Thief's War: A Knight and Rogue Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

iniquitous, and bought her from him…but judging by the determination with which she heads for the nearest keg, I don’t think Tipple objected to it. Several of the carts carried beer, and their drivers scoffed at my warning—until Tipple managed to pull one bung out with her teeth. After that they took care not to park near the place she was tethered.
    I’d thought Trouble would present worse difficulties, but after half a day of oxen rolling their eyes as he frisked past, he formed a passionate attachment to the cooks’ wagon. For some strange reason the cooks liked him as well, and he spent most of the trip lolling among the pots—when he wasn’t leaping off the cart to chase a rabbit across the field.
    After a few more days the roads began to dry out. Bushes, which were becoming more frequent along the verges of the road, put out leaves and blossoms. New grass sprouted, lush and green, spotted with flowers.
    It was still no light task to patrol a train of over two hundred enormous freight wagons, four hundred oxen, and their attendant ox-drivers, farriers and clerks…not to mention several hundred laborers, who rode perched on the loads of squash, potatoes or grain.
    I talked to quite a few of them, as time went on. For the most part they were young, and eager to start a new life in the city. The contract they’d signed only required them to work for the train’s owners for two months to pay their transport debt. Then they’d be free to find their own employment, in a town where laborers were needed more than anywhere else in the Realm. So they must be well paid, right?
    I told them I’d never been to Tallowsport, so I couldn’t say. But I noticed that their contract said nothing about helping them find that next, well-paying job.
    These people had volunteered to go with the train, and they almost never ran off. But when someone had been sold to the train’s owners for coin, or to pay some debt, their labor might be indentured for years. These ingrates sometimes tried to run, so they were regarded as prisoners.
    There was only one prisoner at the moment, a thirteen-year-old boy. Willy was chained to a bench in a wagon about two-thirds down the line, but he wasn’t treated too badly. The chain, cuffed to his ankle, was long enough to give him the freedom of the big cart bed—as much of it as held no other cargo. He had a tarp to wrap up in if it rained during the day. He had a pillow and blanket, and he could climb down and sleep under the wagon if it rained at night—and if he got cold, he could ask one of the four guards who watched his wagon at night for another blanket. He ate the same food as the ox-drivers, and was released from the shackle to go off into the fields and relieve himself—also under guard.
    It took two more days of circling the train before Michael or I managed to be the guard in his vicinity when he told the driver he needed to go. In fact, I was the one who got lucky.
    The breeze was still chilly, but the sun was warm enough that he’d shed his blanket. The driver pulled the cart off the road, set the brake, and climbed over his seat to unlock the shackle while I tied Tipple to the cart.
    I hoped someone else had a key, because picking the pocket of a man driving a cart can’t be done.
    The driver, a muscular man, picked the boy up and handed him down to me. Will had barely started his growth spurt, still light-boned. I kept my hand on his shoulder as we marched across the grassy verge and into some farmer’s rutted field. He said nothing. His expression was sullen—which I liked better than despair.
    “That’s far enough,” I told him, and he stopped obediently and started to open his britches. “Far enough that no one can hear us. Your grandparents sent my friend and me to get you out of this.”
    Wide dark eyes flashed up, and a flare of excitement wiped the angry misery from his face. “You…you mean—”
    “Yes, I mean it, but it’s not going to be fast or easy. The