Saga of the Old City

Chapter 16

Near midnight they entered the Double Dagger. The rundown building was packed with roistering men, and no one noticed two more of the same sort when they entered. The hall was long and relatively narrow, and Gord and Gellor spent a fair amount of time slowly working their way from front to rear, pausing now and then to get fresh flagons and join briefly in a conversation or a game. If anything, the tavern became more crowded with the passage of time, but while there were many patrons there were few worthy of attention from pickpocket or cutpurse. Risking detection for the sake of gaining sufficient money to merely supply themselves with drinks during the exercise seemed foolish and wasteful. Gord was just getting ready to suggest that they move on to some more promising place when a group of loud and laughing newcomers attracted his attention. The young thief knew that their boisterousness was by design, not from excess drink, although most observers would deem it otherwise. Gord signaled to Gellor, and the pair moved closer to see what was going to happen.

The newcomers were soon dispersed along the length of the place, joking, buying drinks, and talking. A bit of eavesdropping revealed that the fellows were ostensibly recruiting for their brigade of mercenaries. The sum being offered for enlistment-a lucky a head-was almost too good to be true, and vague promises of little fighting and much loot were too general to be real. That the recruiting was actual, however, could not be doubted, for a score or more were convinced and left with some of the newly arrived men to enlist immediately and get the coin-which would buy them another hundred drinks, or a wench, a jug, and plenty left for another carouse.

Gellor signaled to Gord to carefully watch the apparent leader, one who referred to himself as Flatchet. That one, and two others who looked like lieutenants, spent most of their time asking casual questions and listening attentively to the slurred replies, prompting now and then, and directing. That was indeed of note.

The pair moved closer, feigning being fairly under the weight of much strong ale. Soon both were part of a circle of people discussing the affairs of the Free Lords (as the rulers of the petty bandit states referred to themselves), and particularly the recent incursions of the Horned Society into Wormhall and Warfields, the two westernmost territories of the Bandit Kingdoms, which were both currently occupied by forces beholden to the evil Hierarchs. After the assemblage gave forth a smattering of oaths of vengeance upon these dreaded masters of the Horned Society, talk turned to criticism of the desultory nature of the warfare being waged, ostensibly for the purpose of dislodging the invaders and impaling the puppet rulers they had placed over the conquered territories.

Then, with but a few words spoken with the air of one who knows, Flatchet planted in the listeners’ minds the impression that it was the Tenha Host, not the Hierarchs of the Horned Society, that had really started the trouble. One of the bandits nodded agreement, stating that had the damned Tenhites not brought their bun-blasting cavalry across the Zumker River, thus invading the sovereign bandit states of Grosskopf and Fellands to the northeast, then no trouble with the up-till-then friendly Horned Society would have occurred.

Taw, one of the two lieutenants, asked why in hell everyone was mad at the Hierarchs anyway. After all, the Black Duke of Tenh held lands rightfully belonging to the Free Lords. The sodder had started the trouble, gained from it, and was getting off rover-free, while two former allies fought one another!

Agreement with this line of reasoning was emphatic and loud, and soon the whole place was passing the idea around and asking just what fighting with the Hierarchs did but help enemies like Urnst, the Shield Knights, and the hated Tenhites.

This revelation seemed totally new to the bandits, and the effect it had was startling. Gord thought that before another day passed, there would be mutterings all the way to Ratswharf about taking vengeance upon the Duke instead of fighting with their virtual cousins from across the Ritensa. Then, the talk came round to Gellor and Gord.

“You two seem pretty quiet,” Flatchet noted. “How about allowing me the pleasure of refilling your jacks with our host’s good ale, and telling us your line of work?”

Gellor did not speak up right away, but Gord was less reticent. “I am Gord,” he said, “the captain of a small company of free-swords lately come here after visiting the Palish.” Here he paused for a breath and grinned ruefully. “I was hoping to recruit a few men myself,” he said. “The dirty dungeaters of the Pale took a few good friends from our company. It seems that you are better equipped with speech and coin than I, so you observe me listening and learning.”

“What company is that?” Flatchet asked smoothly.

“Ever hear of the Grey Beggars?” Gord offered. When Flatchet showed no immediate sign of recognition, he continued. “No? Maybe you know some of the locals who were with us for a time. Finn? Bogodor?”

The questioner thought for a moment. “Finn… is he tall? Or a short one?”

“Tall. And Bogodor had a lot of orcish in him. Hard to forget, once you see him,” Gord added with a touch of sarcasm.

“Yeah, those two I’ve heard of, but not the company,” said Flatchet.

“No surprise,” drawled Gord. “We came out of the Flinties where the Gamboge Forest meets ’em. Had to move north from there, though, because the Nyrondese were getting pissed at our successes.”

“And you?” Flatchet asked, turning to Gord’s companion.

“Me? I’m from Stoink, and I mind my own business,” Gellor snapped.

“No need to get testy, friend,” Flatchet said soothingly while signaling for more ale. “I’m just trying to round up likely men for the brigade, and you look prime!”

Gord again took the interplay to himself. “Any bonus for officering and bringing a score or two of hardies?” he asked.

“Veterans?”

“Nothing but, and likely closer to three score if the boys are having any luck recruiting over east ’round Onglewood and Blore.”

“Triple shares for a captain, and double for his right hand, plus a common a head for every sword. You bring your Grey Beggars into the brigade, and you’ll get your coin.”

Gord looked pleased when Flatchet said that, and he then nodded toward Gellor. “My pal here is too modest,” Gord began. “He’s a hell of a scrapper and has… er… other talents to boot! Besides all that, he could get you near a dozen as good, I’ll bet-right, Gellor? It’s hard times in Stoink, right now.”

The one-eyed thief looked sour at the suggestion, but said no word of denial. After pausing to give Gellor a chance to respond, Flatchet pumped him for more information.

“You as good with a sword as your friend says?” Taking his cue from Gellor’s slow nod, Flatchet continued, “Can you get more like you?”

“Shit, half the thieves and rakes in the town will follow my lead,” the one-eyed man said softly. “But why the hell should I want to go riding off with your brigade on some half-assed nothing of a raid into the blue?”

“I think I can trust a pair like you,” the stranger said. Leaning closer and speaking in a conspiratorial tone with slurred tongue, Flatchet told them, “We are putting together a whole goddamned army, and we’re gonna sack Redspan!”

Gord and Gellor looked at each other in shock. That was a most unlikely plan, for the town was heavily fortified, well garrisoned, and prepared to withstand siege. Besides, it was in Tenh, and who wanted a full-scale war with the able Tenha Host? They turned to stare at Flatchet, whose upper body was now beginning to weave. His expression was comic, a cross between wonderment over having divulged secret information and puzzlement, as though he was surprised over being so inebriated so quickly. The captain’s eyes were beginning to cross. Gord, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before he was beyond conversation, spoke quickly and loudly.

“Done then, Flatchet! I’ll bring you the Grey Beggars, and Cyclops here will also furnish as many as he can,” he said, and as he clapped the fellow on the back in comradery, he added, “The two hundred we can guarantee only if you sign us up now-and advance a bit of the coin!”

The other one of Flatchet’s lieutenants was elsewhere, but Taw was nearby and listening casually. He turned his full attention to their table when he heard the thud of Flatchet’s head as the captain slumped into unconsciousness. “Come here and help us,” Gellor demanded of him. “This wily bastard has talked us into furnishing a full company, and now he’s too loaded to sign us up and pay over the silver.”

As Taw came near, Gord asked, “You do have the money, don’t you? We’d take it ill indeed to be lied to.”

Taw gave assurances of ability to pay and, with apologies for his captain’s drunkenness, said he’d personally take care of the matter, providing that the two would help him get Flatchet safely to their bivouac nearby.

They assisted, of course, and in a short time had managed to get the now-comatose captain a few hundred paces to the field nearby where a collection of tents and hastily constructed shacks made up the recruiters’ encampment area. From what was here, Gord surmised that the strength of the group already exceeded six hundred. Several pennons flapped idly in the breeze-it was too dark to identify them, but their presence did indicate that whole companies had been recruited. Perhaps they really did intend to attack Redspan….

Taw stopped before a hut, indicating that this was headquarters. After some fumbling, he opened the door while Gord and Gellor held up the unconscious Flatchet. A quick scraping of flint sent a shower of sparks onto tinder, and from the tiny flame a candle was lighted.

“Bring him in, and you can tell me what kind of deal you’ve worked out,” called Taw.

“You bet,” said Gellor. It was pitch black outside the door, but Gord sensed his companion’s wink as they dragged their charge into the structure.

There were only two rooms, the bigger being first. It was cluttered with a long table, several chairs and stools, and a bench along the right wall. Taw led them through a crooked doorway and started another candle to illuminate the narrow chamber at the rear. Here they carried the seemingly dead Flatchet, only his faint breathing and the reek of stale beer indicating he was not in fact gone from this world. Without ado, they flopped him atop the cot in the room. Gord glanced around quickly, noting a large armoire, a campaign chest, a commode, and a cloak hanging from a peg near the door.

“The strain must be getting to him,” remarked Taw, looking down at his captain.

“What?” said Gord.

Taw expanded on his remark. “Never seen Flatchet get so drunk that he’s passed out on the job…. But then again, I’ve never seen him try anything this big.”

“That’s for sure,” nodded Gellor. “Getting an army together to kick Palish ass out of Redspan is one hell of a big undertaking-especially when nobody is allowed to know what they’re being hired for.”

Taw appeared thunderstruck at Gellor’s casual mention of the real purpose of the strangers’ mission in Stoink. Gord broke in and spoke reassuringly, getting the conversation back on the right track.

“Let’s get us signed up and that advance taken care of, okay, Taw?” he suggested. “I’ll need all the time I can get to add another seventy men to my Grey Beggars, and Gellor here has his work cut out, too. Shit, we’d like to field three hundred for Flatchet, and maybe we can do that if we ever get started….”

But Taw was not easily distracted from his concern. “So he told you everything?” the lieutenant asked.

“Of course!” Gord piped up immediately. “We’re in this too, as Flatchet saw when we agreed to join with everything we’ve got. When he told us what was really going on, we upped the number. Hell, man, I’m sending one of my boys to see if he can locate Steel Jack’s band!”

“Steel Jack?”

“Come on, Taw! You must have heard of him. He runs a bunch of brigands out of Nutherwood. Why, last I heard he had three hundred horse with a warlock to back him up!”

Taw looked impressed at that. Gathering his resolve, he went to the campaign chest, unlocked it, and took out a ledger volume and a small brass box. Holding these, he beckoned the other two to follow him back into the main room. Gord shut the door on the sleeping Flatchet as he departed.

After flipping the book open, Taw got a quill and an inkpot from the brass box. He had each man inscribe his name and his pledge of men in turn. Then, closing the register, he said, “Come back in the morning, and Flatchet will settle the payments you’re to get.”

“Gimme the book!” Gellor demanded.

“What for?”

“The deal was for here and now. You’re not living up to it, so I’m crossing out my name. Tell that drunken stewpot in the morning that he’s out my boys-and he has you to thank!”

“Hey, Gellor, don’t be hasty,” chimed in Gord. “Why don’t we just cut the number of men we pledge in half and stay in? Nobody can bitch about that, right?”

Taw, looking pale, hastily added, “Sure, Gellor, don’t be in a hurry to lose out on a nice bit of change-and lots more loot soon! Listen to your pal.”

Gord and Gellor argued heatedly for a couple of minutes, and to Taw’s distress, Gord began to come around to the one-eyed man’s way of thinking. Seeing real trouble looming, Taw broke in just before he thought Gord was about to also demand removal of his own name and pledge of men.

“Flatchet said you two were going to be captains?”

“Lieutenants at first,” answered Gord, “but when we offered to bring in two companies, he said we would be captains at five luckies per, plus a bounty based on the totals of our pledges, so we could have faith in you guys. Then he kicked in an advance to help us recruit.”

“I haven’t got that kind of cash now, fellows, honest. Tomorrow-”

“Too late,” Gellor broke in. “We’re out of this.”

Gord and Gellor made to leave, but just then the second of Flatchet’s lieutenants entered with a couple of recruits. With the arrival of his comrade, Taw saw a way out of this fix, and told them to wait just a second. He pulled the other lieutenant, Swutch, into the bedchamber and closed the door. The two new recruits, tough and mean-looking, glared at Gord and his one-eyed companion. The looks they got in return caused the pair to gaze elsewhere until Taw and Swutch reentered the main room a couple of minutes later. Swutch quickly signed up the two cutthroats and hustled them out, barring the door on the inside as they left.

“You’d better be right,” Swutch said ominously to Taw as the pair moved aside the heavy table, grabbed a plank, and heaved. A trapdoor, cleverly hidden, opened to reveal a cellar below.

Taw descended the steep stairway. Swutch motioned for Gord and Gellor to follow, and he came last, closing the trapdoor behind him. Taw’s candle shed only a faint illumination, but he soon had another pair of thick tallow candles flaming, so that Gord was able to see the place clearly.

They were in an earthen cellar, fairly deep, with ledges built along the walls. It was originally a place for storage of roots and the like, now used as a repository for something far more valuable. Somehow Flatchet and his associates had managed to get a great iron trunk into this place. Gord was reminded of Theobald’s strongbox-only this chest was at least ten times that size. Empty, it would weigh several hundred pounds, he guessed.

Taw stood in front of the chest, shielding what he was doing, but in a moment he had completed his secret manipulations. There was a grating noise as he turned the key, and then he called Swutch to help him with the lid. The pair lifted the slab of metal so that it rested at an angle against the dirt wall behind. Inside were more electrum, silver, and copper coins than Gord had seen in his life.

“Let’s see,” murmured Taw. “Each of you gets five luckies, and commons totaling three hundred, plus…”

Swutch turned back toward the recruits, just in time to get out a warning to his partner: “Look out!”

Gord attacked Swutch even as he spoke, his dagger glinting darkly in the pale light. Gellor, meanwhile, sprang forward to engage Taw, who pulled a heavy-bladed knife from his belt the moment his partner shouted the warning. The combat was noisy and protracted, but little if any of the sound would reach any listener above.

Gord wounded his opponent several times, taking only a small cut in return. Swutch wasn’t nearly as skilled at dagger work as the young thief. The lieutenant feinted a move toward the stair, leaped the other way, and struck out at one of the heavy candles, which went out. Gord understood his desire. In darkness, Gord’s skill and acrobatic movements would be negated. The fight would become blind groping, striking at sounds. Swutch made another feint, hoping to drive Gord away so that he could extinguish the other candle. As he reversed himself toward the taper, Gord moved squarely into his path, and Swutch fell back, wounded again by the keen point of Gord’s long dirk.

“Take it all!” Swutch cried. “Kill Taw if you have to, but let me go! I’ll never be seen again-honest!” But even as the bandit lieutenant begged for his life, he hurled his blade. Gord sidestepped quickly, and the dagger, which had been headed for his throat, caught him in the shoulder instead. With Gord momentarily disabled, Swutch lunged for the stairs. He leaped to the fourth step, rushed upward, and strained to heave open the trapdoor. Two daggers struck him in rapid succession as he did so. The first was Gord’s, the second Swutch’s own-withdrawn from where it had stuck in Gord’s left shoulder. That blow finished the would-be escapee, who slumped lifeless at the top of the stairway.

As he turned, Gord saw Gellor avoid a knife swipe and then lunge forward to strike Taw a tremendous blow to the temple with the pommel of his dagger. The bandit fell heavily. Gellor added a couple of blows with the blade of his weapon for good measure, then turned to Gord when he was satisfied that Taw was finished.

“Let me see that wound,” Gellor said, moving close enough to examine where Swutch’s blade had bitten into Gord’s shoulder. “You’re bleeding heavily, but you’ll be all right,” he said calmly as he reached into his belt-sack for a swatch of cloth.

The flow of blood was easily staunched, for the wound was clean and not terribly deep; Gord’s padded doublet had taken much of the force away. Gellor bandaged the puncture with the surehandedness and swiftness of one who had done this sort of thing often before.

“It’ll pain you for a few days, and unless you get a cleric to take care of it, you’ll have to get someone to sew it shut, but you’ll survive.” He was grinning as he said that, and Gord smiled broadly in return.

“Let’s get that coin and get out!”

Both men began quickly separating the coins. Copper went onto the dirt floor, silver to one side of the chest, electrum to the other. Eventually, they had the stuff roughly divided, and then it was time to load it up. Using the shirts of the two lieutenants, they created makeshift sacks for the luckies, tossing in a few of the silver nobles to complete each load.

“That was inspired, Gord. Good thing for you I’m fast on the uptake,” Gellor said as they bent to the sorting of coins. Then he paused and looked at his companion. “What made you think of this? I saw you put the drug in Flatchet’s ale, but the rest was one of the best-planned deceptions I’ve seen in a long time!”

While Gord kept working on the loot, he told Gellor that the powder was something used by the Rhennee. Then he explained his thinking. “I could tell that Flatchet was lying through his teeth-he isn’t very clever, and certainly not smart. Whatever he’s doing, he’s been set up, I think, and he’s in way above his head-Hey, Gellor! Take a look at this!”

Gellor looked down into the huge iron box. “You’ve hit the bottom,” he said. “Let’s get going.”

“No, take another look at the bottom. It’s about half a foot too shallow!”

Gellor reached down, put the fingers of one hand on the floor of the iron container, then extended his outside arm down to the floor. “Right you are! Let’s find the secret panel.”

With that, they two thieves began a careful and painstaking scrutiny of the great trunk. Gord spotted where access to the hidden space beneath the false bottom could be gained and called his comrade’s attention to it. Both examined the place minutely.

“Don’t screw around with it, Gord. Those tiny scratches are some sort of magical runes-and there’s at least one needle trap here, too. See the hole? It’s time to take what we’ve got and clear out.”

“I’ve got another idea to try before we give up,” said Gord.

“Help me tip this thing so it’s bottom up, and I’ll show you something you’re going to like.”

Gellor shook his head in doubt and disagreement, but he took a hold on the chest and assisted Gord in standing it on its side. Coins spilled out and rolled across the hard-packed earth. Gord tugged the lid shut, and the pair levered the big box to rest on its top. A rusty slab of iron covering the underside of the trunk presented itself to view.

“Now what?” Gellor asked sarcastically as he watched Gord draw his dagger. Then he gaped when he saw Gord’s dagger-point scribing a shallow gash in the metal bottom. “What the hell you got there, Gord? I’ve never seen a blade cut like that before!”

Gord merely grinned through his clenched teeth as he pressed harder on the weapon. A couple of more strokes, and he had made a squarish set of lines about an eighth of an inch deep in the iron. With these to guide his work, the young thief began to make gouging motions with the weapon, so that the dagger’s blade passed back and forth along the channels, from one to another. It was like a normal knife blade cutting oak-slow work, but certain to succeed. In minutes the task was done. The square of metal clattered down into the place between false bottom and real one. There was, as predicted, a half-foot space beneath. Gellor brought a candle near, and golden light was reflected back in its flickering illumination.

Using utmost care, the two proceeded to gather up the stuff hidden in the false bottom of the chest. The orbs there were bright yellow gold all right, but each bore the horned and crowned death’s head of the Hierarchs on its face, with a coiled serpent on the obverse. With these coins were a soft leather bag and a tube of bone. The two thieves tucked the small bag and the coins in with the rest of their booty, and soon after that they had managed to open the tube.

“Gord, those deviates could have put this here as part of the protections….”

“I’ve heard of such things, Gellor, but cursed or not, we must examine it. Anything to do with the Horned Society is likely to bode ill for us anyway.”

Without further hesitation, the one-eyed thief unrolled the parchment within the cylinder, while Gord moved beside him so as to be able to read it too. What was there was nothing magical at all, nor was it a map. It was simply a set of instructions written clearly in Common. After scanning it quickly, Gellor replaced it in the tube and tucked that into his belt. The two men exchanged a few quick words about what they would do next, then turned the iron chest back upright. Gord picked up both of the shirt-sacks stuffed with coins and went upstairs. Gellor followed him a couple of minutes later, dragging the body of Swutch with him. He took it into Flatchet’s bedroom, dropping it near the still-comatose body of the bandit captain. During this time, Gord had been piling straw from the floor of the bedchamber around the base of the dry wooden walls of the hut. As Gellor returned from the cellar with Taw’s body, Gord was applying a candle flame to several spots along the mound of straw. Then Gord and Gellor picked up their loot and let themselves out, closing the door on the flames that were beginning to lick at the walls. They scooped up the registry volume and hastened outside. A faint whitening of the horizon told them that dawn would come soon. They were entering the Towergate of Stoink when it did.