Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I was woken by a knock at the door and I sat bolt upright, snatching the knife from beneath my pillow as I blinked the sleep from my eyes.
Cassius was still in his spot on the floor beside my cot, but the knock had woken him too and he pushed himself upright with a frown as he raised the blade I’d given him.
But a cutthroat wouldn’t knock if they were here to kill him.
“What?” I yelled, irritated to have been pulled from my sleep when I found it so damn hard to come by in this place as it was.
“It’s me,” Pip called, and I groaned as I dropped my knife and fell back onto my cot.
“This had better be good,” I muttered, and he pushed the door open.
Pip’s eyes trailed over Cassius for a moment and the guard dropped his blade, tucking it out of sight as if he thought it might scare the boy.
I knew better. Pip was as tough as half the big arseholes in this place and took on jobs which should have been far beyond his skill set without even blinking.
Pip smirked knowingly before he turned to look at me; I’d been teaching him the ways of using what he was born with to his advantage, and for now that meant using his youth to make people underestimate him. He was damn good at it too.
“Egos said I should tell you that the storm is over and it’s time for you to leave,” he said, pulling a bread roll from his pocket and tossing it to me.
I snatched it out of the air and started eating it before I replied.
“And have I got any volunteers for the crew?” I asked as I swallowed.
“You’ve got your pick of twenty-six,” he replied. “Including me.”
“Nice try, Pip,” I said. “But Egos doesn’t like you hanging around with me as much as you do, so I think you’d better stay here for your own good. Besides, that nose of yours needs to heal.”
The kid opened his mouth to protest but he must have caught sight of my face and realised that my mind was made up on this one, so he gave in with a dramatic sigh instead.
He leaned forward, handing Cassius a second roll before he left, and the former guard raised an eyebrow in surprise at the gesture.
“Thanks, kid,” he called as the door swung closed and I got to my feet. “He seems less shitty than the rest of you.”
“He’s the best damn pickpocket I’ve ever seen,” I replied. “And he’d sell his grandmother to be baked in a pie if he was given half a chance, so don’t start getting too doe-eyed on him.”
“Surely if he had a grandmother, he wouldn’t be here with you criminals.”
“Maybe that’s because he sold her already,” I quipped.
“Are you sure you aren’t just holding him up to your own standards?” Cassius asked doubtfully as he finished his roll.
“You tell me. Didn’t you have a blade a moment ago?” I taunted.
Cassius looked around him with a frown, patting the space to either side of him and checking his pockets. “It was right here...”
“And now Pip has it. Don’t underestimate him. Or any of us. You don’t get to be one of The Forty Thieves by chance.”
“Forty-one,” he muttered. “And apparently I did.”
I snorted a laugh. “Forty isn’t an exact number, it’s just a name.
This is dangerous work; gang members die all the time.
Or end up in the dungeons. There’s far more than forty of us most of the time, especially if enough people with talent are recruited around the same time.
Only a few of us have survived long enough to become legends.
The fact that you don’t know that just goes to show how ill equipped you are to be one of us.
I bet you’ve never stolen a thing in your life. ”
“Of course I haven’t,” Cassius replied indignantly, and it would have been funny if his morals weren’t likely to get him killed, because I needed him alive long enough to bring me to that damn treasure.
“Well then. Perhaps if you survive this job, I’ll teach you how. Balthazar probably isn’t up for seducing any more ugly countesses for a while anyway, so you could always take his place in that position.”
“Oh thanks , pal, I can’t wait to get castrated for fucking a woman who looks like a toad,” Cassius replied dryly, and I laughed.
“Easier than a horse,” I pointed out and he broke a smile.
“We’d better get going before Egos sends anyone else to look for us.
Do you feel like telling me how well guarded this treasure is?
” I asked as I pulled on my boots and a loose-fitting white tunic.
I tossed Cassius a tunic too, and he eyed it like it might burn him before shrugging it on without thanking me.
Entitled much?
“It isn’t guarded as far as I know. Just hidden.”
“So how many men do we need to bring?”
“Eight?” he suggested with a shrug. “There's a lot of treasure there. It might take quite a few men to carry it out.”
“That sounds like my kind of haul.” I grinned to myself as I led the way back down to The Den.
If Cassius came through for me on this, then I was sure to get out of Egos’s bad books and I could get back to the good life.
In fact, if this haul was anywhere near as large as he claimed, I could even find myself with enough coin to leave this shitty place once I’d taken my cut.
I could finally choose my own path, sever my ties to The Den and be free.
There was a whole fucking world out there just waiting for wealthy men to carve their way to prosperity in it, and I could be anyone I wanted to be if I started up somewhere new.
I’d always liked the sound of the kingdom of Dunemare, hidden away within the endless forest and said to be entirely built of wood with buildings connected by rope bridges and the scent of pine surrounding them.
It was said to rain a lot there, the air thick with constant moisture which would be one hell of a change from the dryness of the desert landscape surrounding Osaria.
Or perhaps I’d head northwest instead and seek out a new life in Havendale, its capital known as the city in the clouds, set upon the highest point of land with buildings taller than any other in the entire empire.
The roads there were said to be clean of shit and piss in all places, no slums at all and the Fae the most content of citizens.
Of course, I had to lay doubt upon anywhere which sounded so wonderful.
I had learned long ago that anything which seemed too good to be true always was.
No doubt they had some method of dealing with the poor which was all kinds of unsavoury.
Maybe I’d just keep heading north instead, all the way to Falgesh where snow was said to touch the ground at all times, the people as brutish and harsh as the landscape they occupied.
Their women were also rumoured to be the most beautiful in the entire empire, and I couldn’t deny I’d take pleasure in finding out the truth to that rumour.
Wherever I chose, the point was that if this went well, I would have options.
I could travel the entire empire if I liked, changing my name as often as I picked the pockets of all those who crossed my path while carving out whatever destiny struck my fancy.
Yeah, that was the life for me. And Cassius was my ticket.