Siege of Pailtar (4 page)

Tomorrow she would act more like a thief, and not a petulant child, she vowed to herself. She would not let her pride or her stubborn nature hold her back from succeeding.

4

At Sea

THE LAST TIME SHARON had been at sea she was coming to Balta after Nathan and Verin rescued them from the dastardly Duke Evollan and the even more evil Bailmont. She had been too caught up in the emotions of being rescued and realizing she would not be returning to her old home to enjoy the trip.

This time was different. This time she was accompanying Quinton.

After retrieving the ancient tomes of the Red Order and returning to Balta, Sharon had felt better than she had in months. The hard training under the watchful eyes of Quinton and Nathan, followed up by the dangerous excursion into the jungle had given Sharon a sense of purpose. The shame and helplessness she had felt as a hostage to Duke Evollan was now a memory. One that remained with her, but it no longer filled her thoughts and nightmares.

Now Sharon was a warrior, or working hard to become one. Her sword skills had gone from nonexistent to respectable in only a few short months. Those skills combined with her magical spider silk armor made her a formidable warrior. When Aunt Avera, along with King Verbon, noted her part in the retrieval of the tomes from the Darcarion mages Sharon had felt satisfaction and pride.

When Quinton’s father announced that Quinton would be heading back out to sea with the Royal Navy, Quinton had been the one to suggest that Sharon be allowed to join the excursion. Aunt Avera had required a little convincing, but in the end everyone agreed that Sharon had earned the right to join Quinton. It was not uncommon for mages to have personal bodyguards, and while Quinton was not a full-time mage in the royal fleet he was of royal descent. His uncle being the king and his father in charge of the entire fleet gave Quinton a certain latitude for special treatment.

“What are you thinking about?”

Startled out of her thoughts by Quinton’s voice Sharon turned and smiled. “I was just thinking about the last time I was at sea. It was such a different voyage,  I never realize how much I could enjoy sailing until now.”

Quinton smiled back at Sharon. “I’m glad you are enjoying it. That first day you didn’t look like you would last long. Sometimes people have a really hard time getting their sea legs.”

“You mean spending half the day puking my guts out is normal?”

“Pretty much,” said Quinton with a chuckle. Quinton remembered the first time he had been out during rough seas, he had gone through a similar experience.

“Do you think we will find any Darcarion ships?”

“Hard to say, my father was pretty insistent that the entire fleet needed to be mobilized and sent out searching for them, so I guess he thinks we will.”

“Your father is pretty.…” said Sharon struggled to the right word.

“Intense,” replied Quinton.

“Yes! Your father is very intense.”

Quinton didn’t feel comfortable talking about his father very often. Brisson Bayson was a very intense man, his passion was the Navy and he had never fully approved of Quinton becoming a mage. It had been even worse when Quinton focused his studies on areas of magic like illusions. Bryson could accept a fire mage or an elemental mage for a son, but a illusionist? If it had not been for his mother and his uncle the king, Quinton would never have been allowed to study magic the way he wanted. “Father is a great sailor, but he and I don’t get along very well. He doesn’t think highly of mages.”

“That is absurd, magic is great. Your paintings are the most beautiful things ever, it is wonderful the things you can do with magic.”

“Thank you, Sharon, I wish my father saw it that way. Not that it matters much. Between Aunt Avera and Uncle Verbon, I have enough support that it doesn’t matter what father thinks. It’s helpful that my uncle is the most powerful man in the kingdom.”

“What about your mother?” asked Sharon.

“My mother loves me very much, and I know she secretly loves the paintings I make her, but she kind of cowers before Father. She doesn’t like to argue with him, so when he is around she ignores me a lot.”

“That’s awful!”

“No, it’s better that way. She used to try and convince Father how great my magical art was, but he would just get angry. By ignoring me it avoids him yelling at me.”

“Sorry, Quinton, but your father sounds like a jerk. Why did she marry him?”

“Before they were married, Father was very nice to mother. He was the dashing sea captain, from a good family and supposedly, he was a charmer. I honestly think he married Mother because she was royalty. Now he is barely ever around, mostly he is at sea or in the castle organizing the royal fleet. Mother and I are quite content that he is barely around. But regardless of his lack of parenting skills, he is an excellent sailor and the Baltan fleet is one of the best in the world. Our ships are as fast as any you will find, and our sailors some of the best fighters in all the lands.” Quinton felt it necessary to show his father had some good points. It wasn’t like Quinton hated him. Quinton wanted his father to love him and he tried to impress him. Bryson Bayson was a hard man to please.

“Well, I’m sorry I asked about him. Come on, I want to spar with Valentino again.”

“You’ve sparred with him every day. I told you he isn’t beatable.”

“I’m getting better,” said Sharon in protest. “Last time I lasted two full minutes before he got past my guard. I am going to beat him one of these days. Besides, sparring  with Valentino is much better than sparring with a magical dummy. His groaning  about being killed by an angel was getting to be too much. Was it you or Nathan that did that one?”

“Honestly, I don’t even remember. We’ve put so many illusion spells on Dum Dum that I can’t remember them all.”

“Dum Dum?”

“It’s better than saying ‘magically enhanced training dummy’ all the time.”

“Dum Dum it is,” said Sharon. “Now let’s go find Valentino so I can make him squeal like Dum Dum.”

Quinton laughed. Sharon was determined to be the best and no matter how many times Valentino beat her she kept coming back for more.

5

Pailtar

WHEN KIANA WOKE, Keyon Upton sat at the edge of her bed. Startled by the man’s appearance, Kiana mumbled “I’m sorry.”

“For what are you sorry?” asked Keyon. He smiled and his green eyes seemed to twinkle. He seemed amused by Kiana’s greeting.

“For yesterday, it was rude of me to point out you are not a perfect woman. Your disguise was excellent.

Keyon laughed, “Don’t apologize for that. I know my disguise is excellent. I have used it hundreds of times without anyone noting that small detail. You did very well yesterday. Let us wake your mother and father for some breakfast so we can start today’s testing.”

Keyon left the room so that Kiana could get dressed. When Kiana exited her room, Keyon was sitting at the kitchen table with her parents. They were discussing Kiana.

“Best wolf howl I have heard in years. Reminded me of when we’d go out into farmhouses and trick the dogs so we could steal chicken eggs. Even I looked at the horses; the poor driver probably had to change his underwear after that. And I didn’t even feel the lift. She is a little brash, but you have trained her well, Lilliana.”

“Thank you, Keyon.” Lilliana looked at Kiana as she walked to the table, “Yes, she can be brash, also stubborn, and probably too kind to be a perfect thief, but I am proud of her.”

Kiana blushed; it felt awkward listening to them talk about her.

Keyon nodded at Lilliana’s description of her daughter. “Sounds a lot like someone else I know. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?”

Lilliana lifted a finger, running it over her neck. Returning Keyon’s teasing by reminding him of Kiana discovering his identity due to his Adam’s apple.

Keyon laughed, “Point taken.” He turned to Kiana. “You better eat something. You have a long day ahead of you.”

Kiana grabbed a mug of milk and some fruit from the kitchen before returning to the table. As she ate she listen to her mother discuss Guild politics with Keyon.

“It really hasn’t changed much since you left,” explained Keyon. “Some within the Guild are still bitter that you left to marry a straight edge potter. No offense, Spencer, I never thought it was that big of deal. But you know how these thieves are, few can understand that you would pick love over power and riches.”

“None taken,” replied Spencer. He was proud that his wife had chosen him and raising their child over her former life.

“After yesterday’s fiasco, Duncan and the others have decided to up the ante by a rather large margin. I’m afraid today’s tasks shall be rather daunting,” explained Kenyon.

Kiana nodded, it was just as her mother said it would be.

Don’t worry about your grading being hurt, you did accomplish the task, even though you were not supposed to attempt it, and you easily got through the bar door, so you won’t be punished that way.”

Kiana was relieved to hear this. Guild training was only a couple of years, access to teachers was limited. If you were stuck in low level classes relearning the basics you would not gain much knowledge during the time spent.

“However, since you have proven willing to do risky lifts, you are now getting no choice in how to proceed. The tasks will be dangerous, the type reserved for accomplished thieves usually only applying for Guild membership, not training.” Keyon placed a water sack and a map on the table. “You are going to need this. Your assignment for today is to walk to the military outpost, east of here, sneak in without being seen and retrieve the captain’s personal journal. Since you are not yet a Guild member, if you are caught, your prison time doubles. So don’t get caught, or killed for that matter. Bring the journal here before sundown.”

Kiana groaned. A secure army camp in the desert during broad daylight? That was far harder than anything she had done thus far in her thieving career. She looked at the map.
Oh great a five-mile walk through the desert to add to the list
, she thought to herself. But, they weren’t kicking her out, and Keyon made it sound like she would do okay on yesterday’s grading so she focused on the positives “Well that sounds challenging, at least there are no lions,” she said, thinking of the most obscure ridiculous thing that would make the mission over the top dangerous.

Keyon gave her an apologetic look, “Funny that you mention lions.”

…

 Kiana was hot, sweaty, and not happy. She had made good progress for the first four miles and was closing in on the army camp. The problem was scorpions.

She was working her way along the ground, keeping low and out of sight when a sentry came into view. She dropped to the ground and was waiting for the sentry to finish walking across his route so that she could continue on into the nearby sand dunes. From the sand dunes she would be able to get much closer to the camp without being seen. However, first she needed the sentry to go away. While she waited for the man to wander by, a scorpion had decided to come harass her.

She was laying down face first on the ground, her cheek pressed against the hot sand. Her nose itched, but she would not move. Movement, even the smallest one, brought attention. Right now she was focused on being invisible, blending into her environment. Her tan and beige clothing pressed against the similar colored sand make her almost impossible to see; as long as she didn’t move.

She was very tempted to move. The scorpion was inching closer and closer to her nose. Kiana did not know if the stupid little bugger thought she was a big rock or a threat, but she really wished it would start moving the other way. Naturally the scorpion kept coming closer. With her head against the sand the scorpion looked massive. In reality, it was very small. The scorpion’s body hardly bigger than the end of her pinky finger, but up close the claws looked huge and the long up-curved tail with its stinger was downright scary. A scorpion’s venom filled sting would paralyze or kill.

Kiana made a mental note to work harder on her magic studies. she realized magic at that moment would have been handy. She previously had not put the same effort into those areas of study as she did the more fun traditional things like lock picking and stealth. Kiana thought herself a purist; she liked to steal without magic. But with a scorpion inches from her face her dislike for magic disappeared. A levitation spell right about now would be marvelous. She could simply lift the dangerous creature away using her mind, and really if she got good enough with illusion spells she wouldn’t need to have her face in the sand in the first place. With good magic she could have walked right past the sentry. Once again, her mom was right; she had warned Kiana that one day her ideas about thieves using magic would change.
Well, today is the day
, thought Kiana. If she survived the day, her magic studies were going to increase tenfold.

Since she wasn’t able to move or magically make the scorpion go away, Kiana tried something else. She took a deep breath and blew as much sand as she could at the scorpion. One her first attempt the scorpion only slowed down, but when she tried again the scorpion deviated from its path. Instead of going towards her head it started going towards her body.
Great, just great
she thought to herself. Taking one last deep breath she tried again. This time the scorpion had had enough and started skittering off in the opposite direction. 

While she had been trying to deal with the scorpion the sentry had gone past and was making his way around to the other side of the camp. She slowly stood up, brushed off some of the sand and made her way into the sand dunes. The desert south of Pailtar was a mixture of rock and sand. Sometimes travelers were walking on rough hard rock for miles with no give to it; other areas contained miles and miles of sand dunes. Hill after hill of ever moving sand made it like trying to trudge through seawater … Walking through the dunes was not pleasant. That is why almost no one would choose to go this route, making it the logical one for Kiana. No one walking here would mean no one to spot her, as she made her way closer to the military outpost.