“Come right up!” Rigel yelled over the already assembled crowd, standing atop his wagon’s roof, which was built to act as an elevated stage. “Come and look at goods from all over the kingdom and beyond!”

  This was the first village of the trip, after only twelve days of travel. Rigel had timed their arrival for the afternoon, while everyone there was busy with the fields or with taking care of the village. It gave the merchants and craftspeople time to position their wagons to serve as booths, since the village wouldn’t have a space dedicated to caravans within their walls, or even let them in as such.

  Villages, towns, and even small cities were cautious about outsiders. Even a few days out from a large city placed them too far for them to hope help would reach them in time if they were attacked. So, they erred on the side of keeping as many as they could outside their walls.

  Rigel, as with all other caravan masters Tibs had worked for, didn’t mind. It was the norm, so the merchants knew to have their wagons made in such a way they could sell out of them if they couldn’t get access to a marketplace. Some had sides that raised up to become awnings, and down, opening the back to expose wares. Others simply had hooks for them to display what they sold. And others still used the crates to make counters for trade and display.

  The villagers had gathered as they returned from the fields but kept their distances. Caravans were a regular, if not common, occurrence, and they knew to wait for the caravan master to announce the merchants were ready for them. In the meantime, they gathered with the meager coins they had, items they hoped to trade in return for what they needed, or tools in needs of repairs.

  The other reason some stood, waiting, was to hear news from the world. While bards could be counted on to sing stories, tradespeople with caravans were more reliable in the veracity of what they talked about, and in visiting. Bards traveled on their own schedules, while those engaging in trade traveled on caravan’s schedules.

  And caravan masters were keen on keeping to those.

  “Enjoy an evening of admiring cloths from the far regions of Gartary. Gaze upon the potteries made of silys clay. And tastes sweets from the sands of Zombar.” Rigel lowered his voice as he ended, adding a sense of mystery to the location.

  Tibs walked among the wagons. He, and the other guards on duty, were there to ensure no trouble occurred. Either from the villagers or the merchants. One could get aggressive if they thought they were being taken advantage of, and the other could go too far in taking advantage of the perceived naivete of folks living away from cities.

  Not all caravan masters cared about that part. Some didn’t pay attention to the merchant’s trades, so long as the fleecing didn’t erupt into violence.

  Rigel cares.

  He’s warned those traveling on his caravan, as they broke camp in the morning, about taking too much from those who already had little. They were here, more as a diversion than a way to make their purses heavier. Something to distract the villagers from the hard life they lived for an evening. For them to be amazed at what the word offered. The cities weren’t so far that the merchants couldn’t exert patience before taking every last coin of those doing business with them.

  The speech had a practiced ease to it. Tibs figured he repeated it often. Possibly at every village. And there would be many of them before they reached a city. No matter how dangerous the wilderness was, people settled among it. Built houses, then walls, then if they had picked a place that let them thrive. More walls, out of better materials, against the creatures that roamed the wild.

  Tibs placed the blame for those fears entirely on the bards, who would sing about monsters and adventurers, instead of what really roamed the forest and plains, and deserts and ocean shores.

  The wilderness was indeed dangerous. But it was the animals living in it that made it so. Not invented creatures said to have escaped dungeons and rampaged through towns until a heroic adventurer came to their rescue.

  In the two decades since Tibs had escaped the guild, he’d only come across one such creature. And he looked for them. He read about them, hoping the fight would push him to grow in power faster.

  “And what can I tempt you with today?” a woman said in a silky voice.

  He turned, startled at the invitation, then glared at the plump woman, grinning mischievously. The table before her cart had small boxes with variety of candies. Those ‘Sweets from the sands of Zombar’. Tibs had never heard of such a place, and she had managed to misdirect every question about it he’d asked, since the first day he’d learned she sold sweets.

  “What are you going to do, that day you take my last copper?” That he knew of the place or not, sweets were sweets, and Tibs had learned a long time ago that he liked them.

  “You’re too well paid for that to happen,” she replied, the tone casual, and the smile friendly.

  “But not all my coins are supposed to go toward candies,” he protested.

  “I don’t want all your coins, young man.” Her smile turned mischievous again. “Only most of them.”

  With an exaggerated sigh, Tibs admitted defeat and took a copper from his pouch. He’d let slip he liked sweets that first day as he rode his horse along the wagons that included hers. Her wagon was decorated with painting of small candies, and she had stones painted as them too, on strings along the side. They hit each other in the wind, or as the wagon tilted on the road. It made it difficult to miss.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  And the game of her enticing him into buying sweets, and him playing at trying to resist, had begun. She didn’t charge him as much as she would those in marketplace, but they were sweets; if Tibs wasn’t careful, he could end up with an empty purse.

  “One copper only.” He placed it on the table, between two rows of boxes.

  “I only have my least expensive ones out.” She looked at the village folks. “In places like this, I end up giving some away, if I want to see the joy of sweets on their faces.”

  He pulled the coin away. “I’ll have one of those then.”

  “You have coins,” she said sternly. “You can pay.” Her expression softened, but Tibs didn’t trust her. He’d seen such change in expression too often from confidence artists. “Think of it this way. With each coin you give me, it’s easier for me to decide to hand out candies to the village children.”

  With a less dramatic sigh, Tibs placed the coin back. “How is it you know to use them to get me to give you more coins?” He pushed it toward her and added a second one.

  “All I have to do is look at the children listening to you where ever you happen to sit.”

  “I try to scare them away,” he protested. “But caravan kids are just too brave.”

  She took the coins.

  “The other one’s for them.”

  Instead of reaching for one of the boxed on the table, she reached into the wagon, and handed Tibs three rose-colored ones, smaller than his thumb. He popped one in his mouth without hesitation, and the sweetness spread immediately. The hint of saltiness that followed made him smile as it recalled another candy he hadn’t had in so very long. Then copper contrasted, without jarring with either sweet or salty.

  “The ocean,” he said wistfully, and the tastes came together. He could feel the sun on his face, reflected from so many white stone buildings. He wondered where Kroseph and Jackal were. Had they moved to MountainSea, to take over his father’s inn there? Jackal wouldn’t stay in Kragle Rock, not with the history it held over him.

  She chuckled. “Maybe I should have only given you one.”

  Tibs hurriedly pocketed the other two. “You aren’t getting them back.”

  “I’ll just know to charge more when you come asking for them.”

  Excited voices approached, and Tibs gave the merchant a bow before continuing with the work of ensuring no one caused trouble.

  Few did. And with a rare exception, most could be explained as someone getting overly excited and forgetting themselves. One of those exceptions had been the pickpocket Tibs noticed. Even a village had someone who thought taking was a better way than working to get something.

  The girl looked too well-fed to for it to be out of survival. It was the rare village that didn’t look after its own, no matter how hard they had it.

  He pulled air essence from his bracer and sent the etching to tickle the back of her neck as her fingers approached the craftswoman’s pocket. Her head turned as she brushed where the air touched, and he fixed her as their eyes met. She startled, revealing she knew she’d been caught. He motioned for her to leave.

  She narrowed her eyes in defiance, and he raised an eyebrow, placing a hand on the pommel of his sword. Her courage faltered, and she moved away.

  “She’s just going to do it to someone else.” The gruff voice identified the speaker.

  “I’ll keep an eye on her,” he replied.

  “She’ll just do it to someone once we’re gone.”

  “And someone in her village will teach her not to take from her people.”

  Loren snorted. “Her kind doesn’t consider anyone ‘her people’. She’ll take everything she can, and then leave.”

  Tibs faced the man. “And by her kind, do you mean children, girls, or thieves?” He didn’t come up with other descriptives. Whatever he picked, Loren would agree. Tibs had never met anyone more hateful of others. He claimed he’d gotten his throat cut by bandits, in his early days as a guard, but based on how the man had gone on about how every one of his problem being caused by some other group of people, when Tibs had had him as a patrol partner. Tibs was confident he’d pissed off the wrong person, and they’d tried to put him out of their misery.

  He snorted. “Who cares. The best thing for everyone is for you to chop off her hand.”

  “They might not do that here.” Tibs stepped away, returning to his duty.

  “They do that everywhere.” Loren followed him. “No one should suffer a thief to live.”

  “So now cutting off her hand’s not enough?” Tibs forced his anger down. “Not everyone who resorts to thievery had a choice.”

  “Speaking like one who’s been there.” The reply was filled with derision.

  Tibs’s response came through greeted teeth. “I have.” He didn’t volunteer information about the person he pretended to be. The characters he traveled as were always reserved. But he answered questions. And because he couldn’t convincingly play at being someone who despised thieves, his stories always included a time when he’d had to fend for himself, usually as a result of his mother’s death.

  Graiden had questioned him about his past in the first day’s travels, as he’d done with all the recruits, and Tibs had answered him. Loren hadn’t been there, but he was sure the other guards who had would have told him what they’d heard. If not for that fight Tibs had won, he’d think that was why the man disliked him so much.

  “No wonder you let her go, then.”

  Tibs rounded on him. “I let her go because she didn’t continue when she realized she’d been caught. We protect the caravan, not impose our beliefs on the place we visit. If she causes trouble, I’ll bring her to Gray, and he’ll decide how to handle her. He’s in charge, not me. And not you.”

  “I know,” Loren said, defensively. “I’m not—”

  “I know you’re not.” Tibs had no interest in his justification. “I’m going back to my patrol. If you aren’t working, go rest.” This time, the man didn’t follow.

  It was full dark before the last of the villager returned to their home. The girl made a few more attempts, but even if he acted like he didn’t see her, his presence was enough to keep her from carrying through; until she’d finally given up and returned to the village.

  With his work ended, he retired to his tent for the night. As late as it was, the caravan would move on with the sun.

  It was the same with all of them.

  It had taken Tibs some time to understand why.

  No caravan master wanted to deal with an angry parent once they realized what their child had gotten up to with someone traveling with them. Or blamed someone here for whatever they thought had gone missing during the visit.

  For all the good times they brought, caravans were filled with strangers. And with as dangerous as the world was, as hard as they worked at keeping those dangers outside their walls. Well, if something happened to go wrong there, who else but those strangers could be at fault?

  It wasn’t like they could do anything about it. The caravan had more and better guards. But it would cause delays, sour attitudes for the other caravans.

  It was best to be gone before someone came complaining.

  * * * * *

  Tibs rode beside the wagons he and his partner had been assigned as the sun crested over the horizon. The village would be in the process of starting their days, but it wouldn’t take long for them to find out who had taken advantage of the caravan folks to experience things they weren’t meant to.

  Tibs only had stories, from other guards, of what happened then. And he was grateful for it.

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