Below Will disappeared into the warehouse.
Breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe . . .
Will emerged from the warehouse with an empty cart and pushed it back to the ship, keeping his place in line.
“There he is,” Shana whispered.
We watched him as he reached the trade vessel. The two powerlifters deposited another marked barrel into his cart. Will made a careful U-turn and headed back to the warehouse.
Three . . .
Will reached the second fire barrel. Thirty yards to the warehouse.
Two . . .
We had to time it just right, so he would be between the barrels, in the dark.
One. Now!
I raised the lantern pole and bobbed it up and down.
A loud scream came from the right, a woman yelling at the top of her lungs. “Stop! Stop! Thief!”
A beggar boy in rags sprinted along the wharf toward the line of dockworkers, cradling a large clay jug to his chest. Clover chased him, screaming, a stick in her hand.
“Thief! Help!”
The dockworkers, overwhelmingly male and young, saw a pretty girl yelling for help and did exactly what Reynald expected them to do. They stopped and moved to the right, trying to block the thief from escaping. Will let go of his cart and stepped in front of it, almost as if he were protecting the cargo.
A lone dockworker pushing a cart covered by a tarp came out of the street to our left. Lute with his replacement barrel.
Kaiden saw a wall of bodies closing together in front of him, whirled toward Clover, saw her stick, spun back around, and hurled the jug he was carrying into the nearest fire barrel.
Flames exploded, sending chunks of burning logs all over the wharf.
The dockworkers shielded their eyes against the flash.
Kaiden darted past them into the alley to the right.
Lute pulled up next to Will’s cart, picked up the tarp, tossed it over Will’s barrel, grabbed Will’s cart, and smoothly wheeled it away back the way he came.
Clover shrieked in outrage and alarm. “That’s a noma’s worth of gorefish oil, you little shit!”
The burning logs sputtered on the wharf. There were few things more alarming than a fire at the harbor. The sailors on the Yolenta ship collectively lost their shit. Someone roared, “Don’t just stand there, you assholes! Put that fucking fire out!”
The crowd by the pier fractured. Half of the workers ran for the water barrels to put out the fire, three went to check on Clover, and a few who still had cargo in their carts wheeled them into the warehouse. Will was one of them.
One of the warehouse workers sprinted after Kaiden into the alley and stumbled back out, hands up. If I had run into Reynald on a dark street, I would have done exactly the same.
Nobody noticed Lute and his cart.
We’d pulled it off.
I let out a breath and slumped onto the stone rail.
“I’m going to make my rudberry sambocade,” Shana said. “I think they deserve it, don’t you?”
“. . . and like I told you, fire always works,” Gort pontificated. “You could steal the whole pier if you had a big enough fire.”
