Day 6, 6:45 PM

“He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.”

— Plato

“So, how long do we stay together?” Inspired by the day’s events, I ask the uncomfortable question as the sun sets on our second evening together.

We ate some sour fruit for lunch. They were a cross between apples and pears, maybe their common ancestor. I’m not really certain. Manuella spotted them, and I think I ate five pounds of the greenish-yellow peapples. I stuffed my pockets and sack for dinner, but we agreed we would each carry our own supplies. Which is fair. Unlike me, she can survive on the peapples she picked for three to four days.

“I know I’m an inconvenience, and I’m guessing you want to get rid of me as soon as possible—”

“You are an inconvenience,” she starts, and I frown, wondering whether she also has Blunt lazing about in the back of her head. “But your actions are understandable. You are a growing boy, you starved for a very long time, and now you need a lot of nutrients. On the other hand, your voraciousness suggests great innate strength. You would make an excellent soldier or worker. My suggestion would be for us to stay together until we find the loyalists. Then you may join us, free to choose your own path, whether that be a warrior’s or a humble laborer’s.”

So, she won’t ditch me until she reaches her goal.

“Do you think that’s fair towards you?” I ask, and she flashes me a smile I can’t really read.

Condescending? Pitying? Grateful? Amused? It can be a bunch of things. Maybe she just thinks I’m stupid?

“Once we safely reach our destination, nothing you have done has offended me, nor caused me too much trouble. However, we must first succeed in our escape.”

Her smile seems more honest, but I can see she’s tired.

“Eat up and sleep. I’ll stand watch until I get drowsy.”

I wolf down my fruit, and she eats hers, then snuggles against a thick tree. Three massive, old trees, growing so close they fused, seemed like a great campsite, and we took it. I can’t tell which trees they are, but their bark is smooth and gray with light orange sap oozing at several places. The irregular arc they form is big enough for one person to sleep in while a big lug, myself for example, watches out for danger.

Manuella said lighting fires this close to the town was dangerous, so we’ll spend the night in the dark. Boring hours pass, with nothing to do but smell the forest and listen to night birds chirping and hooting. At some point a dog barks in the distance, and something really creepy shrieks several times, but nothing attacks. There are no wolves, no bears, and no pursuing mercenaries. Not yet.

Eventually, my eyelids grow heavy, and I doze off.

“Come on, we should set off.” She shakes my shoulder, and I almost swat her hand away.

I draw a deep breath through my nose and refuse to open my eyes.

Five more minutes. What an indulgent thought.

Despite myself, I yawn and stretch before finally rubbing my eyes open. I hate Manuella just a tiny bit. I could have slept in the brothel, on her soft mattress, fondling her soft breasts.

All of this is your own fault, I remind myself. I could have spent days indulging in debauchery and prostitution, had I not left an obvious trail for the cops.

God, I’m dumb.

I stand up and look at her. She’s pointedly ignoring the bulge of my pants, and reality crashes down on me without mercy. I remember the how, the why, everything. In a single flashback, my morning erection deflates.

“Good morning,” I pull on my arms and bend left and right while hugging myself, stretching my back muscles in as few moves as possible. Finally, I crack my neck and look at her.

“I’m ready.”

She gives me an unfathomable look before turning and walking away.

“Did I do something wrong?” I ask, and she shakes her head.

“You are a child sometimes, and an old man at other moments. I am trying to understand what is taking place in your head.”

That makes two of us.

“When do I act like an old man?”

“You check whether your muscles all work before moving. You stretch your back every time you sit down. I recall you doing it back at the brothel, too. That is an old man’s habit. And sometimes you speak like you have lived centuries, and then you make mistakes on things no child would fumble.”

I don’t know what to tell her. I’m complicated? You would stretch your back too, if you had suffered fifteen years of chronic back pain due to poor posture?

I shrug and change the subject.

“What’s the plan for today? Are we still sticking to the forest, or will we take a road, assuming we run into one again?”

“There should be a village in this general direction. I hope we will run into some isolated steading by noon.” She pretends like I haven’t evaded her question. Her face is perfectly straight, and for some reason it pisses me off.

“Stop,” I say, slightly louder than I wanted. “Do you want us to be friendly and engage in idle chatter, do you want our relationship to be a business partnership, or do you want us to have a deep, trusting relationship?”

Is this Blunt talking? I’m not certain, but I keep going.

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“Your questions and behavior are all over the place. Sometimes you give me a strictly professional escapee vibe, sometimes you’re a worried or a teasing big sister, and sometimes you give me honest thoughts and questions. I need to know what you really want.”

I clench my teeth and realize my breathing has quickened. My heart beats so fast, I’m certain she can hear in the silence.

“I was just curious,” she lies and turns around. “The village is this way.”

I follow her with an uneasy feeling in my heart.

She didn’t answer my question.

Along the way, BSD informs me I have survived another day on the run, and that I’m closer to gaining a level.

The sun is past its zenith when we reach an open field. Before us, a small expanse of some hip-high crops sways in the wind. The plants are yellow like wheat, but they don’t look familiar. Then again, I have no idea what barley, rye, and other such plants look like, so it could very well be a field no different from somewhere back home.

“I will do the talking,” Manuella says.

“Sure,” I rummage through my sack and pass her a fistful of silver before we head towards the modest wooden buildings some fifty yards away.

“Good day, anybody home?” she shouts in a deep, masculine voice. “Do you have food for sale?”

I glance at her again. The cheap, whore makeup is gone, but her features are distinctly feminine in my eyes. My clothes hang off her wide shoulders, and I know she pressed her breasts flat somehow, but she’s still very much a woman no matter how I look at her. A hot one.

We approach the thatched cottage and barn. We’re about fifty yards away, when a woman in her thirties rushes out of the barn and walks towards us.

Her lips are a tight-pressed line, her fists clenched. Her dark-brown tunic probably started its life much lighter and could benefit from a good wash. The same goes for her floppy, leather socks, which probably pass for boots around here.

Now that is inferior footwear, I wish to say, but remain quiet. The peasant woman’s hair is a long black braid, falling down to her hip, while her pale face is boringly plain and unremarkable. She’s anemic or exhausted, probably both. Some ten yards away her lips stretch into a nervous smile, five teeth short of a full set.

“Good day. We’re selling nothing, Derrek’ll be back here soon.”

Her mouth twitches as she lies, and she turners around towards the forest, hoping Derrek, probably the husband, will really step out of the trees somehow.

“Madam, relax.” Manuella says calmly.

I glance at her. You’re too polite and fancy for a simple traveler.

“We will pay a whole silver shield for a simple lunch of eggs, cheese, and karaak bread. And we hope you pack some for us to eat later.” Manuella holds out a shiny coin between her fingers, but at least she doesn’t wiggle it like luring a child with candy.

The housewife gulps.

“Sure.” She nods, her mouth ajar, and Manuella tosses her the coin. I’m disappointed, but not surprised. As if bandits would have trouble robbing her along with the coin they threw her?

Half an hour later, we’re sitting at the table outside the cozy cottage, peeling eggs, while chatty Hella expounds on the difficulties of her life.

“Karaak’s real tough to harvest. You have like two days to reap it and thresh it and spread it to dry. But you can’t…”

I faze out her difficulty of growing the bountiful, low-quality grain, and focus on my food. The goat cheese smells like old socks and has a really strong taste of something. Goat, probably. The old me would have passed out just from smelling it, but Aang’s body takes it really well, and drool pools in my mouth from the aroma.

Manuella finishes first and spends three more silver on supplies, including a thick blanket, a length of homemade hemp rope, and a clean sack. I enjoy my cheese and the seventh and final egg, listening to Manuella do an inventory of Hella’s household for useful travel items. By the sound of it, they are haggling over a warm woolen jacket, scuffed at the elbow.

Hella’s plate of cheese, eggs, and not-yet rock-bread is empty, yet I’m not full yet.

I’m a monster, and isn’t seven silver a bit too much for such an inferior jacket? Manuella carries her prize out of the cottage with her head held high.

“Remember me if you need something else.” You can hear the triumph in Hella’s voice. I glance at her grin and radical transformation after several rounds of successful haggling.

“Thank you.” Manuella smiles back, her perfect white teeth in stark contrast with Hella’s yellow, hole-riddle smile. “You said your neighbor is a mile down this path.”

Hella nods and waves us goodbye. “Can’t miss it. Derrek’s there, helping Alek and Dorna.”

Rays of light riddle the canopy along the beaten path between steadings. Lightening my mood and making the bird song more relaxing. I close my eyes and fill my lungs with the fragrant air. My bare feet slap against the hard-packed soil, adding to the enjoyable mix of positive sensations. Seven steps later I open my eyes, memorize the path ahead, and repeat the process.

A high-pitched scream jolts me out of my meditation. I snap my eyes open, and less than ten yards away the thicket opens into a field. My field of vision is narrow, and I turn around to look at Manuella, but all I get is her looking at me.

“Scram!” Jeers follow the shout, and I can tell there’s more than just Derrek and Alek ahead.

It’s got nothing to do with us.

But what if the cops think it was us, and they find us because of some weird coincidence?

I’m half surprised as I rush forward, scooping a fist-sized stone off the ground. In five bounds, I spring out of the forest.

I see them immediately. Six men waving weapons at each other in the half-harvested karaak field. Two of them have sickles, while the other four are armed with clubs, dressed like Abe and his cronies.

None of them have spotted me, and I slow down, taking stock of the situation. The weird sickles have long handles and better reach than the clubs. The peasants are flailing them to their advantage, but, like wolves surrounding a pair of deer, the bandits are fanning out. In a minute or two, the fight will be over, the peasants dead or beaten senseless.

“There’s another one over there.” I enter a greasy-haired bandit’s field of vision.

The rest glance at me, and see I’m unarmed, save for a rock.

“Willek, you get him,” the biggest of them says, and Willek disengages from Alek or Derrek and rushes towards me.

Plain suicidal. He’s bigger than me, but all he’s got is a club.

He takes a swing at me, and a moment later, Willek is on the ground, dead or on his way there. I smashed the life out of him with my left, my right still clenching the rock I picked up.

“Willek!” the leader shouts.

The situation is now three on three, and the leader’s face is ugly. He clenches his teeth, before running at me.

“Hold him off. We’ll help you,” the other peasant shouts.

I’m fairly certain he’s just desperate and trying to raise his morale, but the fight at this level is already ridiculous for me.

The bandit leader is more than a head taller than me, his club more like what cartoon cavemen wielded, less the thick stick I’ve used before. He is intimidating, big, bulging with muscles. He swings. I dodge. He’s dead. My rock-clenching fist caved his chest in like I hit a pillow.

Blood sprays from his mouth, a bit of it sprays me despite my attempt to dodge. Meanwhile, ten yards ahead, the bandits and peasants stare at me with their jaws slack.

Stupid thing to do, really. A sloppy, easily-dodgeable sickle slash opens a bandit’s neck, and the other thug runs for it. I look at the stone in my hand.

Should I pitch it?

The sickle robs me of the choice. A peasant slashes the fleeing bandit from the back, and with the danger over, I toss my stone aside.

“Thanks stranger,” the other peasant shouts, grinning from ear to ear as he walks over.

He’s missing more teeth than Hella.

“You’re welcome,” I say and give him a friendly slap on the shoulder.

I overdid the pat, and he tumbles to the ground.

“Sorry,” I say, and Manuella catches up to me, staring at me with wide eyes.