Page 50 of Realm of Thieves

“House Haugen has their own ways of defense. They also have their own area. They take the west of the Midlands, we take the north. It’s the agreement between our houses. As for House Dalgaard? You should know better than anyone.”

“I’ve only done what they’ve told me, and on my own. I’ve never seen them in action, never met with them on any of my raids.”

“Well, while you’re on your raids, they’re out here with crews of their own, larger than mine. They seem to pick clean the entire southern coast every moon cycle. They work with great haste, something that doesn’t seem to bother anyone but me.”

I shrug. “Collect water while it rains, I guess.”

“No,” he says, almost to himself. “And, honestly, and I mean this with the greatest of respect for you, Brynla Aihr, but I don’t understand why they’ve gone out of their way to bother with you.”

I blink at him, feeling surprisingly dejected, just as the hull of the boat scrapes against the rough stones of the shore and Lemi shifts himself so he appears on the land, already chasing a bunch of black lava crabs.

“What do you mean?” I say as Andor hops out of the boat and starts pulling it ashore with me still in it, like the boat weighs nothing in and of itself. I scramble out of it, leaping off the bow and onto the rock. “You’re the one who blackmailed me into working for House Kolbeck. Did you ever believe in me, or was this some sort of pissing contest between the houses?”

He gives me a placating smile and raises a palm in surrender before he pulls the boat the rest of the way. “I wanted to see what the big deal was,” he says. “And I still stand by you being a great benefit to us. To me. Without any suen in your blood, what you do…is remarkable. But I don’t know why House Dalgaard in particular needs you. A magic dog is a great asset, and so is a skilled thief. But they have many skilled thieves, Brynla. They have armies of people trained to sacrifice themselves for their house.”

“If they have to sacrifice themselves, that doesn’t sound like skill to me,” I grumble, looking back over the dark seas to where the ship starts to pull away, the sails flapping in the hot wind.

“No, it doesn’t, but they’re expendable down there. The Sorlanders have started to worship suen the same way the Soffers worship the dragons themselves. They say the king has already gone mad on it,crazier than Grandpa Ollie. Anyway, the point of my meandering thoughts is this: why you? Why add you to their endless supply of thieves? What do you and your dog bring to the table that no one else does?”

I scoff, shaking my head. “Why are you asking this now? Why didn’t you ask this before you fucking kidnapped me?”

He doesn’t seem at all bothered by my indignation. “Because I wanted to see if I could find the answer. Even Steiner doesn’t understand it, and he’s been observing you around the clock since you arrived. But there’s something there, Brynla. There’s some reason. And it’s not your dog, as crucial a component as he is. It’s you. And I am determined to find out what.” He reaches into his leather pouch that attaches with a belt around the waist. It’s where he’s storing the suen extractor needle, the tranquilizer serum, as well as the empty, protected vials for the suen.

“Regardless, tonight will be the first test,” he finishes, coming over to me with a short black stick between his fingers. “It’s salve. Ring your eyes with it.”

I’m about to tell him I have salve, but it’s back in the Dark City. And I’m sure this is Steiner’s formula, which probably has some added properties to it. Laced with suen, the Steiner Kolbeck special.

I run the stick around my eyes and then Andor takes it back from me, doing the same. The way the amber gold of his eyes stands out against the black reminds me of some sort of viper.

“Shall we get going?” he asks casually as he slips the stick back in his pouch, as if he didn’t just try to undermine his whole reason for kidnapping me.

I stare at him for a moment and then exhale, shaking my head. “Lead the way.”

He starts walking toward the highest point of the shore, and I call Lemi away from the crabs so that he’s at our side.

Well, it’s a good thing you’re planning to leave him to the dragons sincehe doesn’t seem to believe in you much anyway, I tell myself as I walk behind Andor up the rocky slope, black pumice and pebbles spilling out from under my boots.

Yet I know I’ve often thought the same thing. I didn’t realize how many thieves Dalgaard had working for them, but I did wonder why Sjef Ruunon sought me out. Having an egg-sniffing, shifting dog is a great advantage if you don’t have any other advantages, if you’re down to bare-bones tactics like House Kolbeck. But if you’re already stocked and armed…why me?

I can’t help but keep thinking that over as we walk for a couple of miles over the undulating rock, keeping our eyes peeled for dragons. Occasionally one will fly by in the distance and all three of us will freeze, holding our breath until it passes out of sight.

So far Lemi hasn’t sniffed anything out and it’s actually Andor who pulls me to a stop and whispers, “There.”

My gaze goes to where he’s pointing. We’ve been walking along a plateau composed of sand and rock, the winds getting stronger with each step, blowing from behind us and smelling of the sea, and blowing from in front of us and smelling like sulfur. In front of us the plateau seems to part, leading down to a rift in the earth that widens the farther along it goes.

“That’s the start of the valley,” he says, and starts running off toward it.

I take off after him, Lemi keeping pace, and scramble down the sides where the plateau slopes off. Once we turn the corner, the whole valley opens up. It’s as Andor described and as I remembered. The valley is narrow where we’re standing, the wind whistling past in both directions, creating whorls in the sand, then gets wider heading inland toward a ridge of volcanoes, lava spilling out the sides, too far away to be a threat to us. All along one upper ridge of the valley is a row of caves, some of which I remember being home to sycledrages at some point.

But they aren’t the eggs Andor brought me here for.

Right along one of the cracks that runs through the middle of the valley are blooddrage nests sprinkled here and there, like a little breeding farm.

“There has to be a dozen of them, at least,” he whispers to me as we lean against the rock wall. “And I only see two sets of parents on their nests. The rest have left them to hunt.” He glances at me, his eyes dancing. “Looks like there are no fire tornadoes in the forecast.”

Lemi whines, his head low to the ground and sniffing, giving me the signal that he wants to shift to the nearest batch of eggs. I put my hand on his head to warn him to stay in place for now. We have to figure out the best way to do this without attracting the attention of the blooddrages that are on their nests. From my experience, even if you’re disturbing another nest that doesn’t belong to them, they’ll react and protect it, much like a bee protecting a sand hive.

Andor reaches back and grabs one of his arrows from his quiver, then his bow.

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