Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 11

The next day, Heather headed for the markets, and Tibs didn’t argue when she demanded he stay with her.

She spent the morning buying fabrics and getting clothes made. Tibs didn’t bother. Without a role to play, he considered his hide clothing to be good enough. As the sun reached its zenith, he bought them sticks of meat and vegetables.

“I thought you didn’t have money,” she said suspiciously. “Isn’t that why I’m paying for the inn?”

“I said it’ll be cheaper to get a room in a house if we’re staying here a while.” He gave Ruppert a cube. “And I have enough coppers for this.”

“You stole them.” She stated.

“With you watching over me?” He chuckled. “You’re overestimating how good I am.”

“You went out alone yesterday.”

With a sigh, he faced her. “Come on, search me. There’s three coppers left in my pouch. If I stole some I have to keep them hidden on me.” He wasn’t worried. The hidden pockets he’d made to his vest and pants wouldn’t be found unless they took them off him and cut the seams.

She almost reached for him, then looked around at the surrounding people. “What’s in there?” She pointed to the bulging pocket.

Tibs reached it, frowned at what he felt there. He’d been certain he had more left. He offered her a candy.

“How did you pay for it?”

“With my coins. You want to go see that merchant? Their stall is in another market, but they’ll tell you I bought them.” He eyed the squirrel edging towards his hand. “Ruppert made the encounter memorable.” He flicked the candy to Heather as the squirrel reached for it. “You’ve been eating them out of my pocket.”

Ruppert hurried back to the shoulder.

“What will it be, Heather?” Tibs demanded, redirecting his annoyance. There was little he could do about Ruppert now. Short of getting a pouch for his candies and keeping metal essence through the leather, he wasn’t sure there was anything he could do to keep him out. He couldn’t even count on all those sweets making him sick, the way he had made him, back when he first discovered candies.

“Forget it,” she said, handing the candy and meat stick back.

“Stay out of my candies,” he told Ruppert, handing him her stick.

She walked at his side, constantly glancing at him. It would be amusing, if not for how annoyed he was. He distracted himself by picking pockets anytime she looked away. After a few, he had to put coins in, instead of taking them out as he ran out of hidden places for them.

As they reached the edge of the market, something else distracted him. Three thugs were harassing a man dressed in rags, holding a box, with someone watching out of the alley. The altercation ended with one of them slapping the box out of his hand, and pitiful vegetables spilling when it hit the ground.

He headed for the man as the thugs disappeared in the alley, along with the watcher, probably the person giving the orders. He tried to keep track of their essence, but once they exited the alley, they mixed with a crowd and he couldn’t tell them apart.

“Here, let me help.”

The man hurried away without gathering his wares on noticing Tibs.

“What are you doing?” Heather demanded as he put the vegetables in the box, adding two copper coins to the bottom.

“Helping.” He barely kept from snapping. “What does it look like.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“Nothing,” the man hurried to reply.

“He got shaken down by thugs.” He offered the box back.

“No, it was an accident,” the man said, hesitating in reaching for the box.

Heather stepped to the alley. “They must be gone. You should tell the guards.”

Tibs couldn’t stop the snort, and the man’s protest devolved into incoherence. “Guards don’t have time for people like him.”

“This can’t be like Torleris,” she replied sharply. “That place was an exception, not how cities are governed. The guards will care here.”

He stifled the sigh at how naive she was, and gave her some benefit. “If a guard had seen it happen. They might have acted. But gangs like that are smart enough not to do this where the guards are watching. Take it. We’ll be leaving you be.”

Reluctantly, the man took his box.

“Here,” Heather said, offering a copper coin. “So you can eat properly today.”

After hesitating, the man took it. “Thank you.” He searched through his box with enough attentiveness Tibs worried he’d find the coins he left, but the man then offered Heather the largest of the pitiful vegetables; an onion.

“I couldn’t,” she protested. “It’s your livelihood.”

“The cop’s more than I’d get for all of them. Please M’lady. To show my gratitude to you and your man.”

She took it, and Tibs followed as she walked away, still staring at her.

“What?” she demanded.

“You gave him a copper.”

“I couldn’t give more. That would just have made him a target.”

He closed his mouth on explaining he was surprised she’d given him anything. He shouldn’t have been. She had claimed she’d given away the coins she’d taken from his hiding place to those in need.

Claimed.

It seemed he hadn’t entirely believed her.

As he followed her, he kept an eye out for more thugs and more poor people selling what they could to survive. He saw plenty of thugs and poorer sellers, but no one harassing anyone. They were either enjoying their day or keeping watch on their interests.

He’ll need a few days to work out which gangs had which part of the market, figure out which gang had the corner the man had been on. He couldn’t teach all of them a lesson, but he could make sure that one paid for what they’d done.

It meant that, whatever Heather wanted, they needed a cheaper room.

He asked around while she was busy with the merchants, then she had to keep up with him.

“What are you doing?” she demanded when he instructed Ruppert into his vest before knocking on the door.

“Saving you coins, I don’t care how many you have left, but an inn is going to take them all. Since you aren’t letting me get money myself, this is what I can do to help you.” He motioned toward them. “There are training grounds a few blocks in that direction. So you can train. They don’t charge,” he added as she opened her mouth.

The man who owned the house looked them over and asked far more than the room was worth. Tibs negotiated him down by offering to pay for a full week, with a chance they’d stay as long as a month. A week’s stay cost less than three days at the inn, and came with food in the morning, not that Tibs expected it to be much. Heather grumbled at the lack of a bath, but even paying for that was still cheaper than the inn.

The room only had one bed, which she claimed, as the one paying.

Tibs ordered Ruppert to stay in the room, but could only hope he’d listen. The walls had holes large enough that even overfed, the squirrel could pass through.

*

“Same as before,” Tibs said, sword drawn. “Stay focused. Sense your element along my sword. Don’t act on it. Just sense how it accumulates. Work out what that means for how I’ll move.”

She attacked; he parried. He reposted, and she blocked. He’d pulled his sense tight, forcing himself to react to what she did, instead of anticipating her.

They were one pair of fighters among two dozen on the training grounds. Her eyes had caught the attention of the woman in charge enough she’d warned them against the use of magic.

“Don’t get cocky,” he warned when she smiled and moved needlessly to parry his attack. “Not only can that get you killed, but your opponent will immediately think you’re using your element.”

“And if they’re smart, they’re going to yield.” She went on the offensive with quick slashes and jabs, keeping Tibs from retaking it, then she feinted, and before he was done setting up the parry for it, the tip of her sword was at his throat.

“Good. But if you’re counting on bandits being smart, it’s going to kill you. If they were smart, they wouldn’t be bandits.”

“You’re a criminal, and you claim to be smart.”

“I’m not a bandit. And I don’t claim anything.” He took his position. “Again.” This time, he extended his sense enough to anticipate her movement, and used that to make the fight harder.

Her frown said she realized something was different, and she focused on that, instead of the fight, which landed her on her back, his sword to her breast.

“Focus on the fight, not why it’s not going how you think it should.” He helped her up.

She stayed close and whispered. “Your eyes didn’t change color.”

He smiled and pushed her away. “The world is filled with mysteries, Heather. A fight isn’t the time to wonder about them.”

She attacked before he was ready, but moving to dodge was simple. She kept him on the defensive for a few exchanges, then he gained the offensive. He kept himself from using metal, keeping his advantage to anticipating her strikes and how she’d defend. In effect, using Fever to have a version of what he was teaching her to do with Force.

The most difficult aspect of the training session, for him, was creating the impression it was more of a strain than it was. He had enough control over Fever that he could keep his muscles from aching out of exhaustion. Even fatigue wasn’t as strong, so he had to create the sweat by using Water and force himself to defend sloppily as the training took its toll on her.

When she called an end to it, they’d had a small crowd watching. Watching her. She acknowledged them, then looked ill at ease when they kept watching. They continued until they walked off the training grounds.

“You did something during the fight,” she said, “but your eyes didn’t change.”

“I don’t have to use my element to sense it. The water in you get me a sense of how you’d move.”

She nodded. “You said every element can do a version of what another can do.”

“This is more taking advantage of what’s there. There might not be enough Earth or Fire, or even Air in your body for someone with those elements to manage it just by sensing. But there’ll be an etching that lets them do something similar.”

“Is the crowd why you keep your eyes brown?”

“They’re brown unless I use my element, and I rarely need it. I’ve seen too many people become dependent on their element. Some died when it wasn’t effective against their opponent. It taught me not to rely on it. And since everyone knows adventurers show their elements in their eyes. I have the element of surprise when I’m put in a situation where I need to use it.”

“I wish I could do that. I don’t mind them watching me fight. My mom loved putting on shows against arrogant fighters, but the way they just kept looking once we finished.” She shuddered. “I think I understand why adventurers make themselves feared.”

“For the power it gives them,” he stated.

“Some, probably. But I would much rather they look at me in fear than with the…I have no idea what to call the way they were looking at me back there.”

He thought back on the expressions. There had been calculation, speculation. A few lewd looks. And hunger. A number of them, he expected, wanted to pit themselves against her. To prove they were better than the adventurer. Tibs had mostly been her equal, so they would be their betters.

If more people with elements had been in her position, she’d agree with her about them using fear to keep people like those away. But adventurers came up through the guild. Among others like them, and always told they were better, stronger, above the common folks. Those adventurers had never been looked at as if they were people to prove yourself against.

He chuckled at a memory. It had been the reverse he’d seen. Runners thinking themselves so much better being brought down by one fighter without an element. He chuckled again, wondering what had become of Cross. He doubted she’d stayed in Kragle Rock. She was a caravan guard, after all, and she’d told him that she’d get bored with the town, eventually. And there had been a man she had trouble with. He didn’t remember him. But he’d thought she was his woman, and she had no interest in that.

That would have made her leave, he expected.

*

Tibs slipped back into the room to Heather glaring at him.

“I didn’t steal anything,” he said. He’d hoped the exhaustion of the training would have kept her sleeping until the sun was up. Ruppert was curled up in the rafters, but Tibs wasn’t sure he needed to sleep.

“And I’m supposed to believe you…why?”

“There’s no one watching. You want me to strip so you can go through my clothes, Heather? Even if I was planning on robbing someone. It takes time to set that up. So the worst you can expect is that I was off casing houses. Which I wasn’t. I was looking around to get a sense of how the gangs here work.”

“Why are you interested in that?”

“Because I’ve been in enough cities to know it’s only a question of time before those folks will cause me problems.”

“That might not happen if you didn’t go around stealing.”

He snorted. “If you think thieves only target other thieves, I have to wonder why you’re hunting criminals.” He rolled his vest and stretched on the floor.

“Of course they go after honest folks. But if you cross their path in every city you’ve been into, that’s because you cause it to happen, not because they target everyone they see.”

She had a point.

But he didn’t have to acknowledge it.

*

The food that awaited them was porridge. It might be enough for someone working in the city, but Tibs bought roasted meats at the market on the way to the training ground. Heather eyed him suspiciously as he paid the copper for it. He didn’t offer to buy her any.

*

“How about you try it against me?” a muscular woman said as Tibs and Heather broke apart.

“I’m training her,” Tibs said, readying himself.

She smirked. “More like your woman’s whipping you.”

“He’s not my man,” Heather said, offended.

“Then how about you show me what those pretty eyes of yours mean?” The woman attacked before Heather could reply.

Tibs studied the initial exchange. “Do you want my help ending this, Heather?” She was holding her own.

“No, I have this.”

“Don’t get cocky.”

“How about you stop distracting me?”

He moved with them so he could see the attacks and the defenses. Heather’s opponent had strength on her side, but she knew how to use it. Her strikes, when she missed, and the sword hit the ground, leaving a gouge in the hard earth. He saw Heather gain the upper hand in the smoothness of her motions, her sword moving just ahead of the attack to deflect it, instead of a last-moment reaction. How she altered her attack so a parry would miss.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t fighting an opponent using this as training. The woman wanted to prove something. When she kicked Heather, she didn’t expect it.

With a snort, the woman turned and walked away while Heather regained her breath.

“You okay?” he asked, crouching and watching around for anyone else who thought this was the time to make a challenge.

“Fucking stupid I’d think she’d fight fair,” she said, her breathing settling. “I should have—”

“It would have made things worse.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” she snapped.

“You should have used your element to win the fight quicker?”

She glared at him.

“It wouldn’t have helped. She’d have called you a cheater. Either attacked even harder or called for her friends to teach you a lesson. People like her aren’t interested in the fight. Just proving they’re better.”

“What would you have done?” She demanded, pushing herself up.

“Me? I’d have to be sneaky. I don’t have an element.”

“What if you had one?” she challenged. “How would you have handled someone like that?”

“I’d have walked away.”

“She wouldn’t have let you.”

He nodded. “But then, she’s the one cheating, so I can do whatever I want to end the fight. Stop trying to fight fair, Heather. The world is never going to do the same.”

“I don’t need to cheat to win.”

“You don’t need to win. You just need to be able to walk away from the fight.”

The defiance in her expression said she didn’t see it that way.

“Do you want to end the training?”

“And give her the satisfaction? No fucking way.” He picked up her sword. “And fighting injured is just how fighting goes.”

Tibs took position and attacked.