Dragontiarna: Thieves

by Moeller, Jonathan

  And Moriah disliked killing unless she had no other choice. After all, she was not one of the murderers of the Red Family.

  “Hasten!” snapped Octavius, gesturing with his rod of office. “This needs to be done by the time of his lordship’s banquet tonight! All the bedclothes and all the curtains are to be gathered here.” He gestured at the row of tubs that had been set up in the courtyard below the fine house with its marble walls. “They are to be washed and set out to dry in the sun by noon! Dally too long or waste time in idle gossip, and your wages shall be docked! Move!”

  “Mouthy old fool,” muttered one of the women.

  “Aye,” said another. “Drop him in one of the tubs, and he’d swell up like a raisin in water.”

  Moriah carefully kept herself from laughing. It was easy. She had spent so many years masking her emotions and pretending to be different people that it was almost a trivial effort by now. It was easy to present herself as a typical Cintarran woman of common birth – timid and polite in the presence of her betters, unwilling to draw attention to himself.

  It was just what she wanted.

  Neither Octavius nor the other washerwomen dreamed that the notorious Wraith walked among them.

  Moriah worked with the other women as they collected the bedclothes, the curtains, and the wall hangings from the domus, bringing them to three piles in the courtyard. As they did, Moriah made careful note of the layout of the grand domus, of the route to the stairs leading to the high tower, the position of the guard rooms and the style of locks on the doors. She was strong for her size, stronger than the other women, so Moriah offered to do much of the carrying. The other washerwomen, preoccupied with the work in the courtyard, were happy to agree.

  That let Moriah memorize more of the mansion’s layout.

  Despite her best efforts, her mind wandered back over the years, to all the thefts she had pulled off with Gunther and Delwen. Cintarra had a long tradition of master thieves, going back centuries, daring rogues who pulled off dazzling public thefts. Those master thieves often came to bad ends involving gallows and headsmen’s axes. Moriah and her two friends had eschewed that path, choosing instead to operate in total secrecy. The halfling Gunther had infiltrated their targets, learning all their secrets. Delwen had charmed the guards and made the equipment they needed. Moriah carried out their actual thefts, though they had not been averse to the occasional delve into the Shadow Ways in search of treasure.

  That had not ended well.

  Sometimes when Moriah closed her eyes, she could see Gunther’s and Delwen’s headless corpses lying on the floor in the darkness below Cintarra, the blood pooling beneath them. A shiver of rage went through her, and for the thousandth time, Moriah swore that she would avenge them, that she would bring the Drakocenti to ruin.

  No matter what it took, no matter what it cost her. She would destroy the Drakocenti.

  Most of the washerwomen had been carrying bundles, and Moriah had arrived at Lord Hadrian’s mansion with a bundle of cloth under her arm. No one had noticed it, and no one paid any attention as she carried it into the house.

  It was simplicity itself to hide the bundle in the pantry off the kitchen.

  She spent the rest of the day working with the other women, washing the linens and hanging them up to dry in the courtyard. By sundown, Moriah’s shoulders and arms ached from the effort, and she had sweated through her dress in several places. But that was all right. She would not stand out from the other washerwomen. Moriah doubted Octavius would have been able to pick her out from a crowd.

  As the sun slipped beneath the western sky, Octavius dismissed them and grudgingly paid out their wages for the day. Moriah murmured her thanks and vanished into the streets. She claimed to live in a tenement in the Western City on the other side of the River Cintarra and headed in that direction with the other women. But halfway there, she slipped away and headed to the south side of the Eastern City.

  Cintarra had two harbors, one for the river, and a second one for the sea. The river harbor was on the western bank of the River Cintarra and had been dug out several centuries ago when the first houses of the Western City had gone up. The ocean harbor was on the southern end of the Eastern City, southeast of the Prince’s Palace, which could rain catapult shots and ballista bolts onto any invading ships. Not that it had ever been necessary. The realm had never been attacked by sea. The position of the harbor meant that a maze of warehouses and taverns rested next to the Prince’s Palace. Moriah had always found that amusing. Much of the Eastern City was dominated by the fine domi of the merchants and the lords, but the dirty foundations of their wealth were within sight. Gunther had said that was a metaphor of the corruption of the lords, but Gunther had been fond of metaphors. The halfling servant turned thief had always thought too much.

  She wondered if he had come up with a metaphor for his own death in the final moments of his life.

  Under a false name, Moriah owned a warehouse between a sailors’ tavern and a brothel. The building was a squat rectangle of brick, dusty and worn, and looked utterly unremarkable. That was the point. No one looking for the Wraith would expect the fabled master thief to lurk in such a dilapidated building.

  Making sure that she was unobserved, Moriah unlocked the side door and slipped into the warehouse. Inside, the interior was dim, illuminated only by the fading light leaking through the narrow slits in the ceiling. Old crates and dusty barrels stood stacked haphazardly around the room, and the air smelled of dust and dry wood. Moriah crossed to the corner of the room. The floor had been swept clean, and the corner held the supplies she used when she slept here – a cot, a tub of water, her food supplies, her clothing, and a privy that opened into the maze of Cintarra’s sewers and then the Shadow Ways.

  She stripped out of her sweaty clothes, flopped naked onto the cot, and slept for a few hours.

  When Moriah awoke, it was dark, and only pale shafts of reddish moonlight leaked through the skylights. She could never remember which of the thirteen moons were out on any given night, but the current combination made that odd blood-colored light. Maybe it was sacred to Mhor. She did know that certain combinations of the moons were sacred to the old orcish blood gods. Perhaps the Red Family was hunting for victims this very night.

  Maybe they were hunting for the Wraith right now.

  Though Moriah was entirely certain that no one knew that the Wraith was a woman.

  She lit a candle and dressed in the flickering light, taking clothes she had hidden in one of the crates. Tonight, she disguised herself as a dashing young nobleman of Cintarra – polished black boots, a white shirt, a green coat (the color to flatter the Prince) and a crisp white shirt. The clothes were loose, and she bound herself tightly enough that it was not obvious that she was a woman. To the disguise Moriah added a cap with a silver badge, her red hair coiled beneath it, and a fake pointed beard and mustache. She had always thought the Cintarran nobility’s preference for pointed beards and elaborately styled mustaches looked ridiculous, but the style worked in her favor now.

  Moriah considered her reflection in a small mirror and nodded to herself. She looked like a pompous young Cintarran nobleman, either arrogant with too much money, or arrogant with pretensions of wealth. The green coat matched her eyes, which was an unfortunate detail, but so many of the Cintarran nobles wore green that it would go unnoticed.

  A sword belt went around her waist, holding the slender-bladed sword that Cintarran men carried on formal occasions and used for dueling. She slid a pair of knives into her boots, checked her reflection one last time, and then nodded to herself and went into the night.

  A short time later, she walked to the mansion of Lord Hadrian Vindon.

  Lights shone in all the windows, an extravagant use of lantern oil, and the courtyard gates were thrown wide. Music and laughter drifted on the air, and crowds of men and women stood in the courtyard, speaking to one another. The dried washing, Moriah noted, had been cleared away, and halfling servan
ts in livery circulated through the crowd, bearing trays of food and drink. Once a week, Lord Hadrian liked to hold these courtyard parties, flaunting his wealth and power and the number of guests he could get to attend. Sometimes the Master of the Scepter Bank himself made an appearance, his solemn clothes making him seem like a raven among peacocks.

  Of course, while the power was real, the wealth was not. Hadrian Vindon had made his money by enclosing his lands for sheep and selling wool to the Scepter Bank, which then sold it to Owyllain. Yet Moriah had broken into the Scepter Bank and looked at their ledgers, and she knew that the Bank was losing money on the wool. In fact, the Bank was losing money left and right, as Cyprian spent vast sums sending men to search the Shadow Ways. None of the Bank’s efforts over the last few years made any sense – the enclosures were pushing Cintarra towards revolt, and the Bank itself was losing money.

  But it made perfect sense once you knew (as Moriah did) that the Master of the Scepter Bank was actually the High One of the Drakocenti, that Hadrian Vindon and Lythan Radyr and the other lords of the Regency Council were his disciples. Though Moriah didn’t know what they really wanted, not yet. Likely they were another mad cult like the Enlightened of Tarrabus Carhaine, and they wanted to rule Andomhaim.

  It didn’t matter what their plans were. Moriah would have revenge for Delwen and Gunther when she ruined the plot of the Drakocenti.

  She circulated through the crowd, a haughty expression on her face, and listened to the chatter. Moriah drew a few glances, but no suspicious ones. Cintarra had so many nobles and wealthy men that no one could know them all. No doubt the guests thought she was the cousin or nephew of some minor noble seeking fortune and glory in Cintarra.

  Which, in a certain sense, was true.

  Usually, the talk at parties like this was about the latest doings of the Regency Council, the deteriorating situation in Cintarra, and gossip about business and scandalous affairs. But as Moriah listened, she was surprised to hear that there was only one topic of conversation.

  The Crown Prince of Andomhaim, Accolon Pendragon, had come to Cintarra. What was more, he had come in the company of soldiers, the Shield Knight, and the Keeper of Andomhaim. Moriah wasn’t sure what she thought of that. Her last letter from Caitrin had said that she had become the mistress of the Crown Prince and that she was pleased by the development. Then the rumors said that Caitrin had gotten great with child and killed herself in ashamed guilt soon after. Moriah doubted that. Caitrin had seemed the least likely candidate for suicide that she had ever met.

  Still, it had been another blow in a year that had been filled with losses. Moriah hadn’t been close with her half-sister, but they had been friendly, and her death had hit harder than Moriah would have expected.

  Some of the nobles thought that Accolon had come to punish the Regency Council for their overreach and to reverse the enclosures. Moriah doubted that very much. Nobles were, by and large, a corrupt and stupid lot, and Accolon seemed the sort of man who had seduced Caitrin and tossed her aside. Likely the Regency Council would bribe him or offer the crown a percentage of the revenues from the sheep enclosures, and that would be that.

  The Shield Knight and the Keeper, though…

  Perhaps there was potential there. Both Ridmark Arban and his wife had towering reputations. Some of that, Moriah knew, was an exaggeration, legends that had grown in the telling and retelling. Every bard and singer knew a song or two about the Shield Knight. But someone had stopped the Frostborn and defeated the Enlightened, and the Shield Knight and the Keeper had gone to Owyllain and returned. A knight and a sorceress as grim and as implacable as those two would not tolerate a cult like the Drakocenti.

  Maybe Moriah could point them at the Drakocenti, and Ridmark Arban would destroy them. She had best do it without getting caught, though. Moriah rather doubted a man like the Shield Knight would have any mercy for a thief. Someone like Ridmark Arban would probably hang a man for stealing a sheep, along with the thief’s entire family.

  But all that was a possibility for later. Right now, Moriah needed to focus on the task at hand.

  Hadrian Vindon was greedy and venal, but he wasn’t stupid, and his men-at-arms were well trained. People came and went freely from the courtyard, which let Hadrian show off his wealth and generosity. Yet men-at-arms in chain mail guarded the main doors to the domus and stood watch on the servants’ entrance and the kitchen doors.

  But there were ways around that.

  Moriah accepted a cup of wine from a halfling servant, took a discreet look around, and then swallowed some of the wine and dabbed more on her throat. The wine was cheap but strong, and the scent of it flooded her nostrils.

  She put a drunken stumble into her step and wove past the front doors to the domus. The guards’ eyes followed her, and Moriah ignored them, muttering to herself as she gestured at random with her wine cup, as if sharing toasts with invisible companions. She circled around the side of the house and came to its southern side. The main doors were on the eastern wall, and the doors to the kitchens on the servants’ entrance on the west, but there were only windows here.

  Moriah counted until she came to the third window, and then she set down her wine cup and scrambled up the wall. Her fingers and feet found grips in the gaps between the polished marble blocks, and she reached the second floor. All the windows on this floor were closed behind shutters, and Moriah pushed at the shutters on the third window. They swung open without resistance. She had unlatched it during one of her trips into the house yesterday, and none of Hadrian’s household staff had noticed that it was open. Not surprising, given that the window opened into an unused guest room.

  She eased through the window and closed and latched the shutters behind her. The room’s furnishings were rich – a thick carpet, a bed and a wardrobe built from some polished wood, and a chair and a writing desk of the same material. Heavy sheets covered the furnishings to keep dust at bay. Moriah glided to the door, listened, and heard nothing.

  The second floor of Hadrian’s house was dark, but Moriah knew the way and walked to the servants’ stairs. She moved in silence to the first floor and paused at the door to the kitchen, waiting. The noise of halfling servants going about their work came to her ears, and she waited until they exited to the courtyard to serve more food.

  When they did, Moriah opened the door into the heat of the kitchen, crossed to the pantry in a dozen steps, and retrieved the bundle she had left there. A swift retreat to the servants’ stairwell and she closed the door behind her. It had taken all of fifteen seconds to retrieve the bundle.

  She went back upstairs and unwrapped her bundle in the hallway. Within were two objects – a hexagonal plate of bronze-colored dwarven steel and a tattered-looking white cloak of coarse material that never seemed to collect stains or dust. Moriah lifted the plate and rested it on the center of her chest, taking deep breaths. Symbols of harsh fiery light, dwarven glyphs, glowed around the edge of the plate, and Moriah felt its presence inside her head.

  A mental effort sent a command to the presence, and the dwarven armor unlocked.

  The plate expanded and unfolded, becoming a cuirass of overlapping hexagonal plates that covered her torso and hung to her knees. The metal also covered her head, concealing her features beneath a masklike helmet. It should have restricted her sight, but suddenly Moriah could see in the dark with greater clarity than she could in daylight, and her hearing sharpened as well.

  She didn’t really know what the armor was, and neither Delwen nor Gunther had been able to unravel its secrets. The armor was clearly dwarven in design and imbued with powerful magic. It was also damaged – the edges of the cuirass were ragged, and Moriah suspected the armor had once been far more powerful. Gunther’s best guess was that the armor was designed for dwarven scouts or rangers who explored the darkest tunnels and farthest galleries of the Deeps.

  With the armor in place, Moriah unrolled the white cloak, slung it over her shoulders, and pulled the cowl ove
r her helmet. Like the armor, the cloak was magical. It was an ancient elven relic called a wraithcloak, and the cloak could make its bearer insubstantial. Like the dwarven armor, the ancient elves had probably intended the cloak for use by their scouts and hunters in their endless war against the dark elves and the urdmordar.

  Moriah, Gunther, and Delwen had found the relics during their second-to-last excursion into the Shadow Ways, the final expedition before that last, fatal adventure. The dwarven armor and the elven cloak had likely been intended for soldiers, but as Moriah had brooded in the days following her friends’ death, she had come to realize the armor and cloak would make superb tools for a thief.

  And thus, the legend of the Wraith had been born.

  Moriah made her way through the corridors to the central stairwell. The mansion’s central stairs were guarded, but the guards were on the main floor, and they didn’t think to look up. Moriah climbed the stairs in silence, her boots making no sound against the stone steps.

  Like most Cintarran nobles, Hadrian’s domus had a massive central tower, high and imposing. The towers were impractical structures meant to flaunt their owner’s power and wealth, but they did have one excellent use. Many nobles and merchants kept their strong rooms in the highest chamber of their towers since even the boldest thieves had trouble scaling such a wall.

  Moriah had always found it far easier to take the stairs.

  The tower’s stairs stopped in a massive door of solid oak, banded and bound with steel. Only a dim shaft of red moonlight came through a narrow window on the wall, just enough to illuminate the massive steel lock that held the door closed.

  Of course, with the magic of the armor, Moriah had no trouble seeing anything.

  She went to one knee before the door, produced a pick from within her left boot and a small prybar from up her right sleeve, and went to work. Moriah took her time. It was possible the lock was trapped, of course. Dwarven merchants sold locks or strongboxes equipped with deadly mechanical traps, and sometimes human locksmiths made lesser imitations of dwarven engineering. Lesser, but no less dangerous for the unwary.