Skulduggery 8: Building a Criminal Empire

by Logan Jacobs

  But even though I was glad that Dar had managed to take five long blades from the trader, it was nothing compared to the number that Ava and Penny had taken. While Dar had been busy with all his breastplates, my two women had stashed more blades into their belts than even seemed possible.

  Penny had taken ten short daggers that were designed for fights in close quarters, plus four longer blades that were almost the size of actual swords. Ava had also managed to steal ten short daggers herself, and she had also grabbed three long blades, on top of the two full-size swords that she had hidden in her quiver of arrows.

  “Well, this should be helpful,” I said with a grin. “You all did great.”

  “So let’s see,” Dar said as he glanced over everything we’d taken. “This means we’ve got twenty-one pieces of armor, so that’s a good start. They’re not complete sets, but that shouldn’t really matter, right?”

  “No, this should be good,” I replied. “Most of the people that we train for our army probably won’t be able to wear a full suit of armor anyway, so the idea is just to get them a little bit of extra protection.”

  “I mean, the armor and everything is great,” Penny said, “but would you just look at all those weapons?”

  “That’s twenty short blades, plus twelve longer daggers and two full-length swords,” Ava said. “If everyone only has one weapon, that’s enough for thirty-four people, and even if we give everyone two weapons, that’s still enough for seventeen soldiers.”

  “I’d say that’s a pretty good haul for what we could carry away with just our hands,” I said. “After all, every little bit helps.”

  “So should we take these back home when we go back through the portal?” Ava asked.

  “No, I think I’d like to keep all of this here for now,” I said. “I think we might even be able to find enough humans in the Gold City to start our own fighting force here, as long as we earn their loyalty first.”

  “And how are we going to do that?” Ava asked.

  “And when?” Dar added.

  “That’s easy,” I said with a smile. “Tomorrow, we’re going out into the city to see if we can meet some humans who will help our cause.”

  “Um, how exactly are we gonna do that?” Penny asked.

  “Oh, you know,” I said with a grin, “by spreading some coins and a little good cheer.”

  Chapter 16

  The next day, we loaded ourselves down with several bottles of whiskey and a few sacks of coins, and we headed toward the most human-populated area of the Gold City. We kept the armor and weapons in our apartment for right now, since there was no point in handing out that kind of equipment to people who didn’t know how to fight yet.

  That part would come later.

  Since the Gold City wasn’t divided up into racial districts like our own city was, all the neighborhoods were much more mixed, but there were still clearly wealthier and poorer areas. After all, just because the city wasn’t divided by race didn’t mean it wasn’t still divided by class. And, of course, it just so happened that the elves tended to live in the wealthiest neighborhoods, and the humans tended to live in the poorest sections of the city.

  Some things seemed to be the same no matter where we went.

  I thought at first that I might just take my money directly to some of the landlords in the human neighborhoods, but then I decided against it. For one thing, it would raise too many questions if a random man stopped by to pay off everyone’s rents, and I didn’t want to draw that kind of attention to myself just yet.

  And for another thing, landlords weren’t usually known for their honesty, so there was a chance that they might take my money and then still demand rent from their tenants. And that meant I would have to come back over here and break some fucking skulls, and that was more of a distraction than I needed at the moment.

  So instead, I decided to just take my money directly to the tenants, so they could pay their rent themselves or use it for whatever food or medicine they might need. That just left me with the small detail of which humans to talk to first, and more importantly, which humans would be easy to persuade over to our side.

  Luckily for me, we had done some outstanding fucking research on the Gold City when we first arrived.

  When we had studied the layout of the Gold City, we had also made sure to note all the different neighborhoods and the types of wealth and people that made up each of them, so now we headed toward the poorest one that also just so happened to have both the highest number of humans and the highest arrest rate of all the areas in the city.

  Because if there was one thing that the elves liked to do more than anything else, it was to arrest and execute humans for any reason they could think of. And just because the Gold City was all about a good time, that didn’t mean that the elves here were any less fucking terrible than in the rest of the cities in the empire.

  After we first arrived in town, I had asked Penny to steal a list of recent arrests from this neighborhood, along with the addresses of the arrested humans, and I planned to use that list now to help get us started on our quest to spread some goodwill among the city’s human population.

  I sent Dar and Penny toward one end of the neighborhood with careful instructions, while Ava and I started at the opposite end. We would meet somewhere in the middle, and then we’d move on to the next part of my plan to enlist the humans here in our unofficial army.

  Ava and I approached the first address on our list, and right away, it was hard to imagine how this house belonged anywhere in the Gold City. The roof had partially caved in on one side, and there were holes all throughout the stone that someone had tried to patch with mud. As I raised my hand to knock on the door, two rats darted out through a hole just beside the threshold and disappeared down into the sewer.

  “Lovely,” Ava said as her lip curled. “Aren’t landlords supposed to fix run-down shit like this?”

  “Just because they’re supposed to doesn’t mean that they actually do,” I said. “Besides, in my experience, landlords are much more interested in spending money on themselves than in spending it on the properties they’re supposed to take care of.”

  A few seconds after I knocked, a middle-aged human woman cracked open the door and just stared at us.

  “What do you want?” she demanded. “We don’t have anything to spare, so--”

  “I’m guessing that your husband was arrested,” I said, “or maybe your son, but based on the way that you don’t want to open the door to me any wider, I’d say your husband was arrested, and your son was supposed to be, but you’re keeping him hidden. Am I wrong?”

  The woman’s eyes went wide, and she started to shut the door until I slammed my hand onto the wood and held it open.

  “I don’t work for the city, and I sure as shit don’t work for the elves,” I said. “I know you’ve fallen on hard times, and I want to help.”

  “We don’t take charity,” the woman said, even as her lower lip started to tremble.

  “Oh, it’s not charity,” I said. “Consider it an investment.”

  “And what would you want in return?” The woman narrowed her eyes and glanced back and forth between Ava and me.

  “That depends on one thing,” I said. “How much do you hate the elves?”

  “With every fiber of our beings,” a man’s voice said from behind the door. “It’s okay, Ma. Let them inside.”

  The woman hesitated but then stepped back, so we could come into her shack of a home. If it looked bad from the outside, it looked even worse on the inside, but I quickly turned my attention to the two young men who stood just inside the door.

  “Our father was arrested,” one of the young men said, “and they were supposed to arrest both of us, too, but we’ve managed to stay in hiding so far.”

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” their mother murmured. We don’t know who these people are or what they--”

  “If they were going to kill or arrest us, don’t you think they w
ould have already?” her younger son asked. “Besides, they’re humans, and if we can’t trust another human, then we’re really fucked.”

  “Why did the elves arrest your father?” Ava asked.

  “He asked the landlord one too many times to fix our roof,” the older son replied. “Our landlord is an elf, of course, and he didn’t want to pay for the repairs, so he just accused our father of trying to incite a rebellion, and we haven’t seen him since the arrest.”

  “Just because he wanted your roof fixed?” Ava bit her lip and glanced at the hole in the ceiling, and now that we were inside, I could see that they’d tried to patch it up with nails and a few bedsheets so that the mud would stay up top.

  “If you even question the elves, they call it treason,” their mother said. “They came to arrest my boys right after that. They said if the father was bad, then the boys must be, too, even though they hadn’t done a damn thing.”

  “How did you hide them?” I asked.

  “With a neighbor until things died down, and I’ve been keeping them hidden under the floorboards ever since then,” the woman said. “The elves don’t come around to this neighborhood very often, and we have an alert system for when they do. That always gives us enough time to make sure they’re out of sight.”

  “An alert system?” I glanced at Ava. “Do you mind if I ask what kind?”

  “We’d be happy to share our information with another human,” the oldest son said, “but first, maybe you could tell us what you want with us.”

  “I want to give you money, to pay for your roof, your rent, or anything else that you might need,” I said, “and before you say no, let me just be clear. This is not charity. This is just to give you a little taste of what I have planned for this city-- for this whole empire, actually.”

  “What are you, like the rightful king who’s come to claim your throne?” the younger son laughed.

  “Maybe he is,” his mother said after she elbowed him in the ribs. “My grandmother used to tell me stories about the way things used to be, and she’d heard those stories from her own grandmother, who’d heard them from her grandmother, and so on.”

  “What kind of stories, Ma?” the older son asked.

  “Stories about human kings,” she replied, “and about how one day, there would be another who would appear out of nowhere and lead us all to victory.”

  “That’s the plan,” I said with a smile. “But only if people like you help me get there.”

  “What do you need us to do?” the older son asked.

  “Hold on just a minute,” the younger son said. “Are we just supposed to believe you without any proof? For all we know, you could just be some crazy man who wants to hand out coins like candy.”

  I closed my eyes for half a second, focused, and then felt the whole room grow still except for Ava beside me.

  “Maybe he’ll believe us if he sees a little bit of magic,” I said with a wink to the assassin.

  Ava and I moved around the frozen figures until we were directly behind them instead of in front of them, and Ava threw in the extra touch of pouring three glasses of whiskey on the table.

  When we were both in position, I focused on letting the effects of the amulet fade, and then I cleared my throat behind the family.

  All three of them jumped and whirled around to face us.

  “What the--” the younger son started.

  “How did you--” the older son said.

  “By the Ancients, it is you!” the woman swore. “It has to be! A human who can wield magic? What other explanation could there be?”

  “Okay, okay,” the younger son sighed. “I get it, but-- wait, what’s that?”

  The family moved toward the glasses of whiskey on the table, and Ava and I moved over to join them around it.

  “Oh, that’s just another taste of what I have planned for the city,” I said with a smile. “That assumes, of course, that you three are willing to help me out, whenever I come back and ask you to.”

  “What kind of help would you need?” the older son asked.

  “When the day of the revolution comes, I need you to be ready,” I said. “I need you to be ready to rise up and fight against the elves with the weapons and equipment that I supply you with. In exchange, I’ll give you the coin to help improve your life now, with the promise that when we overthrow the elves, everything will be different, and humans will never have to live like this again.”

  This was the biggest test that I’d faced so far. I’d never said my plan out loud like this to anyone other than my friends before, so the response of these three people would tell me a hell of a lot about what I could expect from the rest of the humans in the Gold City-- maybe even in the rest of the empire.

  “If it means we get to fight against the elves, then we’re in,” the oldest son said. “Whatever it takes, we’ll do it.”

  “Then consider this the first of what’s to come,” I said as I set down a small sack of coins on the table beside the whiskey. “I think this calls for a drink, don’t you, Ava? Something strong, and definitely something human.”

  Ava offered the glasses of whiskey to each of the family members, and after the assassin and I each took a swig from the bottle, the mother and her two sons both drained their glasses, coughed, and then licked their lips for more.

  “Just in case you weren’t convinced by the magic that he used a few minutes ago,” Ava said. “That burning feeling that warms you up from the inside out? That makes your toes and fingers tingle like you’ve swallowed tiny bolts of lightning? That’s the taste of human whiskey.”

  “Nah,” I said with a grin. “That’s the taste of freedom.”

  The younger son opened his mouth to give a shout, but his brother clapped his hand over his mouth just in time.

  “We can’t celebrate just yet,” he chuckled. “We’ve still got to actually win the revolution first.”

  “So about the revolution,” I said, “here’s the first thing that you can help me with. One, tell me about this alert system that your neighborhood has set up. And two, help point me in the direction of other humans who would also be open to our cause.”

  “It might help if we knew your name,” the woman said. “If you don’t mind, of course.”

  “Wade,” I said, “and this is Ava, and we’re not alone in the city or in the empire.”

  “Then, Wade,” the woman replied, “welcome to our neighborhood. The alert system is a series of candles that we light all up and down the streets whenever the elves appear. They’re burned in the window by the door, and we have designated houses that we watch for the signal.”

  “So any time someone on the edge of the neighborhood sees the elves coming, they light their candle?” Ava asked. “And then the next house on the list sees it, and they light their own candle?”

  “And so on, all the way through the neighborhood,” the woman said with a nod. “That’s why we always have to be vigilant, so we don’t miss the candles when someone lights them.”

  “It’s a good system,” I said, “and that might really come in handy for us. I want you all to be prepared to rise up against the elves whenever I give the word, but I’ll also be distributing some weapons and armor later.”

  “You’ll need to practice with them, but make sure you keep them hidden,” Ava said. “Your alert system should help you with that.”

  “But how do we… I mean, how do we train?” the younger son asked. “I’ve never held a weapon before in my life.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I said. “I’ll send someone into the neighborhood soon to help you learn how to fight, and they’ll take care of that problem.”

  “Oh!” both brothers said at the same time.

  “And they can train you, too, if you’d like,” I told their mother.

  “If it means there’s a chance that I can free my husband,” the woman growled, “or at least take vengeance on the elves who took him, then I’ll fight beside my sons.”

 
“Then welcome to the revolution,” I said with a smile.

  After the woman gave us a list of a few more people who would be open to our cause, we left their house and started toward the next one on our own list, so we could start the process all over again.

  It took us most of the rest of the day, but when we finally met up with Dar and Penny again, the four of us had managed to talk to almost the whole neighborhood, and each family had been more eager to join us than the last one.

  That meant we had about fifty more households on board with us, and even though we didn’t have enough equipment to arm them all just yet, we could still turn them into a fighting force. Besides, as soon as the word about us spread through the human population of the Gold City, fifty households would quickly grow into more.

  “Well, that’s been a good day’s work,” Penny sighed. “What now?”

  “Now it’s time for the next part of my plan for the day,” I said with a smile. “I promised everyone that we’d train them to fight, so I think we better take care of that now.”

  “But you said that Ava--” Dar started.

  “Yes, Ava’s going to be busy training my elite guard back home,” I said, “but we still need someone to train the humans here to fight, so they’ll be ready when the revolution finally comes.”

  “Let me guess,” Dar said. “You already have someone in mind, don’t you?”

  “Well, there just so happens to be a group of people here in the Gold City who don’t do anything but fight,” I said.

  “The gladiators?” Penny asked.

  “Exactly,” I replied. “And since all the gladiators here also happen to be slaves, all we have to do is go to an auction and buy a few for our own purposes.”

  “I keep forgetting that we can actually buy what we need now,” Penny laughed. “I don’t know if I’ll ever really get used to that.”

  “Oh, you will,” I said with a smirk. “Trust me.”