they will find us.”

“So we sit in this dive of a bar drinking and waiting for the Guild to find us. That sounds like a terrible plan. What if a drunken sailor tries something with me? There are not enough whores in this bar to satisfy all the men. They are already looking at me like I am a target.”

“That is because you are the most beautiful woman in this bar, how can you blame them for looking at you? If someone bothers you I’ll break another glass. The floor has sawdust, cleaning up a little blood won’t be too much of a bother.”

“I love it when you talk all romantic,” said Severa.

Everet grinned again. How did he get so lucky as to find a woman who considered a threat to stab a man in the neck romantic?
 

18

Pailtar

CRITICAL AND IMPORTANT task my foot! Kiana was bored, tired and sore. The critical and important task that Keyon had given them was doing surveillance on a farmer’s fields. Someone had been stealing his cows and he wanted the culprit caught. Kiana wasn’t enthusiastic about the assignment when Keyon gave it to them, his reply had not helped as much as Keyon seemed to think. “Part of the payment is a percentage of the cows retrieved, that farmer has the best tasting beef this side of the narrow strait. So do make sure you find out who is stealing the cows, otherwise your marks will reflect your failure.”

So Kiana sat in a tree watching cows eat grass and poop, sometimes at the same time. It was kind of gross, yet impressive at the same time. Nor was Kiana sold on what made these cows so special. Besides their interesting speckled hides, they looked like every other cow she had ever seen. Ethan had suggested the animals were a special cross-breed, but she was trying to talk to that jerk as little as possible. She had not forgotten his comments about wanting to wrestle a girl.

They had been watching the small herd of cross breeds all day and the only thing that changed is where they ate and where they pooped. Cows were a really boring subject to spy on. Kiana hoped that would change soon.

It had seemed weird that they were doing surveillance during the day, but the farm had insisted to Keyon that the cows were disappearing during the day and not at night.
Probably wandered off to find someplace new to poop
, thought Kiana.

Then, as casually as a cow can move, one of the beasts suddenly started moving away from the rest of the herd. The field was at the edge of a small forest, the cow was heading into the forest. Kiana found that interesting as the ground under the cover of the trees had little grass. Unless this cow actually did want a new place to do its business it shouldn’t be headed into the forest. Carefully, Kiana made her way out of the tree. She signaled the others to leave their hiding spots and meet her by her tree. As the others snuck their way towards her, Kiana kept her eye on the cow wandering off. It looked like it was on a mission, making a straight line into the woods. Kiana was now very interested. Something was drawing the animal into the woods.

When the others finished crawling through the tall grass to her tree, they discussed what to do next. “How should we do this?” Kiana asked.

Ethan spoke up, “I think you are likely the best tracker and stalker of the three of us. You should follow the cow, and we will follow you. That way, we are less likely to be spotted.”

Aspen agreed, “Ya, Kiana, that is the best idea. You first and we will follow.”

“Okay, it is not like a cow moves fast or is hard to find, but if someone is stealing it, we should be careful not to get caught. Keyon would have a fit if he doesn’t get some of that beef,” said Kiana.

“Did you see the way Keyon drooled when he talked about the roast beef he had? I want to steal one myself, just to see how tasty these buggers really are,” said Aspen.

Kiana smiled, Keyon really had needed to wipe the drool away, and she could go for a nice steak herself. “Okay, nice and slow, let’s see where Steak goes.”

“Steak?” questioned Aspen.

“What, can’t a girl name her cows? I was so bored in that tree, I named that one Steak, the fat one with the calf is Prime Rib, the skinny one is--”

“Okay, okay we get it,” interrupted Aspen. “Let’s go before Steak gets away.”

…

As Kiana went further and further into the woods, she was sure something strange was going on. The cow just kept going forward, not stopping to munch on grass or look around, nothing. When the woods opened up into a small clearing with a farm, and its corral was filled with cows, Kiana knew she had found the missing animals. Steak kept moving forward, going right up to the gate of the corral, like she was going home. As Steak got close to the corral gate, the door to the farm house opened and a man dressed in robes walked out, opened the corral gate, then stood there and watched as Steak walked into the corral joining the other animals. The man closed the gate and returned to the house as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.
Mage
, thought Kiana,
only a mage could do that.
Kiana retreated to find the others who were still farther back watching her.

“What did you see?” whispered Aspen as Kiana returned to them.

“Up ahead the forest opens into a small clearing, there is a farm. Steak and a whole bunch of other cows are in the corral. There’s a mage,” explained Kiana.

The three of them stood silently for a second, thinking the situation over.

“So what do we do now?” asked Ethan.

“We are thieves, we steal the cows back,” replied Kiana.

Ethan and Aspen looked at her like she had a second head, “You want us to try stealing a herd of cattle from a mage?” asked Aspen. “How on earth do you intend to accomplish that? And what if the mage you seen isn’t alone?”

Kiana smiled, “I didn’t say it would be easy, and I not sure how we are going to do it yet. But we are supposed to be doing surveillance right? Instead of watching a farmer’s field, now we watch the stolen cows. If we see a way to steal them back we do it. If not we go back to the city and get reinforcements.”

The others agreed with Kiana’s idea. It wasn’t the greatest of plans, but it was a good place to start.

“Aspen, we will do it the same way we did the Trollope Estates. One-hour surveillance, and then meet back here, I‘ll get close to the farmhouse while you do a loop around the perimeter of the farm. See if you can find a good way to make about twenty cows disappear. Ethan, you go to the edge of the forest and keep an eye out on the corral, see if you notice anything strange or magical. There is a mage, so there may be wards or traps. Don’t leave the cover of the woods. Someone has to be able to leave for help if Aspen or I get caught.”

“Okay, but before you go I just want to say sorry,” replied Ethan.

“For what?” replied Kiana.

“For saying I wanted to wrestle a girl. I shouldn’t of said it, and I deserved the butt kicking you gave me.”

Huh
, thought Kiana.
Ethan wasn’t a total jerk after all.
“No problem, just don’t make any more rude comments about girls or I will kick your butt again.”

Ethan smiled, “Don’t worry. I will never doubt the fighting ability of females again. I knew I was terrible at fighting and was hoping to not get embarrassed. That didn’t work out for me at all.”

Kiana left the others to start checking out the farmhouse. First, she skirted the tree line making her way around the farm, seeing what was there. It was a small farm, with only the house, an open barn, a garden and the large corral. The corral looked freshly built, while the rest was older. The corral was likely built for the purpose of stealing the cows surmised Kiana. The farmhouse itself was simple. Kiana could see that the one-story building only had one door and a couple windows. From the way it looked from the outside, it couldn’t be more than a couple rooms in the entire building. Satisfied that nothing else of interest was around, Kiana made her way closer to the house. She circled around the woods to a spot that wasn’t visible from any of the small houses windows, and then sprinted to the house. Sometimes being quick was the easiest way to stay unnoticed, she thought as she came to a halt by the wall of the house.

Now, Kiana began to move slowly along the wall, inching towards the corner of the building. Once she was around the corner, she came to the section of house where the windows started. Peeking around the corner of the building, she could see no movement outside. She continued moving closer to the window until she was pressed up against the wall with her face inches from the window. At this angle, she could only see into a part of the room, and then she ducked down and slid under the window and repeated the process peaking in at an angle to get a glimpse of the room without exposing her head to the room. From both sides, the room looked the same. It looked like a bedroom that had been converted into a workshop.  Kiana wondered what kind of magic this mage was working on. Having seen no movement in the room and no sounds she carefully peeked in further so that she could see the entire room. The room was a bedroom that was being used as a workshop. The bed was pushed up against one side of the room with a table, filled with vials and containers, sat in the middle of the room. The converted workroom was empty.

The next window was on the front side of the house, beside the front door. In order for Kiana to take a look inside this window she would have to risk being exposed if anyone walked out the front door. Taking a deep breath, she turned the corner and made her way towards the window. As she drew closer to the window a funny thing happened. Her ring started to turn red and heat up. As she got closer to the window the red got deeper and the pain increased. Kiana stopped moving, and the pain stopped increasing. Kiana frowned. Something was obviously going on near the window to cause her ring to react. She did not understand what it was, but instinctively knew she needed to back away. As she slipped back the way she came, the ring started changing back to normal. The old color returned and she felt no pain. How strange!

Kiana decided to return to the others and discuss what had happened. She worked her way around the house then through the woods to she was beside Ethan again. Aspen was still out doing reconnaissance.

“Well, what did you see?” asked Ethan.

“Nothing really, the window on the side was a bedroom that has been turned into a workroom of some sort. It had all sorts of vials and potions on a table, but I couldn’t see farther into the house and no one was in that room. When I tried to get close to the front window my ring started acting all weird.”

“What do you mean by acting weird?”

“It started to turn red and causing me pain. When I backed away from the window the pain went away.”

“That is not weird, that is a ward detection spell on your ring,” declared Ethan. “Did you get your ring from a mage?”

“No, my mom gave it to me. I know she had magic imbued into the ring. It has an illusion on it, but I didn’t know it had anything else. I guess I better have a chat with my mom.”

Ethan looked carefully at her ring, “Your mom must be pretty good at magic to put multiple spells on that ring.” Ethan looked impressed.

Aspen made her way back to the group just then, “Any luck seeing into the house?” she asked Kiana.

“Not really,” she replied.

“That’s not true,” said Ethan. “Finding out that one bedroom is now a mage workstation and that there are wards on the front of the house is a lot of important information.”

“Wards?” asked Aspen.

Kiana explained how her ring had acted as she got closer to the window.

“Huh, that is seriously cool, Kiana, your ring is awesome! I have some good news. I may have found a way for us to move the herd without being seen.”

Kiana was glad to hear that, so far she had come up with no ideas how to steal back the herd of fancy spotted cows. “So what is it?” she asked.

“Just north of here is a small ravine, it runs through the forest and comes out only short distance away from the farm. We just need to get the cows to the ravine without being noticed, and then we can hide the tracks. With any luck we can get the cows back to the farm before the mage notices they are gone.”

“And if the mage does notice?”

Aspen shrugged, “I didn’t say it was a perfect plan.”

Kiana thought about it for a while, it was a terrible plan. But it was the only one they had, so it would have to be the basis. “We need to figure a way of getting the cows to the ravine without them making a bunch of noise.”

“Actually,  I think I know what to do,” replied Ethan.

Kiana turned to the boy. He was becoming less of a jerk all the time. “Well, are you going to share this bright idea with us…?”

Ethan paused, gathering his thoughts into a plan before speaking. “Well, when I was doing my surveillance of the cows, I noticed that they all seem drawn to that flag in the middle of the corral. I think it has been imbued with magic and acts like a magnet, the cows just come to it. If we steal the flag and take it to the ravine the cows should just come with us.”

“That is pretty good, Ethan, we can also take a couple of the rails out of the back of the coral so that a quick glance from the house won’t show the gate being open,” added Aspen.

Kiana smiled, now they had a plan. “Okay, who grabs the flag?”

Both Ethan and Aspen looked at her.

“What?” asked Kiana.

“You have the magic ring, if the flag is warded, you are the only one who would know,” said Ethan.

Kiana had momentarily forgotten about that in her excitement to have a plan start to formulate. She didn’t like the idea of going into the pen with all the cows. Were spotted cows friendly? They seemed docile enough. But she hadn’t gotten close enough to find out. “Alright I will go get the flag, you two start taking the rails off a section in the back and I will lead the cows to the ravine. Aspen, you keep ahead so I know which direction to take. Ethan, keep an eye out for the mage. If he comes out of the house give a wolf howl.”