Han #2
The Wodewood was a stretch of dense forest that stood between the old city and the new along its western edge.
Legend had it that some seven hundred years back, when the warlord who managed to push out the Myran Empire and their saints became the first high king of Eldmere and declared himself the new and only representative of the divine in the land, he had tried to clear the Wodewood.
But no matter how many woodsmen he sent, axes sharpened and saws at the ready, no lumber came forth.
The axes lodged into trunks, unmovable. The saws snapped in half like trenchers of stale bread.
The woodsmen fell asleep amongst the gnarled roots, only to wake days later, emaciated and near to death.
Eventually, the king gave up. The Wodewood would not be felled. Or so the story went.
Han thought it all sounded rather more like a fireside tale than history, but back then Charmers hadn’t yet been harried into early graves and secrecy, so likely there had simply been a few who didn’t want the wood touched and had acted accordingly.
She suspected that if the current king ever got it into his head to clear the trees, he’d have a much easier time of it.
Likely he didn’t bother because, these days, it was not strictly necessary for Neck’s inhabitants to pass through the Wodewood to get from one place to another.
The shinier parts of the city could be reached by winding through the many little neighborhoods that made up the old parts of Neck instead.
But cutting though the Wodewood was much quicker, and it turned out that many rich folk valued their time more than they valued their purses.
Or, more likely, they simply believed that while some people met with outlaws upon the Wodewood Road, it would never happen to them.
Kit and Han made it their business to ensure that it did.
It was an act every bit as practiced as their earlier performance.
They positioned themselves just off the road, hidden by the trees and the darkness. Some of the trees in the Wodewood were so thick around that even the horses could disappear behind them with little trouble. Once they were in place, all they had to do was wait.
“Are you still coming for dinner tomorrow? Sara’s making eel pies,” said Kit.
Han squinted at them in the darkness. Gone were the garments that made them identifiable at a glance, replaced with tight riding breeches, a black tunic, and an absurdly billowing cloak.
The getup was topped with a rakish wide-brimmed and befeathered hat, a half mask in the shape of an owl’s face that some gentleman had left behind at the theater one night, and a very convincing fake beard borrowed from Laslo’s costume trunks.
Han’s disguise was significantly less theatrical. Dark colors, mask, and done. As when they performed at the Bell Larkin, her role was to disappear into the background while Kit made the impression.
“Wouldn’t miss Sara’s pies,” she answered.
“I’m quite partial to her pie myself,” said Kit, and even though their face was hidden, Han could sense their eyebrows waggling.
Han grunted, and Kit laughed.
“When are you going to settle down with some nice girl and make an honest woman of yourself?” asked Kit. “What about that pretty ale-wench you’ve been grubbling?”
“No grubbling. Just a friend.”
“Huh. Well, I hear Judy’s back on the market. She’s got all her teeth and enough tits to fill a wheelbarrow. Real apple-dumpling shop, Judy is.”
Kit knew that being vulgar about women irritated Han and seemed to see it as their duty to do it as much as possible. Han refused to give them the satisfaction, so she only snorted in response.
“You sound like Tom when you do that,” said Kit, and, on cue, Tom snorted and shifted beneath them.
Han’s mount twitched in response, her ears tilting forward. No, wait. She was listening to the road. A carriage was coming. She leaned out to have a look and recognized the horses at once.
She leaned back and turned to Kit. “No heroics?” It was what they always said right before a job. Kit had made her promise it, the very first time they’d rode out: If it went to shit, it was every man for himself. Cut and run, no looking back.
“No heroics,” said Kit. And then they were off.
They burst out of the trees just ahead of the carriage.
“Stand and deliver!” Kit roared, urging their horse around the side of the carriage. Meanwhile, Han brandished a pistol at the driver, who had immediately reached underneath his seat. He straightened, raising his hands in the air.
“Down off the box, and unhitch the horses,” Han said. He complied.
Kit rapped on the carriage door with their pistol.
“Good evening!” they called. “Open up and pay the Wodewood toll!”
There was a pause, and then the door swung open. From where Han was positioned, she couldn’t see inside, but Kit stayed put, so there must not have been any unexpected weapons.
“Greetings, Sir, Madame. There’s no need for hysterics: all I require is your money and jewels and we can all be on our merry ways.”
A deep voice said something from inside the carriage, but Han couldn’t quite make it out.
She shifted her attention back to the driver, who had finished unhitching the horses.
“Back away,” she told him. He complied, and she nudged the black mare close enough to the carriage horses that they all began to dance nervously.
The carriage horses were both grays, large beasts, and when she’d looked them over in the innyard, she’d noticed that one of them was wheezing a bit and the other had a swollen foreleg.
Her plan was to spook them and get them to run ahead, and then she and Kit could collect them as they made their escape and pony them to safety, each leading one as they rode.
“Git,” she said, reaching out to give the nearest one a smack on the rump.
It got, and its mate followed. Unfortunately, so, too, did the black mare.
“Shit,” said Han as the mare reared up, almost unseating her.
She managed to cling on with her thighs as the mare’s front legs hit the ground again, then drew the horse up sharply before she got more than a few paces in pursuit of the carriage horses.
Her ears were flat back, and Han wished with all her heart that she was on Tom and not this flibbertigibbet.
As if he’d read her thoughts, she heard him rumble out his concerned whinny.
She turned to find that the driver had taken the nonsense with the mare as an opportunity to grab his rifle.
He raised it to his shoulder, and she had just enough presence of mind to throw her torso backward so that the back of her head was flat on the mare’s rump as the shot ripped through the air where her head had been mere moments before.
She allowed herself one heartbeat of sheer horror, then hauled herself up, leveled her pistol at the driver again, and screamed, “Drop it!”
Seeing as he didn’t have time to reload before she could put a hole in him, he complied. The rifle fell to the ground a few feet from where Kit was now facing her.
“Still alive?” called Kit.
“For now,” growled Han. She jumped down from the mare and strode over to confiscate the rifle, keeping her pistol on the driver, who was glaring at her as if he could make her head explode with the sheer force of his mind.
She motioned him down, and he complied sullenly, going to stand where she indicated at the road’s edge.
She could hear the murmur of Kit’s voice, having a lovely chat while Han was busy trying not to get her head blown off.
“Get on with it!” Han called, glancing back at the carriage.
“Everybody out,” Kit bellowed.
A lady half emerged, her hair all tumbled down around her shoulders and her neck bare, lacking the several pounds of necklace Han had noted it wearing earlier that night at the Larkin. A gentleman followed.
The rich lords and ladies who took their chances on the Wodewood Road didn’t entirely rely on luck to keep them united with their valuables.
Most of them had iron lockboxes in their carriages, built into the structure and designed for stashing money and jewels.
Would-be robbers were then obliged to either steal the entire carriage and force their way inside the lockbox later—which was wildly impractical—or else find a way to break it open.
But breaking into a box took time, and the more time you spent robbing someone, the more likely it was that another carriage would come along, or the Watch would do a pass through the forest, or there would be something else you hadn’t thought of that would cook your goose all the same.
But a lockbox was no impediment to Han.
Kit ushered the couple over to stand with their driver, and Han climbed up into the carriage, wrinkling her nose at the smell of nervous sweat and too much perfume.
She began hunting around for the lockbox, tossing pillows about until she finally found it, hidden underneath the padding on one of the seat benches.
It had three padlocks closing the lid and a narrow opening in the top.
All it took was a brief touch upon each of the locks. One, two, three, Han counted in her head.
She opened the lid with a creak, then scooped the contents into a sack. She left the locks hanging open. They would never close properly again anyway: a secondary effect of her attentions.
“Let’s go,” she called to Kit, jumping down from the carriage and striding over to her mare.
Kit whistled for Tom, who trotted over, then jumped up onto his back. They tipped their hat to the couple they’d just robbed.
“Wait,” called the lady. “You are the Rogue Charmers, are you not?” She sounded more excited than distressed.
“At your service, Madame!” said Kit with a wink.
Then they galloped away into the night.