The Thieves of Otar

The Plan

"That's the plan?" Ryker sounded bored and unimpressed. "Poison them all?"

"Yes, Ryker that is the plan." Jay sounded tired and annoyed.

"But that's so simple!" Ryker continued. "Anyone could have guessed that that would be our plan."

"You didn't," Percival pointed out.

"Which is exactly why we're doing it," Jay agreed. "It's so simple that they would expect us to discard the idea immediately, while in reality we'll be doing exactly the opposite. Sometimes the simplest plans are the most effective; there's less of a chance that things will go wrong."

Zia, Heath, Ike, Elaina, and all the others nodded in agreement.

"Or maybe they'll just laugh to death when they realize what a stupid plan we have," Ryker grumbled.

"They won't realize what's happened until it's too late." Surprisingly it was Elaina who had spoken. 

Heath stiffened next to Zia when she spoke. Elaina had been surprisingly supportive of them and their plan to eliminate the entire army, which, Zia would admit, was a little strange, but Heath insisted that this was a sign of something darker. "She's hiding something," Heath had said to Zia one night after a long day of rushed traveling to make up for lost time. "I know she is."

"Of course she is," Zia had told him. "She just met us. She's not exactly obligated to tell us everything about herself."

Heath had rolled his eyes and grumbled the rest of the evening to that response, and he had been irritable ever since.

"That's the plan," Jay agreed with the Skilae girl. "Any questions?"

Ed raised his hand. "How exactly are we going to poison that many people? Follow-up question: How many people are there, exactly?"

"By my estimations," Jay said, "about five hundred or so. We'll poison their food. It's the only thing that can affect that amount of people."

Ed paled. "Ah. So five hundred against thirteen? I don't like the look of those odds."

A few of the other men nodded in agreement.

"There won't be much fighting," Jay promised. "There are many more men than I had anticipated, so there might not be enough to kill them all, but any of them who are even slightly poisoned will hopefully be in too much pain to fight back."

Zia raised her hand. "Don't you think they'll get suspicious if men just start dropping like flies?"

Jay smiled. "Quick as a whip, you are." He reached into his armor and pulled out out a handful of tiny pouches. "I put the poison in these little sacks. We will sneak up on the top of the Pass and throw it in their food while it's being prepared. This particular poison will first make whomever intakes it very sleepy. And when they are slumbering peacefully, the poison will start to kill them. And, as a bonus, everyone will be too tired and groggy to notice anything strange happening."

"Brilliant," Zia said appreciatively.

"Hold on a moment," one man said. "Have you had those hidden on you this whole time?"

Jay nodded. "Yes, I have."

"So you could have poisoned our food at any time?" he continued.

"I suppose so, yes."

The company fell silent, as if waiting for someone to fall over and die in the snow.

Jay smiled widely. "I didn't poison any of you. Although, sometimes it was tempting." Zia saw his eyes steal a glance toward Ryker.