The man didn't respond.
"I have no wish to fight you, but if you insist on this robberry then I will have no other choice."
Ahro couldn't help noticing how calm and superior she appeared. She sounded like someone from a higher social class and he was sure she was trying to catch them off guard.
"I am not afraid to fight." The leader said calmly.
"If that is your wish then so be it."
Before anyone knew what was happening, one of the others, who had been crouching behind their leader, screamed out in pain.
The other two turned around and looked at their comrade. He was clutching his hand and writhed on the ground like a snake and his cries echoed between the trees. Blood trickled down slowly from where Calandra's dagger had pierced his palm.
She used the distraction to jump down from her horse and draw her sword. She flourished it dangerously as she attacked the second man head on. He reached down for his sword but let out a yelp as hers came down on his hand with the flat side.
She made a swift blow towards his head but he dodged it. Behind her she could hear the leader speading up to charge.
"Ahro! Shoot him!" she yelled.
Ahro started. It hadn't occured to him that he was involved in this fight. It had all just passed before his eyes like a strange dream.
He fumbled for his bolt pouch, but his trembling hands betrayed him and he dropped it. He reached down and grabbed it again.
Calandra kicked her opponent in the stomach and thrust her blade between the ribs of the man behind her.
"Ahro!" she yelled again.
She watched the leader fall to his knees and cough. A speck of blood landed on her face.
She turned quickly to face the last of her attackers still standing. He went pale and dropped his sword with trembling hands. Then he turned around and ran, leaving his wounded comrade to suffer on his own.
Calandra breathed heavily and took a minute to catch her breath. Then she wiped her sword on the grass and slid it back in its sheath.
She walked over to the whimpering robber. "If I help you, you will leave us alone. Got that?"
He nodded. She she tore a piece of fabric from his shirt and pushed it in his mouth. The she wrapped her hand around the hilt of the dagger that still protruded from his hand.
With one strong jerk she pulled the dagger from the wound. She ignored his stifled cries and wiped the blade on the grass and then slid it down the side of her boot again.
Then she took the cloth and wrapped it around his hand to stop the bleeding. He whimpered thankfully but she ignored it.
She pulled him up and pushed him towards the road.
"Go to an inn or something." She said harsly.
Ahro watched the man run away and he stared at Calandra with a mixture of respect and surprise.
"...I-"
"You could have helped me." She snapped.
"I- I wanted to, but..."
He showed her his bolt pouch reluctantly. It was empty.
"You idiot!" She yelled. 'You complete moron! You always make sure you've got enough bolts or arrows before you leave town! Every little kid knows that! Well, perhaps you wouldn't. You're nothing more than a useless city boy, on the look-out for adventure."
He muttered something. He felt very small now that he was suddenly facing her anger. She watched him shudder and felt disgusted. What kind of man shuddered and trembled like that?
'He's still only a boy.' She thought to herself.
She was use to life like this, but he knew nothing about it. She sighed.
"Right, never mind. Next town we'll find a weaponshop and buy you some new ones."
She looked at the dead man on the ground. She kneeled next to him and whispered a prayer. It seemed so unfair that he, the leader, was the one who had died. A man who fought for his living, but a man with honour. Not like the other two, who had abandonned the battlefield as soon as there was an opportunity for it.
Ahro stepped closer and waited until Calandra was done. To his big surprise he saw a tear fall down her face.
"Why are you praying for him?" Ahro asked quietly.
She looked up.
"He deserves to rest now." She answered back just as quietly. "He was a brave man, not afraid to fight for his cause, even if it was just a plain robbery. You can tell if someone is prepared to die for what he knows and this man was. I hope that, if I die by someone else's sword, that they will pay me the same respect. That I have earned that respect."
She turned back to the dead man one last time and bowed her head. Then her fingers found their way to his belt where they unclasped it. She threw it to Ahro.
"Put that on. Next time were attacked you'll be able to defend yourself."
Ahro obeyed and clasped the belt around his waist. His hands touched the leather sheath and the handle of the sword that rested there. He looked at it with an uneasiness that brought despair to Calandra's face.
"You do know how to use a sword?"
He nodded slowly. Of course he did. Everyone did. But to use the sword of a man who had been treated with such respect after his death mere seconds ago felt strange.
"I do." He said. "It's just...strange to fight with the weapon of a man who just died. It feels like we're stealing from his grave."
Calandra laughed. "Ahro, he had no use for that weapon now. And besides, you make stealing sound as if it's a bad thing."
"Well, it is..." he said quietly.
Another laugh. 'You'd better get used to it. Because you'll be doing a lot more of it if you stick with me."
He looked up. "Is that why we're going to Marek? To steal?"
"In a way it is. I heard a rumour about a big treasure on its way to Marek. We steal the treasure before it reaches the city, pay Writath what I owe and we keep the rest."
She mounted her horse again. Ahro walked back to his own horse and mounted as well. He didn't say anything. He was on the road with a thief, a female thief. Suddenly something started to dawn in the back of his mind.
If this woman could fight like this, if she could plan like this and if she could carry this life with so much confidence then why would she have made such a foolish bet back in Jabol?
There had probably been a plan behind all of that.
"Mi- Robin, I mean?"
She didn't look up.
"Robin?"
He trotted up next to her and lightly touched her arm.
"Robin?"
She looked up. "What is it?"
"I- err...where are we headed?"
"Marek, I told you."
"Yes, but aren't we going to make camp for the night?"
She sighed. "Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark."
"No! I'm not." He said hastily. "I just wondered, that's all."
She let a small smile take shape around her mouth. "...Yes. We'll stop to make camp."
Ahro nodded once and looked ahead again. Calandra looked at him, her smile growing wider and contenter.
"...Ahro...Call me Calandra."
He looked at her with surprise.
She smiled. "That's my real name."
The fire cracked merrily. Calandra stared at Ahro, who was trying to build a construction they could use to roast meat on. He was a clumsy kind of boy, but he definitely meant well.
For someone who was so opposed to stealing, he handled his situation pretty well.
He passed her some meat and she took it gratefully.
"I didn't know you could hunt." She said in between bites.
"Of course I can. How else am I supposed to survive out here?" he said as he sat down next to her.
"Sorry...I just assumed-" she started.
"You just assumed I couldn't hunt because I messed up the fight today. But there are a lot of things you don't know about me...and same goes for you, I guess."
He looked straight at her.
"You know I'm against stealing, but I know why you're doing it now. You have to get the money for Writath. But you're a professional thief, aren't you. I can tell by the way you handled the fight today and other things before that. So tell me. The whole bet against Writath wasn't all there was to it, was there?"
She looked down.
"What was supposed to happen. Pavel never really intended to fight in the tournament, did he. It probably wasn't even the real Pavel to begin with."
"He...he was my friend." She whispered.
Ahro looked at her, biting his lip. He was surprised he had managed to get her to open up so soon. But he was eager to hear what she was going to say so he kept his tongue and listened.
"He was my friend and he betrayed me."
Ahro seemed disappointed at this. "Is that all? Because I have to know everything about this whole scam if I want to help you. I can't help if you leave me in the dark."
Calandra stood up and paced around the fire. Her hand rested on her forehead.
"I can't believe I'm telling you this." She whispered under her breath. "Yes...that's most of it. The plan was that all the other competitors would throw down their weapons and give up at the sight of our supposed sir Pavel. And then we would earn the prizemoney as well as the trippled bet."
"But then he didn't show up..." Ahro continued for her. "He had stolen the betting money and left you with all the problems..."
Calandra bit her lip. That was exactly what had happened. And she had openly admitted everything. Almost everything.
"Who was this guy to you...appart from your friend."
"He- I knew him since our childhood. Let's leave it at that. I'd rather not talk about it, okay?"
Ahro closed his eyes and remained silent for a moment, not wanting to push her.
"Don't you have other friends?"
She sat down again and looked at the fire. "Just one other. He was my master, my teacher."
"I guess you and I are a bit more alike than you'd think." He said with a bitter smile. "Most people I know look at me as the young boy with no prospects. So they see me as part of the furniture, not someone to talk to."
She didn't say anything. She felt the air thicken between them. Somehow she felt relieved that she had told Ahro the truth about the scam. She felt as if a weight had been lifted from her heart and that she could be a bit more at ease.
It surprised her that she didn't feel as lonely as she had expected, sitting in the dark. Ahro was better company than Finnean had ever been because he truly understood how she felt, what loneliness felt like.
A question jumped up in her mind. Something she had never really gotten an answer to.
"Ahro? Why did you follow me? I know you said because you wanted to help me. But still..."
Ahro's breath got stuck in his throat for a second. He really did not want to answer that question right now...Was she really asking him this? He looked at her and saw she was staring at the fire intently, not facing him.
He scooted a bit closer.
He stared at the fire and quickly pulled bakc his hand when it accidentally brushed over hers. He took a deep breath.
"...I'd rather not say..."
She turned her head and noticed he wasn't sure where to look. She couldn't help but smile. Not knowing quite why she was doing it, she leaned her head on his shoulder.
"...You don't have to. I think I already know."
He hesitated when she said this, but crept his arm around her waist. She had been the one to make contact, right?
She smiled. "...How old are you, Ahro?"
"I'm eighteen. Why?"
"You do know I am three years older than you?"
"Does it matter?"
She let out a clear chuckle. "No, I suppose not."
She let his arm rest where he had placed it. It was warm and she gave in to the strange fuzzy feeling that started to spread through her body from her stomach.
The fire warmed her face and she allowed herself to doze off slowly. One more night and then she would be in Marek at last. Perhaps she would forget about the whole robbery. After all, she had seen no signs of Writath following her in any way. Maybe he had given up.
Inside her she carried the desire to give up stealing. Not that she didn't like it, she enjoyed it very much. But she wanted to know that she could earn a living in a different way, that she wasn't just bound to this single way.
It would be hard, of course, to give it up. Although stealing little trinkets was now more or less a force of habit, she delighted a lot in relieving others from their possesions.
And with all this trouble, this fiasco, behind her, she thought it would be best to forget her past. Perhaps also because she knew that it would somehow always remind her of Finnean and his betrayal.
Maybe doing something else with her life would mean a second chance to be happy. Maybe Writath had unknowingly marked the beginning of a second life for her when he had decided not to follow her.
As Ahro's head leaned down on hers she couldn't help but smile again. Maybe he was the one who had marked this second chance.
She hadn't felt like this in a long time and it made her almost certain.
'A second chance for a thief.'
Well, well, done with another chapter! And I keep getting really valuable advice!
Kar-Vermin: I'm glad you like Calandra. She was the main character and that's why I tried to focus most on her and her emotions. After all, it needs to portray her past and how she became what she was going to be in my D&D game.
I understand exactly what you mean about Ahro, though. He's a difficult character to portray. I didn't really think out a proper reason for him to follow Calandra. I was content with saying that he followed because he had develloped something like an instant crush on her and that combined with his fear that something would happen to her if she wasn't warned about Writath. I'm sorry to say there's not much other reason behind it other than this. I just gave him too little thought and you are right when you say it shows. To me, while writing this story, he wasn't much more than a plot-device for Calandra and her adventure. You'll see what I mean in the end.
I'm truly flattered when you say that my story belongs to an elite few, there's hardly more praise a writer can have! And I'm also very glad that you think it was written with care (it was! I hate stories that come across as something that was just written out of boredom and therefore not thought out properly. So I always want my stories to be better than just that and I put a lot of time and thought into them because I want to make them good.)
I'm a little too lazy for the dictionary today ;) But I'm doing my best to spellcheck! Hope you liked this chapter!
Grayangle: Musings forgiven nn I liek to muse about stories myself, so that would make me guilty of the same crime :D I do think that Ahro develops himself in this story, though not nearly as much as Calandra does. As I admitted to Kar-Vermin; I gave him too little thought. But he does make a stand for himself in a way. You'll see what I mean when the time comes. Glad you're still reading!
I'll just keep my updates coming. I'm very happy with the response I'm getting and there's no way I'd start posting a story just to quit halfway through. So untill the next chapter!
Love, Raven55