by Pfantazm

Author's Note: Blah blah blah sex between consenting adult males blah blah blah you have been warned blah blee blah elderly dowager blah blee heart attack blah blee bloo don't look at me. Bloo blee blah over eighteen bloo blah blee legal where you are blee blah blee hauled off to jail blee bloo blick don't drop the soap blick blee into the rougher stuff.

Blee bloo blah wear a condom blick blee blee don't get sick bloo blah catch something and die blah blee don't come crying to me blick blah blee bloo fnurple.

Right now, for a limited time only, you, yes you, can get a bona fide response from a real Internet author!!!!! Act now, and you will receive an e-mail from Pfantazm, writer of "The Knight and the Thief" also available here on this website!!! And because you are such a loyal reader, here's an excerpt from the letter you will receive:

the

This response can be printed off and framed to become an heirloom your family will treasure for a lifetime!!!! How much would you pay? All you need to do is write pfantazm at hotmail.com. Do it today!!!!!

	direction. Thom had his sword at the ready. His hair was plastered down on the top of his head, away from his eyes. His opponent stood waiting, for what Thom didn't know. The other man began his attack. He brought his sword around to take a slice at Thom's left arm, but Thom's blade was there to block it. The other man made to cut Thom's leg from under him, but Thom arrived first. Thom saw an opening and tried to catch his opponent in his exposed side, but he danced away in time to dodge. Thom used this momentum to keep his adversary retreating. There was the chance he would slip in the mud. The other man caught the blade near the hilt and parried one of Thom's thrusts. Now he was on the defensive again. The swordsman prepared to make a high slash at Thom's head. He raised his sword to block, but it was a feint. The other man's sword detoured downward, slipping under Thom's arm and into his side. When the sword struck him, Thom leaned into the pain, lost his balance and fell in the mud. The other man, whose name was Peleas, stood over his fallen foe and made one quick slashing motion in front of Thom's neck before he could react, signifying the killing stroke. Peleas stuck the wooden practice sword in the ground and helped the "dead" man to his feet. Sir Peleas was King Dunstan's swordsmanship instructor. It was he who had convinced Sir Rhys to remove the paving stones from the practice field, and to institute practice sessions outdoors rain or shine. It seemed to work. The rate of deaths of High Guardsmen from swordplay had gone down. Peleas was a very strict teacher. He had practice duels with each of his students to gauge their progress. The first time Thom and he had sparred, Peleas won easily. Thom found himself tripped up and breathless on the turf in less than a minute. When Peleas had offered him a hand up and Thom had accepted it, Peleas punched him in the stomach, the hilt of his sword still in his fist. "Never accept a hand up from an enemy. I hadn't killed you, so the fight wasn't over. That's your first lesson." From then on, no sparring match ended until one of them made a "kill". Peleas had ridden Thom extra hard because of the short time Thom had to train. King Dunstan had given Thom, and his new partner, Madoc, two weeks to prepare for their new assignment. Tomorrow, they would begin chasing down the most ruthless band of marauders the King could find. "I wish you wouldn't keep hitting me in that same spot. I'm getting a nasty bruise," Thom said. "I wouldn't be able to hit you in that same spot if you didn't keep making the same mistake. You look in my eyes, Thom, not my sword, not my arms and certainly not my feet. You look down and you're dead. Go and practice with Dorian for a while." Thom nodded and slogged over to the portico where his own real sword waited. He traded blades and walked out in the downpour toward Dorian's area. Having Dorian around was another of Peleas' ideas. It made no sense, the reasoning went, to give a swordsmanship instructor a real blade to work with, since he would have to hold back to keep him from wounding his students. It also made no sense to arm the students fully, in case they wound their instructors which, if the instruction had any effect, should happen fairly often. This all explained the wooden practice swords, but the students also had to use their real swords so that they are comfortable with them. What you need is an instructor you aren't afraid to injure. Dorian was a highwayman once, and instead of simply being executed when he was caught, he was made to fight for his life every day as the Guardsmen's target. Dorian took it all in stride. He was paying for his crimes, doing valuable work, and his presence had an interesting effect on the guardsmen. Quite often, when a guard would have a problem that he couldn't bring himself to discuss with his fellows, he would talk to Dorian. After all, the man might die tomorrow, so the secret was relatively safe. The guardsmen all liked him; he was affable and charming, and usually gave good advice. Many new recruits purposefully refrained from trying to kill him, but only when Peleas wasn't around. This was one mistake Thom was thankful he'd only seen someone make. Peleas had kicked that poor man's arse up and down the field. The only reason Dorian was still alive was that he was a damn good fighter himself. A duel between Sir Peleas and Dorian - with wooden swords of course - was something to see, Thom was told. Thom walked over to the shack where Dorian lived, chained to the wall. The chain was about thirty feet, plenty of room. The man himself was about forty with sandy hair and brown eyes. Constant practice kept his muscles hard and lean. He was kept as well fed as the guards themselves, a necessity if Dorian was to be a worthy opponent. The man was asleep on his cot. Thom knocked. Dorian's eyes opened. When he saw Thom, he smiled. "Tomorrow's the day, eh?" "It is," he said, leaning in to stay out of the rain. Dorian sat up, fully dressed, and rubbed his eyes. "You're not ready, you know." "I know. I don't think I'm in a much better position than you are. The others all like you, though. They don't know what to make of me." Aside from Dunstan and Madoc, Dorian was the only person around who knew exactly what Thom was. One short month ago, Thom At-the-Well had made his way through the world as the Dark Rogue, one of the most notorious thieves in all of Aragonia. That had all changed, however, when he himself was captured by Sir Madoc of Fieldgate. Later, they'd fallen in love and Madoc and Thom schemed to keep them together. Like Dorian, Thom was paying for his crimes through service, instead of by imprisonment or death. Thom sometimes still wondered which sentence he would have received. "It doesn't much matter what they think of you. You won't be around here too much anyway." Dorian stood and began to stretch in preparation for the match. While he waited, Thom began to think about the assignment to come. They had to bring in Kraid's Marauders almost single-handedly. Almost, because Thom planned to find help from a friend who'd once been with the Marauders, though no one else but Madoc knew that, and because the King was assigning another knight to their party. "Dorian, we're supposed to meet up with a Sir Bastian before we start after the Marauders. What do you know of him?" "Not much," Dorian said as he stretched. "I've heard of him, but I've never seen him. I know I've never faced him." "Strange, I thought all the guards had to come by you eventually." "Not all, but most. I know all of your names. It's odd how something like that can change your mind about breaking the law. I know more about you guards than I do about my own family. When I hear one of you is gone.... I'd gladly give my life to keep you all alive longer. And nobody needs the help more than you. You ready?" Thom nodded and assumed an attack stance. Dorian picked up his mock sword and the fighting began. Thom was killed twice more before a page came to fetch him. Sir Rhys was waiting for him. Thom sheathed his sword - in practice, the guards had to wear belt and scabbard - and shook Dorian's hand. "If it chances that I don't see you again, Sir Thom, good fortune to you," Dorian said. "And to you." `Sir Thom,' the ex-thief thought. `I suppose that is my title, but it still sounds strange.' The page guided Thom to the top of the stairs to the dungeon, where the King's military advisor, and head of all the guards stood waiting. Sir Rhys looked quite sturdy in his pristine white tabard with the ubiquitous golden dragon symbol, and well-used breastplate. The man himself had short greying hair, a ruddy, bulldog face and never smiled. "Come, Thom," he bellowed. "There is something I want you to see." Thom joined him at the top of the stair, and they descended into the dungeon, Thom one pace behind. "I'm sure you're aware that on your mission tomorrow you will be joined by Sir Bastian. He and Sir Madoc are cut from the same cloth. Sir Bastian I know to be dutiful, conscientious and true." They had reached the bottom of the staircase. Sir Rhys looked back at him. "Incorruptible." The stench of the dungeon wafted over him when the main door was opened. It stank of sweat, blood and disease. Thom had never gone down here, for obvious reasons. He'd almost ended up living in this hole. They continued into the bowels of the castle, passing dank cells, some occupied, some not. "I imagine you've been wondering why he was assigned to accompany you." "I thought it was because capturing all of Kraid's bandits would be too big a job even for two men," Thom replied. Now and again, a hand or a face would appear in the small window in a cell door. "There is that," Sir Rhys said, leading him around a corner. "The overriding reason is that Sir Bastian is a mage. He has a talent you will find most useful." Thom felt a chill. He distrusted magic. They stopped before a large cell. It was obvious from the broken stonework that this chamber had once been two normal cells. The wall between them had been removed, and the front-facing wall replaced by thick iron bars. A rather frightened prisoner was being led out of the cell. "Sir Bastian is just finishing a transfer of prisoners from the dungeon in Annisport." Thom reached up to covers his ears as a grating, high-pitched squeal rent the air nearby. A blue flash marked the sudden appearance of a shaggy, dishevelled ruffian who had not been there a moment ago. "He has tuned his mind to this cell. He can send anyone he gets his hands on directly here." Sir Rhys looked Thom right in the eye. "Anyone. And anyone that we find in this cell is to be executed at dawn the next day." "What if an innocent citizen ends up in there by mistake?" Thom asked. "Sir Bastian is not capable of such a mistake." `He knows,' thought Thom. `He knows exactly who I am.' Thom looked back into Sir Rhys' eyes. Peleas the swordmaster had once told him, "There is no way to hide what a man will do if you look him in the eye. No way but by magic, and magicians don't use swords when they attack." Now looking at Sir Rhys, he could see the contempt in him. It stood out a mile; how could he have missed it before? He looked back to the cell. "I promise you this. You won't find me making a mistake," Thom said. "We shall see." After his confrontation with Sir Rhys, Thom was agitated. Now that he was aware of it, he thought he saw people staring at him everywhere. As a burglar, Thom didn't like to be seen. It went against his nature. His main goal in life was to blend in and not be visible to anyone. Not that people physically couldn't see him; none of them paid him any attention. Out on the street or in the forest, he could be nobody. He blended in. Here everyone knew everyone else, it seemed like, and he was an outsider. More than a few of them had wondered where he'd come from. His silver tongue helped to provide a new past for himself, but the lies were wearing thin. There was no privacy, either. While he was in Dragon's Keep, home base to all the guards, he shared a room with others, and there was never a moment's peace. He made his way to his room now, to ditch his sword and dry out before dinner. One of his roommates, an unpleasant lout named Sir Eamon, was napping in his bed. Thom sat down after unbuckling his belt, and unsheathed his sword to examine it. Eamon roused slightly at the familiar, but threatening sound, muttered an expletive and rolled over. Thom considered his weapon. There are two strategies, Thom recited from his lessons, in sword design. The idea behind Sir Madoc's large, wide broadsword was that a sword need not be sharp to cut if there is enough weight behind the blade. This saves a lot of trouble, since the sword does not need constant maintenance after use, and its wielder does not require much skill. The downside is that the thing is bloody heavy. The swordsman has to have a lot of strength to be able to use such a sword. Sir Madoc had the muscles to swing a blade like that. Thom did not. The other strategy is to have a thinner, lighter blade with an edge that was sharpened, and to use that edge to make cuts. The problem is that, while Madoc's sword could dent or even pierce most armor, the sharp sabre, which was the sort Thom was holding on his lap in front of him, could not. Its blade had to find the chinks in the armor: weak spots or seams. This took time and accuracy, so a swordsman with a sabre like Thom's had to be proficient enough to keep himself alive until he wounded his opponent. Proficiency came with time, though, which Thom did not have. He could acquire some skill, however, and more than he could strength. Thom hated the sword. It invited trouble and attention. Not many people would attack a man who wasn't carrying a sword, but if you did, most would have no compunctions. It was one of the many things Thom had to grow accustomed to, now that he was a knight. Sort of. As a knight-errant, he could write his own rules, more or less, but there were standards even then, and all knights wore a sword. He sharpened and cleaned the wretched thing as he'd been taught, hid it away, and readied himself for dinner. As he entered the dining hall, he surveyed the room. Thom wondered whether Sir Rhys would have told anyone else who he was. Might he set up an ambush for them, just to keep a thief out of his prized Guard? Any "accident" that might befall him would draw attention from King Dunstan, who had a personal interest in Thom's success or failure. On the other hand, Thom would find it impractical to complain or re-examine that logic after he was killed. Tomorrow couldn't come soon enough. Thom collected his meal from the cook: a hearty stew with good meat in it, bread, cheese and half an apple. As a knight errant, he could expect to eat this well on the road as well, since because he would not be sent to an outpost for lodging and food, any inn he entered had to serve him without payment. The knight would simply mark a ticket with the seal he'd been given and the inn would give the tax collector the ticket instead of one gold coin. The knight had to make arrangements for his own lodging, though. Even so, many inns waived this in favor of the security of having a Guardsman on the premises. He sat next to a man he hadn't seen before. The stranger was less than thirty - guards tend not to live long - with a curly reddish-blonde beard, a ruddy face and a scar over his eye. He offered his hand when he saw Thom was joining him. "Goode'en, brother knight," he said brightly. "I don't believe we've met. You're Thom, are you not?" Thom paused. What had he heard? "That's right." "My name is Sir Fergus. I was one of the other men sent out to capture the Dark Rogue, whom I heard you and Madoc managed to bring down." `Oh, shit,' thought Thom. "Is that so?" he said simply. "Yes. I want to congratulate you on bringing that fiend to justice, though in the end he found his own justice, I hear, dying in a wagon crash while he was escaped." "That's what happened, alright," Thom said, trying not to encourage this line of conversation. He stared into his stew, hoping the other man would take the hint. "If I had managed to find him first, he would have felt the King's Justice, you can be sure," Fergus mused, gazing straight ahead, chin on his hands. "He wouldn't have been permitted to escape if he was in my custody." Thom realized the knight didn't know who it was he was really talking to, and probably didn't even realize just how insulting he was really being either way. He grunted instead of doing anything to egg Fergus on. "Yes, if I'd laid hands on him, he'd have spent his last days going through his own hell in the dungeons. He was lucky he never saw me." `I was till now,' the former Dark Rogue thought. Just then, thankfully, Madoc came into the room. "If you'll excuse me, Sir Fergus, I see my new partner has just arrived, and there isn't room for him here." Without waiting for Fergus to respond, Thom stood up with his tray and quit the table. Thom strode with his food straight to the door where Madoc stood. He sailed right by, saying, "I need to be away from this place." He left a startled Madoc behind to follow.

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