Crow spent the rest of the afternoon on the riverbank with Alistair and Rikki, playing a game with dice. The game itself was entertaining enough, but he didn’t have the most enjoyable time with them. Naturally, Rikki made sure to sit as close to him as she could get, taking advantage of Alistair’s presence, since she knew he couldn’t brush her off as easily while the third thief was with them. He found her attempts to be physical with him frustrating, and eventually left to get away from her under the guise of taking inventory of their supplies.

Heading into the camp by himself, he decided he might as well actually take some time to go through their supplies, since he had noticed they seemed to be running low on some essentials. He stepped over to the mounds of boxes and bags where they kept their things and began looking over everything to see what they were missing. It took some time to finish, especially since he wanted to be thorough. When he was done, he noted that they were short on food, bandages, quality swords, arrows—he remembered that no one had collected the ones he had lost during the last battle—and money.

The thief crossed his arms loosely as he mulled over the situation. With another battle coming sometime soon, they would need to replenish their supplies in order to be prepared. They could always steal the food and war goods from the knights’ camp, but he was concerned about their dwindling gold. In the past, the and his companions had raided important supplies from the knights and held them for ransom to make money. That strategy didn’t seem to be working out for them very well anymore though.

He supposed he could always steal some weapons and sell them off to the Younisians like he had done the last time, but the idea didn’t sit well with him now that he was with Penelope again. With her life on the line in this war, he didn’t want to continue giving the opposing kingdom advantages in the upcoming battles. He sighed. It would all be so much easier if he could just steal weapons from the Younisians to sell off to the knights in his own kingdom. Unfortunately, with the bounty on his head, he couldn’t walk into a camp full of knights and expect to walk back out without trouble. It was too risky.

[i]Maybe we could take something besides weapons that we could sell in a village market,[/i] he mused as he tried to come up with an alternative plan. They wouldn’t make very much by doing that, since the peasants didn’t have much money either, but it was better than nothing. Medicines and ointments from the inner kingdom would fetch a fair price in the outer villages, where such things were considered a luxury. If he and the others stole some from the knights’ physicians, they could hopefully make enough money to get by for a while.

“How does everything look?” a masculine voice spoke up from behind him.

Crow blinked and glanced back over his shoulder to see Alistair and Rikki walking towards him from the cavern entrance. They must have gotten bored of playing their game and come to see what he was doing instead.

“As we guessed yesterday, we need more food,” Crow answered with a shrug. “But we’re also short on some other things too, like bandages and proper weaponry.”

“Does this mean we’re going on another raid?” Alistair grinned, cracking his knuckles eagerly.

“Seems so,” Crow nodded. “We should go in three days. I don’t want to rush into anything after what happened last time.”

“That’s smart,” Rikki said in agreement, stepping closer to slip her arm around his and press close to his side.

He shot her a subtle warning look, but she just smirked back at him in response. He disliked how she had figured out a way to get close to him again. As long as Alistair or Simon were around, he couldn’t do anything to push her away without arousing suspicion. It was aggravating to be so restricted.

To make matters worse, he saw Alistair wink and make a suggestive gesture behind Rikki’s back. He averted his gaze and grimaced, [i]There’s just no escaping them, is there?[/i] “I’m going out for a walk,” he said suddenly, pulling his arm out of Rikki’s grasp. “I’ll be back for dinner.”

“I’ll come with you,” Rikki grinned, moving to follow him out of the camp.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’d prefer to be alone,” Crow said with a smile. His words were friendly, but there was a cold edge in his eyes that cautioned her against trying to go with him. Fortunately, she seemed to get the message this time.

“Alright,” she stepped back, her grin wavering slightly. “I’ll see you at dinner then.”

“See you both then,” Crow tipped his head in a curt goodbye and stepped out of the cave, finally able to breathe easy now that he had managed to put some distance between himself and Rikki.