The moment they were out of sight, Azarion broke the kiss and dodged the slap Gilene attempted to deliver.
“I don’t care that there are Kraelian troops prowling the streets. Never do that again,” she said, the words almost garbled by the snarling fury in her voice. Had he still carried his knife, no doubt she would have tried to use it against him.
He kept a wary eye on her hands. “Woman, your value to me doesn’t sit behind your lips or between your legs.” Her fury lessened a fraction at his words. “We need to get out of Wellspring Holt with two horses and a day’s worth of supplies. Horses without army brands on their hindquarters. There’s bound to be a nearby stable with the like for the taking.”
Gilene’s gaze lit with another fire, one of calculation. “Take one horse and go your way. Whether or not the Empire gets you back is of no concern to me. You’ll reach the Stara Dragana a lot faster if you go alone.”
He shook his head, amusement blending with his exasperation. “You’re valuable enough to make it worth the effort and the delay, Agacin.”
“If you’re caught because you’re too slow, all your plans with me at their center will be for nothing.”
“We won’t get caught.”
Her upper lip lifted the tiniest fraction in a faint sneer. “I won’t. I’m not the one running from the Empire.”
With the threat of killing the caravan folk no longer an issue once they had parted ways, she was back to fighting him and doing so even harder now that her burns were healed and she felt better. Azarion scowled. “You think so? You, more than many, know of the Empire’s mercies. Do you really think they’ll believe their Gladius Prime decided to take a woman on a whim during his escape? They’ll think you helped me. I will tell them you helped me.”
She paled at his words, the rebellion that flared in her eyes burning out. Her shoulders slumped, and she leaned back against the sliver of wall where it edged the closed door behind her back. “Let me go.”
“Not yet.”
With the most fragile of truces between them, they left the shelter of the doorway to merge once more with the milling crowd. Azarion kept a grip on Gilene’s arm, though she offered no resistance to his touch this time. Her head was bowed, shoulders slumped. Hamod’s caravan was nowhere to be seen, but it wasn’t the traders Azarion searched for as he and Gilene navigated their way through a sea of people.
Every town the size of Wellspring Holt had a public stable yard—a place where visitors to the town could leave their horses for a few hours or a night while they visited or shopped or did business. The stable offered a variety of services at escalating prices, from a spot at a hitching post to a full grooming by a team of stableboys.
He spotted a group of a half dozen mounted men—scholars and monks instead of soldiers—and followed them as they rode through the town at a casual pace. Gilene remained silent, even when Azarion picked up their pace to keep up. He paused when the stable yard came into view around the corner of a bustling tavern.
Horses crowded the space, tied to hitches or placed in stalls, depending on their owners’ means. Grooms wove in and out of the lines of their equine charges, some hauling water, others hay or feed, and still others carrying saddles and tack or grooming tools.
From his vantage point, Azarion had a clear view of several of the animals, many of them lacking the brand that marked them as army ponies. There were a number to choose from, but his gaze settled on two that looked sturdy and quick.
He pulled the silent Gilene along with him, circling the perimeter of the yard in a meandering path, pretending to find the contents of some of the vendor stalls nearby interesting enough to stop and take a look. Always his eyes shifted back to the yard, noting the entrance in one corner, the two exits at opposite ends, and the door by which the grooms came and went to the stable and where the three guards who were paid to watch that no one made off with the horseflesh had set up their sentry.
Stealing two horses in broad daylight guaranteed a hanging from the gallows or a spearhead through the belly. Doing so at night was no less dangerous but had a marginally better chance of success. He’d wait until then, and in the meantime scout the various stalls in the quieter part of the town, far away from the brothel alleys where the Kraelian troops were most likely to quarter and while away an afternoon. He didn’t have the skills of a pickpocket, but he was quick enough to snatch bits of food from hawkers busy with other customers.
The bustling crowds worked in his favor, both to hide him in their midst and to provide cover while he pilfered pieces of fruit, a small sack of oats enough for a road breakfast, and a wedge of cheese wrapped in cloth. He slipped the fruit into a small satchel he stole from the back of a cheesemonger’s stall and tucked the oats and cheese wedge into the pockets of Gilene’s apron. Her disapproval hung about her like a storm cloud, though she didn’t resist when he filled her pockets with the items.
They were tracking back toward the stable yard when a warning shout went up next to them. A wagon, overloaded and overbalanced with crates full of grain sacks, tipped to one side with an agonized creak, falling toward the street. People screamed, and the throng as a whole surged backward as those nearest the wagon tried to flee and avoid being crushed. Some lost their balance and fell underfoot to be trampled by others. In the pushing, shoving mayhem, Azarion lost his grip on Gilene.
The crowd instantly swallowed her up, obscuring her in the flail of arms and elbows and the choking haze of grain dust as the sacks from the fallen wagon burst open. Even knowing she wouldn’t answer and likely couldn’t hear above the noise, Azarion still roared her name.
“Gilene!”
He battered his way through the mob, tossing anyone in his path aside like chaff in his bid to reach the spot where he last saw her. She was a tall woman but slight. If she didn’t keep her feet and stay upright, she was dead. He searched for the dark crown of her hair, ubiquitous among so many others with hair as dark as hers.
A flicker of motion caught his eye, and he spotted her as she broke free of the crowd to pause at its edge and look right, then left. She glanced over her shoulder and saw him staring at her. Her eyes widened before she lifted her skirts to her knees and dashed toward the town’s interior, fleet as a hunted deer and just as desperate.
The years spent fighting in the Pit served him well. Brute force freed him from the prison of too many people packed together in one place, their frenzied scrabbling for grain turning them into a multi-armed entity with clutching fingers. Unlike Gilene, he didn’t stop once he got free but hurtled after her down the street. She was nowhere in sight. That didn’t slow him.
His newly healed ribs twinged a warning at him with every breath, but still he ran, dodging the flow of more townsfolk who streamed toward the mob, curious as to what aroused it.
He checked under parked carts, sought out shadowed doorways, even barreled through two taverns and dodged vegetables thrown by an outraged scullery wench as he tore through the tavern’s kitchen and out the back door.