Rise of the Champion (The Sword of Kirakath Omnibus #1) (7 page)

After Katie made two more trips, Caleb handed the torches back to her and went down to his knees. He methodically stacked firewood in a pyramid-like structure within moments.

“I’d normally put some stones around it to keep the fire contained, but it shouldn’t be a problem here,” Caleb said as he took the torches from her once again and laid them at opposite sides of the structure.

Within moments, the fire had engulfed the pyramid of wood.

“You have a bit of experience at something, it seems,” Katie commented. When a reply did not come, she looked towards Caleb and saw that he was already asleep, lying about ten feet from the campfire.

“I guess he really was tired,” Katie said with a small smile. “He definitely has the right idea, anyways.”

With that, she laid down across the fire from him.

* * * * *

Caleb’s eyes snapped open, instantly becoming alert to his surroundings.

Though the campfire was still alight, it was not longer the source of light in the cave. The sun had risen and was shining through the entrance of the cave with the intensity that only the sun seemed to possess.

“Awake, I see,” Katie said as she placed another branch upon the fire, fueling it further. “The sun rose a few hours ago.”

“You’ve been awake since then?” Caleb asked as he sat up, stretching in an attempt to loosen his stiff muscles. Pain lanced through his arms and back as he moved, but he did not show it.

“I have,” Katie said with a small nod. “I’ve gotten in the habit of waking at sunrise.”

“At least the fire is still going,” Caleb said after a few moments of thought. “I’ll go and see if I can get something to eat. There’s likely a squirrel or a rabbit around.”

“And how, pray tell, are you going to kill a squirrel or a rabbit?” Katie said with a raised eyebrow. “You may have a quiver of arrows, but you don’t have a bow. Surely you don’t intend to try to kill them with your sword. As skilled as you may be, I doubt that such a feat is within your ability.”

Caleb frowned. He knew that she had a point, but that did not mean that he had to like it. He had absolutely no idea how he would kill an animal, which made his hunger even worse.

“If you can find us something, I’ll be more than happy to kill it for us,” Katie suggested.

“How would you manage that?” he asked, sincerely curious.

“I killed five of those bandits last night,” Katie said as she crossed her arms and frowned at him. “Did you fail to notice the wooden spikes that had been lodged into their throats?”

He was suddenly reminded on the five bandits that had been lying on the ground with a single wooden spike in each of their throats. He had not even stopped to think about it at the time as a result of his exhaustion.

“That was you?” he asked in surprise.

She nodded without hesitation in response to that. “After my last escape attempt, I worked on making wooden spikes. It was pretty difficult to get them and keep them a secret. I’m very creative though.”

“I’m more impressed that you could kill them with a single hit,” Caleb admitted. “Throwing objects isn’t something I I’m very good at… though I can hit a black bear in the face with a rabbit.”

Whatever Katie was going to say was suddenly overridden by laughter as she no doubt imagined him throwing a rabbit at a bear’s face.

“I wasn’t aiming for the bear,” he said with a sigh, but that only increased the intensity of her melodic laughter.

“You are, by far, the most interesting man I’ve ever met,” she said once the laughter died. A smile played upon her lips as she said those words.

“I’m not yet a man,” Caleb said dismissively. “I’ve only seen seventeen years.”

Katie shook her head at his words. “I’m not a magistrate or a countess. I don’t think a man is made by the summers that he has seen but by the deeds that he has committed. By your words, you’ve encountered a black bear. You’ve also seen your kin dead, been taken captive by slavers, and killed more men than an average soldier does. If you’re not a man, then I’m a horse.”

Naturally, Caleb had no idea how to respond to that, so he simply said, “Are you interested in getting something to eat or not?”

Taking his words as a sign of victory, Katie rose to her feet and grasped the handle of one of the knives at her belt. “I’m ready when you are.”

Caleb quickly rose to his feet and walked passed her, moving through the cave entrance with focused eyes. Those same focused eyes narrowed moments later.

He saw three rabbits off to the left.

Don’t tell me that I’m going to have good luck now,
he thought cynically. Shaking his head, he pointed towards them.

“Looks like we’ve got three rabbits, all at about twenty-five paces away,” Katie said thoughtfully as she withdrew two knives from her belt. “I don’t normally let people watch me in action, but I’ll make an exception.”

With that, she quickly threw her first knife with her right hand. The moment it left her hand, she tossed the knife from her left hand to her right hand. The second knife followed after the first with barely a second gap between them. The third knife made its way from her belt to her hand and from her hand towards her target just as fast.

After a display that took no more than five seconds, the three gray rabbits were hit by the fast traveling knives. The impact of the bladed weapons sent the small animals rolling, but that was the most movement that they seemed to be capable of.

“You’re really good at that,” Caleb said in a whisper. He was stunned. He had never imagined that he would see such a feat performed.

“My knives are perfectly balanced for throwing,” Katie said as she smiled. It seemed that she enjoyed hearing such a compliment from him. “Hitting a stationary target has never been difficult anyways. If they were running, I probably would have missed.”

“Whatever you say,” Caleb said as he began to walk down the hill towards the rabbits. By the rustling of leaves behind him, he could tell that she was following after him.

Once they reached the three dead rabbits, he removed the knives from them and handed them to Katie, who sheathed them after wiping the blood off.

“I’ll carry one of them,” Katie said as she held out her hand.

Caleb glanced at her for a moment before he handed her the largest rabbit. He had no doubts in his mind that any other would offend her.

“When we get back up there, I’ll need one of your knives,” Caleb said as he held a rabbit in each hand.

She nodded, clearly not surprised by his words. “We can’t very well cook them as they are now, can we?” she asked rhetorically, confirming that she understood the reasoning behind his statement.

Caleb merely nodded his head once before beginning his trek up the hill.

* * * * *

About hour later, Caleb and Katie were sitting in front of the fire with their cooked food in hand.

“So, what’s your plan?” Katie asked after she finished swallowing a bite. “You said that we were headed to Caldreth, but you never explained why.”

“No, I didn’t,” Caleb agreed. Though he did not wish to explain everything to her, he knew that it would be unwise to hide it, especially if she was intent on helping him.

“Well?” she prompted him, impatiently.

“Before my father died, he made two requests of me. The first was to find the Sword of Kirakath, and the second was to bring the men that razed Kirakath to justice,” Caleb explained with sadness clear in his eyes. “He told me that if I wear this sword at my hip in Caldreth, the one that knows how to find the Sword of Kirakath will contact me.”

Though curiosity was clear upon her expression, Katie did not ask about the Sword of Kirakath. Instead, she asked, “How are you supposed to find the ones that razed your village?”

Without saying a word, Caleb slipped the index finger and thumb of his left hand into the underside of the right sleeve of his undershirt. Removing his fingers from the inside of his sleeve, Caleb pulled out a square piece of cloth that bore the emblem of two crows pinned together by an arrow.

Katie took the cloth from his hands without asking and looked it over carefully. Finally, she returned it and said, “I don’t recognize the symbol, but I know someone who can find it out.”

“You do?” Caleb asked in surprise.

She simply nodded before appearing to grow serious. “Before I say anything further, I need to know how you plan to get us inside Caldreth. We are both covered in dirt, and you have quite a bit of blood on your clothes. Factoring that in with your very nice sword is going to cause us problems if we try to get in through the front gates.”

“How else would we get in though?” Caleb asked, clearly believing that that was the only way.

Katie looked at him with surprise, but she merely sighed. “We will be brought before a magistrate within an hour if we try things your way. I have no doubt that we would be hung, which brings up the only possibility that I can see working. We need to come in with clean clothes, and it would help if we were riding horses.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, unsure of what she was getting at.

“Before I explain, you need to know the truth about me,” Katie said as she looked towards the fire. “I’ve lived on my own on the streets of Caldreth since I was thirteen. The only way I could survive was by becoming a thief and stealing what I needed to survive. Over the years, I met a man a few years older than me. He’s a fence, a merchant that deals in stolen property. He’s also one of my few friends. Because he lives a few miles away from Caldreth, he is our best bet at getting in the city.”

“Then we will have to meet with him,” Caleb said with a single moment of thought on the matter. With a single glance, he could see Katie’s surprise. “My father used to tell me never to judge a man until I understood his actions and circumstances. I’m sure you only did what you needed to do.”

“Again, I say that you are the most interesting man that I’ve ever met,” she said with a soft smile. Shaking her head suddenly, she said, “The man that we’ll be visiting will help us, but he won’t do anything for free.”

Alarm crossed Caleb’s features at that. “How are we going to pay for his services?”

With that, Katie removed a small cloth sack about the size of her fist from behind her at her belt. Holding the sack in front of her, she said, “I picked up what those highwaymen gained before we left their camp. We have about fifty crowns.”

His eyes widened at that news. He had never imagined being near such a large sum of money. If everyone in Kirakath had pitched in, they might have gotten close to such a sum, but that was spread out through an entire village.

“When did you do that?” he asked. He could not remember seeing her pick anything up outside of her belt and her boots.

“A pickpocket has to be good at doing things without being obvious.” That was all she would say on the matter, and Caleb nodded his head in acceptance of the knowledge that she would not explain it any further.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked as he finished his relatively bland meal. Meat by itself was somewhat filling, but it was definitely not a grand meal.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Katie said after she swallowed the last piece of the rabbit that Caleb had given her.

At that, they both rose to their feet and began to walk towards the entrance of the cave.

Their journey to Caldreth truly began as they left their temporary sanctuary.

Chapter 8

“So where does this friend of yours live again?” Caleb asked, glancing at his companion as they made their way down the road towards Caldreth.

“Nicolas owns an inn alongside the road,” Katie said as she kept pace with him effortlessly. “By his estimates, the inn is five miles away from Caldreth’s gates.”

Curiosity surfaced upon his face at that. “Why would anyone open up an inn so close to a big city like Caldreth? I can’t imagine he’d get much business.”

“His business is in stolen merchandise,” Katie said with a raised eyebrow. “The inn is just a front for his business as a fence. As it is, most of the people that rent rooms at the inn are only there to buy or sell something to him. Because it is located outside of the city walls, it is safe from city officials and the guard too.”

“So it’s just a hideout for criminals?” he asked, disturbed by the idea.

“It’s a place of business,” Katie corrected him. “Nicolas doesn’t allow anyone to stay unless they are paying for a room. Even then, he doesn’t let anyone stay unless he’s sure they won’t attract attention to his place. It’s a shop first, and an inn second.”

“Whatever you say,” Caleb said with a shrug of his shoulders.

Katie sighed at that point. She could understand the inner conflict that seemed to envelope him at times. Despite being rather understanding about her being a thief, Caleb had made his opinions regarding criminals quite clear since they left the cave that morning.

Her eyes narrowed suddenly as her attention went to the road before them. With the dense forest on both sides of the road, she had been focusing on her surroundings carefully from the start, but what she saw up ahead made her even more nervous. “We should proceed with caution.”