The cart was rattling a bit too much for his tastes. It was hard to focus on the book in his hands without a sense of motion sickness, but he hadn’t really been able to read except late at night in days, so this was the best he could do while the sun was out. Even though the sun on the fresh pages of The Incomplete Poetry of Alfonso Regulus was a bit too blinding, even with his hood casting a shadow over the page he was currently open to.

I fell in love with the desert of desire

and the way the sun kissed the ground and sky.

I fell into the deepest and darkest mire

and let myself believe your smile and lie.

His mouth was moving to the lines, but he didn’t feel very strongly about it. It was a bit weak for Alfonso, in his opinion. A lot of his raw poetry in this before the polishing stages were decent, but this one had clearly been in the process of being polished and given up on when all the emotion was stripped out. What a pity.

The cart he was perched on the back of hit a bump and he nearly dropped the book. His heart practically leapt into his throat as he fumbled to get a hold on it, and he pressed it to his chest, his chest rattling with the pounding.

“Oh,” he said and stared at the driver of the cart behind him, who was obviously biting back a smile. A sheepish grin touched Gray’s lips and he awkwardly scratched behind his head before he wiggled back further into a nook made in the lashed luggage before firmly bracing his legs as a barrier between the book and the ground.

“Is this actual iambic pentameter?” he mumbled and then fumbled in his bag for a pencil to mark up the page. “I don’t feel like this is strong enough to be…”

Another rock was hit and the pencil went flying, and Gray watched in dismay as it was crushed under a horse’s hoof.

“Oh,” he said softly, and the driver on the other carriage actually laughed.

“Don’t you think it’s about time to give up?” the driver called and Gray flushed up to his roots.

“I would never,” he assured him. Give up on reading when he could simply sit in an uncomfortable position? He would be as uncomfortable as it took. The sun was out, and… and… and the carriages were pulling to a halt.

“Huh… wonder what’s going on up there?” the driver asked and leaned way forward before his eyes widened dramatically. “Ay, no!”

“What is it?” Gray asked as he scooched out to lean out and get a good look, only to get a faceful of twenty men brandishing blades.

Gray stared for a solid three seconds and then slowly moved out of view as his brain whirred for options. He wasn’t contracted to protect this caravan, and beyond his cage of electricity, which would be a bad idea to unleash here near so many wooden carriages and didn’t have the proper range to take all of the bandits at once… Well, they were all spells that took up massive areas, and he didn’t know how to fight with a weapon.

“Now, now, now!” someone was saying. “We don’t want a fight! We’ve got mercenaries with us, so let us just pay a toll and be on our way! There’s no need for bloodshed.”

That must be Zapatta, the caravan leader Gray had met. His voice sounded familiar, but Gray didn’t remember there being many mercenaries among the men. This was supposed to be a short, safe route, and only called for five guards. Oh, no, what should he do?

“You!” the other driver hissed. “Can’t you electrocute them like Alfie said?”

“Electricity… is very flammable, and the wine is up front,” Gray whispered, and the man’s face went pale as he likely imagined all of that expensive wine going up in flames.

“Never mind,” he replied and leaned around to look.

“Enough talking, old man! Everyone out of the caravan!” the bandit leader, presumably, out of sight, hollered, and Gray hurried to jam his book back into his bag. The other driver was already getting down, and Gray slipped down as he fumbled to get his bag slung under his cloak.

This was clearly a sign to develop a new spell that could be more focused and targeted, and his brain was already whirring with the different poems he could use. Something about Eriat, perhaps, the god of love who shot a bow and arrow. Librarian magic toed the edge of divinity, but…

“Oh-ho, what do we have here?” someone said and grabbed him by the cloak, firmly yanking him to the side, and Gray cursed his lack of height. “Oy, boss! Think we got one of them Librarians!”

Gray stared at the ground as footsteps crunched closer and closer to him. A hand reached towards him and knocked off his hood, and then firm hands grasped his chin and forced his head up.

The man was in his mid-thirties at the latest, with a handkerchief tied around his face and a hood up. Gray stared up into dark, slanted eyes and heavy, sharp brows, and if his mouth could drop, it would. The man’s free hand casually threw the voluminous cloak over his shoulder, baring his arms and the embroidery on his sleeves.

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“That sure is a Librarian,” he said and released his jaw as Gray’s head descended into the sound of bees. “What’s a Librarian doing with a filthy trade caravan?”

“Should we skin ‘im, boss?” the man holding tight to Gray’s arm asked, and Gray opened his mouth.

“Did Crimson come through here, too?” he asked before he could stop himself, because why would anyone want to skin a Librarian?

“I don’t even know who that is,” the boss said and leaned in to inspect Gray’s face. “Tiny little skinny thing. There’d be nothing to peel off him but skin.”

There was absolutely no need to make comments on his body, but Gray kept his mouth shut.

The bandit was uncomfortably close to him, and Gray wanted to take a step back, but there was a solid block of muscle and fat at his back, and nowhere to run in the front. Maybe he should just call down a monsoon, but a little rain probably wouldn’t deter them without some lightning, which again, was a terrible idea.

“He could be useful for that…” the other bandit trailed off, like there was something he didn’t want to say, and Gray’s ears perked up. If bandits wanted a Librarian, there were books involved, and that meant a lot of money.

“May I say something?” Gray asked, and the boss bandit stared at him like he was shocked Gray had the nerve to be polite in this kind of situation. The bandits were already rifling through the cargo and had the five meager guards corralled into a corner with their weapons drawn.

“You may,” the bandit said, and Gray noted he was remarkably well spoken for a bandit, possibly too well.

“Well, if you insist,” Gray said and then immediately regretted the way the man’s eye twitched. “If you need a Librarian, take me, or I’ll smite this entire caravan and leave nothing for anyone except a few fried bandits that will be twitching for the rest of their lives.”

The threat rolled off his tongue melodically, after nearly two decades of recitation, and he gave the bandit a sunny smile, though he meant absolutely none of that. However, the key to a bluff was a smile. If you smiled when you threatened, you immediately looked crazier than anyone in the room.

“Whew. Little Librarian has a bit of a bite, does he?” the bandit asked, and there was the rough commoner accent Gray had been expecting, which was a good sign. He probably altered his accent, and the fact that it was coming out now meant he was rattled.

However, that hadn’t been the best move, because the bandit suddenly seized his face again and peeled his mouth open with three rough, dirty fingers. A shiny knife came out of nowhere, blinding in the sun, and waggled dangerously.

“And what if I cut out your tongue right here?”

The force of the grab was bruising, and if Gray hadn’t been so accustomed to bluffing thanks to White’s obsession with cards, he would have paled. His tongue waggled, a tempting bait, and he barely managed to tilt his head against the grip.

“Wha’ ma’es you thin’ I can’ do non’erbal?” he asked, his voice slurred against the fingers, but the message was loud and clear.

Also, a lie, because you did need a verbal component, or at least a sign language component, but. All’s fair in love and war, isn’t it? And with a knife in his face, he most certainly felt like he was at war.

The bandit stared at him, his first and middle finger pressing down Gray’s tongue, and then he started laughing. Long and loud, borderline hysterical, and he released Gray’s face abruptly to turn aside and bend over his knees and cough and choke on his mirth.

“Oh, you’re crazy,” he wheezed and looked over his shoulder, his dark eyes glinting with a crazed humor. “I like crazy.”

The bandit behind him grabbed his other arm and pulled him back more firmly, and the boss straightened up abruptly.

“Pack it up, boys!” he hollered, and several confused, and then venomous looks were shot his way as the bandits paused in what they were doing. “We got our prize.”

“Boss!” one protested, but the boss shot him a dark, nasty look that sent a chill down Gray’s spine.

“I said we got our prize,” he repeated, and that same chill seemed to spread across every one of them, and Gray realized he was in deep, deep trouble.

Well.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t gotten himself out of trouble before. And put himself in it, on multiple occasions.

“Tie ‘im up!” the boss ordered and before Gray had a chance to react, his backpack was being ripped off his back and someone was patting him down before rough ropes started encircling his wrists. Wait, he was planning on coming peacefully? He wasn’t lying. Well, he was most certainly lying, but not about that. He kept his word---!

The boss was stalking towards him, and Gray backed up rapidly, and the bandit let him, only for Gray to trip on a rock and land flat in the dirt. Pain radiated up his rear, and the boss reached down, grabbed him by the scruff, and lifted him clean off his feet to swing him over his shoulder.

“Let’s go!” he called, and then looked over his shoulder. “... Take a quarter.”

The bandits looked beyond excited over this and rushed to take the wares as Zapatto, at the front of the caravan, rapidly flapped his hands in a state of sheer overwhelmed.

“Gray!” he called, his sweet brown eyes full of worry. “You don’t have to do this! I have insurance!”

Well, it would have been nice to know before this all started, but that was fine.

“I’m okay!” Gray called, as though he wasn’t tied up like a trussed bird and over a criminal’s shoulder, a criminal who was hauling him over to a waiting horse. “Oh, wait! My books!”

“Get the Librarian’s books!” the boss ordered and flopped Gray over the saddle. The wind was knocked out of him briefly, and he wheezed, and then the boss was climbing up behind him. “Hurry it up, boys!”

Oh, this was definitely not an adventure he was going to tell White about, if he got out of it alive.