Young Writers Society

Chapter 18 Part 3: What's the Plan, Cowboy Man?

James felt more at home on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by the trees and underbrush. He’d found a vantage point from atop a small cliff that jutted out the side of a hill that provided him enough cover and distance so that he went unseen and unheard while still being able to view the camp down below. At the bottom of the cliff, the trees started to thin out, and it opened out into a field that was home to a farmhouse shed that again, looked abandoned. That was the nature of all of the buildings that had been hit by the goblin wars some year or another, eventually, all abandoned for the safety of the city walls.

Of course, they weren’t entirely abandoned. Apparently the buildings still saw criminal use, if only for hidden-away meetings or for the storage of illegally obtained goods, like griffin eggs.

The moment Morgan and William had struck a deal James had weeded out as much information as possible as he could to form a reasonable plan. Ajax was still holding the Diamond brothers’ wagon and belongings as insurance, and the brothers were expected to meet back up with him after getting the necessary supplies to make more smoke bombs for the heist Ajax and his company were organizing to steal the egg. Again. William and Morgan had an arranged place and time where Ajax was going to pick them up and take them away so that they could supervise their work. Something about broken trust.

James insisted it would be best to follow up on their current arrangement to avoid suspicion, despite William’s fearful whining about how horribly it could go wrong. But James had managed to reassure him that Ajax wouldn’t injure them at least until after the heist was completed because he might need them again - and a chemist and “potion-maker” with injured hands wouldn’t be able to do his work half as well. It was just business sense, and that seemed to quiet William down enough to comply.

Of course, James could make no guarantees that Ajax wouldn’t cut out William’s tongue out of sheer annoyance - because, by gods, that man would not shut up.

But after that it was simple. He’d tailed them into town, kept an eye on them when they met with Ajax, and followed them into the forest where they’d made camp some distance away from a shed where the egg was. Presumably.

The brothers hadn’t known the location they would be led to, but they already knew what Ajax expected them to do - he wanted them to make smoke bombs laced with sleep-inducing drugs (when inhaled) and consequently, create multiple breathing masks so that Ajax’s men could go in unaffected. The simple plan was to supply James with one of the masks as well, so he could sneak in when the smoke-filled up the room and take the egg in the confusion.

Of course, there were many variables in that plan that lent themselves to risks.

One, Morgan was tasked with getting away from the camp with one of the masks long enough to fill James in on Ajax’s plan so he would know the cues on when to get close and jump in. William assured him that Ajax wouldn’t know if they made an extra mask and they would make it work so that it wouldn’t cause trouble, and Morgan seemed to nod less convincingly. James had asked them if they could make one before meeting Ajax, but they said no. They didn’t have everything they needed.

So they were stuck with that as their only option. None of them liked it - James, the least, as it depended on Morgan’s ability to deceive and sneak away - but he just had to wait it out. Morgan was clearly the larger man of the two, but he did seem the most sensible. That was quite honestly, the only reassuring thing about him. Apart from the fact that he seemed a competent chemist, it amounted to nothing when it came to assuring him that he would get what he needed to get the egg.

It was already a haphazard plan as it was. It was up to James to come up with a distraction so the brothers could clamber into their wagon and flee. It was up to James to be quick enough and quiet enough to sneak into the shed alongside Ajax’s other men and get the egg just before them. Even meeting up with Morgan to get the mask rested mostly on his shoulders. He had to keep watch for when Morgan broke away and hurry to meet him.

It just made his headache more persistent, ringing through his head. It was a bad plan. The chances of success were too slim. But he hadn’t been able to come up with anything else, so he had to work with it.

As he’d been watching the camp, the sun was getting lower in the sky. The Diamond brothers were busy going in and out of their wagon - and the only reason he was able to identify them from such a distance was because William was dressed in all white and Morgan was easily the stoutest of all the people down there. Everyone else looked like little, featureless figures moving in and out of the little tent sticking out of the small clearing.

He watched and watched until finally, he saw Morgan step out of the wagon and talk to someone. He made sharp, pointed movements with his hands. He walked a few steps. Stumbled. Hurried off into the forest. Someone followed, going with him.

Well, that wasn’t according to plan. James moved anyway, mounting up into Elliot’s saddle and hurrying down the hill. Fortunately, the camp wasn’t far away, just some distance down. He was glad that Elliot had grown comfortable trotting down rougher terrain as they weaved through the trees with ease. Elliot seemed to intuitively know there was an element of haste in James’s directions because he moved ahead with earnest - but cautious, as usual.

When the ground became flatter though, James knew he had to leave Elliot for a moment. A horse was a little too telling that someone was nearby, and there wasn’t any large enough cover for him to approach stealthily while mounted. So at the bottom of the hill, still deep within the trees, he paused for just a moment to tie Elliot to a tree.

He touched the side of Elliot’s face, resting his hand there for a short few seconds, studying Elliot’s face.

Elliot would be fine.

That was what he had to tell himself as he tore away, running back into the forest in the direction he’d seen Morgan go, proceeding with a slowing pace, aware that he might be very close, and didn’t want to run in without knowing who the other person was, or why they were there.

He crouched low, walking on the balls of his feet. He heard shuffling ahead of him - moving quickly, with hurried, clumsy steps. There was no sufficient ground cover for a quick hideaway, so he jumped up to grab the branch of a tree and pulled himself up higher, higher, and froze behind the crisscrossing branches to stop them from shuffling.

Morgan came into view below, huffing and puffing and holding his hands on his side like he had a cramp. His pace started to slow as he approached the tree James was hidden in, and Morgan didn’t seem to even bother looking up. Whoever was with Morgan wasn’t anywhere in sight… but that didn’t mean they couldn’t see Morgan.

Morgan was huffing, coming to a stop a short distance from James’s tree. He was looking around now, searching the forest with a desperate, wide-eyed look of clear stress.

James wondered how keen Morgan’s senses were. Would he hear a muttered word from a few yards away? A whisper? James didn’t know if it was safe to reveal himself entirely, and jumping down from the tree would be far too noisy if Morgan’s company was within shouting or even viewing range.

Morgan took a few steps away from James’s tree. He looked lost.

“Morgan,” James finally hissed, barely raising his voice above a whisper.

Morgan came to a sudden stop, his shoulders tensing. He slowly looked behind him.

“Yes, that’s the right direction. Come closer. Look down at the ground, like you saw something,” he began to instruct. Morgan’s eyes naturally followed to the ground, expectant. Of course, there was nothing on the ground, James just didn’t want him looking up.

Morgan was taking small steps but eventually came below the tree.

“Stop. Keep looking down,” James repeated. his voice growing quieter. Morgan came to a stop. He didn’t look up.

“I told them I had to go to the bathroom. That it would be messy,” Morgan muttered, voice filled with embarrassment.

James made a look of disgust to himself behind the leaves. He didn’t need to know that, even if it was a bluff.

“Do you have the mask?” James asked.

Morgan kept his face downward, but James read the slouch of his shoulders.

“No,” Morgan said. “We barely had enough supplies and time to make three.” A pause. “Look, I have to make this look convincing. Ron’s watching. Wherever you’re at, can you look away?”

Dragons above. James’s expression turned sour and he suppressed a groan, looking up and beyond Morgan, seeing if he could tell where said Ron was, but he couldn’t make out small details beyond the leaves.

“You’ll have to hold your breath,” Morgan explained under his breath. “And plug your nose with something. You’ve got a handkerchief or a bandana or something? Something to tie around your nose and mouth. But plug your nose too. If you breathe any of it in you’ll get too drowsy to function in mere minutes.”

James had a bandana. He could easily shove pieces of it up his nose if he had to. He’d clean it later.

“Okay,” he said lowly. “How long does it last? The drowsiness?”

“It can knock a grown man out for a little over five minutes. That’s it.”

James let out a quiet, tense sigh.

“What’s their plan, then?” he asked.

Another pause, this one lengthy. James was growing impatient.

“They’re gonna toss the bombs in through a window and block the exits for two minutes, go in quickly, grab the egg, and leave. It won’t take more than a few minutes, and they don’t plan on hurting anyone,” Morgan answered. “Or, well, none of the people in the shed. I guess they saw some guys head in there earlier, going in and out a bit. Now that the sun is starting to go down they’re going to do it soon. The people have been inside for a while.”

James blinked slowly.

“Where do I fit in?” he asked sharply.

“Uh…” Morgan muttered something James couldn’t make out.

James waited for Morgan to say something louder, but he didn’t.

“…You’re going to have to repeat that.”

James could hear the shuffling of clothing and feet down below.

“I sabotaged the lining in the masks,” he whispered. “William doesn’t know. When they go in to get the egg they’ll breathe it in. You should be able to strike when they come out with it. They’ll already start to feel slow. That’s all I could do. But when you do grab the egg, they’ll be right on your tail. They’ll alert the others. Not all of them are going to be affected. There will still be the ones at camp, and they’d be within yelling distance. I’m hoping that will be enough for us to slip away… Ajax didn’t plan on being done with-”

And that would have to be enough because James could see a man coming towards them, eyes on Morgan. James finally looked down just in time to see Morgan’s mouth snap shut before turning into an earnest smile.

“Sorry for that!” he said with a laugh, running away from the tree. “Hopefully I didn’t delay anything.”

“Shut up and hurry up,” Ron barked gruffly, turning away.

“Alright, I’ll do that,” Morgan replied with notably less enthusiasm, before trotting off after him.

James watched as the two of them disappeared back into the forest before climbing down from the tree, staring out in the direction of Ajax’s camp.

He was doing the math.

Three masks meant three people going in to steal the egg and three people under the influence of a sleep-inducing drug to fight through while holding his breath. He would have to get the egg, run with it without dropping it, or damaging it, mount Elliot, run away, and lose whatever tail he gained in the process when the others were alerted to his presence.

That sounded like… a lot more trouble than it was worth. He briefly entertained the idea of returning to town, finding Clandestine, saying that he couldn’t find the egg or the Diamond brothers and that it was all a lost cause. He considered saying he tried his best, but it didn’t work out. But he also considered how lying would affect her again… it wasn’t as if she could prove him wrong, and she wouldn’t even know if he didn’t show it.

But she wanted his honesty. So much so that she was willing to invade his privacy for it, and that made his heart twinge.

Lying had always been something he did to survive, and now it just came naturally. But Clandestine, for some bizarre reason, was determined to keep running into him despite that.

He thought about the egg, and the escaped mother griffin, and Clandestine out there hunting for it, probably giving it her all and doing everything she could to figure out how she was going to find it only to ensure its freedom.

He hoped she was safe.

With another sigh, he turned back to return to Elliot, hurrying ahead and jumping over tree roots and overgrown ferns.

It would be wrong if he didn’t at least try.