A Thief's Shadow

Taking the Bait

The song of a tree bird wove its way through the cloth of the tent until it reached his ears. Cal groaned. His limbs burned as if they held the fires of Hell. They needed to pack up and get going. The thief must have set up camp, too, so they shouldn't be far behind. Unless the thief was as inhuman as Cal had guessed. He shuddered at the thought and rolled out of the thin bedding. The ice of morning had settled onto the covers already, so it was about as cold outside of the bedding as in.

A cheerful face lined in red peeked into the tent. "Good morning starshine! I brought you breakfast. Eat up; I'll fold up the tent. Don't be the last one ready or the General will give you a thorough yelling." The thought of the General's burning eyes fully woke Cal. He nodded gratefully to Nikolas and stepped into the morning light. There was hardly any light. The black darkness had been replaced with a dark gray, but it wasn't what Cal would call light.

The beautiful scent of fowl roasting filled the air. A smile crept onto his face as he wolfed down a few bites of food. Sadly he couldn't eat too much when they were going to be running after the thief once again. Cal eyed the rest of the fowl hungrily. He was going to need a distraction as long as they were still packing up. Standing, he began to head back towards the tent. A shadow fell over the path in front of him. He froze, standing as still as the frozen earth beneath him. The General smiled.

"We have determined that you are the fastest runner of our group. From this point on, when we are in traveling groups such as this you will run ahead as soon as you are ready. Not when the group is ready, when you are ready. So now would be a good time to start. If you catch him, handcuff him." The huge man handed Cal a pair of handcuffs and, with the smile of the devil, shoved him forward into the forest.

Stumbling forward, he held back a groan. He didn't like running. More than that; he hated running. If he was too lazy, though, he would get in trouble. It was a no win scenario. Shoving his exhausted legs into movement, he began to run in the last direction he'd seen the wraith thief. A smart thief would double back. An even smarter thief would sneak into their camp and steal some food. Cal sighed and stopped. He had no idea where the thief could be. If he were in the thief's place, he would double back for sure. The direction they'd been heading was simply the easiest path to lose chasers. The closest civilization, however, was back in the direction they'd come from. Cal turned around and ran back through the camp, making it as obvious as possible that he'd changed direction.

The forest was empty. No more birds belted their music, no branches snapped except for the ones under his own feet, and no wind whispered with the trees. It was as if the frost had muted everything. The snow should show footprints... If he were a thief trying to escape knights, he would use the tracks of the knights. Cal ran along the tracks they'd made the night before, suddenly wishing it had snowed so that new tracks would be obvious. There were too many tracks to tell if some were going the wrong way. Cal suddenly wished the rest of the elite knights hadn't followed them. The forest remained empty, grey and white continuing to be the only colors in sight. He pushed himself onward. Eventually he had to find the thief. If his legs were sore, the thief's legs were probably nearly falling off.

The forest stretched on and on, the intersection nowhere to be seen. He knew he was heading the right direction, but everything was endless. The burning in his legs didn't go away with time. He'd been running for much more than ten minutes when, with a sudden turn of a corner, he was at the intersection. So was the thief. It was the first time he'd actually seen the thief up close, and his appearance shocked Cal into slowing for just a moment. He wore a black overcoat, black pants, black boots, a black scarf, and a black mask covering all of his face except for piercing, silver eyes. Silver in a nearly inhuman way. Even his hair was covered by a black hat. He was already on a horse, one of theirs, and with a wink he was escaping.