Chapter
2 Catching Wild Men
“Run.. run.. run.. run..
hedge... duck... crawl... up and run... run...”
“Stop yelling what you're
doing and just go!”
The wild men had retrieved the
valuable cargo and were heading as far away from the path as they
could go, crashing through the undergrowth and smashing past trees in
a direct beeline north.
“Guys I can't peg it any
longer... ” Four of the thieves had stopped in a clearing and were
catching their breath.
“I wouldn't worry, I don't
think they even noticed.”
The speaker straightened up,
clad in black and tall enough to be fairly imposing, should the need
arise. His hair was scrappy at best and he had a single false tooth
of magenta in colour.
“So much wine!” one of the
thieves exclaimed excitedly, “I wonder what I will do with this...”
“Stop stroking the wine
Laurel..”
“It's my wine! I'm
sophisticated! I like wine.”
“Still there's no need
to...”
“Guys sit down.” Magenta
Tooth stated.
They all quickly collapsed
onto the floor, littered about the clearing among the wild, overgrown
plants and fallen timber. There was a short pause as the thieves
enjoyed the opportunity to catch their breath before one of them
called out to Magenta tooth.
“What if they're coming
after us Crole?”
“They're not.. ” Crole
responded, still drawing breath heavily. “Probably... just …
let's take a break.”
“We have a lot of wine, how
much is it worth?”
“According to the informant,
valuable, more than gold and most exotic devices.”
“Why?”
“They love it here and in
any of the nearest cities, plus there's none available for thousands
of miles.”
“Not any cities for a while
around though.”
“That's what the informant
says..”
“And the nearest city is to
the north?”
“Again, as the informant
states..”
“With minimal law
enforcement in the area to stop us...”
“Correct, due to the sparse
population of the area and the fact that it isn't really claimed in
the name of any city.”
Back at the carts the
merchants were confronted by two professional looking women, with
badges.
One of them gave a long, tired
sigh.
“Why don't you finish your
story?”
“Of course madam we'll get
right to it, but first we need to finish our argument..” one of the
motley collection of purple garbed men replied.
“I mean, we've got it down
to bustle or kerfuffle right?”
“No bustle or hustle! There
was no kerfuffling..”
“Right, of course..”
It can sometimes be an amusing
thing to watch an argument uncontrollably unfold in front of you
Kendra pondered, if only this was one of those times.
“Just move on from that
word, whatever it is and continue on with your story...”
It took two hours for an
agreement to be reached, during which Kendra noticed her partner,
Sandra, spent much of it gawking; displaying a minute reminiscence of
her awareness of the situation.
“Ok, so we heard a hustle,
as in when someone says 'let's hustle'”
“Yes I've heard the term,”
Kendra drawled in an unimpressed tone.
“Then when we checked the
back of the carts,” continued the merchant.
“There was nothing, just a
couple of bottles left over.”
“I don't even know why
they stole them all,” chimed in the merchant referred to as Briax.
“Even a small amount of
effort wasn't worth such a seemingly insignificant prize, unless..”
Sandra nodded listening
intently, until of course she wasn't. Her mind was quickly
calculating how much the thieves would make on even the Blackest of
Markets. Two seconds into that she was wondering what it was like to
be a trader on such a market and what she could sell. Two minutes
later her mind zipped back into focus a solid retirement plan
involving cannons, Frisbees and the world's undying need for a new
extreme sport involving pets, under-way in the back of her mind. She
listened just in time to nod to Kendra's “Let's go!” and move off
in search of the wild men.
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