Skulduggery 8: Building a Criminal Empire

by Logan Jacobs

  “See?” I smiled. “Then while you have this joint frozen in place, you can use your other arm to punch-- or eventually, to stab.”

  “To stab?” another human guard asked. “I know we’re the human guard, but are we really authorized to kill people?”

  “Yeah, I’m not complaining, but this all seems really detailed for some basic guard training,” another man added. “Is that really all that we’re doing here?”

  “What do you think?” I tilted my head to the side.

  I was curious what most of these humans thought about their roles here. Maybe some of them thought their training was just to be human guards, or maybe all of them thought that. But they had also all been picked by Dryson to serve in this unit, and that meant they must be pretty intelligent, so it was possible that some of these humans might have guessed the truth of the matter.

  “Well, we work for Wade now,” one of the men said. “I mean, we report to Dryson, but he works for Wade. Well, I guess we report to you now, too, and--”

  “And what do you know about Wade?” I interrupted. “How much have you heard?”

  “Oh, we’ve heard plenty,” one of the women said with a smile. “We heard that he can freeze things with his mind, and that he can take down half a dozen men single-handed.”

  “And what else?” I asked.

  “That he’s the one responsible for the whiskey all over town,” a man said.

  “And?” Skam asked as he moved through the crowd closer to me. “What else have ya heard?”

  “That his father was arrested for revolutionary tendencies,” another man said, “and that the elves sent the orcs to destroy his village for that.”

  “Word really travels fast around this city, doesn’t it?” Skam joked.

  “It does when it’s true,” I said. “Go on, what else have you heard about Wade?”

  “That he has become a rebel himself,” a woman said. “And that he seeks vengeance for the deaths of his family and his village.”

  “Not vengeance,” I sighed. “He seeks justice.”

  “So then it’s all true?” one of the guards asked.

  “It is,” I said with a nod, and then I heard the guards all pass along my words through the crowd to those who couldn’t hear me.

  “But if all that’s true,” another man said, “then what does that mean for us? What do we have to do with any of it?”

  “We’re not just supposed to be human guards for the human district, are we?” a woman asked.

  “No, you’re right,” I said. “You’re not just here to be human guards, but that is how you’ll start. But before I tell you more, let me ask you another question: are you happy with your lives?”

  “What do you mean?” a man asked behind me.

  “Are you happy with the fact that you have to live according to elven rules?” I asked. “Are you happy with the fact that you have to worry constantly about elven soldiers or elven interference?”

  “Well… no,” one woman admitted. “But it’s treason to--”

  “It’s only treason if someone catches you saying it,” I said with a smirk. “Now let me ask you again, are you happy with the fact that your children will have to work to put food on the tables of the elves, but they’ll struggle to have enough food for themselves?”

  The crowd started to grumble around me, and I felt them all start to press closer around me, so they could all hear my words. As I let them gather a little closer, I caught a glance from Skam out of the corner of my eye. He smiled and gave me a nod, so then I pushed right on ahead.

  “Are you happy with the fact that your brothers and sisters can be thrown into jail and executed just because they didn’t bow down fast enough to an elven noble?” I demanded. “Are you happy with the fact that your mothers may one day have to mourn your deaths in secret because they’re afraid that too many tears would draw the wrath of the elves down upon them?”

  “No,” a deep voice rumbled from the crowd.

  “No,” another man echoed.

  “No!” the whole crowd joined in.

  “Then pay the fuck attention,” I hissed, and the guards all fell silent. “Because if you want the right to live according to your own rules, not according to the elves, then this is what you need to know.”

  Seventy or so human guards all leaned in closer, and each one of them held their breaths as they waited for my answer.

  “The only way you will ever achieve that is if you take it,” I said. “They will never give that to you, so we have to grab it from them.”

  “But how?” one man murmured close to the front.

  “You listen to me,” I said, “and more importantly, you listen to Wade, and do everything that he tells you to.”

  “So you’re talking about… you mean revolution?” another man whispered.

  “Fuck yes, that’s what I mean,” I said. “I’m not saying it’s going to happen today, and I’m not saying it’s going to happen tomorrow, but when it does happen, you all need to be ready for Wade’s commands. Is that clear?”

  “Clear!” they all shouted together.

  “So for now, you listen to me, and you follow my training,” I said, “and when the revolution comes, will you be ready?”

  “Ready!” they shouted again.

  “Then partner up,” I growled, “and get back to work.”

  I had never seen so many people move so quickly, and as they all began to spar with each other again, I moved over to join Skam.

  “That was an impressive speech, Ava,” the tattooed dwarf said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say so many words at one time before.”

  “Let’s just say that I was inspired.” I shrugged. “Whenever I think about fighting or the revolution--”

  “Or Wade,” Skam said with a grin.

  “Yes, or Wade,” I laughed. “Whenever I think about any of that, or about my child, I just… I don’t know. I just get so excited for the future, and that’s… well… that’s not really something that I thought I would ever feel. At least, not before I met Wade.”

  “I know the feeling,” Skam said. “Before Wade hired me, I thought for sure I’d be sent right back to the elven labor camps.”

  “But you served your time, didn’t you?” I asked.

  “Oh, aye,” the tattooed dwarf replied, “but no one wants to hire a convict, especially one who used to be a professional thief. And who has the elvish word for ‘thief’ tattooed right above their eye for everyone to fookin’ see.”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  “But now I have a purpose.” He said as he met my eyes.

  “Now we both have purposes,” I replied. “I know we still have a lot of work to do, but somehow, it feels like it might actually be possible.”

  “It does,” Skam agreed but then frowned at two of the human guards beside us. “Especially if we can get these bastards to remember your fookin’ instructions! I’ll be back.”

  Skam charged toward the guards to correct their form, and I smiled as he fussed at them about the stance of their feet and the angle of their elbows. The dwarf was absolutely right-- these guards were just the beginning of the army that we would form for Wade, and once that was all in place, then we would finally be able to take on the elven empire once and for all.

  Our child would not grow up in fear for their lives every day just because they were a human.

  Our child would not be forced into guild life just so they could fill the pockets of greedy elves like Clodia.

  Our child would be free to make their own decisions and their own rules, and we would be free to raise them however we wanted.

  Because by the time Wade was finished with the elves, we would all just be… free.

  Chapter 20

  The morning after my threesome with Cimarra and Ashlin, I woke up extra early and kissed them both goodbye before I headed out. Both women were still half-asleep when I left them, but they woke up enough to smile and kiss me back, so then while they went back to
sleep, I left the theatre and hurried back down to the portal room in the catacombs.

  I didn’t blame them for still being sleepy. We had all made love again twice before we finally fell asleep, so it was no wonder that they were tired. I knew that I probably should have been sleepy, too, but I was too excited to feel tired. I had managed to get a few hours of rest in, but when I woke up, my mind immediately started to run over all the things that still had to be done.

  After all, today was the day of the Golden Lake Race, and that meant it was the day we were finally going to sell our whiskey to the fucking elves themselves.

  Of course, there was still a lot to do before then, but I trusted that Dar and Penny had been able to take care of a lot of the details while I’d been gone. They should have had time to make arrangements with the caterers, so they would sell our whiskey to all the crowds who came to watch the boat race, and they should have also been able to deliver the whiskey already.

  So if they had finished with all of that, then we should just need to pay off Flavius for helping to set everything up. Once that was taken care of, we could watch the race in peace, so we could see exactly how much whiskey the elves of the Gold City were capable of consuming.

  My guess was that it would not be a small amount.

  They were used to elven temple wine, and if they could stomach that foul shit just to get tipsy, then they would probably gulp down my whiskey by the fucking bottle-full. And since it would mostly be elves who were drinking at the race today, I didn’t have to worry about any kind of two-drink limit or anything like that.

  The only reason the two-drink limit existed in the first place was to make sure that nobody blabbed to the elves about the whiskey they’d just consumed, but if the elves were the ones drinking it, then that didn’t fucking matter.

  Well, it might matter to some stick-in-the-mud elves, but based on what I’d seen of the Gold City so far, there weren’t a whole hell of a lot of those other than Tevian. But since Tevian seemed pretty much on his own when it came to elven laws and morals in the Gold City, I thought we should be able to sell more whiskey than ever before at the race today.

  When I finally reached the portal room in the catacombs, I greeted the sentient door and then slipped inside. The room glowed with soft blue light from the gem in the Opalstone amulet, but as I started to point the magic compass up toward the map on the ceiling, I suddenly felt my head start to swim a little bit.

  I shook my head to try to clear the fog from my vision, but the gesture moved the compass, so it pointed at one of the red cities on the mosaic map instead of to the Gold City.

  Instantly, the blue glow all around the room turned to a dark red color, the gemstone on my amulet turned red, and every single arch in the room started to glow the same dark red color. The whole room looked like it had been drenched in blood, and as one of the portals started to pulse a little more brightly, I kept the compass pointed at the map but turned my head to face the brightest red portal.

  As soon as I looked at it directly, the glowing red stones all seemed to disappear, and they left behind a pitch-black archway. I stepped toward the darkness, and when the Rainbow Keys hummed in my pocket, I took another step forward and then another, until I was right in front of the dark portal.

  When I blinked, the red glow of the room itself faded away, and all I could see was the darkness in front of me. But as I watched the blackness, I started to see shapes and figures inside it, so I took a step closer until my toes were just on the edge of the portal.

  A fierce wind blew toward me from out of the darkness, and then I finally saw what the Keys wanted me to see.

  The walls of a red city appeared out of the darkness, and I recognized it as the same city that I had seen in a vision months ago, where two armies had clashed in the fields outside the red walls. As I looked at the red city now, I didn’t see any armies at first, and instead, I saw miles and miles of vineyards, but all the leaves and grapes were blue like elven blood.

  And as I continued to watch the vision that the portal and the Keys wanted me to see, fire suddenly erupted from below me. I couldn’t see where the fire had come from, but as soon as it appeared, the flames swept across every row of every vineyard, and all the leaves and grapes curled into ashes and then crumbled to the ground.

  Another round of fire swept across the land, and by the time the smoke cleared, the fields had been completely burned, so only the red walls of the city were left standing. Something small and green glittered in the middle of the burned fields, and I started to reach my hand through the portal to grab it.

  Not yet, the Rainbow Keys hissed.

  I jerked my hand backward. As soon as I took a step back from the portal, the blackness disappeared from inside the archway, the stone chamber lost its red glow, and the Opalstone amulet started to pulse with its usual soft blue color.

  “Well, that was strange,” I muttered.

  Clearly, the Keys wanted me to know something about the red city, or I wouldn’t have had two visions of it. I didn’t know what exactly they wanted me to know, and I didn’t know what exactly any of it meant-- not the fire, not the blue grapes, and not even the small green object that was left behind by the flames.

  But I did know one thing.

  That red city was going to be goddamn important.

  I would have to ask Cimarra if she knew which city in the empire it was, and maybe that would help give me a clue. But whatever it was, or wherever it was, I had a feeling that it might be the last city that we ended up going to. Maybe it would be the last city where we sold whiskey and armed the humans for our future uprising, and then maybe it would be the first city where the rebellion would begin.

  Or maybe the red city would be where the revolution would end, and where I would lead us in our final uprising against the elves.

  As much as I wanted to cross through the portal now and see what waited for me there, I knew that the Keys hadn’t steered me wrong yet, so if they said it wasn’t time, then I would just have to be patient. After all, there was still plenty of work to be done in the meantime.

  I moved the position of the compass again, so it lit up the portal to the Gold City. When no more visions stopped me in my tracks, I walked through the stone archway, felt a slight rush of wind, and then stepped out into the Hanging Gardens.

  There was no one else around, so I just slipped the compass back into my pocket, brushed off a few flower petals from my pants, and then hurried out of the plants toward the exit. The boat race wasn’t until this afternoon, but I knew that people would probably get there early, so they could start drinking well before the race itself began.

  But it was still morning, so I knew that I had enough time to get back to the apartment, meet up with my friends, and then we could all go to the race together from there. I wished that Ava could have been with us, but I knew that she was exactly where she needed to be right now. She and our baby would be safer at home, and she would also be able to train the humans back home into real soldiers.

  The streets of the Gold City were pretty quiet, but I was glad that everyone had decided to sleep in a little later. It made it easier for me to listen to any suspicious sounds around me, so I wouldn’t run into Tevian by accident.

  Of course, I wasn’t sure if Tevian was still a free elf or not. He might have been arrested or at least questioned after the death of the elven trader. But even though I could easily freeze him again if I came across the night elf, I had other things to take care of today, and I didn’t want to deal with the elven general’s bullshit if I didn’t have to.

  I reached the apartment without any trouble, and when I opened the door, I saw Penny, Dar, and the big gladiator Leif all just inside the door. They had found a change of clothes for Leif, so the big man was dressed in plain pants and a simple tunic shirt, and he was armed with one of the long swords that we’d stolen from the elven trader.

  “Wade!” Dar grinned. “We were beginning to think that you weren’t going to sh
ow.”

  “Do you really think I’d miss one of the biggest races of the year?” I laughed. “Especially the first one where we’ll be selling our whiskey to the elves?”

  “Not a chance,” Penny said. “We were just about to head down to the lake, so we could get set up and get into position early. You know, before any other fuckers get there and ruin our view.”

  “You do realize that we’re there to sell whiskey, not to watch the race, right?” Dar asked.

  “Um, who the hell says we can only do one?” the redheaded pixie asked. “Leif says it’s one of the best events all year.”

  “Well, that’s partly because gladiators aren’t allowed to fight during the race,” the big man said. “Usually at big events like that, we’re still expected to fight and put on a show, so people can choose what attraction they want to watch. But the races are always such a big deal that we get to watch them, just like everyone else.”

  “We can certainly do both,” I said. “We can be there to enjoy the show and to watch all the elves get drunk on our whiskey. But speaking of our whiskey--”

  “Don’t worry, we’ve taken care of everything,” Dar said. “After you left, we went to talk to the caterers for the boat race, and Lord Flavius had already set up everything for us. He’d told the caterers that he’d heard they didn’t have any wine for the race--”

  “Thanks to you, Wade,” Penny said with a smile.

  “And then he told them that he had access to alcohol that they could buy,” Dar continued. “Of course, they were interested, so he said he would send some workers along later to set up the details.”

  “So when you went to meet with them, the caterers didn’t give you any trouble?” I asked. “They didn’t ask you too many questions or anything, did they?”

  “No,” the redhead replied. “Actually, they were just so happy that we had a solution for them, that I think they would have bent over backward and tried to kiss their own asses, if we had asked them to.”