Chapter 11: Chapter 10

Tibs did his best not to attract attention as he walked through the crowd. He knew how, but there were so many people milling about the paths between the tents that made accomplishing it more difficult. It also made his fingers itch from the temptation of the pockets around him. As he approached the alley leading to his destination, the crowd finally began thinning as none of the tents in this part of the encampment were occupied yet.

“Punctual,” Bardik said, making Tibs jump and look around for where he’d come from. “I like that in a subordinate.”

“I’m not your—” Tibs fought with the words.

The adventurer smiled. “Don’t worry about it. It just means someone who carries out my orders.” Tibs looked at him suspiciously and Bardik chucked. “It doesn’t mean you’re my slave. I wouldn’t want you to be.” They reached the unfinished building, and he leaned against one of the crates.

“Fine.” Tibs looked at the stacks of planks, wondering what this building was going to be, and why the work had stopped. Before he could ask what he’d have to do, Bardik took a blue stone from a pocket and handed it to him. “What is it?” He turned it over, watching the light reflect off its surface.

“What does it look like?”

“An opal.” The better-off people on the street sometimes wore them as a mark of their status. Tibs had stolen one and had tried to sell it. It was where he had learned what it was called, right before he was beaten by its previous owner.

“Very good, that is what it is. Have you been to the Long in the Tooth tavern?”

Tibs nodded, still studying the stone, trying to determine what was special about it, because there had to be something more. They were important on the street; here they couldn’t be more valuable than the gravel that lined some of the paths.

“Did you notice the old man behind the bar? Heavyset, white mustache drooping over his lips, nearly hiding his mouth?”

“People call him the Old Walrus,” Tibs said, which made Bardik chuckle. He’d tried to find out why they called him that and only found out it was because of the mustache and that a walrus was an animal.

“He’s your target, I need you to drop that stone in one of his pockets.”

Tibs narrowed his eyes at the adventurer. “That’s it? I put this in a pocket and I’ve paid for my training? You’re a rogue, why don’t you do that yourself?”

“And don’t get caught, obviously.” Bardik smiled. “I can’t have people know I’m involved; and I’m not the one who needs to pay for his training.” He motioned for the stone back. “If you aren’t interested in doing this, I’ll consider the time I’ve already invested a loss and we can go our separate ways.”

Tibs closed his hand over the stone. “I said I’d pay. I just don’t understand why go through all that for a stone.” He realized something. “It’s a secret message, isn’t it? A code.”

“That’s not your concern, is it?” Bardik replied with a smile. “For what you need to do, it’s just an opal that needs to be in the man’s pocket, and it had to be done before the end of the day.”

“Mealtime is best. He’s going to have to help the servers since he doesn’t have enough and everyone wants to eat there.” It was still the only tavern running, although a second one was almost completed.

The man had a knife in his hand. “Good, then how about we spend your time until then practicing?”

Tibs looked at the knife as he put the stone away. Where had it come from? He tried to look for a sheath, even one secreted on the other rogue, but he couldn’t see anywhere one could be hidden. He took his knife out, held it the way Bardik had shown him during the last training, and waited.

* * * * *

Tibs snuck into the tavern unnoticed among the people entering and exiting; an advantage of his small size.

Every table was full of people; men and women clamoring for food, and the space between tables packed with people shoving one another to reach the bar for a tankard of whatever the barkeep might have on hand. Tibs didn’t think the barrels stacked behind the bar lasted long enough for everyone to get their fill.

The crowd in the tavern was composed of the people building the town, as well as the merchants and runners who decided to spend the little coins they had kept from their run on food and drinks that had taste. Tibs thought that was a foolish use of their coins, but maybe the streets they came from had had tastier food than his and the mess tent’s food wasn’t to their liking.

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He found a corner, kept clear mostly by how small it was, and waited for the barkeep to step out from behind the bar. The Old Walrus was stocky, as Bardik said, so much so he was almost fat, but tall. He wore a dirty shirt under a leather apron and looked harried as he filled tankard after tankard, tapping one new large barrel after the other. He’d gone through half of them after just an hour.

People took the empty barrels out, replacing them with new ones. Some were adventurers, some could be runners by how ragged their clothing was. Maybe, like him, they were paying for extra training by doing work.

Servers, young men and women who looked exhausted already, came and went from a door leading to the kitchen, carrying with them the smells of food along with what was on their trays and Tibs salivated. As soon as this was done, he’d go to the mess tent to eat.

A group of adventurers came in, shoving people out of their way when they didn’t move fast enough. Once at the bar they demanded tankards and the barkeep served them, clearly unhappy about their presence, but not staying or doing anything about their behavior. Tibs tried to see their left wrists; by now he suspected that every adventurer in the town had the mark that indicated being here was their punishment, but maybe this group was just traveling through? He thought it would explain their rudeness to the workers and merchants and not only the runners.

After another hour, the crowd in the tavern lightened and Tibs grew worried. The Old Walrus still hadn’t left the bar. What happened if he couldn’t deliver the opal? If being noticed wasn’t an issue, he’d just run behind the bar, make a nuisance of himself, and slip the stone in the pocket while the barkeep removed him. If he didn’t want anyone to notice him, he had to make sure all attention was elsewhere.

He knew from experience and observation that the easiest way to have people look elsewhere in a tavern was a fight; it also ensured the barkeep would leave the bar since, as the owner, he couldn’t allow a fight to stretch.

The crowd was now light enough Tibs could move without fearing being stepped on and, if he was careful, without being noticed, so he moved from his hiding place to next to the door leading to the kitchen. When a server exited the kitchen, he followed her. When she squeezed between two burly men to place the food on their table, he goosed her.

With a yell of outrage, she punched the man on her left, to the hilarity of the others at the table, and stormed off, leaving the dirty plates there. The barkeep barely glanced in their direction.

Annoyed, Tibs returned next to the kitchen door and waited for another target.

He picked a man this time, following the server to a table with rough-looking women, adventurers by the way they were dressed. He goosed him in passing, but instead of a scream, the man laughed and propositioned the woman closest to him.

Fuming, Tibs decided this tavern worked differently than those on his street. No server there would let themselves be touched the way he had, and no patron would let an excuse for violence pass. He needed to find another way to start this fight.

He located a table with workers seated at it, along with two runners. By her build one of the women was a fighter and the man next to her had the furtiveness of a rogue; he looked too nervous to last long, Tibs thought. Maybe she was his bodyguard? By his nervousness, he didn’t trust her much. If she was, Tibs could imagine how he paid her, but didn’t want to think about that.

The workers were well on their way to being drunk, while the two runners drank carefully. Tibs watched the rogue switch his newly delivered tankard with the one his neighbor had nearly emptied in one long swallow. The man was sufficiently gone that when he noticed his tankard was somehow still full, he just laughed and emptied it. He was also gone enough he never noticed the rogue pick his pocket and surreptitiously pass the handful of coins to the fighter. She slipped them in the leather coin purse tied to her calf.

They had a good thing going. If one of the workers caught on and searched the rogue, they wouldn’t find anything, and she could slip away into commotion. They’d meet up afterward to split their take. If the adventurers got involved, she might not have to worry about splitting anything. Tibs chuckled. No wonder the rogue looked nervous. He was taking all the risks.

Of course, that only worked if her coin purse didn’t empty its content as she stood, which is exactly what it did once Tibs had snuck by the table and cut the leather cord holding the bottom of the purse closed. When one of the workers finally noticed their purse was too light and stood to accuse the rogue, she stood and even amidst the conversation, the distinctive sound of coins hitting coins as they fell on the floor was heard and everyone at the tables close to them stopped what they were doing to look at them.

The fight that followed was larger than Tibs anticipated. Not only did the workers at the table attack the rogue and fighter, but those at the tables around them jumped to grab the coins and became the target of the owners and other people who believed they should be the ones to have them, and then a tankard flew by someone’s table to hit a woman who had been minding her business and her companion was pulled into the fight.

The fighting didn’t last long. The barkeep was out of the bar and in the middle of it, downing one brawler after the other as he encountered them with only one hit. Tibs snuck by before the man was too deep into the fighting and slipped the opal in, then stepped away to watch the result.

By the time adventurers arrived, most of the fighters were unconscious. Tibs decided not to anger the barkeep. No matter how much he might look like someone too old and fat to know how to fight, he’d demonstrated he wasn’t to be underestimated. Tibs thought that it might be for the best to show the man plenty of respect and not use the nickname people had given him.

The rogue and fighter were subdued by the adventurers, Tibs wasn’t certain the rogue was still alive, and they were taken out, along with a few of the others who had fought. Tibs thought only runners were taken by the adventurers. The workers who’d been involved in the fighting were woken by having buckets of water dumped on them, then taken out of the tavern by other patrons.

The servers and barkeep righted tables, threw hay on the ground to soak the water and blood before shoveling that in buckets and carrying them out. A few minutes after that normalcy returned to the tavern and not even one person had looked in Tibs’s direction.

Tibs considered staying to see how the barkeep would react when he noticed the opal, but decided against it. After what had just happened he might call the adventures back, and while Tibs didn’t think he acted or looked like a rogue, they would know he was a runner and might cart him away just on that.

He snuck out and headed for the mess tent and what passed for food there. Then he decided his day had been long enough and headed for bed.

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