Chapter 1: No Cheating CHAPTER 1 NO CHEATING Rosebud marched through the twisting alley, looking for the dirty liar who'd called her a cheater. He was around here somewhere. Josef, the blacksmith's son, always played dice in the mornings after his father started work. Rosebud knew that because she beat him three days ago, fair and square. No one would accuse her of cheating and get away with it. Two black braids bounced on her back as she passed rows of half-timbered buildings, their pointed roofs like jagged teeth glistening in the morning sun. A few villagers were out and about. The scent of autumn rye rolls filled her nostrils when she marched past the baker's doorway. Nearby, a three-legged dog slept on mossy cobblestones. Yet no dice game in sight. I'll find you. She shrugged her patchwork wool cloak behind her shoulders so that she could pump her arms and walk faster. The faster she could walk, the faster she could restore her good name. She knew every corner of the village, and every path around it. There was no place he could hide. "Slow down, Rosy!" said a taller, broad-shouldered girl, lagging behind while clutching her stomach. "My breakfast doesn't like all this running around right after eating--ugh, that was really excellent cheese. I don't want it coming back up all over the stones. Definitely would taste worse the second time. What a waste that would be. I think I feel sick.... Rosy! Why do you always have to be so hotheaded?" The queasy girl was Wilda. Her freckled skin was the warm shade of turning leaves, and her brown hair was coiled into two neat buns at the base of her neck. Being twelve, Wilda was the same age as Rosebud, and was her best friend in the entire kingdom of Rin. "I'm sorry," Rosebud said, "but if we don't catch him around here, the next dice game on Tuesdays is where? Butcher's Stump?" Rosebud said. "Your breakfast won't like hiking all the way out there." Wilda groaned. "We left our fishing poles by the river with Wryclaw. I'm not hiking across town then all-l-l the way back to the river. Josef isn't worth it." "But my honor is!" Rosebud said over her shoulder without looking back. "And he's not going to take away the one thing in the village I love doing." Fishing was a lazy pleasure. Chores were chores. But Rinboozle Dice was Rosebud's obsession. Everyone in the village played it--in the alleys, at tavern tables, in front of hearths. "Okay, I get it," Wilda said, "but it's not just Josef. It's his father, too. He talks to other villagers, and a few agree with him. They say if we steal from Otto, we'll steal from anyone." "Ridiculous." "Maybe they're right. We're bandits, Rosy. How much honor do we have anymore?" Rosebud swung around to face her friend, skirts and cloak whirling. "You know we're only taking back what rightfully belongs to our village. We're helping our own people." "Of course I know that," Wilda said. "But tell it to Elder Walter. He says we're just gonna get the village burned a second time." Rosebud snorted a short laugh. "There isn't enough left of it to burn." Two years ago, the village of Bramble stood proudly at the edge of the Nowhere Wood, population 223 souls. There were prettier villages in Rin, and ones that weren't sitting next to the entrance of an enchanted forest that the entire kingdom feared--that definitely brought property values down. But Bramble had one thing in its favor: it had been admired across the kingdom for its prized mothberry bushes. The pale white berries would glow at night on thorny silver bushes that attracted translucent moths at night. The bushes grew exclusively around their small settlement--and the fruit was so delicious, the queen would request buckets be brought to Rin Castle. The village of Bramble would hold mothberry pie contests and festivals. They made mothberry wine, vinegar, jam, and cake. The mothberry was their pride and joy. But an evil man named Otto the Torch burned their berry bushes down when he swept through the kingdom with his army of Firebrands. The fire raids changed everything. Overnight, Bramble went from 223 souls to seventy-eight. One of the souls who died in the fires was Rosebud's father. "Shh! Listen," Rosebud said as she cocked her head. They both heard a dog barking and someone arguing. Then, in the opposite direction, the sounds of boyish laughter echoed off the wattle-and-daub buildings that lined the narrow backstreets. Rosebud grinned at her friend. "Slugs always leave a trail--found him! Let's go!" The girls took off running and rounded a dingy alley corner into a patch of sunlight, where they stumbled upon three skinny boys hunched over a game of carved wooden dice near the back door of the village tavern, the Silver Thorn. There crouched Manny and Luj... and the boy who was spreading lies about her, the blacksmith's son Josef, with his mean, blue eyes that spied everything around town. Those eyes flicked to hers and narrowed. "Heard you were talking dung about me again," Rosebud said, hands on hips as the other boys looked up from the cobbled stones and cowered at the sight of her. But not Josef. He pushed a lock of fair hair out of his sharp eyes and gave Rosebud a cool look. "You cheated at Rinboozle Dice. That's truth, not dung." "Woof!" Wilda said from Rosebud's side, waving the air in front of her nose. "Have you been eating dung? Your breath smells ripe, JoJo. I'm really going to lose my breakfast if you keep flapping your lips." For a moment, Josef looked rattled. But he soon turned his attention back to Rosebud and whispered, "Cheat." Hot anger spiked in the center of Rosebud's chest. "You take that back!" she demanded. "I've never cheated at dice in my life. Not once!" The boy shook his head and pointed an accusing finger at both girls. "The two of youse are crooks. My papa says everyone who stands against the Firebrands will end up in the Pits." The Pits were not a not a nice place. Years ago, they were just ugly craters in the ground a few miles outside the village, but when Otto the Torch swept through the kingdom with his Firebrand army, the Pits started burning and hadn't stopped. People said he still threw his enemies in there. No one wanted to find out if that was really true. Wilda crossed her arms. "The Firebrands are evil. Everyone knows your father is building weapons for their army. Which makes him a traitor to the queen." "?'The hand that holds the clock-tower key rules the kingdom,'?" he said, quoting a common phrase among the people of Rin. Starfall Astronomical Clock and its crystal tower stood outside Rin Castle, but everyone across the land knew its beauty. Before the fire raids, its shimmering light could be seen for miles, even in Bramble. The Firebrands took the clock-tower key by force, and they shut it down. Took away its beautiful, magical light. Like they took everything away from the people of Rin. "Otto is our leader now," Josef said matter-of-factly. "The queen might as well be dead, rotting in the castle dungeons. That's what happens to cheaters." He never would've said that before the fire raids, when Queen Gisela was on the throne. But Rosebud knew as well as she knew her own name that Otto the Torch was a bad man, that standing up to him was the right thing to do. She also knew that she Had. Not. Cheated. At. Dice. Fine. Time to get serious. Rosebud rested the heels of her palms on two throwing axes that were sheathed on a belt around the waist of her skirts. "You know who these belonged to?" A hush fell over the alley. "My father died, standing up to Firebrands," Rosebud continued. "You gonna call one of the queen's noble knights a crook too? Go on. I dare you." Josef's face became rigid with resentment while his friends cautioned him in whispers. "Don't do this. You know what happened to Luj's nose...." Luj had tripped over his own boots and fallen face-forward into a rock. But Rosebud didn't mind that all the kids around the village assumed she had been the one who had clobbered him. Josef shook his blond head. "Tell me, Rosebud. How does the daughter of a noble knight end up a common criminal? Do you think Sir Herman would be ashamed of you?" Well, that wasn't a good thing to say to someone who was ready to beat you to a pulp. "RIP, JoJo," Wilda murmured, wincing. Rosebud had nothing left in this world but her honor--which was by extension her father's honor, handed down to her like a sacred right. She would not give it up for anything. And she would not let mean, lying Josef take it away without a fight. Voices rose inside the tavern, drawing their attention. It was too early for many customers--definitely too early for anything rowdy. So when shutters on a back window flung open and the dishwasher Fye leaned over the alleyway, blond curls disheveled and apron askew, they were all a little surprised. Fye's urgent gaze jumped around until it landed on Rosebud's. "There you are! Firebrand tax collectors are hasslin' Dame Hette. They're taking our coin. We need your help." Rosebud's heart thudded against her ribs. All she wanted to do was pummel Josef's face. But she knew in her heart that Dame Hette was the priority. "We've got you, Fye," Wilda said confidently. "Out front," the dishwasher said, motioning before she closed the shutters. This was serious. When the villagers asked for help, Rosebud and Wilda always came to their aid. Josef would have to wait. But Rosebud couldn't just let him go without a warning. She faked a lunge in his direction, causing the other two boys to flinch. When Josef didn't move, Rosebud kicked his dice as a parting shot. "You'll pay for that, thieving swine!" Josef said, scrambling to get to her while his friends held him down. "You Blackhearts are nothing but a gang of criminals." Rosebud pounced. One well-placed boot on his chest put him flat on the grimy cobblestones. She stood over him and gave him her best menacing stare. "I'll pay for nothing , because I did nothing wrong . The next time I see you, you'll be apologizing to me. Now get out of here before I ask Wilda to whistle for our third gang member!" Josef angrily shoved her boot away, nearly tripping her up as he got to his feet, and gave Rosebud a startling look. He wanted her dead--that much she understood. But he wasn't sticking around to do anything about it now. "Go on, then, chicken butts! Get out of here!" Wilda shouted. The three boys scurried, not even bothering to toss a look over their shoulders as they sloppily gathered up their scattered dice and raced away. Guess they respect one of us , she thought to herself. Rosebud just wished it was her. At least she didn't have to look at Josef's anger-filled face for one more second that morning. Putting it out of her mind for the moment, Rosebud joined Wilda to help Fye the dishwasher, heading around the side of the tavern through a knife-narrow passageway. Before the fire raids, the Silver Thorn tavern was a meeting spot for people traveling from all across the three kingdoms of the continent: Rin, and the two smaller kingdoms on the other side of the Nowhere Wood, Ruña and Bova. It still was, but like the rest of the village, its scorched walls had seen better days. Flapping laundry hung from high lines overhead. Broken wine bottles and fish bones littered the stones beneath their feet. When she neared the end of the passage, Rosebud paused in a beam of sunlight. She listened to male voices, then peeked around the corner. Two Firebrand soldiers stood under the carved sign that hung above the front door of the tavern. They each wore full plate armor with bones embossed into the cuirasses, and single red feathers poked out of the tops of their silver helmets to mimic flames. The two soldiers were talking roughly to the tavern owner, a plump white-haired woman named Dame Hette, and they all stood near the single remaining mothberry bush that had survived the fire raids--now circled by a wrought-iron fence to protect it from harm. "Think they already collected the tax?" Wilda whispered behind Rosebud. Careful to stay out of sight, Rosebud edged around the corner farther and scanned the taller of the two soldiers, who held a fat purple pouch of coins in his palm, gently weighing it as if he were testing to ensure it was enough. "I don't know," he was saying. "It feels a bit lighter than last month. But the protection we provide isn't lighter, is it?" Dame Hette made an anguished cry. "I swear on the bard, there's nothing more--not even in my personal stash. Sirs, please. I don't have enough to pay my employees." "Suppose you'll have to earn more," the soldier said, tying the pouch behind his sword, near a dangling flint and striker that all Firebrands wore in case they needed to start a fire. No one loved setting things aflame like Otto and his Firebrands. And though these two hadn't started any fires around their village lately, they had frequented the roads from the Firebrand camp outside town. Rosebud knew their faces. Which meant they might know Rosebud's. Josef might have been wrong about Rosebud cheating at dice, but he wasn't wrong about her being a bandit. A very wanted bandit. Wanted by these very men, in fact--or their army, anyway. But she'd learned that men like this didn't look all that closely at children like her, if she put in a little work to disguise herself.... Backing up into the alley, she found a mud puddle and slathered her face in a fine layer of filth, helping Wilda to do the same. "This is so gross," her friend muttered. "So glad my breakfast is finally settled now. I really hope nobody peed in this mud." "I really hope this is mud," Rosebud said, sniffing. "What do you think we should try? 'Mister, Mister'? These two guards don't look all that bright." Wilda pointed both fingers at her. "Yeah, let's do it. Plunder and thunder, baby!" Rosebud grinned. "For the village." The girls put up their hoods, and Rosebud made sure her father's throwing axes were covered. Then they emerged from the alley and approached the soldiers. Rosebud tapped the soldier with the coin purse on the back of his armor, ding-ding-ding . "Pardon me, mister?" The soldier swung around, hand on the pommel of his sword, ready to unsheathe it. For a moment, just a moment, he looked like a knight--a real one. And Rosebud was briefly transported in her head back to the time before the fire raids, when her father was still alive, and he'd come home from a long day's work, patrolling the Royal Road. He'd dismount his beautiful white steed, Grace, and he'd smile down at Rosebud, reaching with his big hand to clasp hers while he told her about his noble adventures that day in service to the queen. Speak truth and safeguard the helpless. That was his mission as a knight of the kingdom. Rosebud missed her father terribly. But not enough to be fooled into thinking that the armored man in front of her was anything but her enemy. She erased the thought and concentrated on the task at hand, pretending to be frightened as she clasped her cloak tightly. "Please, kind misters, I'm starving," Rosebud said. "Can you spare any food?" She dramatically dropped to her knees in front of the soldier with the coin purse and wrapped her arms around his boots. "Mister, please!" The soldier was irritated and disgusted. "What is this? You've got beggars in Bramble Village now? I should arrest you--get off of me, foul leech!" He shook his leg to get rid of Rosebud as his partner reached down to pull her off. She tried to hold on, but he was too strong. As he pulled her away, she squinted between closed eyes and spied Wilda behind him, cutting the strings of the coin purse. One, two, and the purple pouch fell away, into her waiting hand. "Ahhh!" Rosebud cried out loudly to disguise the sound of clinking coin. The soldier kicked her aside and gave her a strange look. "H-how ever will I live without nourishment?" she asked from the ground while flicking a glance at Wilda, silently encouraging her friend to run. But the soldier had seen the look too. Suspicious, he swung around and spotted Wilda backing away from them. It took about two seconds before his hand patted for the coin purse at his hip that was no longer there. "Little brats robbed me!" he sputtered out in disbelief. "We're just poor beggars, mister!" Wilda said, jumping out of his reach. His partner's head swiveled toward Rosebud. Recognition widened his eyes. "Those are no brats. That's them wee highway bandits who been robbin' all our caravans!" Oops. Perhaps she should've used more mud on her face. "You're dreamin'," the first soldier said in disbelief. "Oh, I heard those bandits are from another village, aren't they?" Dame Hette said, pretending to be muddled about the matter. But the other guard shook his head rapidly. "There's a reward being offered.... It's them, I tell ya--I swear it on my father's grave! What do they call 'em on the handbills that are posted all over the camps? Rosepetal Ruth and Kitty?" "Rosewater Ronda and Kathy, I think it was," the first soldier said. Rosebud couldn't take it anymore. "It's Ruthless Rose and Wildcat! If you're gonna nab us, at least get our names right!" Dame Hette dropped to the ground and protectively covered her head. The guard's eyes sparkled with bloodlust. "Get 'em!" Metal whistled as he unsheathed his sword from its scabbard. It was a big sword. But Rosebud was lightning on her feet. She jumped back, ducking as he swung and missed her. "Ho-ho! They train you to hit marks in the Firebrand camps?" she taunted, drawing his attention. "No wonder you had to burn all the villages down--you can't swing a sword to save your lives!" The soldier growled. "I'll cut out that wicked tongue of yours." But when he started to charge Rosebud a second time, his partner pointed at Wilda, who was escaping through the narrow passageway around the side of the tavern. "Wait! That's the lass who robbed us--she's getting away with the coin!" Rosebud mirthfully took off running in the opposite direction, away from the tavern, away from the soldiers. They'd never catch her. She was the best tracker in the village, the best wayfinder, and the best at evading soldiers. And yet they followed. Their angry roars sailed over her head and echoed off buildings as she raced past wide-eyed villagers sweeping their steps, and the village cooper, making barrels in his shop. A flurry of pigeon wings exploded above her as the birds flew from their roost when she rounded a sharp corner and leapt over a cart of cabbages-- And landed poorly. Cabbages tumbled across the cobbles, along with Rosebud. She tried to roll into her fall gracefully, but two people who observed it both cringed at the catastrophic fumble. "I just picked those cabbages!" Elder Ritter complained sourly, throwing up his arms. "Sorry! I'll make it up to you later, I promise!" she told Elder Ritter desperately as she scrambled to her feet and threw a cabbage at her approaching enemies, which was a bit like tossing a pinecone at a hurricane to stop it. Absolutely useless. No matter. Rosebud raced away. She knew these streets better, having grown up here; these soldiers just traveled from village to village, collecting illegal taxes. So she took them on a twisting chase around the buildings, snaking in and out of dark alleys, until she came to the western gate, the smallest of three that led outside the village walls, and she raced through. Her pursuers followed. And they weren't quiet about it. Rosebud could hear them behind her--the clanging and banging of the fire-setting tools that dangled from their hips as they bumped against steel. How can they run in all that armor? She knew it was heavy. She'd helped to oil her father's knight armor since she'd been old enough to pick up a polishing cloth. He'd been as tall and wide as an oak tree, with the same black hair as Rosebud's--Sir Herman the Loyal was a mountain of man who commanded the attention of all who looked up to him, and even he couldn't run for miles covered in all that plated steel. Yet still the Firebrands chased her, all the way toward the Rin River, a swiftly flowing waterway between the village and the wall of dark pine just beyond it. Rosebud's patchwork cloak flew behind her as she dashed through thickets of young trees and zipped around a rotting farmhouse, half burned two years ago in the fire raid. The high banks of the river were just a short run from here. There was only the sound of the Firebrands and her own worn leather boots crashing through the underbrush. Once she made it past some dried reeds, the riverbanks revealed themselves. And below them, after a short but steep drop, golden sun glinted off the rapidly moving water's surface, bubbling and foaming. "Rosy!" Wilda's smiling face appeared from behind a clump of reeds near the steep bank. But her friend's smile faded when she saw the racing soldiers coming from the village. Rosebud joined Wilda and swung around to face them as they slowed to a walk and approached. "Looks like you're out of luck," the first soldier called out, chest heaving with gasped breaths. He gestured with his sword toward the steep riverbank behind the girls. "Silly mistake, wasn't it? I guess that makes you bad bandits, after all. Now your parents are going to cry buckets of tears when you're both thrown into the dungeon at the castle with the rest of the dumb criminals who've stood against the Firebrands and lost." "Meanwhile, we get to collect a fat reward from Otto the Torch," the other soldier said. "So much for the Blackhearts," his partner said. "Maybe if you'd had a bigger gang, you'd have been more successful." Rosebud cocked her head to one side. "But we do have a bigger gang. Would you like to meet our third member? Wilda, won't you please call Wryclaw?" "Happily," Wilda said, and then she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. Loudly. The soldiers looked at each other. Then they looked from side to side with mounting dread. Most people have a natural instinct that tells them when something just isn't quite right. Some folks call this a "gut feeling" because they often sense danger in their stomach first. The Firebrand soldiers' guts must have sensed that something bad was coming, because the two men both turned around at the same time to see what Wilda had summoned. "Sweet Tigerkins," Wilda cooed in a baby voice to the third Blackheart, who stepped out of the reedy riverbank and greeted the soldiers. Rosebud could almost feel their fear from where she stood. "Sweet Tigerkins" was Wilda's spotted pet lynx, better known as Wryclaw. He had pointy, tufted ears and beautiful tawny eyes. He could also rip your heart out with his bare teeth. Literally. Cats are ferocious. Especially wild ones like Wryclaw, who was no house cat but a predator, and only fell in with the two girls because Wilda had an unusually kind way with animals as well as people. Some say that cats choose their people and not the other way around, which might've been the case with Wryclaw. He was mostly tame now. Well ... tame enough that the locals knew not to scream when they saw him slinking around the village. "LAVENDER!" Wilda shouted, pointing Wryclaw toward the soldiers. Wryclaw hated the scent of lavender. Positively loathed it. The big cat's yellow eyes narrowed to slits as he readied to pounce. The soldiers took one look and ran. Problem was, they had nowhere to go. And when a scary wildcat is leaping in your direction, people tend to do silly things. One soldier ran straight for the riverbank and slipped off the side, tumbling into the water with a splash. His head bobbed above the surface as he floated downstream, shouting and careening. The second soldier ran a little farther, until the bank dipped down. If he tried to jump into the water there, he'd be more successful than his partner. Rosebud knew this to be true because it was their favorite trout-fishing spot--and where they'd been before coming into town to look for Josef. Two homemade poles were stuck in the sandy ground next to a small, moored boat. Rosebud could tell what this soldier was thinking. He wasn't going to be like his buddy, who was almost out of sight now, swept up in the river's rapids. Oh no, not this fellow. This soldier was going to jump in the boat--that was his escape. He raced toward the moored boat with Wryclaw nipping at his heels. As the soldier dove over the riverbank, Rosebud flipped open the leather sheath on her right hip, slid out of her throwing axes, and aimed for the mooring rope on the boat below. Zoop! Her silver ax sailed through the air and sliced the rope. The boat lurched into the rapids. The soldier dove into the water behind it. And Wryclaw skidded to a halt at the top of the riverbank cliffs, where the three Blackhearts looked down at the thrashing Firebrand as he was carried away in the foaming water. A job well done. They had the purple coin bag and could return it to Dame Hette. She'd give them a free meal for what they'd done for her. A satisfying end to a lousy morning. And Rosebud might have continued believing that too. If she hadn't noticed the familiar blond boy near the burned-out farmhouse, spying on them from a distance. Excerpted from The Knight Thieves by Jenn Bennett All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
