“Keeping watch” when you’re out in the wilderness with unknown dangers about is a very good idea. And with three of us, it should have been easy. Gabby would have watched for the first two or three hours, and then she would have woken either me or Max to take over. Assuming that she didn’t wake us earlier to deal with some problem or other.

Whoever she woke would have watched for another small number of hours, to awaken whoever was left in turn.

It’s a good system, and while it wouldn’t have guaranteed survival if, for example, the Demesne changed direction, hovered above us and dropping a boulder the size of a house, then at least we could all have comfortably expected a warning should some danger start to loom.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.

I don’t wish to cast blame at anyone, but there’s one thing for certain: it wasn’t my fault. At no time during the night did anyone try to wake me. Which means either Gabby fell asleep when she was supposed to be watching, or Max did.

The end result was that I had a marvelous sleep in which I dreamed entertaining dreams, mostly involving Gabby and certainly not involving anyone or anything else. Those dreams were just starting to merge with the sounds and smells of early morning, and my body was starting the process of waking up when that process was rudely hurried by the feel of a boot kicking my legs.

“You’ve slept enough,” said a voice.

It wasn’t Gabby’s smooth, deliciously feminine one or Max’s high but oddly gruff one. It was a man’s voice. Deep and stern, it was a voice that demanded to be obeyed.

Partly because of that (and partly because the presence of this voice could only be bad news and I really didn’t want to face anything of the sort before I’d even woken up), I kept my eyes tightly closed and pretended as hard as I could to still be asleep.

That earned me a second, harder kick, right on top of one of my bruises. “Come on. Get up.”

Nope. Nothing doing, I thought. I gave a small groan and waved my hand as if chasing away a bug, but did nothing more.

The next kick I was ready for. The first two had been in roughly the same place and there was nothing to suggest the third would be any different. I heard a slight sound that I interpreted as the windup and moved as quickly as I could, catching the ankle with both hands before I’d even opened my eyes. I twisted, pushed, and in less than a second was kneeling on a guardsman’s chest with one of my knives at his throat.

“I’m awake,” I said with a grin. “Does it make you happy?”

“Let him go,” said a second voice.

Damn it, I thought. The man I was kneeling on wasn’t alone.

I turned around. It was the start of what promised to be a beautiful morning. The sun had mostly risen, the sky lacked even the faintest hint of a cloud, and there was only the merest puff of a breeze. Combine that with the picturesque, stream-bordered meadow we’d camped in and the majesty of the Demesne still floating nearby and the only thing that could possibly spoil it would be about twenty town guardsmen all pointing spears in my direction.

Unfortunately, that was exactly what I faced. It was the Immaculate Captain, now with a singed and less-than-perfect crest, who had requested the guardsman’s release.

The odds were most certainly not in my favor. I was surrounded. There was nowhere to run. I couldn’t even make it to Gabby’s horse without impaling myself on at least one guardsman’s spear.

I took my knife away from the man’s throat, held up my hands and took my weight off his chest. He grunted, glared at me, spat and stood up.

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“Good morning, Captain,” I said. “I must say I’m surprised to see you so far from Ulm. What brings you out this way?”

As I spoke, I looked around. Where was Gabby? Then I spotted her. She was sitting with several spears pointed in her direction. She was glaring, which seemed to be a fairly normal expression for her. Oddly though, she wasn’t glaring at the guards. She was glaring at me.

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why.

The Captain didn’t bother to reply to my question. Instead, he spoke to his men. “Search them both. Be thorough about it. This one looks the type to have weapons hidden on him.”

“Now hold on,” I said as several of the guardsmen stepped forward. “What’s this all about?”

They ignored me and did as the Captain had said. In a very short time they’d divested me of all the weapons I carried, including all the knives I had left (they even got the small one I kept in my boot), the throwing stars, and even the garrote. It made quite a pile on the grass.

“What the hell?” one of them said. “He’s got a tail!”

This generated a few murmurs and an ugly chuckle or two, and I heard the word ‘Freak’ muttered here and there, but they had obviously seen other things just as strange. It didn’t faze them in the least.

“And the armor,” said the Captain.

They approached again and I batted them out of the way. “Now wait just a moment. You still haven’t told me what this is all about. Why should I let you take everything I have? Apart from the reality that you have me totally surrounded and most of your men look anxious for a fight, that is.”

“The armor,” the Captain repeated.

This time the guardsmen ignored my protests, and my fine scale armor joined the pile of weapons on the ground.

“Nice bruises,” said a guardsman. Several of his fellows chuckled.

“Can I at least have my tunic and boots back?” I asked. I decided that I didn’t like this at all. I didn’t like the guardsmen, I didn’t like the Captain, and I most certainly didn’t like being held at spear point with no real possibility of escape.

“Give him his tunic and boots,” said the Captain.

I put them back on, feeling pretty rotten.

“Now, Gordan of Riss, you are under arrest and will be tried by the city of Ulm—”

“But we’re not in the city of Ulm,” I said.

“—for crimes including but not necessarily limited to robbery, arson, assault, causing the deaths of others by fire, and the assassination of the Magistrate of Ulm.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about … wait. What was that last one?”

“Take them both to the cage,” said the Captain. He really was pretty good at ignoring me. Most unsettling.

“Both?” I said, thinking that Max must have flown off somewhere or hidden himself in a tree. “Gabby didn’t have anything to do with any of this….”

Several pairs of hands roughly grabbed me. I was shoved repeatedly (and with a fair amount of enthusiasm) as encouragement to accompany them a short distance from where we’d slept. I noted that Gabby was likewise being herded, but without the pushing, and wondered what it was about me that suggested to all and sundry that I enjoyed being pushed or hit or kicked. Did I have some sort of sign on my back that I didn’t know about?

The cage turned out to be exactly that: a cage. It looked to be just the type of thing any sane person wouldn’t want to get locked up within. It was an ugly combination of iron and grime set upon some wheels and tethered to a couple of pack-horses.

I started to struggle as we drew nearer to it, but there really wasn’t any point. I’d have to be able to do something extraordinary to escape the guards all around me, and what could I do?

Nothing. Except … there were rumors going around that I could breathe fire. What if those rumors were true?

I thought back to what it had felt like in the tavern. An uncomfortable tightness in my chest brought on by a surprisingly bubbly beverage, that grew and grew until it finally came out….

What the hell, I thought, and set about trying to make myself belch. I gulped air like a fish gulping water. I flexed a few abdominal muscles. I felt something building and started to get excited about it. We were at the cage. A guardsman opened the door. I gulped more air just to be on the safe side, and thought I was really on to something. I grasped the bars on either side of the entrance as if preparing to pull myself through. Then I paused.

I flexed a few more abdominal muscles. Nearly … nearly there … here it comes … I started grinning uncontrollably, imagining the faces of the guardsmen in just a few moments….

“BUUUURRRRRPPPP!!!”

Astonished silence all around.

But no-one was burnt and I wasn’t running to my freedom. My mouth tasted like the inside of my mouth, not the charcoal I was hoping for. It was just a belch.

“You’re kind of disgusting,” said one of the guardsmen as he gave me another hard shove.

I didn’t have any other options. I went into the cage feeling, on the whole, profoundly disappointed. But there was also a small part of me that was laughing madly at the entire episode.

Gabby was in the cage as well. A guardsman slammed the door shut and padlocked it. Then the Captain gave orders to march. In a very short time we were lurching awkwardly on our way, with Gabby’s horse tethered behind us and the guardsmen on foot all around, but none close enough to either threaten or talk to.

Gabby arranged herself as far away from me as possible. She glared at me and said, “Don’t even talk to me.”