01 - The Price of Talent (19 page)

“Have you ever travelled the roads at night?” He asked with a smile. “It’s not a good idea. Potholes in the road, and other issues, are hard to see. Much safer to travel during the day and be safe.”

“Besides Tyr, there are dangerous men about,” said Jarvis.

“Yeah, I heard there was a robbery on this very road earlier today,” said Bevan.

“Oh, hah, hah! I was being serious.” I said.

“Tyr, it is not a good idea to just spend the day sitting on the road surrounded by a pile of goods and no means of conveying them,” said Devlin. “We are too far from a town to have carried it, and we had no cart to transport it. Plus we are a bunch of dirty men, in armor, holding weapons. It would not take much hard thought for a patrol to figure out we’re outlaws.”

“Yup, better to be gone as quickly as possible,” said Tiernan. “We can worry about moving at our leisure once we are well off the road.”

              And off the road we went. Back by the hidden paths through the woods back to our campsite. There Devlin, Jarvis and Bevan went through the goods while I was sent to get firewood and Tiernan set about getting things ready for supper.

              Once alone I discovered I had made a small mistake, I had left my sword strapped to my back. While this did offer me some protection if I encountered wild animals, it also meant my excursion was not a quiet one.

Nice to get some alone time eh? You’ve hardly had any time to yourself recently.

I’m not sure this counts, considering you’re here talking to me now.

True enough. But that’s what I meant, now that you have some time to yourself, I can interrupt my boredom and talk to you.

I have noticed you are reluctant to talk to me when there are other people around.

It’s your fault.

Oh, how is your reticence my fault?

You still haven’t got the hang of talking in your head.

What are you talking about?

You move your lips even when talking in your head. Do you know how crazy it makes you look?

I DO NOT MOVE MY LIPS!

Well not now, you’re focusing on it. But I’ve seen you do it quite a few times. Last thing I need is for your new friends to think you are touched in the head. They might not trust you with weapons anymore. Then my life will be nothing but tedium.

Wait, I thought I could call you to me whenever I wanted.

Yes. And what a good way to reveal that I am not just your average sword to everyone. Look, the kid who talks to himself can call his sword to him with magic! Just because they don’t question Ross’s healing abilities doesn’t mean that they will be pleased by a crazy kid with a magic sword. Why do you think Ross wanted you to practice with candles in private?

Yeah, that’s true. He did leave me with the distinct impression that revealing my powers was not a good idea.

Exactly. Moreover, when was the last time you practiced?

Not since coming out to the roads.

Well, now is as good a time as any. When will you be away from all them again?

True, but what do you suggest I do? I don’t have any candles on me and the snow has pretty much all melted. I don’t have a lot of options here.

You could try lighting a stick on fire.

That’s a thought. Then when I get the hang of sticks, I can use it to light the fire at night.

Did we not just finish talking about how revealing yourself might be a bad idea?

I don’t mean stand there, clap my hands like a traveling mummers show and make an inferno appear. I mean while building the fire base, lighting the bark scraps and dry leaves we use as tinder with my mind instead of last night’s embers or flint.

That might work. If you sit there like you are lighting the fire normally, then no one will think it funny when a fire appears.

But first, I think I should make sure I can start a fire on a stick without blowing it to smithereens.

Yeah, that might well attract attention. Imagine if you blew up the whole fireplace! That would take some explaining. It’s likely harder to hide your magic while standing in a crater filled with debris.

Ok, so then we’re agreed, I finish collecting some sticks, then I can try and light one on fire away from the others. If I can keep control while doing this for the next few days, we can move on to the fire pit idea.

Yup. Now just try to not blow a hole in the forest, or worse, start a forest fire.

              Collecting the firewood took some time, but I was eventually successful. This is normally an easy endeavor, but as we had been using this campsite for some time, I had to go farther afield to find wood and kindling. This suited my plans just fine, as I did not want anyone seeing me trying to light the stick on fire. Once I had a big enough pile and I was conveniently far away from camp, I picked a likely member from the pile of sticks, stuck in the ground so one end was standing up, and proceeded to try and light it. In hindsight, I am not sure why I felt it was necessary to have it standing up like a candle, but since that was what I had lit before, I guess it felt roughly equivalent.

              It took some time to get a hang of it. Unlike a candle, it took a lot more energy to light. It wasn’t a wax covered wick after all. Still, it took a great deal more concentration to get it to smolder than I had thought. Turns out unleashing more power without losing control and opening the taps completely was a lot harder than I expected. The more power I tapped, the harder it was to limit the outflow. By the time I got the stick smoking and smoldering, I was sweating profusely and was a little weak in the legs. Still, having been successful, I buried the smoldering twig in the ground to smother it.

              Once I had collected myself and stopped sweating so profusely, I collected my pile of sticks and headed back to the campsite. When I got in, it looked like they had gotten both the goods and the cooking taken care of. I dumped my sticks into the now nearly depleted woodpile, and joined the rest of them for dinner.

“Hey, Tyr, you get lost out there?” Said Bevan.

“Yeah, you were gone a long while there,” said Devlin. “We were almost considering sending out a search party.”

“Or eating your share of the dinner!” Said Tiernan.

“Fortunately, tonight there is enough for all, so your dinner is safe,” said Jarvis.

“Yup. Seems our good friend the merchant was a butcher,” said Bevan.

“A guard riding a horse for hours with a belly full of salt pork is not the most diligent of protectors,” said Devlin with a smile.

“I can’t imagine what all that bouncing was doing to their digestion,” said Tiernan.

“It does explain why they didn’t put up much of a fuss at the barricade,” said Jarvis.

“Well, we now have an opulent spread for dinner,” said Devlin. “So tuck in and grab some cooked pork!”

              Not needing any more encouragement, I grabbed myself a decent portion and set to my dinner. I was surprisingly hungry after all my exertions that day. And it had been a long time since we had anything in ample quantities. After all, when you are out camping, you eat what you have brought, so you have to ration your stores. But not so much with a cart full of preserved meats and sausages. So we all ate our fill.

              After dinner, there was some faint reminiscing by the fire, and a lot of congratulatory backslapping. The good mood was infectious. After nothing for days, we had managed a decent haul (so I was told anyway) and more importantly, no one got hurt. It was a great weight off my heart. I had been more than a little convinced everything was going to go horribly wrong. With that off my mind, I was able to settle down for a good night sleep, the first I had had since we set out for the road.

Chapter 13.

              The next day everyone slept in. There wasn’t much point waking up early, since all we had planned was to finish the packing and moving the camp to a different location. So after a good night’s sleep and a relaxed brunch, we got everything into the cart, including the spoils of our heist. Then we hit the road a little before midday. It took the rest of the day to travel to the chosen campground. Apparently there were quite a few of them hidden within a couple days’ ride of the longhouse.

“So how many of these camps do you have set up?” I asked.

“Currently, we have 5,” Devlin replied. “That way it makes it hard for the patrols to find us.”

“See kid, if we always hit the same part on the road, the authorities would eventually figure it out and set up a trap,” said Bevan. “But if we move around over a large area of the road, it’s harder to predict where we are, and harder to figure out where the longhouse is.”

“There are only 8 of us after all,” said Tiernan. “If they figured out where we live, they could send a regiment to destroy the longhouse and kill us all. It’s one thing to waylay a few fat merchants, it’s another thing entirely to fight off a large force of men when you are pinned down.”

“And if they destroyed the longhouse during the winter, it would be tough for us to make it to spring,” said Jarvis. “I’m a decent carpenter, but working wood when it’s freezing out presents lots of difficulties.”

“And you need a forge to work metal, regardless of the season,” said Bevan. “And I doubt that they would leave that intact if they raided the longhouse.”

              The trip to the new campground was uneventful. The new campsite was, again, in a glade near running water within a few hours’ hike of the road. Unfortunately, this site had not been used in a while, and the lean-to was in need of some minor repairs. We were lucky that the weather stayed dry until that evening, after we had already arrived at the new site and unpacked. Unfortunately, we had not yet cooked dinner or started a fire when it started raining. So when the rain finally arrived, it found Jarvis on the roof of the lean-to, replacing some rotten shingles. Tiernan, at least, was in the lean-to shoring up the stone walls. Bevan and I were out collecting firewood while Devlin had just returned from filling up our water barrels in the stream.

“You gonna fix that roof anytime soon?” Said Tiernan. “It’s dripping on my head in here.”

“How about you fix the roof and I fix the walls,” said Jarvis. “That way all I would have to complain about is a couple of drops on my head instead of the buckets worth being dumped on me now.”

“You both could go out and collect firewood if the repairs are too hard,” said Devlin, who was puttering around the supplies in the back of the lean-to, conveniently out of both the rain and the leaks in the roof.

              Meanwhile Bevan and I were both soaked to the skin trying to find any dry tinder under bushes and trees that may have managed to keep dry. We were not having all that much luck. Still, after all afternoon on the cart, it was good to stretch my legs. By the time I gave up and headed back to the campsite, the work had largely stopped and everyone was standing around the fire pit giving it their best efforts to start a fire with the few bits of dry tinder we had available.

“Yeah, keep hitting that flint, you almost had it that time,” said Bevan sarcastically to Jarvis.

“And you can do better?” Replied Jarvis.

“No, I think he’s just wasting his time. We’re eating a cold dinner tonight,” said Bevan.

“You mind if I give it a try?” I said depositing the wood I found with the rest under a tarpaulin.

“Oh, by all means,” said Devlin. “Waste more flint, it’ll be fun to watch.”

              And I did try with the flint, at least at first. Then, seeing that it wasn’t working, I decided to cheat. Every time I struck the flint I fed a little power into the tinder. This way I figured I could use my powers and not be obvious enough about it that it would clue in my compatriots. After a little time, I managed to get some smoke, and then an open flame. I sort of felt bad wasting more of the flint, but it couldn’t be helped.

“Well, I’ll be…” Said Devlin. “You have a way with a fire, no doubt about it.”

“Bah, he just got lucky,” said Bevan. “He didn’t do anything we didn’t, he just had the benefit of going last.”

              Hearing this was a little relief. I thought I had been subtle about my use of power, but still, good to get confirmation. With the fire crackling away, and another tarpaulin keeping the worst of the rain off the flames, I left the others there to start dinner. I went to the lean-to to change into dryer clothes.

That was a stupid risk you just took.

They don’t suspect a thing. I thought I was pretty clever hiding it, pretending to use the flint.

Just because it worked doesn’t make it a smart move. If they figured it out, and it freaked them out, you could be out of a home again.

They wouldn’t toss me out on my ear. Besides, why do you care? On the road you would likely see more use anyway.

I doubt it. Chances are, on your own, you would just get captured again and me along with you. God only knows what the Inquisitors would do to both of us if they caught us.

You have a point. They weren’t exactly civil any of the times I’ve met them in the past.

Likely they torture you for information and then try and melt me down. Regardless, it’s something I would rather not find out in person if you catch my drift.

             
While this conversation was happening in my head, I changed into a dry set of clothes and hung my wet ones up on a drying line hung across the lean-to. My sword sat propped up in the corner with the rest of the weaponry, avoiding as much of the damp as it could. Outside the lean-to, dinner was coming along as well as could be expected given the weather. Devlin was supervising, which seemed to involve sneaking tastes whenever either Jarvis or Tiernan were distracted. When dinner finished cooking, the rain had slowed to a faint drizzle.

“Isn’t that the way of the world?” Asked Jarvis. “Just as we finish the outdoor activities, the rain stops.”

“Quit complaining,” said Bevan. “Do you actually want the rain to continue?”

“Well no, but that’s beside the point,” said Jarvis.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Tiernan. “We’re having a warm dinner, the lean-to is no longer leaking water, it could be a whole lot worse.”

              With a minimum of bickering, we concluded dinner and turned in for bed. After the rain, there was a surprising stillness in the woods, the only noise being the dripping of water from leaves. It was surprisingly soothing. I was not aware of precisely when I drifted off, but I had a terrific night’s sleep. The next day, I woke up after the sun to the noise of breakfast being prepared. The smell of bacon was following the breeze and wafting into the lean-to. There are many good ways to wake up, but the smell of cooking bacon is one of my favorites.

              Breakfast was eaten with very little talking. It’s amazing the power of bacon, it even kept Bevan from making wise cracks. It did make the oatmeal we normally ate seem even more inadequate than we already believed it to be. But fortunately, the bacon was so good that it made vocalizing such thoughts unnecessary. We all knew the rest of us were thinking the exact same thing. It was that good. Ok, maybe being on the road and eating oatmeal for days had something to do with it.

              After breakfast was eaten, and the grease licked off our plates in a very undignified manner, we all grabbed our weapons and gear, and headed out to the road. Once there we split into our usual groups, with Bevan and I watching the northern route from an overlook approximately 100 yard north of the barricade, and Tiernan and Jarvis watching the southern route from another overlook about 100 yard south of the barricade. Unfortunately, the Bacon turned out to be the highlight of the day; the road was virtually empty with the exception of a few poor farmers and a couple of drifters.

              Once the sun set, and my 4
th
turn watching the road came to an end, we all packed up and headed back to the campsite. This wasn’t a spontaneous decision, we normally headed back from watching the road at sundown. Once the lines of sight are compromised and it starts getting dark, it becomes dangerous to waylay travelers. It’s harder to tell who is a good mark, and who is not. So we generally stopped at sundown. Obviously, exceptions were made for exceptionally good targets.

              Dinner that night was substantially less cheery than breakfast. We still had a ton of meat leftover from our previous heist, so the food was good. But we were all settling in mentally for another long and uneventful watch. The idea of long days staring down a road has that effect on a person. After a while the dullness sets in and depresses you.

              The only person not affected by it was Devlin. He constantly was talking about the next big score, even when it was clear that the rest of us were less than thrilled. Likely it was his way of trying to keep moral up. When that failed though, he had to dig a little deeper into his repertoire.

“I know what will cheer you guys up!” said Devlin. “In order to keep our skills from getting rusty, I think we should have nightly archery contests and point sparring sword fights. Give us something to look forward to after a boring day.”

“Yeah, but Dev, you’re just going to kick our asses with the swords, like you always do,” said Bevan. “The archery isn’t a bad idea, except we have a limited amount of arrows out here and I have limited tools for fixing broken arrow heads.”

“And while we are in the woods, it does take more than just cutting up a random tree for me to make arrow shafts,” said Jarvis.

“Ok, so maybe the archery is a bad idea then,” said Devlin. “But the point of this is not for my benefit. I don’t want Tyr to get rusty. I have been remiss in not continuing his education while we are on the road.”

“Uh, we don’t have any practice swords out here…” I said. “I don’t want to accidentally hurt anyone here flailing about with my real sword.”

“We can use sticks instead of our actual swords,” said Devlin. “So no need to worry about chopping us up.”

“Us?” asked Bevan.

“Yeah, us,” said Devlin. “I think it may be a mistake for Tyr to have only sparred with me and Moira. Variety will give him more confidence in his skills. At least it will get him used to people with differing heights and reaches.”

“And we actually have a chance of winning,” said Bevan.

“Why don’t we make it a tournament then,” said Tiernan. “After all, it’s not just Tyr whose skills may be getting rusty.”

“Now that’s an idea I can get behind,” said Jarvis. “I have been itching to hit Bevan with a stick anyway.”

“Hah, hah, Jarvis,” said Bevan. “When we spar I’ll try not to make you look too incompetent. Maybe you’ll even get a chance of actually hitting me.”

“See? The competitive juices are flowing already!” said Devlin with a smile.

              The rest of the evening was spent searching for likely sparring staves. It also served the dual purpose of filling up the wood pile with a variety of rejects for use in the fire. In the end I managed to find a stick of the right length and approximate weight of my espada. Bevan came back with what looked like half a tree, which Devlin vetoed on the grounds that the point of sticks was that they were less deadly than swords. Something about being hit by a blacksmith with half an oak tree struck him as dangerous. The rest of us agreed. Fortunately, Jarvis and Tiernan were more realistic in their findings and each had found staves of the approximate length of the short swords they actually used as well. Bevan was given one of the spares, one of a much more reasonable length and weight.

“This toothpick? Are you trying to make me lose to Tiernan?” Asked Bevan.

“If you had used your time more wisely, and found an appropriate stave to use, you wouldn’t be in this situation,” said Devlin. “What were you thinking grabbing that log anyway?”