Page 67 of The Omega Thief

Besides, he had an idea. “Go back to the abbey and get them to ring the bells.”

Ash looked doubtful. “If they have any. All the iron was stripped for swords in the war.”

Attiker knew that. “It’s worth a question. Some of the very old ones were declared consecrated, and that abbey’s been there five hundred years. You also need to warn them there’s a bunch of not-very-friendly soldiers about to walk past.”

Ash left as quietly as he could, and Attiker moved away to tie his pony up at some distance, but he let her graze. He couldn’t do anything about the army. He was going to have to leave that to Ash. He had a Neeral to catch. He knew Neerals lived in the dark, and their eyesight and sense of sound wasn’t great. They were lightning fast, though. However, it was their sense of smell that made them come into their own.

He moved as quietly as he could over the dunes, spying the telltale small openings. He picked one that had a rocky outcrop above it. He needed to set the trap, then stop the Neeral getting back into the nest. Anything between five and eight females guarded a giant nest, so the young weren’t on their own while another female went for food. He hoped to tempt more than one. He balanced the sack so that when the Neeral went for the rat, the canvas would drop down, but only giving him seconds before she got free.

He killed both rats, let one bleed out on the ground for the smell, and laid another over some dry leaves under the sacking. After, he crept above the rock and waited. Then waited some more. He glanced back the way he’d come and knew this was taking way too long. And he hadn’t heard the bells ring, so either Ash had been refused, or he was right, and they didn’t have any.

Just as Attiker was going to give up and move to another opening, one shot out and scooped up the first rat in her mouth. Attiker quickly dropped the wood over the hole. Neerals were territorial. She would know she couldn’t just go for any nest, or the other females would fight to defend their young. It had to be hers, and as her eyesight was crap, she ran back straight into the wood and stunned herself. He quickly put her in a slatted crate so she could breathe. Then he removed the wood blocking the nest. This was tricky, but he daren’t just risk one. Another interminable moment later, he heard scuffling, and another Neeral appeared. She sniffed, obviously wondering where her nest mate was, but then she obviously caught the scent of the second rat.

He quickly wrapped them both in the same crate as they were nest mates and gave them the dead rats as a kind of apology. Now he had to get back to the pony and move before the army started moving.

Attiker knew it was too damned late before he even got near the road, and he crouched down out of sight. Armies didn’t march quietly, even when no one was calling orders. Hundreds of boots made noise, and one by one, locals came out to see what was going on before scurrying back and bolting doors. It was no good. The line of the marching soldiers went on forever. It was clear he couldn’t get back the way he’d come.

Attiker heard the barest whisper of grass behind him and whirled around, his knife drawn, and gaped in surprise at the two children gawking back. He felt rather than saw their decision to run, but he hissed. “Quiet. They’ll hear you.” He’d already taken in their bare feet and threadbare clothes and the makeshift eel cage the boy—Attiker guessed around seven—held. The much younger one, five if he had to guess again, clutched the hand of the older one. He knew what they were about. Fiddler’s eels, as they were called, were small skinny fish, not much better than fat worms and probably less tasty, but that would feed many an empty belly if it was either that or starving.

By the look of these two, they were goingeelingas the best time to catch them was at dawn.

Attiker frowned, an idea coming to him. The only way of getting to the areas the eels bred was by boat, or scaling the sheer cliffs that protected the area further north. “You have a boat?” He wasn’t hopeful, but they must have something. “Your da, ma?”

The older one shook his head. He wasn’t sure if that was in answer to the boat question or having parents, not that he’d be surprised at either. “Do you have a boat?” He waited, then jingled his purse. The older one’s eyes widened, and he nodded.

“Then I will rent it from you.”

He looked doubtful, but Attiker was out of options, and he followed them as they scurried away. A few minutes later, away from the main harbor and the large ships, they walked into nothing that could be described as any better than a marsh. Attiker followed the boy’s finger to where he was pointing at a raft.

And raft was an optimistic term. How the hell these two were even still alive if they went eeling on nothing more than a few planks of wood tied to what looked like the remains of some sort of iron bucket was beyond him. Attiker’s heart sank. In his head, he’d imagined sailing into Cadmeera Harbor. If Ash had galloped all the way home, Attiker would still have made it first, but that thing was barely useable in shallow rock pools. Out at sea? It was a death sentence.

“Hey, you. Stop!”

Attiker turned and saw the distinct red and black of soldiers’ uniforms and knew without a shadow of a doubt that if the Abergenny forces got hold of him, he would lose the Neerals, but more importantly, lose any hope of saving Raz.

And probably lose my life. But if he lost Raz, would he even care?

He pushed the raft out and looked at the boy. “Run, I’m going to the open sea.” They couldn’t possibly attempt—

There was another shout, and the little guy jumped in the bath like he’d done it a million times. Then the older boy followed him, grabbing the cage from him and shoving it between them. The child’s own, he abandoned in the marsh. The current was strong, and Attiker barely got on before the raft was whisked away.

“We normally have posts.”

Attiker knew instantly he meant poles they could dig in the marsh to keep them near the shore, but he’d simply pushed them out into the current with no way of steering the raft, or worse, keeping them from the rocks, and that was if they got to the headland at Cadmeera Harbor.

The shouting continued for a moment until Attiker heard a loud noise.

Bells.

And it wasn’t just the sonorous clang of one.

He heard the second start up a moment later, but quieter, as if it was far away. Then a third.

“Why do you have the king’s cats?”

Attiker dragged his gaze back to the smaller of the two that sat in the iron bucket, gazing at the Neerals with awe.

Grinning, a little ridiculously—as he would be lucky to survive the next hour—and seemed to have brought two children along for the ride. “Because the king has commanded it.” And as it sounded so important, sure enough, two pairs of eyes looked at him in awe.

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