Dragon Thief (19 page)

Thea smiled and waved at me. “Hi, Frank.”

“What are you doing here?”

“We followed you,” Thea said.

“It wasn't difficult,” Grace said.

“Since we've been following the prince here since his ambush,” Weasel said, “it was inevitable that we would find your distaff allies following him as well.”

“
We
found
you
,” Mary said.

“We can call it a mutual discovery.” Weasel shook his head. “Along with a number of very interesting conversations.”

I turned to Grace. “Why? You didn't need to get involved in this again.”

Grace snorted. “You offered us a share of Snake's treasure when we got to Lendowyn. You're going to make good on that.”

I opened my mouth, and closed it. That almost seemed reasonable.

Almost.

I was left wondering if a half-dozen teenage girls had decided on their own to pull my bacon out of the fire, and if that was the case, I was completely unable to articulate how I felt about it.

“So?” Weasel addressed me. “We have two possibilities on the table. You help us plan a theft of the Lendowyn treasury, or I introduce you to the White Rock Thieves' Guild and you can try persuading them not to disassemble your carcass joint by joint.”

I sighed. “You knew what I was going to answer or you'd never ask the question.”

“Perhaps, but what I've heard about Frank Blackthorne does not suggest a completely flawless capacity for decision making.”

“So you're going to insult your new advisor?”

“Am I wrong?”

“No,” I said. “But that is why I'm agreeing to your suicidal scheme.” I asked a nearby goon, “So can you untie me now?”

Said goon reached down and sliced my bonds apart with a flourish that made me wince. I rubbed my wrists as I looked over at Oliver. “What about him?”

Weasel made a gesture and the goon holding Oliver lowered the dagger at his neck. “Hostage for Dermonica's good behavior. We'll let him go once we're safely out of his father's reach.”

“If you want safety then you'll release me immediately!”

Weasel walked up and tore a necklace from Oliver's neck. He handed it to a nearby goon. “Ride to the Dermonica court and explain that Prince Oliver is our honored guest and will be escorting us during our stay in this fine country.” He waved over another pair of goons. “See our guest to his accommodations.”

“You'll pay for this.” Oliver spat as the two goons lifted him to his feet. “Along with him!”

Weasel chuckled. “Note please, that I did not tell my man to inform the duke of your unilateral excursions into neighboring kingdoms. Or was your bloodshed on foreign soil diplomatically sanctioned?”

Oliver continued to glare as the goons led him away.

“I thought not,” Weasel said. He turned to face me and the girls, who had walked up to flank me. He looked us all up and down. “You have interesting allies, Frank Blackthorne.”

“I collect them,” I said. “It's a hobby of mine.”

“Keep them out of trouble while we plan this thing.”

“I think they can take care of themselves.”

“I'm sure,” he said. “But this job will require more men than I have here, and I would not be happy if the new men and your girls took care of each other.”

Grace stepped forward. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Anything that you care to make of it,” Weasel said. “You chose a rude profession.” He waved dismissively. “One of my men will take you to a tent. Eat, rest, we start planning this evening.”

When he said “a tent” he didn't misspeak. All seven of us were crammed into a single canvas pavilion. I counted five bedrolls and resigned myself to having a chilly night. Mary threw her pack down in one corner of the octagonal tent in obvious frustration. “I don't believe that rat-faced ass—”

“Ass-faced rat?” Thea said, sending Rabbit into a fit of rather strange-sounding laughter.

“There would be no job, nothing to plan, if we hadn't shown up.”

“Calm down,” Grace said. “The plan worked.”

“Guess I shouldn't expect any more from someone who dealt with White Rock.”

“Shouldn't expect any more from a man,” Grace said.

“Um.” I cleared my throat. “Man here.” Rabbit had almost stopped laughing, but she took one look at me and started again.

“Speaking of which,” Krys said, pointing at me. “Shouldn't someone talk to Princess Frank about the plan?”

“What plan?”

Grace smiled. “Well, you can get our rat-ass into the Lendowyn treasury, right?”

“That seems to be why I'm not tied up in a burlap sack heading back north.”

“So what would it take to set things up so that we get there first?”

“What?”

“You think they're going to let us have a share?” Mary said. “The oaf can't even share credit.”

“So we quietly slip in first,” Grace said. “Take our share before that oaf can object. Even better, his men can be a distraction covering our escape.”

“You realize this is insane,” I said.

“You owe us,” Grace said. “Not to mention you promised us a share of Snake's treasure in Lendowyn.”

“And if he figures you're double-crossing him—” I started.

“He won't,” Krys said. “He's too busy double-crossing us. A bunch of girls? I don't think the possibility would even occur to him.”

I looked around at all of them. Rabbit had stopped laughing, and even Thea wasn't smiling anymore. “You're serious,” I said.

“Yes,” Grace said.

“What if I refused?”

“We have something you need,” Laya said.

Rabbit pulled a folded cloth out of her pouch.

“What's that?” I asked.

“Rabbit isn't just a good tracker,” Grace said. “She's our best pickpocket.”

As Grace spoke, Rabbit unfolded the cloth to reveal an unpleasant iron talisman on a chain.

“I gave that to Lucille!” I grabbed for it, but Rabbit snatched it away and shoved it back in her pouch.

“In a room filled with cutpurses and thieves,” Grace said.

“And you have some nerve being offended,” Mary said.

“We want you to straighten out your personal life,” Krys said. “But you're right. It's not our fight.”

“But that treasure . . .” Grace said.

I nodded. “But that treasure.”

“You're with us?” Laya asked.

After a moment I said, “Yes.”

I didn't know if I should have been impressed or disappointed.

 • • • 

The next several days with Weasel and his growing army of brigands and thieves felt very strange. Weasel's immediate crew too easily made the transition from wanting to beat me with blunt objects to slapping me on the back and offering me draughts of ale. Then there were the trio of assassins who had turned on Prince Oliver. When they lowered their masks I recognized at least one of them from my hallucinatory visit to The Headless Earl; he was easy to pick out because of the strange looks he gave me. Not hostile looks, more the kind of looks a stray dog might give you if you fed it a piece of cheese from your pouch; attentive, head cocked, trying desperately to figure out where the cheese is coming from.

Then there were the others, the recruits who came into Weasel's encampment as we planned the largest theft in recorded history. Many of them I recognized, some from my last visit to The Headless Earl, some from my first one. A few I knew from back during my days when I had thieving as a profession . . .

That, in the end, was what made things strange—thinking of myself in the past tense. These men all had been my peers at one point, for better or worse. Now, for better or worse, I really no longer counted among their number. I was key to their plans, not because I was ever a particularly good thief, but because I was a royal insider.

With these new men came news of the situation deteriorating around us.

The armies of Lendowyn and Grünwald prepared to face each other. Apparently the return of the princess had not defused matters and it appeared Lucille's father was pressing forward with an army whose size belied the state of the Lendowyn treasury when I had been princess. That increased everyone's urgency.

Not that Weasel or his allies cared much about the potential for open war. They were more distressed at the obvious drain on Snake Bartholomew's assets.

No one mentioned the Dragon Prince being anywhere near the front lines. To me that sounded like Snake. I doubted he would put himself in harm's way, even if he had a dragon's body. Best to sit behind the walls of a castle and let someone else's army do the dirty work.

 • • • 

A fortnight after my “rescue” we exploited the one positive aspect of the massed armies on the Grünwald border. The concentration of Lendowyn's army allowed Weasel's much smaller force of outlaws and assassins to outflank them and cross the Fell River far behind the main body of troops.

True to his word, once the last boat ferried the last group of outlaws into Lendowyn, Prince Oliver had been left on the opposite shore, fuming but unharmed.

Moving over the next three nights, we reached sight of the castle without being detected. Of course, remaining undetected at this point became a significant issue, given the large city surrounding the castle. If we had planned this expedition with mercenaries rather than an army of thieves, this would be problematic.

As it was, Weasel's army of nearly fifty brigands, cutpurses, thieves, and outlaws was able to slip into the city largely unnoticed in groups of twos and threes over the span of two days. This was a good thing, as any large body of men would probably be noticed by the large lizard periodically circling the castle.

The girls had stayed out of trouble, despite the presence of a few late arrivals from the White Rock Thieves' Guild. This wasn't due to any deference to Weasel, but due to the fact that Mary—the one most likely to feed those men a sensitive part of their own anatomy—had left to enter the city a full day ahead of everyone else. No one noticed the lanky redhead missing before the thief army started melting into the city, and I was able to slip the rest of the girls in, in three groups, mixed with male escorts.

The fact that the first group I sent was weighted two-to-one in favor of my girls didn't register on anyone. And since that didn't register, no one realized that by the time I sent Rabbit and two men into town, the odds would be three to one.

After that, the girls were on their own, and I had a break-in to supervise. I was in the last group to slip into town, along with Weasel and one of his goons.

 • • • 

Four hours past midnight, and I stood with Weasel in a stable in the shadow of Lendowyn Castle. It was cloudy and the moon had set, and the night was broken only by a few flickers of torchlight from high on the castle walls. My breath fogged, but the air in the stable was warmed, not just from the snorting horses in their stalls, but from the press of black-clad bodies that had been filing in over the course of the night.

We had been waiting for close to half an hour for the trio of Oliver's turncoat assassins to complete their job.

“Mr. Blackthorne,” Weasel said as we waited. “Do you have a backup plan?”

“Those are your people.”

“It was your plan.”

“I never guaranteed this would work. Snake could have changed the guard rotation or where men are stationed—”

“Perhaps. But do you want to explain that to the men in here?”

I glanced back into the shadows, to see the vague outlines of more than two score ruffians. I couldn't help but wish for one of Brock's herb packets and a fire to toss it into.

“If we need to, I'll think of something.”

“Good man.”

Fortunately for everyone, I was not required to indulge in my talents for improvisation. After another quarter hour, a tiny bright flame flared twice in the small doorway beside the main drawbridge.

“That's the signal,” Weasel said. “Get the boats.”

“Boat” was a generous term for the three misshapen objects we hauled the quarter mile to the moat's edge. They were, at best, improvised half-breed rafts made from rope, canvas, planks, and logs covered with a generous coating of still-tacky tar until the thing was blacker than the sky above us. They were wobbly, leaky, and just enough to ferry us across the twenty yards to the raised underside of the drawbridge where three ropes waited for us.

It took three trips for the entire group to make it across, the last half-dozen men swimming as one of the “boats” inevitably sank into the moat. Luckily for those men, the Lendowyn crown never could afford to stock the moat with anything more threatening than leeches or the occasional frog.

Weasel's thief army slipped into the main courtyard, squishy and non-squishy alike. They hugged the walls and the deepest shadows as they filed in. Even with my eyes well adjusted to the dark, a quick glance at the space didn't reveal anything out of place, though the last time this many people filled this courtyard was my wedding.