Circle of Thieves: Legends of Dimmingwood (11 page)

Not until the last outlaw was out of earshot did Rideon grab
the front of my jerkin to drag me closer. Once he had seemed to me like a big
man, but I had grown so much in the past year I no longer had to look up at
him.

“Hear me, Hound,” he grated, his name for me sounding like
an insult in a way it never had before. “I want you out of my woods
immediately, and you had best hope never to look on my face again. And do not
think to contact the members of your traitorous circle again either.”

I must have blanched at the mentioning of the circle for he
showed his teeth and said, “That’s right. I don’t believe a word of your story.
Do you forget that nothing goes on within Dimming and I not know of it? But
rest assured, Little Dog, your friends will not pay for your folly. I won’t
allow my band to be split to pieces because of your disloyalty and deception.
Now get out, so your foul influence can be forgotten, and I can begin the work
of reunifying my men and cleaning up this mess you’ve brought down on our
heads.”

And then he released me and walked away, as if I was
unworthy of further concern. I didn’t have the heart to respond to his insults
or even to speak at all. His final words had struck home too deeply.

He was right that I and I alone had been responsible for
bringing the Skeltai attack down on us. My recklessness had cost us many good
men. No, not
us
, I silently amended. There was no
us
any longer.
From now on there was only me.

Chapter
Twelve

The days after I left Dimmingwood were among the slowest and
most uneventful of my life. Or maybe it only seemed that way because I passed
them in misery. Not since the death of my mother all those years ago had I felt
so bereft and alone. Even after Brig’s death and Terrac’s desertion, I’d had
other events to occupy my mind and little time for grieving. I’d also had the
company of brethren and the haven of Dimmingwood.

Now I felt lost and aimless. I journeyed north for two days,
leaving the shelter of Dimming behind me on the second day. It never occurred
to me to attempt to avoid Rideon’s command and hide out in some little known
part of the forest. There was no part of Dimming that lay beyond Rideon’s reach.
I was among those who had helped him expand his territory, a thought that was
bitter to me now.

No, lingering was out of the question. But even after
passing out of the forest, I couldn’t quite bear to leave its shadow. I settled
in one of the little villages just edging the forest, not quite within
Dimming’s boundaries, but a short distance from the flat lands. Here I could
torment myself with glimpses into the world now forbidden me and feel myself at
least close to home.

The village was called Shadow’s End, which seemed fitting,
and was made up of a few neat log cabins lined in a row around a tidy green. It
reminded me vividly of Hammond’s Bend, but the folk here were less distrustful
than typical woods folk. They were quiet, hardworking men and women who saw
enough travelers passing by their doorsteps to have little curiosity about the
business of strangers.

I asked around for work and was eventually taken on by a
widow who ran her late husband’s pig farm and needed a hand to help with chores
and care for her livestock. She seemed disposed not to like me at first, maybe
because she had a boy in mind for the job. But I did a day’s work for her to
prove my ability, and she grudgingly conceded that I seemed strong enough and
was no shirker of chores. Even then, I think she only took me on because I
asked so little pay.

She was a disagreeable shrew of a woman, Widow Hibbins, but
I had to admit she was fair and never tried to go back on the terms we set from
the beginning. By day, I fed and watered pigs and mucked out pens and was
offered the meanest pickings from the butchered hogs in exchange for my work.
At night, I was permitted to sleep in a loft inside the barn, but the smell of
the animals was so bad I preferred sleeping outdoors when the nights were clear
enough.

I had everything I needed to survive and was neither
overworked nor ill used by my employer. It wasn’t a bad life, and I might have
been content if it wasn’t for my longing toward Dimmingwood. Every day I
wondered what was becoming of my friends. Had the outlaws abandoned Boulder’s
Cradle and found a new home by now? Had the Skeltai struck again?

At night I would lie awake into the late hours. I didn’t
feel the flat grassy earth beneath me then or hear the shifting and grunting of
my charges in their pens or smell the stench of them clinging to my clothing.
Instead I closed my eyes and walked in Dimming, smelling again the fragrance of
pine and elder and feeling the dry leaves crunch beneath my feet as the bare
treetops swayed overhead. I wandered my familiar haunts along Dancing Creek and
past Horse Head Rock, places that brought back so many memories I couldn’t shut
them out.

Questions rose before me, plaguing me with doubt. Had Dradac
and the others continued their surveillance on the enemy and their reports to
the Praetor? I suspected they hadn’t dared and maybe it was just as well. At
least I wouldn’t have to fear for their safety any longer. I wished I’d had a
chance to say goodbye to them all.

Dradac had caught up to me shortly after my departure from
the outlaw camp. Wordlessly, he had caught me in a rough embrace, and when it
ended we stood apart awkwardly. Neither of us was in the habit of emotional
demonstrations. When I could speak without disgracing myself by the tremor in
my voice, I told him he shouldn’t have taken the risk of following me.

He shook off my concerns, saying, “I took care that no one
saw me leave. I couldn’t let you go without a word of farewell. Also, I brought
you these.”

He hefted a small canvas sack, and I recognized a number of
my possessions peaking out the top. I had been forced out in such a hurry I
hadn’t had time to collect my belongings. Naturally, Dradac would think of it.

I forced a smile, but my thanks sounded stiff even to my
ears, and I added, “I should keep moving. Farewell Dradac. Thank you for always
being a friend to me. I wish you the best in life.”

“Ilan, wait.”

I halted in my tracks and reluctantly looked back. My friend
had folded his arms across his chest and thinly veiled concern was etched
across his features.

“Where will you go?” he asked. “Have you any money or any
friends in the city who might help you?”

I evaded the questions. “I’ll be all right. Don’t worry
about me. I’m grown now and accustomed to looking out for myself.”

“Maybe in Dimmingwood with your friends at your back. But
the outside world is a colder place. There’s little tree or shelter out there.”

It struck me as amusing to have a roadside thief warning me
of the dangers of the world and despite everything, I found myself smiling.

Dradac glared. “This is no jest, Ilan. Brig would kill me if
he could see me letting you be driven off like this.”

“You’ve no choice. Come now. Wish me good luck and lose that
frown.”

He only shook his head. “Promise you’ll be careful.”

“I promise,” I said because it was the only way to satisfy
him.

We embraced then and parted ways, and that was the last I
saw of him in the weeks to come.

But another friend showed up one rainy night not long after
I had settled in at Shadow’s End. I was in the barn, sheltering from the storm,
and at the moment when I heard the doors creak open and the tread of feet, I
was sitting in the dark loft consuming the meager remains of a cold pork pie.
Hibbins always put the trimmings and most undesirable parts of the pig into her
pies. At first I assumed this was her now, coming into the barn to berate me
for some task not properly completed. But the steps were soft and hesitant,
where the widow had a heavy, confidant stride.

Leaning over the loft’s edge, I made out a short, slender
shadow slinking along the far wall. There was a practiced grace to the person’s
stealthy movements, interrupted only by a slight limp where their left foot had
been damaged in the Skeltai attack.

“I’d thought you’d be walking straight again by now, Ada,” I
called down and enjoyed seeing the other woman start at my voice descending
from the shadows.

She recovered quickly. “So did I, but Javen says it looks
like I’ll be stuck with this little souvenir forever.”

“Sorry to hear it. Well, come on up. The Widow isn’t likely
to intrude on us in this weather, but there’s no sense in chancing it. There’s
a ladder by the haystack.”

She found it and was up in moments. I scooted across the
moldy straw to make a space for her and offered the remains of my pork pie.

“How did you find me?” I asked as she dipped her fingers
into the greasy bowl.

“A good sight easier than tracking a Skeltai scout. Frankly,
I’m a little ashamed of you, Ilan. Despite your training, you left a trail like
a wounded bear between here and camp. Disappointingly predictable too. I step
out of the trees and the first thing my eye falls on is this little village
huddling at the forest’s edge. Dradac thought you’d get further but not me. I
knew you couldn’t tear yourself away. It didn’t take much questioning to get
the locals to direct me to you. And so, here I am. I see you’ve made yourself a
cozy place here.”

Her gaze took in the clumsily boarded walls, through which
cold fingers of wind and rain swept in, and the filthy pallet cast into the
corner where I slept on rainy nights.

She said, “I always wondered how far any of us would get if
we gave up thieving. Good to see what we have to look forward to.”

I glared. “I’ve done the best I could for myself. When the
time comes, I’ll find a better place. I don’t plan on spending the rest of my
life mucking out after someone else’s pigs.”

“You’d rather have your own, I suppose?”

“Maybe. I’m learning the business from the bottom up, and I
think I’ve a natural hand at it.”

She hesitated a moment to see if I were serious before we
both broke into laughter. I needed this. It seemed ages since I’d laughed with
a friend.

“This is pathetic,” I admitted when our amusement died down.
“I’ve been given a second chance to make something of my life, and what do I
settle for? Pig farming. A shame Rideon isn’t here. He’d love this.”

She sobered. “Rideon’s a fool. If I didn’t know better, I’d
think he wanted us all to die. Did you know he still forbids us to strike back
at the Skeltai? They roam the forest openly now and have attacked another small
holding near the Dimming Road.”

“Again?” I shot halfway to my feet before my head met the
ceiling, and I remembered I was indoors. I hunched back down.

“That’s why I’m here,” Ada said. “We decided the attacks
couldn’t go unanswered, so some of us got together to reform the circle.”

“Ada – ”

“It would be different this time,” she rushed to explain.
“We were careless before and took too many into our confidence. This time we’ll
admit only those we are certain we can trust.”

I hated to kill her enthusiasm, but I had to. “Forget the
circle, Ada. It brought us nothing but trouble last time.”

“It saved those villages,” she argued. “Who knows how many lives
would have been lost if we hadn’t allied ourselves with the Praetor to counter
the raids. Don’t you remember why we began this in the first place?”

“What I remember is burying a dozen outlaws in the frozen
ground only weeks ago and asking myself why? Why had I risked my brethren and
given up my future, the respect of my captain, and all the other things that
once mattered to me? It was all a wild whim, probably brought on by—”

I stopped short, acutely aware of the bow propped in a
corner of the loft where it had lain untouched since my coming here. I blamed
it for my troubles, the deaths of my friends, and my current homeless state. I
should never have allowed it to influence me with its subtle suggestions of
war. Even now, I lacked the strength of purpose to dispose of the thing.

Ada didn’t appear to notice the direction of my thoughts. “A
whim? Is that what you call it? We willingly risked ourselves to defend our
territory and our neighbors.  It was the first opportunity many of us ever
had to do something noble, something above ourselves. Many of our friends died
gladly for this cause, and now you can sit there and call it nothing?”

She shook her head in disbelief before rushing on with, “But
let’s leave the dead out of this. Because those of us left alive are the ones
who’ve got to make this decision. We’re the ones who’ve got to go on.”

“We?” I asked, finally getting a word in.

“We want you to lead us again,” she answered
matter-of-factly. “That’s why the others sent me to talk to you. It was a
unanimous decision. You’re the one who started us down this road, and it’s you
who must lead us forward now.”

Under a deluge of emotions, I rested my head in my hands.
“Don’t do this to me, Ada. Don’t remind me that the responsibility for all
those deaths was mine. If the rest of you are determined to go on with this
foolishness, you’ll have to do it without me. I won’t be involved this time.
I’m a pig farmer now, not an outlaw, and certainly not the plague-be-struck
leader of the circle.”

She stared at me and gradually her gaze hardened. I could
see I’d finally managed to stir her temper. “Maybe you’re right,” she said.
“Maybe you aren’t who we thought you were. But I’ll tell you what you are and
that’s afraid.”

I feigned indifference, although the suggestion stung.
“You’re right, I’m a coward. That’s what I am. I won’t stand against the
Skeltai or Rideon or anyone else ever again because the thought makes my guts
curdle and my feet tremble in my boots. Now I’m sure you’ve no desire to keep
company with a coward, so there’s the door for you.”

“And I’ll take it,” she snapped, rising so fast she nearly
teetered over the edge of the loft. “I’m ashamed I ever called you my friend,
but that’s a mistake I won’t make twice. Good bye, Ilan.”

With those final words, she flung herself onto the rope
ladder and clambered down out of sight. Moments later I heard the squeak of the
barn door being drawn open and the angry slam that followed.

I sunk back into the straw. I was alone again but wasn’t
that what I wanted? As long as I had no friends, there was no one left to be
hurt by my stupid mistakes.

The bow’s taunting whisper stirred through my mind.
Not
alone. Never that.

It was right. I’d never be on my own while I possessed the
thing. Even now, when I believed I was breaking away, how much of my actions,
how much of this very fight with Ada, was manipulated by the bow’s influence?

I lay back and closed my eyes, but the scene with Ada kept
repeating itself in my mind, and the bow continued its subtle whispers until I
could have no peace. At last I slithered out of the loft and went outside to
sleep in the rain.

I tried to move on with my life over the next week, tried to
forget my conversation with Ada, but always Dimmingwood, my past, and the
future hovered in the background calling to me, a temptation I knew would be
the death of me if I gave in to it, but one so difficult to resist.

In the end I could bear it no longer. If I had to spend one
more night in the shadow of the wood, I would give in to the longing and enter
the forbidden borders once more. The only answer was to get away.