The soldiers sat at attention when they saw us coming and commanded us to halt and dismount. I kept my head down and slid off Mystic, then backed into the group of seven or eight thieves.
“We’ve got nothing of value,” Erick said to the soldiers. “We’re just trying to get back to our camp.”
The soldier nearest Erick harrumphed, then ordered us to line up and lay any weapons we might be carrying on the ground. I was reluctant to move, but the men around me were already forming into a line. I stood beside Erick, and he motioned that I should set down my knife. I did, but put a toe of my boot over it, at least to keep that bit of control if a fight started. Not that it would help much. There were many more soldiers than us, and all of them better armed. Maybe I’d need these bandages after all.
The soldiers began by searching Erick. They immediately found Harlowe’s pocket watch and tossed it onto a cloth on the ground. Then they dug into his saddlebag and found the coins the rest of us had not divided. With that discovery, a soldier struck Erick hard across the jaw, knocking him to the ground.
“You would lie to your king?” the soldier said.
“I lied to you.” Erick groaned a little and wiped blood from his lip. “You have no right to our property.”
“But I do,” a voice said.
I quickly turned, then immediately buried my chin to my chest. King Vargan emerged from a carriage that was stopped in the shade of some tall trees. With my head down, I hadn’t paid much attention to it before, but now that I looked, it was clearly the same carriage he had taken to my father’s funeral.
Vargan stepped forward and surveyed us. The other men went to their knees, but I turned away from him to help Erick off the ground. If Vargan noticed that I hadn’t knelt, he let it go. Instead he said, “A glorious day is coming for Avenia. Soon, my friends, we will be more than a great country. We will be an empire.”
I gritted my teeth. He intended to achieve his glory on the backs of my people — and with the help of the pirates. Unless I found a way to stop them.
“Throw down your coins now, and there will be no punishment for attempting to hide them from me,” Vargan continued. “Then be grateful that you were given this opportunity to contribute to Avenia’s greatness.”
The men around me quietly grumbled, but their king was in front of them now, and nothing they said would matter in the face of his greed. They withdrew the coins from wherever they had been hidden and dropped them on the cloth. Much as it infuriated me to use Harlowe’s wealth to benefit my enemy country, I handed over my coins too. The last thing I needed was to draw Vargan’s attention my way.
Vargan surveyed the collection of wealth on the ground, then stepped over it to look us over. Luckily, all the men had their heads down as I did, so other than the bandages, we all looked the same.
“I have more good news.” Vargan’s tone mocked us. Whatever he was about to say, we all knew it would be anything but good news. “In addition to these taxes, I am also looking for men to join my army. You’re nothing but thieves now, mere rodents. But you can come with me today and I will make you into heroes.”
I nearly laughed at that. In what way was attacking a peaceful neighboring country heroic? He degraded Erick’s men for being thieves even as he planned to steal all of Carthya from me. My fingers itched to pick up my knife and start the fight. It would’ve meant a certain death sentence for all of us — a definite disadvantage — but a part of me wanted Vargan to know I was here.
Vargan pointed to the man on the other side of Erick. “He will volunteer. Take him.”
The thief was a large and muscular man who had only twenty minutes earlier promised a round of ale to everyone in celebration of what I had stolen from Harlowe. He backed away from the soldiers, but they grabbed him and at knifepoint dragged him into the back of a wagon beside the king’s carriage. Vargan then pointed out two other men, one who I thought seemed like a close friend of Erick’s, and another, quieter man whom I’d barely paid attention to since I came to the thieves. He went without complaint, but Erick’s friend shouted, “I won’t fight!” He drew a knife from a pocket, but the soldiers were quicker and instantly had six swords on him. Both men were deposited into the back of the wagon, then a barred door was shut, locking them in.
It was no wonder that Avenia’s armies were so much larger than mine. If this was Vargan’s method of recruiting soldiers, then he could have as large an army as he wanted.
“You will fight,” Vargan sneered, then gestured at the rest of us. “You all will.” To his currish soldiers, he waved a hand and added, “Take everyone. For what’s coming, we’ll need every man we can get.”
With their swords drawn, soldiers immediately began to direct us toward the wagon, but I held my place. Beside me, Erick wasn’t moving either, and his fists were clenched so tightly I knew he was debating whether it was worth trying to resist. A soldier answered that question a moment later when he stopped beside Erick, then whacked him across the back of his knees with the blunt edge of his sword. With a grunt, Erick collapsed to the ground. I was struck next, and the force of it jarred my muscles enough to send me down beside Erick. Soldiers grabbed Erick’s arms and began dragging him toward the wagon. Another few went for me, but I had my knife in hand by then. However, Vargan told his soldiers to wait a moment and walked up to me.
“You’ve been injured.”
Without looking up, I shook my head.
“Stand up, boy.”
I did, but would not meet his eyes. He studied me for what seemed like hours. I was certain he must recognize me. It was true that when we’d last met it had been dark, and I was far dirtier now. Yet I felt so obvious here, as if the bandages called even greater attention to the fact that I was trying to hide my identity from him.
But it wasn’t that. In fact, the bandages may have had just the opposite effect, distracting him from looking at my face at all. He stared at them, trying to figure out why they were there.
“If it’s not an injury, then what are these wrappings for?” he asked.
Other than a mediocre attempt at disguise? I smiled at him, which hopefully looked pretty grotesque considering the ball of cloth still stuffed between my cheek and gums. In a hiss of a whisper, I said, “Plague wounds.”
Which was all that needed to be said. In whatever way the plague traveled from one person to the next, we all knew the hazards of being near someone so diseased.
Vargan nearly leapt away, and for better effect I groaned and raised a hand toward him. The way he twisted to get away from me would surely increase any back pain he had felt before. At least, I hoped it did.
“There’s plague with these men!” Vargan shouted. “Release them all!”
The soldiers dropped Erick as if he burned their hands and emptied the wagon almost faster than I could blink. They rushed their king into his carriage nearly as quickly. Within seconds, he and his military escort had left us behind in the dust of the horses’ hooves.
The men let out a cheer as I unpeeled the bandages, but Erick only stared at me as if I’d done something wrong. He finally folded his arms and said, “You owe me an explanation.”
That was probably true. But he wasn’t getting one. I only said, “If I hadn’t done that, we’d all be waking up tomorrow as Avenian soldiers.”