Stepping Wild (Dungeon Runner 04)

The earnestness in the name made Tibs pause and not shove the man, and fist in the air, holding his wrist, coin still between his fingers. It gave him time to remember using that name, but not be certain when. Realize they were on a street with others passing them, and was happy no one was calling for the guards. They probably thought the man could deal with the thief himself.

The man was slightly taller than Tibs, blond hair baldy cut with a blade. The pale beard was a few weeks long, and the leathers had seen better days. The whole, with the man's muscles, gave him a thuggish look.

And then he remembered where he'd been Thibaud, and who the man was.

"Charlie?"

Charlie grinned, lowered his fist, and let go of Tibs's wrist. "In the flesh. What are you doing here?"

What was he…? "What happened to taking over the Master's organization and looking after your city?"

The man turned bashful. "Turns out I'm no good at running something that big. Leaving was best for everyone." He grinned. "But I got myself a team, and we've…." He looked at the crowd, mostly ignoring them. "We're messengers, of a sort."

"So you're heading out?" Tibs rubbed his temple, surprised at how unsure he felt about encountering someone from the past. He hadn't thought about them. They no longer belonged in his life, and he never returned to those places since they were behind him.

"I'm still lining up the next item. We're here until that's done." He brightened. "Hey, since you're here too. Why don't you meet them? We can share a drink. You're going to love them."

"I don't know…." He rubbed his temple harder. Would this cause complications?

"It'll be fun." Charlie's face fell slightly. "Unless you're heading to your team? Do they know…." He motioned him up and down.

"I don't have a team. I'm not doing anything like that right now."

The man smirked. "So that silver in your finger's what?"

"Habit." He offered the coin back. "You did catch me."

Charlie took it. "Which tells me you're distracted by something. A drink is the best thing for that."

Before he realized it, he was walking along. Charlie was right. He could use a distraction.

"What name should I give my team when I introduce you?"

"Thibaud's fine." He hadn't bothered with a 'commoner' identity. He could wander the city as the scholar he was. No one asked for names when he shopped.

"Oh, they are going to love that."

*

The tavern was close enough to the docks; the ale smelled more of fish than the wheat that made it. Charlie led him to a table at the back, where four people sat. He grabbed a chair from the unoccupied one next to theirs and added it.

"Gang, I want you to meet Thibaud. He and I used to run together, back home."

The four looked at him so critically it bordered on hostile.

"That's the Thibaud you ran with?" The red-haired woman smirked. Her skin was pale, with freckles, the way people in the cold kingdoms often were, but she didn't have an accent. Her hair went down to her shoulder and looked better cared for than the others. Her green eyes had cunning in them.

"Don't let how he looks fool you." Charlie motioned to the barman before sitting. "Thibaud's a master at making people think he's someone else. He pulled off being a noble for one of the jobs we did." He motioned to the chair Tibs still hadn't taken. "Who are you this time?"

The woman to her left was muscular, where the redhead was lean, with ferocity in her eyes. To her left, a man with skin much darker than Tibs's eyed him the way he'd seen butchers study a cow they contemplated buying; to then bleed and cut. On the left of the chair Charlie had offered him, the man finished his appraisal and went back to his tankard.

He hesitated.

Five.

Charlie had made a team of five.

Hadn't he explained that was a bad number for a team?

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He sat. "A scholar." Tibs wouldn't be the one having to deal with things when they went wrong because of that.

"A Booker? This is the guy you talked about? The one who helped you take down that thief group?"

"Helped?" Tibs asked, smirking, as a server placed tankards on the table and left with the empties.

Charlie grinned. "I might have exaggerated my part in it."

Tibs raised a tankard to his lips. "How about invented it entirely?" It was decent, no fish taste at all.

"Anyway. That's Marok." He pointed to the dark-skinned man. "Muscle. Jeanine, also muscle. Lidia, the brains of our little group, and Reanar, the one who gets us into places."

"Aren't you being free with what you're telling him?" Jeanine asked.

Charlie shrugged. "You know some of what we got up to. It's not like he'd going to go to the guards with how we get the stuff we move."

"What brought you to Jisteisteon?" Tibs asked before they could start on questions about his history. He didn't feel like having to remember what he'd told Charlie, and making up stuff to fill the time since leaving Brokentia.

"Someone wanted something delivered," Marik answered in a flat tone. "So we did that."

"Getting it first was all sorts of fun," Reanar added, smirking in his tankard.

"You came here all the way from Brokentia?"

"That's the city you're from, isn't it, Charles?" Lidia asked, and Charlie blushed. "He brought me on in Carton, when he realized he'd agreed to move something he had no idea how to get." The learned way she spoke contrasted with the worn and ragged clothing over her also worn leathers.

"It was on display for anyone to take," Charlie muttered. "It should have been smash, grab, and outrun the guards."

"Should," Jeanine said, grinning.

"The glass didn't break," Charlie explained. "Had to fight off the guard. Barely made it out. Took weeks to heal fully."

"And the owner didn't let her guard down even after that time," Lidia said.

He studied her, then Charlie. "You found him."

"I figured someone dumb enough to try that and get away after failing would be good muscle to have at my side."

Tibs smirked. "Dumb." He took another swallow.

"Look at him," Reanar said. "And tell me you think he can make plans."

"I can make them," Charlie protested. "I just like them simple. She had a Cynta kind of plan, but without needing an entire theater to make it happen."

"We still barely made it out of the city with it, and our skins," Reanar said, hint of anger in his voice.

"I said we needed more people," Charlie offered in his defense.

"The important part is that we escaped with it," Lidia said.

"We delivered it in Heermiotess," Charlie continued. "Kept busy while looking for our next score, which Jeanine brought to us, earning a place among us."

She shrugged. "There's always rich folks watching us fight. Easy to listen to them. Heard merchants talk. Listened for which client wanted something and was willing to pay a lot for. Figured that'd be a good score for that team I'd heard about. It's always better if money goes in my purse than the merchants."

"What she didn't catch was that the client willing to pay for it was on the other side of the kingdom," Charlie said. "Lidia worked out that part."

Jeanine sipped her ale. "And you tried to keep that from me."

"No, I didn't. I said I would courier your cut once we delivered it," Lidia countered.

"You don't look that trustworthy." She looked at Tibs. "I went with them. Was going to head on my own after that, but got used to the lot by the time we arrived."

"From there," Charlie said, "Marok got us the next job, which brought us here, and him with it."

"And what a trip that was," Reanar grumbled.

Tibs looked at Charlie.

"The item in question was wanted by half the kingdom, so we couldn't take the roads."

He kept looking.

Charlie chuckled. "You've never traveled in the wilderness. It wasn't fun. If Marok hadn't known about the smuggler's trails, I don't think we'd have made it here."

The group exchanged looks that made Tibs think there was more to the story, but he didn't press. "And you're waiting to find something, then you'll be going?"

"You know of anything like that?" Lidia asked eagerly.

He shook his head. "I'm not doing anything like that right now." She didn't believe him. He drained the tankard and stood. "It was nice meeting you all. Charlie, I hope your travels are uneventful." He left before they responded.

Charlie reached him before he'd walked past the first alley. "Thibaud, wait up."

He turned to face the man.

"Why are you leaving now? You didn't tell us anything of what you've been up to."

"Like you, I traveled. But with caravans."

"Then come share stories."

"What do you want, Charlie?" He sighed. "Are you hoping I'll join your team?"

"No, of course not." The hurried words made the light on them unnecessary. "I thought you'd like to get to know them. They're a good team, Thibaud."

"I believe you." He searched the man's face, looking for the angle.

"Yeah, but if you get to know them, you'll see how good they are. That I…."

Tibs waited, still unsure what this was about.

"That…. You know…. I did good."

"Why would I think you hadn't?"

"I promised to protect my town, then left it behind. But I got a team now, and we're pulling jobs, and we're doing well. And we like each other and—"

He placed a hand on Charlie's arm to silence him before the desperation in his voice went from being hinted at to audible to everyone around them.

Tibs kept the confusion and amusement out of his reply. "You don't need my approval, Charlie. I'm sure your city's going to be fine even without you there. And it's your team. You trust them. That's all that matters."

It was Charlie's turn to search his face, and Tibs wondered why. What was he looking for, beyond his approval?

"Where are you staying?"

"I have a room in a house by the Etchian market."

"What name are you using here? I'd rather not have to hope you'll pick my pocket for us to run into each other again."

He hesitated. "I'm not doing a job here."

"I just want to be able to find you if I want to share another ale."

"Tilan the Scholar," he finally said. Charlie would look until he found him, and Tibs didn't need the distraction to get the man caught and his break his team.

"Tilan." Charlie smiled. "Makes you seem like a simple man."

"I am simply a scholar, Charlie."

The man laughed. "I doubt you're simply anyone, Thibaud." He turned. "I'm glad you tried to steal from me. If I have time, I'll look you up and you can tell me what you have actually been up to since leaving."

He watched the man return to the tavern, then headed to his room, still puzzling over what Charlie wanted.