by Pfantazm

I wasn't sure this needed to be said, but since I just checked, and my e-mail address wasn't on the last story, I'll say it anyway: I'd love it if you'd tell me what you thought of this story or the last one. My e-mail address is pfantazm at hotmail.com .

	next to each other on a bed of grass by their fire. Thom looked at his captor closely once more. Madoc's hair drooped over his forehead at the front, but was clipped close to the skull at the back. It was a strange, but attractive, style. Thom knew that the sleeping knight's eyes were a brilliant sapphire blue, worthy of a thief's attentions. His face was once more relaxed. He was grinning faintly again. Why did the knight only show this emotion while dormant? When he was awake Sir Madoc always kept his face fixed, rigid with determination, and this hardness detracted from the beauty of his features. Thom had come to know the man fairly well by now, he thought. He had seen past the guarded exterior briefly, and found he genuinely liked the man inside. He was sorry that his crimes as the Dark Rogue had led them to meet like this. He was not as sorry for the deception he was putting over on Sir Madoc. Thom quietly got up and crept over by the stream. He sought a private place in the reeds to do his business. The nearest one, alas, was a little more than twenty feet away. As such, he felt somewhat queasy because of the ring that Madoc wore which ensured that Thom would not attempt any escapes. But this he must do. He removed a long, thin, metal tube from his backside. His secret weapon. It had saved him from permanent imprisonment a number of times. He cleaned it carefully, set it aside, and relieved himself. He quickly replaced the tube and returned to the camp. It took some time to recover from the upset stomach. Soon Madoc awoke and they broke their fast. They then looked over the list of ingredients that wizard Eleazar had set out for them to recover. Three horsephlox blooms grown in obsidian soil A blue spritestone A silvered glass One specimen of green sea fungus Three bats' wings One pound of sawgrass pods "I wonder why none of the others Eleazar sent after these ever returned with even one of the items?" Thom mused. "Perhaps one of the items is particularly hard to find or in a hazardous place. We'll know soon enough. We should bring back each item as we recover it." Madoc turned to look Thom in the eyes. He couldn't help wondering how someone like him could take up thieving. Or how he became so good at it. However, it was not his place to ask Thom to tell the tale. Should he ever volunteer it, though, Madoc would listen with interest. Thom nodded back, his hazel eyes smiling. "What should we try to get next?" "On my way to Karelia to track you, I passed a sawgrass field. It should be no problem to gather a pound of the pods." Thom stood. "Alright. Let's be off." The two went to work cleaning the campsite. As Thom packed away Madoc's meagre cooking supplies, he asked, "What's your horse's name?" "Fleetfire," Madoc replied. "He's a war horse." "Fleetfire," Thom repeated, tasting the name, as he took the supplies to the horse. "He's very intelligent," Madoc continued. "I'm sure he knows just what it is that I do." Thom chuckled at the thought. "And he knows just what it is that you do." Thom stopped. He looked at the horse, who had turned to look at him as if to say, And what do you want, little man? "Don't fill both of our sacks, Thom. We need one to carry the pods." "Right," Thom answered as he retreated from the animal. "It's alright," Madoc assured him. "He won't attack you unless you threaten him. Horses are prey animals, not predators." For once, the guardsman was showing some amusement in his face. This made Thom feel much better. Shortly thereafter, the knight and the thief were on the road once more. Travel was more uncertain because of the need to hold onto more of their belongings by hand. Madoc's hands were occupied controlling Fleetfire, so the task fell to Thom. When Thom pointed out that he needn't carry their belongings on the way to the field, Madoc argued that this stop might be the one that had caused the downfall of the previous questors, and Thom had best practice and find some way to carry everything without dropping any of it. On the way there they could go back and pick things up, but since Thom still needed Madoc's help mounting Fleetfire, it might be too much trouble on the way back, especially in a hurry. Thom conceded and formed the opinion that sometimes Madoc talked too much. Thom was still growing accustomed to riding for days. His legs were still sore for hours after they would stop. He was fit, and he had almost always walked from place to place while he was a thief at large, but as a prisoner his punishment came early. He was being bounced and jostled on the bare back of the steed. Madoc had a saddle for Fleetfire, but he had abandoned it for both the horse's and Thom's comfort. As such, Thom sat pressed up against Madoc's back, gripping him around his chest. This meant the knight found himself being stabbed in the back for most of their rides, although the thief had lost his dagger a few days ago. Madoc had accepted this fact cheerfully since their experiences beneath the sea. They arrived in the field in the early evening and wasted no time starting to gather pods. The plants grew tall, almost to shoulder height for the two men. The stalks of the sawgrass (which, of course, were called blades) had a serrated edge to them, but since they weren't sharp they posed no danger. The two men had to stoop to collect the pods, which grew near the ground. Fleetfire could only see the heads of the humans pop up and disappear occasionally while he munched on the pods himself. Thom had the sack, and Madoc had been adding his part whenever the pods, which were small and light, filled his hands. He raised the sack and called out, "This looks to be about a pound, what do you think?" When he got no answer, he shouted, "Sir Madoc?" He heard Fleetfire whinny excitedly and saw two men jump up to grab the horse. Suddenly, two sets of hands gripped Thom at the arms below the shoulders. And now Madoc surfaced, a knife at his throat and two more men at his back. "Don't you be makin' no moves now over there," said the man with the knife, who had to be the leader, "or we'll be slitting your friend's throat." The man looked to be about 45, had greying brown hair and a curly, unruly beard. He was dressed in black, as were the others. He was missing one of his teeth. "Don't kill him," Thom called back, "but I'll have you know he's no friend of mine." Madoc's face still showed little emotion, but Thom could tell he was afraid for his life. "I know who he is," the leader said. "He wears the symbol of the King's High Guard. Who are you, if not his friend?" "I am the Dark Rogue," he answered simply. Five brigands laughed at his claim. The leader just said, "Prove it." Thom raised his left arm. It contained a gold amulet on a string. "Does this belong to anyone?" he asked wryly. The ruffian on his left snatched the amulet and put it back in his pocket. "Rolf, how was he?" "Didn't feel a thing, Kraid." Both Thom and Madoc reacted to that name. To Madoc, Kraid's Marauders were the most hated band of cutthroats in the land. Many of the High Guard had died at their hands. To Thom, they were thieves with a reputation that rivalled his own, but Thom could not condone their style. Speaking frankly, they gave thieves a bad name. "Good," Kraid said. "It looks like we arrived in good time for you. But you said not to kill the king's pet pig. Why not?" Rolf and his companion had released Thom. "The ring he wears. It binds me to him. I must stay within twenty feet of him," he said sourly. Kraid examined the ring and barked with laughter. "This is a dog trainer's ring!" He tried to remove it and found that he couldn't. "Only he can take it off. According to the wizard who gave it to him, you can't even cut it off, not even at the arm. I've got to stay with him until he decides to release me." "Come here then." Thom walked over to Kraid and Madoc. "We can just do it ourselves." Kraid grabbed the hand with the ring. Thom rolled his eyes and presented his own hand palm down. "If it works, the stone will turn from blue to red, but it won't..." he said as the leader of the Marauders pressed the stone to Thom's hand. The stone stayed blue. "It's like I said. He has to want to release me, and he won't. And I'll be damned if I have to lug his ugly carcass around the rest of my life." "Well, Dark Rogue, if you're to be joining us, we'll just have to take him along. Convince him." The Marauders all laughed heartily. "Let's go. We can lock the pig in the shack for now." He looked to his right-hand man, a burly brute. "You can keep yourself amused. We celebrate our newest Marauder tonight! Addax, Benet, bring the horse!" When the two thieves tried to subdue the horse, Fleetfire kicked and bit at them. "Steady!" Madoc called. "Steady, boy. It's alright." The horse stopped attacking, but still reared his head belligerently while it was led from the meadow. Madoc wondered how long he'd be allowed to live all the while he was marched to the Marauder camp.

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