Rogue Legacy - Jeffrey L. Kohanek (dark academia books to read TXT) 📗
- Author: Jeffrey L. Kohanek
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The dark interior smelled like dirt, damp and musky. She eased herself inside, her hands groping in front of her as she blindly moved forward. When her foot kicked something small, she bent and felt the cool smooth shape of an apple in her palm. After removing the sack she had tucked under her tunic, she unrolled it and dropped the apple inside, briefly wondering if Gar would accept her returning with a single apple. It wouldn’t help to feed the clan, but it’d prove she had successfully stolen something.
With her arms extended before her, one hand holding the sack and the other empty, she again moved forward. Her fingers collided with a wooden object she soon realized was a crate, stacked atop another crate. She shuffled sideways and found another stack of crates. Beyond that, open air until she lowered her hands and discovered an open crate filled with apples. Quietly, she scooped apples into the sack until it was almost too full to cinch at the top.
Turning to leave, the starlight beyond the doorway beckoned her toward it until she emerged from the dark confines of the storage building. After carefully pulling the door closed, she darted around the corner and crossed the field with her prized sack of fruit.
Lyra slowed as she entered the shadowed woods. Gar’s voice came from her right.
“Over here.”
Lyra ducked beneath hanging branches and found Gar on the other side of the tree.
“Got ‘em,” Lyra whispered. “An entire bag full.”
Her heart was racing, but she found herself unable to stop grinning. She felt energized from the thrill of her little heist. Gar accepted the bag, taking it with both hands.
“Good job,” he whispered. “You made sure to relock the door, right?”
Lyra froze, the grin sliding off her face.
“Oh no. I’ll be right back.”
Over the next month, the Tantarri methodically matriculated south, stopping for days or weeks at a time, depending on the grass available for the cattle to feed on. At some point, they passed beyond the unmarked border of Vinacci and entered Kalimar.
Each morning and evening, Gar would spend time teaching Lyra the arts of thievery – ranging from the subtleties of picking someone’s pocket, to the knack of picking a lock, to the stealthy nature of burglary. Blessed with a lithe build, natural quickness, and almost supernatural dexterity, Lyra found herself an apt pupil and discovered a passion besides those of music and knucklebones.
Eventually, they happened upon an expansive rolling field with long grass stretching for miles to the west and south. Rather than staying for days or even a week, Lyra discovered that the Tantarri planned to remain in the area for months, as they had done every winter for countless years.
Without the burden of travel looming, Gar increased the hours spent with Lyra to hone her skills. Two weeks after arriving at the winter fields, he declared her ready for her first burglary of an occupied home.
Shortly after breakfast, the two of them took a stroll out into the fields, far beyond where the herd feasted on the long grass. They walked for more than an hour before they spotted the first dwelling.
“Look there,” Gar pointed toward the tree line at the north edge of the field. “That house must surely hold great wealth.”
Lyra spotted the peaked roof of a house, poking up from beyond a tall brick wall and she nodded, agreeing that the house likely had items of wealth hidden behind such a barrier.
“Let’s get a closer look,” she suggested.
The two of them turned toward the tree line and melted into the woods, circling until they were able to approach the house from the opposite side.
Now able to get a closer look, Lyra found the home surrounded by a wall built of stones held together with hardened clay, standing perhaps ten feet in height. Other than the heavy wooden gate at the front, there appeared to be no way into the yard. While it represented a slight challenge, Lyra was positive that she could scale the wall and get inside. Gar tapped her shoulder and waved, indicating that they should leave. As they walked back to their campsite, Lyra assembled her plan.
The breeze rustled the leaves above as Lyra listened from the shadowed forest. She forced herself to maintain patience: listening, watching, and waiting. A glance toward the clear night sky allowed her to note the position of the stars as Gar had instructed. It appeared to be past midnight, making it highly unlikely for anyone inside to be awake.
Her lips flattened into a line of determination, followed by a nod to herself. Emerging from the shadows, she crept toward the wall, happy to be wearing her breeches rather than the loose skirts of her dress.
Reaching up, her hands ran across the cool stones until she found ridges that provided sufficient grip. Careful to move quietly, she pulled herself up, her toes gaining purchase on the slight protrusions of rock. With one hand extended upward, she gripped the top edge and pulled until she was able to flip her leg over and straddle the wall. She lay there with her chest pressed against the ledge as she surveyed the interior.
Although it contained only a single house in the middle and a storage building at the back, the yard inside was bigger than it appeared, large enough for six such houses. There was no movement within – not in the open space, nor in the windows of the house at the center.
Lyra slipped over the wall until she was hanging by her fingertips, her toes dangling three feet above the ground. She let go and landed softly in the long grass.
As she crept toward the quiet house, her eyes flicked about for signs of movement. She sidled along the wall and found the front entrance open, her brow furrowing at the discovery, not trusting her luck.
With a quick peek around the doorframe, she pulled her head back and considered what her eyes remembered. A small courtyard waited inside, open to the sky. Brick walls and a single door at the far end surrounded the stone tiled floor. Lyra took a breath and stepped through the doorway. She crept quietly, taking light steps as she headed toward the door.
The tiles cracked and lurched downward, dropping her a few inches. Lyra froze in fear and prepared to jump when the floor gave way. Twisting, she tried to grab ahold of the stones, but they crumbled in her grip. Dust filled the darkness as she hit the bottom, the darkness consuming her.
Barking. Lyra heard the sound of a dog barking. That sound tugged at her, drawing her from the darkness. She opened her eyes and blinked as a blur of white dots coalesced into the starry night sky. A dark shadow emerged from the periphery.
“Oh, stop your barking, Gilo.”
It was a young man’s voice.
Lyra noticed the silhouette of a dog at the edge of the opening above her. The dog barked again.
“Stop your barking! It might have been helpful before, back when I was sleeping. It doesn’t help much when you bark after we already caught the intruder.”
She shifted her focus and found a silhouette of a man standing above her, at the edge of a pit whose walls stood as tall as the walls outside the house. With an effort, she rose to her elbows and the world began to spin. Nausea settled in as she sat upright and touched the back of her head. The pain of her contact caused her to wince. When she removed her hand, she found a dark wet smudge on her palm.
A light appeared, dim and blue, coming from the hand of the person above.
“Hmm,” the young man’s voice said. “It appears we caught a girl, Gilo. I’ve always wanted one. Thought about it for years, and now here one falls right into my lap. I guess I owe Issal a prayer or two for such a gift.”
The dog responded with a single bark followed by a low howl, his reply to the man.
“Exactly,” the man responded.
Lyra tried to stand, wincing and staggering as she put weight on her ankle. Not again, she thought. The world tilted and spun, her dinner threatening to eject from her stomach.
“I think she’s hurt, Gilo,” the man said
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