Chapter 17: Standing up to Him

                                    

                                          
A loud shout jolts me awake. Horse's hooves trample the ground beside my head. I leap out of the sleeping pouch before I'm crushed. A raid? Did the Cerillis army find us again?
I search for Trevus. He's up from his sleeping pouch too, and his sword is drawn.
The horses stampede off into the forest, the noise of their stomping hooves fading away. To my relief, there are no raiders in sight.
"A thief!" Marcellus shouts. Trevus, Giddius and I all follow his voice. Marcellus is wrestling with a thin man on the ground.
Trevus helps Marcellus take control. Marcellus twists the man's arms behind his back, eliciting a yell of pain before he stills in surrender.
Marcellus forces the man to sit upright at the peril of further twisting his strained shoulders. The thief is hardly a man – closer to a boy.
The boy flinches as Trevus kneels down to search him. He has a wiry frame, blond hair and a soft, thin face. The boy is cast in sharp contrast to Trevus, with his large stature and commanding presence.
Trevus's search yields only a small pocketknife, closer to a farmer's tool than a weapon. 
"A looter," Giddius says. "And now our mounts are lost."
The boy's face tells a different story to the wild men we encountered before. He's not a robber who came here to threaten us to hand over our valuables, but rather a thief hoping not to be noticed. I move a little closer, feeling more secure about the whole situation. We're standing in the spot where they hitched our four horses, but now none of them are in sight. 
"'Tis a great loss." Trevus's eyes are on the thief, but his mind is far away. If this costs too much time, his father will be dead before we arrive.
The boy's clothes aren't ragged like the wild men's, and his hair is well kempt. He looks about a year or two younger than me, probably living in a nearby settlement. He came to steal while we slept. Marcellus was on watch, and he's not the most alert. The boy must have tried to sneak past Marcellus like I did, but he got caught after untying the horses. Marcellus's scuffle with the boy spooked the animals, and now they're gone.
Giddius picks up Marcellus's axe. "The punishment for looters is unambiguous in Versillian law."
The boy's mouth falls open. Marcellus presses his elbow into the boy's back, forcing his head down and exposing his neck. Giddius's going to decapitate him. My stomach roils. How can they take his life over a few horses? I also attempted to steal Becky, and this boy didn't come here to hurt us. If Marcellus hadn't grabbed him, the boy would have fled into the field.
No. I leap in-between them, blocking the trembling boy with my body.
"Jade," Trevus growls. Giddius still has his axe raised in the air. The mirrored edge reflects the moonlight, boasting its sharpness.
I glance up at the hanging weapon. "Are you going to kill me too, Giddius?"
His brows furrow with fury. If his emotions take over, he could charge past me and attack the boy. I reach out for him, and he takes a step back at the sight of my bare hands. That's right. Back away, coward.
Marcellus still has the boy's arms pinned. My glare serves as a warning not to go any further. 
"The crimes that boy has committed shall not go unpunished," Giddius says.
"You might as well toss that axe to the grass," I say. I'm not going to allow Giddius to murder a second person on this journey.
Trevus steps forward into my space. He's not afraid of my hands like the others. "'Tis stated in the law that he pay for his crime."