Read Online In Pursuit Of Wisdom (Book 1) by Steve M. Shoemake - Free Book Online

light, allowing him to get his bearings.  To his left and right were the cave walls.  Conveniently, a torch was hanging on the left.  Using some stones on the cave floor, he was able to smack them together to create the occasional spark.  An hour later, covered in sweat, and having made more noise than any thief should be allowed, he had captured a spark on his parchment, which eventually caught fire, which he eventually transferred to his torch.  I thought we were testing the techniques of a Thief, not a bloody Ranger.
    He moved on.  The cave did not offer any side paths or options.  It just kept going further and further down, winding around and doubling back amongst itself.  Trevor had no sense of time as he walked, torch aloft.  But it must have been a few hours since he’d started, and he knew he was descending the whole time.  The air was stale this far down; there was oxygen, but it smelled—even tasted—different.  His torch still burned.
    Rounding a curve in the path of the cave, he saw the roof of the cave expanding, just as the path began to widen until he finally reached the edge of the bend in the path.  It opened up into a larger cavern, now twenty or thirty yards wide and another twenty yards from floor to ceiling.  A ring of torches dotted the massive underground grotto.
    “No Thief has passed on my watch, and you won’t be the first!”  The mail-clad knight shouted. He stood next to a small fire pit, whose flames reflected and danced off his shiny plate.  He also had Trevor’s undivided attention.
    Polished to a fine gleam, the knight’s armor was in ridiculously good condition.  Only the wealthiest merchants or city officials could afford a guard such as this.  Or the Guild, he thought ruefully.
    It was then that Trevor made out what the knight was guarding:  A wooden rope bridge, maybe twenty-five feet across, spanned a chasm at the back end of this underground cavern.  On the other side of the bridge was a door.  The knight stood in front of the narrow bridge, sword drawn, but he did not move.
    “Who are you?” Trevor shouted from a safe distance.
    “I think it’s obvious,” came the knight’s response.  He didn’t even lift his visor.
    “I don’t suppose you’d let me cross if I agreed to split the gold with you?”  Trevor rolled the dice, and guessed the knight knew about the gold.
    “I am already under a more lucrative contract.  And besides—unlike your ilk, I do not double-cross those who put their trust in me.  As I said, no thief has passed on my watch.”  He drew a massive sword.
    Trevor looked at the knight.  He believed him.  The man was huge, easily a foot and then some taller than him.  He thought about poison darts, but there was no chance in hell a dart would penetrate his plate mail.  He had seen other knights; Lord Arrington had several in the city guard.  But this knight looked almost regal in his shiny, dent-free mail.  Not regal—ostentatious.
    Of course, the Guild earns a small portion from all the thieves’ takes—at least, those they knew about from members of the Guild .  One of the long-running jokes amongst the Guild is that they got robbed more than anyone.  Yet they were still fantastically well-funded.  Certainly wealthy enough to rent a knight.
    Trevor did not see the knight armed with any long-distance weapons, and he did not appear to be in a mood to leave his post, knowing full-well that Trevor held the edge in quickness, given his heavy armor.  But standing there in front of the narrow bridge, sword drawn—the knight could not be in a better position.  Furthermore, Trevor quickly ruled out a direct confrontation.  The thought of the knight slicing his head off and rolling his body over the edge of the chasm gave him more than a pause.  ‘No thieves have passed on my watch’…I wonder how many failed attempts landed a thief at the bottom of this pit.
    Watch?  Of course!  Backing up, still twenty yards away