The Thin Executioner by Darren Shan

Author:Darren Shan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780007315826
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2010-08-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

Weeks of graverobbing followed, trawling the lands of southern Abu Saga, hitting the more prosperous towns and raiding their mausoleums. They weren’t all as straightforward as the first. Many of the graveyards were guarded—although raids were rare, they did happen occasionally, so the wealthier Um Saga preferred to put patrols in place where possible.

If Bush and Blair had been working by themselves, they would have avoided the guarded graveyards, valuing their necks over profits. But they were not overly concerned about Jebel, so they happily sent him in by himself, sneaking him past those on watch, leaving him to plunder on his own.

Jebel hated those raids the most, having to slip past the guards and work silently, terrified in case he was discovered. The first time he was sent in solo, he tried to fake an unsuccessful robbery. He hid in the shadows of a mausoleum for a few hours, then climbed out, claiming that the tombs had already been robbed. But Bush and Blair saw through the lie. While Bush held his mouth shut, Blair cut a small slice off the tips of both his index fingers. They vowed to chop off whole fingers the next time he lied to them, then sent him back in.

Occasionally a graveyard was too well guarded, and they had to skip it, but that was rare. Bush and Blair sent Jebel in except when the odds were overwhelmingly stacked against him. Despite their protestations that he was an important member of the team, Jebel knew he was expendable. He didn’t think they planned to keep him beyond winter. If he wasn’t caught robbing a tomb and killed before they headed south for the spring, he was sure they’d sell him to slavers or slaughter him in his sleep.

The bogus Masters let Jebel wear gloves and a cloak now, and gave him a blanket when he slept. And they fed him more but not too much—he was more useful to them thin than fat, and even though he told them he had always been thin, no matter how much he ate, they didn’t want to take any chances. Jebel wasn’t starving any longer, but he was never far from hunger’s door.

Jebel knew that the clothes and food were given in order to bend him to Bush and Blair’s will. They thought they’d broken his spirit and were using the gifts to make him feel indebted to them. The tyrants were cunning but arrogant. It never crossed their minds that Jebel might be acting, pretending to be more disheartened than he was, letting them think he was beaten when in fact he was constantly plotting to escape.

His captors no longer bound his hands except at night. When they were walking, Jebel deliberately fell behind, complaining of weariness. Bush and Blair had lapsed into the habit of letting him trail after them, and every day he dropped a little farther back, creating the space that he would need when the time was right to run.

But

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