It would come of no surprise to anyone that Camicazi, heir of the Brutish Bog-Burglars, aimed to take on what most would consider the most maniacal goal in the tribe's history. While she wasn't the type of girl to sit down and methodically write out every detail in plan she had been since childhood the type of girl to dream big.

The idea originated with word from a trader, a Peacable merchant of impressive stamina—perhaps the reason the Bog-Burglars did not immediately kill him on sight. Non-Bog-Burglars, especially men, had to earn a certain regard in order to survive in their particular islands. A combination of his wares and tales were enough to keep him from death, out of prison, and as a guest of Chief Bertha. Camicazi had drawn herself away from her traditional hour of sword practice to place herself on the floor of her mother's hut, eyes wide as she listened to the trader's tale.

The trader was a large man, used to hard work and lots of sun, with a non-ugly face and a certain spark to his smile. Camicazi wondered if he realized he was being analyzed as a potential semen donor. If he did, he did not appear to mind, but laughed and joked with the women in a disgustingly flirtatious manner as he spread his wares before them. The usual a trader might bring about—and that not-so-usual. Amongst the mix of jewelry and knives, herbs and belts, were items of extreme peculiarity. Camicazi told herself naivety was no excuse to jump to conclusions about anything and what could a Barbarian girl possibly know of the other lands to the east, but she was in no uncertain terms impressed with the objects for which she had no words.

"You seem to be the type of ladies who would prefer a good sharp blade over jewelry…" the trader said in his sugary tone as he made a show of removing the baubles—the protests he surely expected came quickly enough, and he put the jewels back with an apologetic smile. A smart move. Whatever façade Big-Boobied Bertha put up was not strong enough to hide her desire for the thick strands of pearls. "My mistake. Perhaps, then, I could show you what is currently fashionable on the Continent…"

Women swarmed to be instructed on how not to embarrass themselves, stylistically-speaking, in front of women they would never see, but Camicazi kept her attention on the stranger items. If she wanted a necklace or a pair of earrings she would snatch them before the trader left—the man would be lucky if he left the island with any exchange for his wares. Jewelry could be stolen anytime, but these….

….these, she did not even know how to describe. Small enough to fit in her palm, fashioned of wood and metal, intricate down to the tiniest detail and screaming to burst apart into far too many pieces if she dropped them. She did not even notice when the trader had turned his attention to her.

"Bought those off quite the craftsman, young miss."

She stared up at him. She was not quite sixteen, hardly ready to take her place as chief, yet still had the right to slash the head, for the pure fun of it, off of anyone who addressed her without permission. Considering that she had never taken anyone's life yet, it was rather a pity she was more interested in the objects. "What are they?"

He shrugged, seeming all the happier in the action. He was a true trader, bartering in the strange and unusual. Camicazi could respect that. "I haven't the foggiest idea. I paid an arm and a leg for them and have so far more than made my gold back. Up and down the coast, all through the islands… these odd little beauties have fascinated all."

Well, they had certainly managed to capture Camicazi's attention for more than few minutes—and that was hard to do. "They're not from Rome, are they?"

The trader laughed good, long, and hard. "Hardly the Roman's style, are they?"

If it weren't Bog-Burglar, it might as well be Roman. But her curiosity was piqued. She would have to pickpocket one later. "I like them."

"I suppose I could let you have them for ten gold coins. I'm out of my mind for making that offer, but I was not brought up to give disdain to hospitality."

She smiled at him like the moron he truly was. "We don't have gold this far west."

"Supplies, then. That storm blew me terribly off course."

She supposed her mother would be gracious enough to set the man up with a few provisions. So far the peace was good. Then again, what did Peacables bring but peace and plenty of fodder for rading?

He sat down next to her, legs folder for comfort, and plucked one of the objects up for an examination. His eyes, an astonishing blue, faded into memory. He was quite handsome. Camicazi wouldn't be surprised if her mother suggested she take him for fathering a daughter. Whatever about handsome, it was all disgusting. "I bought the bunch a little over a year ago, you see. Trading in the northeast—"

"The Continent?"

He shook his head. "That's what surprised me. We're isles folk here, all of us. We hold no grand illusions of ourselves. It's all for survival. This island, though, this one I couldn't find a month later. I had been on my usual route on a sunny day and there it was, only half a day's travel out. I figured I had never noticed it before and didn't think much more."

Now Camicazi's interest was completely on the trader's. She did love a good story, and it seemed fitting that a mysterious island would be in a good story.

"My men docked and we went ashore. Keep in mind here there was nothing the least bit strange about the folks on this island. The dialect was easy to pick up, their dress and habits not dissimilar from any of us. It was all normal. Many of them liked what I had, I made some solid and respectable deals. A good trade day, all things considered."

So much for interested. Camicazi didn't care one whit about the life of a trader. She fidgeted slightly and looked back at the object in her hands, hoping once again for a good story.

The trader didn't seem to care even if she were listening. "Then an old man came to me. He liked some of my furs and medicine. I asked him what he had to trade for them, like I always do. He smiled and asked me to follow him. We left the village and wandering deep into the island's forests. He lived apart from the rest of the village, he explained. Too much distraction in the community for him to focus properly. His house was as normal a house as you could ask for. At least on the outside. But when it opened up…" He paused, savoring the anticipation as if he were the listener.

"Things like I had never seen in there."

"You'll have to do a better job at describing them than that," Camicazi said.

He laughed and shrugged again. "I can't. Like a blacksmith's shop gone all kinds of wrong. Big, loud, lots of metal. Then these little oddities, sitting all neat-like on your average workman's table. We did our trading and the tale ends with you and me."

Camicazi did like the way the little object felt in her hands. She liked the bits of wood and metal, how seamlessly they fit together. She did not have the mind nor patience for any kind of smithry, but she knew when to impressed and when to let the mild seeds of a plan sprout in her mind. "Did he have anything else?"

"Oh, yes. Much bigger things." The trader spread his arms out wide. "Nothing I wanted to drag back across the island to my ship. I told myself I would return later, make a bargain, sell high and retire early. But…" his voice lowered there. "I never found the island again."

And that was when Camicazi set her goal. She would find the strange island, rob the workshop blind, and return to her home a hero.

"It will be my Burgle-Bane," she told her mother the next morning at breakfast. "I will take everything this mysterious crafter has ever built and I will bring it back here and present myself to the tribe as one of them."

Her mother was all kinds of impressed and all kinds of worried. That was what Camicazi dealt with as the daughter of the chief. Bertha prided herself on every madcap stunt pulled by any woman in the tribe including her only daughter, but on the same token was prevented by maternal instincts from wanting any possible harm to come to that precious daughter. "And that's all well and good—if this place actually exists."

"It does," Camicazi assured her. "Those things had to come from somewhere."

Bertha held out her hand and studied the silver bracelet she had traded two chickens for—actually traded. "The dumb man also told us stories of metal ships from the sky and draugr. I wouldn't believe a thing he says, dear."

"Just because you haven't seen them, Mother, doesn't mean they don't exist."

"Terrible use of logic."

Camicazi laughed. "You always ways logic is a terrible use of time."

"It is. But your example is even worse."

Camicazi studied her mother. It was nearly impossible to imagine they were related. The blonde hair was the same, but they had both given up hope that Camicazi would be anything larger than she was now, a skinny slip of a thing not even five feet tall. Her mother had well passed six feet at the same age and had reportedly torn a sheep in half—according to further legend the main source of strife with the Uglithug tribe. Even so, tradition was tradition and Camicazi had to take her place as head of the tribe one day. "How can you ever expect me to be a great chief if I can't even commit a proper burglary?"

Bertha rolled her eyes and pushed herself up from the table. Her massive form all but filled the room. "Oh, you've done plenty of burglaries and I'm very proud of you. Chiefs had come to power with less. I'm still receiving flack for your dragon-napping moments. I don't know if Berk realizes half of what you've taken. You're sitting on the personal chair of Stormgale's and she's my second-in-command!"

Camicazi beamed and gave the chair's leg a good kick for good measure. "Yet none of those are worthy to be my Burgle-Bane and you know it."

Her mother bit her lip and frowned deeply. The expression made Camicazi sqiirm with joy. She was getting to her mother. Oh, but she was getting to her mother.

"It's clear out of the Archipelago, from what you've told me. All the way to the east… it's approaching storm season, you'll be thrown against the rocks."

"I'll be sure to stay in Odin's Bathtub."

"But there are so many Sharkworm currents. I don't know what they have to the east."

"Haven't you been that far?"

Bertha's face went so white that it was all Camicazi could do to refrain from cheering.

"Mother?"

Bertha gave the table a mighty shove that sent the milk spilling, then began to pace the room.

"You haven't, had you!" Camicazi leapt from her chair, all but screeching in joy. "You have never been so far to the east!"

"The Archipelago has plenty of burglary needs for anyone," Bertha said sharply. "Never been a reason to go so far."

"Has anyone in the tribe?" Camicazi pulled her knives from her belt two at a time, checking with expert vision for flaws. Sharpenings would be in order.

"No Bog-Burglar has ever left the Archipelago. Your grandmother has raided the Peaceable Country and that's that."

"Peaceable-smeaceable." Camicazi pulled out her favorite knife and flung it into the wall, barely missing her mother's arm. "My journey will be legendary."

"Legendary, indeed," Bertha muttered. "I take it your mind is made up, then? You couldn't just snatch a dragon from Berk or something?"

No, she could not. Her mind was made up.

It was difficult to say what attracted to her to the idea. She hadn't ventured from the Bog-Burglar islands in months. Perhaps she had grown restless in the time. Camicazi had never been content to say long in any one place. The tribe had its steady women, the defensive soldiers happy enough to remain on the island protecting it from counter raids while Bertha and her warriors were away. There were even the women who found delight in… domestic things. Baking bread, mending clothes, making clothes. To be truthful, the majority of the Bog-Burglars spent most of their lives running the village. Burglary was a necessary part of life, a convenient way to secure supplies. Did not the goddesses care for the family and battle as well? Why should they be any different?

Maybe Camicazi was different. All she ever wanted to do involved just that—doing. A sword in her hand, the wind in her face, and all of her far off from this pathetic little island.

Generations before, when the old village in the Peaceable Country was demolished and their menfolk killed in the raids, there had been nowhere else to go. A bunch of women with an assortment of children and babies were in no position to claim more land of their own. Yet they certainly were not going to go bawling and begging to other villages.

The islands were a smattering of marshy land and not many trees, but with something of an establishment, forts visited now and then by other tribes of the Archipelago, never intended to be permanent. They were ugly and the land was hard, so no one really cared when a rag-tag group of women took it over to give their brats a place to sleep.

They probably cared now. The Bog-Burglar was a tribe to reckon with.

But that didn't mean Camicazi had to like the land. She strode from her house and stared at the flat swamp that defined the islands. She had seen the other villages in the Archipelago, the strong fortresses, the impressive arrangement of buildings. Here the house of the chief was just another hut among many, patched to defend against the constantly creeping bog. Not a single hill or rock towered highly enough to decorate the landscape, leaving the view as merely earth, sky, and sea—the patchy spread of the Archipelago and the Sullen Sea to the east and the endless expanse of the ocean to the west. They really were on the edge of the world here.

Well, now wasn't the time to be wondering and worrying about that. Camicazi was not made for wondering and worrying about things more than necessary.

She had a ship to find and outfit.

To be continued.