Free Brother Thief (Song of the Aura, Book One) by Gregory J. Downs Page B

pondering it.
     
       Staying permanently in the city was too distasteful. Murie’s death had opened up an opportunity for him to leave, but he could never do it on his own. With the Royal Market still in full swing, he could return and live off what he could steal for days; then, when the foreign merchants left for their homelands, he could talk or buy his way into their company. They would be his ticket out. If they wanted service, he could provide it until they came to another city, then break free. If they wanted money… well, money was no object when you had broken into Blast Palace and survived.
     
       The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. His only trouble now was finding the road again and watering his parched throat. The sun beat down on him with unnatural fervor. It was always hot inside the city, but never like this. It must be like the storms, he decided. Fierce inside, but far worse outside.
     
       As he mused on the weather, the lad failed to notice how close he was to the road. He tripped over the raised pathway and fell onto his knees on the dusty lane. When he had regained his composure and stumbled to his feet, he found himself staring down the main road to Ymeer. It was much farther away than he’d thought. How did I come so far last night? It puzzled him that he could not remember, but soon his thoughts were taken up with another problem.
     
       A single, pained moan wafted over the wind to him from farther up the road. He saw a dark shape like a man lying on the ground between him and the city, almost a quarter mile away. Frowning, he jogged towards it, wondering what idiot in all blazes would be sprawled out in the middle of the desert like that.
     
       When he reached the shape, it resolved into the prone figure of a man in travel-stained clothes. Gribly rolled the fallen traveler onto his back, and stared. It was a young man only a few years older than himself, his face caked with dried mud and his hair a wild tangle of walnut-brown. He looked stronger and harder than Gribly had thought a youth could look, but weak moaning came from inside him, and his eyes stayed shut. It was odd, but none of it surprised the would-be rescuer more than the short stabbing-sword belted at the young warrior’s waist.
     
       It occurred to him briefly that he could take the weapon and any other valuable thing the traveler might have, then run. But he knew he could never leave the young fellow to die- why, he might be in the same position if he hadn’t been able to use his gift last night. What puzzled him was how in Vast the warrior-boy had gotten here in the first place…
     
       With a sudden rush, his dream of the mountain and Traveller came back. This is the adventure, isn’t it? he realized. If I save this soldier, I’ll never be able to go back to normal life. For a second he was scared. Then…
     
       Normal life? There’s no such thing anymore. There never was. Out loud, he said, “I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but I’m going to save your life. Then maybe you can tell me why my life is falling apart, eh? You’d better be worth it.” He grunted, trying to lift the young man off the road. He was heavy, blasted heavy. There was a pack of some kind on his back, but there was nothing in it except a letter in a language Gribly couldn’t read.
     
       “All right Sleepyhead,” the thief grumbled, “I’ll have to bring you into town the hard way.” Gripping the muscled young soldier by the wrists, he began to drag him down the road.
     
    ~
     
       By the time he lugged the soldier’s dead weight all the way to the city gates, the sun had made its way across half the sky. It was hellishly hot, and only the grit of hardened desert living kept Gribly from collapsing on the way. He could only wonder how the mysterious warrior had made it so far from… wherever he’d come from. By the time he made it to the gates, they were wide open and