by Hugo Huesca
Chapter Six
Knucklebones
Karmich the Thief flashed Alder a confident smile. He had a phalanges bone in his hand, bleached white and carved with a small, non-magical glyph. More bones, all from the same hell chicken’s knuckle, were spread on an outside table between them. “Pay close attention, friend Alder,” Karmich said. “I’ll do it slowly so you get a chance to figure it out.”
Alder bent forward over the table, careful not to blink. “Give it your best shot,” he said. He didn’t need to use his empathy talent to know Karmich was about to cheat—the Thief had admitted as much.
They sat on a small open pavilion in a public park. Local flowery fields perfumed the air, and tall Starevosi trees provided shade from the sun. The noise of children playing mixed with music of flutes and harps. Men and women strolled around the pavilion, taking a couple hours of rest from their busy schedules—made busier still by Undercity’s ever-constant demands to improve the city defenses. A half-finished stone wall slowly grew in the distance, one of Ed’s several initiatives to make the city harder to invade. Since the Dungeon Lord’s drones weren’t as effective on land as they were underground, humans handled the walls, while Ed focused on turning the infamous catacombs under the city into a deadly dungeon that could also host most of the citizens during an emergency.
“Here I go,” Karmich said, and threw the knuckle upward.
The white bone rose in the space between Alder and Karmich, and right as it began its descent, the Thief swiped half the knuckles in the table using the same hand he had used to throw the first bone. Then, before it hit the table, he caught it with the same movement.
Alder studied the Thief’s open hand, then the table where the remaining bones lay. The rules were very simple: you won by having more knucklebones than your opponent, could only use one hand, and you could only keep those if you caught the first one before it hit the table. Winning the game fairly, though, was not why the Thieves Guild played it.
“Well?” Karmich asked, smiling ear to ear. “Did I cheat?”
“I know you did,” Alder said. “I just can’t figure out how.” There was an extra knuckle missing from the table. “Where is it?”
Karmich laughed. “Check your breast pocket.”
“No way,” Alder said. He rummaged through his velvet shirt and found the missing bone. “Man, we said no magic allowed!”
“A good Thief doesn’t need magic,” Karmich said. “Provided he is skilled at misdirection.”
Alder frowned. “Let me try.” He grabbed the phalanges bone and threw it. He grabbed three of the remaining bones with the same hand, then managed to barely catch the falling one. “So when am I supposed to make the steal?”
The game, knucklebones, was a favorite pastime among the Thieves, but they played it with a small variant: each knuckle snatched while playing fair was worth one point, and one stolen without being caught was worth three. Later, the loser had to buy the winner as many rounds of booze as the difference in the scores had been. Karmich claimed it was a fun, simple way to build up their sleight-of-hand skills, and had been trying to teach Alder the Thieving basics whenever the Bard had some free time.
The Bard and the Thief had kindred character builds, they had realized, with Alder’s high Charm making him a natural face for a con, and his illusions a powerhouse at creating distractions or tricking a target. Alder wasn’t really interested in being a conman or anything of the sort, but he was curious about the lifestyle of a member of the Thieves Guild. A Bard’s job was to deliver knowledge of interesting and distant experiences to his audience, so Bards traveled the world and bore witness to as many dramatic happenings as possible, filling in the blanks with embellishment and their own interpretation of the events.
Alder, though, hoped to be a different kind of Bard, one that strove to have as little blanks in his retellings as possible. To present the truth as it was, with no embellishment. So he had spent time here and there with Karmich and Pris to improve his knowledge of the Thieves Guild, and in doing that they had become fast friends.
Sadly, though, it seemed that Alder had a long, long road ahead of him before Karmich judged him skilled enough for the Thieves Guild to make him an honorary member.
“You’re supposed to steal it when I’m not looking,” Karmich explained. “Before you throw the bone. For example, when you looked down to your pocket I stole another two.” He showed Alder the pair of white knuckles, rolling them through his own open fingers. “Like with women, it’s all about timing.”
“As if you would know,” Pris said. She was standing with her back against a pavilion’s beam nearby, her gaze focused on a park bench a stone’s throw away, where a young black-haired acolyte of Oynnes chatted amiably with a balding man dressed like a moderately affluent merchant. “Pay attention, you two. We are supposed to be keeping watch, not playing games.”
“Ah, don’t be so tense, sweet,” Karmich chirped happily. “You’ll give us away like that. We are supposed to remain incognito, are we not? Come. Sit with us. I brought a book if you don’t want to play. Who would dare make a move against our brave leaders in the middle of the day, surrounded by their best men, in a public park of a city they control?”
Alder raised an eyebrow. The Scrambling Tower growing at the center of the city had been upgraded to protect against scrying, so Karmich technically wasn’t being overconfident by speaking so freely of their plans. Still, it made Alder nervous, because if Kes were there she would’ve punched the Thief for such a reckless disregard of basic security protocol, and maybe even Alder too for being around.
Pris shook her head. “How about the Akathunians? They have kept a low profile since Lord Edward began hunting them down. They certainly have a motive to make a move against us.”
“And I’m glad that he did,” Karmich said. “Who the hell kind of asshole openly calls themselves the Assassins Guild? If you ask me, we’re better off without them. They’ve probably stepped into a summoning circle back to their land by now.”
Even with Undercity being mostly protected from outside incursions there was a risk someone inside the city would try to murder Ed or his associates. The obvious example was the Akathunians, who despite having gone dark for months still posed a threat. After all, they were Assassins. Killing the unaware when least expected was what they did for a living.
It was safer for Ed if few people knew he was in town. Most of his visits to Undercity were split between the Charcoal Tower, where he held court, and the sprawling catacomb dungeon. Once in a while he went out in disguise, mostly to contact the Thieves Guild leader, who for obvious reasons didn’t want to appear often enough in the Charcoal Tower next to the “upstanding” noble families that people would begin to associate with them—notoriety was lethal in his job, after all.
More often than not, Ed used that vision talent of his to keep an eye on the rest of the city. Gone were the days when Alder, Ed, and the others roamed the streets in search of adventure, getting into trouble and raking in the experience points. Alder was sure he had seen more of Undercity than its new ruler in the last few months.
The Bard sighed sadly, lost in reminiscence, looking his friend’s way as he sat in his disguise next to Alfred the Sly. Alder felt he, Ed, and the others would probably not go tavern-hunting again in a long while. His reminiscing was the reason he didn’t see the camouflaged figure jump down from a nearby tree and sneak their way toward Ed’s bench until they were already lining up a shot with a blowpipe.
Alder’s eyes widened. The only reason he had seen it at all was because he was familiar with the spell and had been looking in the right direction by sheer chance. “Ed, look out!” he exclaimed, jumping to his feet, and knowing there was no way Ed could react in time even with improved reflexes.
The figure fired.
Alarm spells blared in Ed’s consciousness, making the Dungeon Lord jump to his feet, suddenly aware that something was going on in a small room deep in the catacombs.
“What—” began Alfred the Sly, Thief Guildmaster, but he was cut off by Alder screaming a warning. A sensation like a punch struck him between the shoulder blades an instant afterward, driving his attention away from the catacombs.
His heartbeat skyrocketed as he turned around in the direction of the attack, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. At the same time, he activated his improved reflexes to buy an extra second to figure out what the hell was going on. Waves of heat surged from his body, in a manageable amount thanks to his increased Endurance and his improved metabolism talent.
There was a small steel dart at his feet, a black needle slick with an oily substance and silver glyphs engraved on its body. It was an expensive projectile designed to bypass magical defenses.
“Fog cloud,” he exclaimed, jumping out of the way. Right as the spell launched a sphere of gray smoke around him, another dart struck his back—this time coming from the opposite direction. Shit, we are surrounded.
He ducked under the bench using improved reflexes in short bursts to save energy, while darts buzzed around him like mosquitoes. A second after, Alfred jumped down next to Ed.
The Thief covered his head and got so low he almost kissed the grass. “Lord Wright, what is going on?” A steel dart struck the man’s shoulder, and almost immediately his eyes rolled back and he collapsed, unmoving.
There was screaming in the distance—the Thieves rushing to their aid or entering combat with the unseen attackers. “Ambush,” Ed answered, barely paying the Thief any attention. He felt naked and vulnerable without his armor, and the weight of the short sword at his side was little comfort. What he truly needed was a longsword and a minute to set up his buffs.
Ed’s mind wrestled with the strain of too much information in far too little time. Something had struck him twice, and darts were often envenomed. The catacombs were under attack. He was under attack. But by whom? With how many men? How should he react? His first instinct was to get Alfred the hell out of there, then dash away to buy a few extra seconds to think and figure the situation out, formulate a plan, and get in contact with his forces.
He was almost up and dragging Alfred to safety when Kes’ training came rushing to the front of his mind.
Under an ambush, almost every reasonable, untrained person reacts the same way, Kes’ voice told him as if from a great distance. They will try to go on the defensive and figure out what the fuck is going on. This is a mistake, Ed. An enemy who knows what he’s doing expects this. He will fall upon you while you’re defenseless. Most of the time, you won’t have a chance to react. If luck favors you, though, you’ll still be standing after the first few seconds.
Your only hope, then, is to do the unexpected. Don’t run away, and don’t drag the wounded to safety. What you do is rush down the fuckers that are attacking you and kill them. Be brutal beyond what they anticipated. Fall on them with great violence and hope to your favorite god that some of your friends are still standing and had the same idea. The wrong side of an ambush is not the time for subtlety, Ed. You will get wounded. If you hesitate you die. So pull no punches.
Humanoid shapes closed in through the fog. Not Thieves, and not his minions. Hostiles, then. Ed’s gaze remained on Alfred’s body for a fraction of a second, and then the Evil Eye blazed to life as fear and rage and adrenaline flooded through his veins like a river bursting through a dam—instinct suddenly switching from flight into fight. Those humanoids weren’t hostiles. They were his kills.
Ed jumped over the bench, drawing his short sword as he went, eyes blazing, arm swinging, forgetting everything but the most basic instincts as he rushed the nearest of the two shapes he could see.
“It’s him—” the shape exclaimed as he took aim.
The creature had four arms, each of them holding a short blade, but Ed barely noticed. Over the next frantic couple of seconds, years of swordsmanship training fell by the wayside. Ed reverted to his basic instincts and dropped drones all around him while swinging his sword like a madman.
Both Dungeon Lord and his would-be-assassin collapsed in a heap onto the cobblestone road. Sharp cold lashes of pain spread across Ed’s upper arms as the creature flailed his weapons in a panic. Gritting his teeth, Ed pushed with his knees to get on top while using the steel pommel of his sword like a mace to bludgeon the creature’s head over and over. Blades struck his chest and abdomen, looking to gut him open like a pig, and the wind rushed out of his lungs as his ribs exploded in constant bursts of pain. The creature’s skull cracked, and he wailed in pain, frantically attempting to push Ed off him and crawl away. Drones crawled over both of them, getting in the creature’s way and jumping onto his blades to keep him from landing a solid blow.
At the same time, the second assailant rushed into view, still dealing with the never-ending stream of drones.
Ed waved a hand his way and yelled out, “Smudge!” the first spell that came to mind. A surge of heat transformed the energy of his body into a wave of brown oil that flowed out of his hand and covered the area around the fight. The incoming creature slid and fell face-first into the substance, while drones crawled around its head and tried to find its eyes.
The creature under the Dungeon Lord tried to stab his neck. A drone ran up Ed’s back, jumped and got in the way, driving the blade to the side, then disappeared in a puff of smoke. Ed punched the creature hard one more time, and then rose, grabbed his sword with both hands, and began hacking. Skin parted as blood gushed down and mixed with oil, and the steel carved down bone and muscle. The creature’s head felt surprisingly hollow, like a hardened balloon. He screamed in agony and tried to stab Ed again, but he pushed the blades to the side with his skeletal hand and continued his job one-handed. The creature’s legs kicked and his body convulsed, and his weapons fell into a pool of oily blood.
Ed rolled away, gasping for breath and with sweat marring his forehead, just as his second target managed to rise to its knees, tearing drones off him all the while with two hands and pulling them from its face with the rest. The Dungeon Lord tackled the creature and both skidded on the oil and went down in a heap. The creature roared and cursed and rolled away. Ed caught its foot and pulled it toward him and cut into the leg with his sword with a shallow slice, like a butcher’s.
“Get off me!” the creature yelled, and kicked Ed in the side of the head, hard. Stars spread across his field of vision and the creature wriggled free, then tried to stand, crawl away, and slash blindly at Ed with a knife all at the same time.
Stunned, the Dungeon Lord managed to just barely raise the tip of his sword, and the knife slid across its edge. His body begged him to stop and gather his bearings, but he willed himself forward, sliding across the oil again. He hugged both the creature’s legs with one hand, clenching his slippery sword handle with the other, and rose up with all his strength, lifting the creature and then dropping him on his ass. Ed fell with him, his sword aimed down.
The tip of the blade started to slide down the assassin’s belly and Ed’s weight did the rest. The creature screeched in agony and rained blows onto Ed’s back with its only remaining knife, blunt, hard, solid strikes.
Ed twisted the blade and wiggled it while inside the creature’s body, then tore it out. Agony turned his enemy blind and weak. Two hands grabbed Ed’s head as the assassin tried to gouge his eyes out, but Ed jerked his head away and dove his skeletal hand into the open wound. He siphoned Endurance away from the fiend into his own body, like drawing the last breath out of a dying man.
Time seemed to return to its normal speed. The smudge spell ran off and the oil disappeared, leaving only the blood and the sweat and the numb, distant pain of many wounds. Panting and gasping for breath, the Dungeon Lord stood over the two corpses. His arms were bleeding with many shallow cuts and one deep slash down his right forearm. Blood trickled down his scalp into his right eye, stinging and blinding him. His black velvet shirt had been torn to ribbons, revealing the gray spidersilk vest underneath. The vest, made in the Haunt
, was sturdy enough on its own to deflect a blade or an arrow in some circumstances, and when mixed with Ed’s pledge of muted armor talent, turned into a magical protection he could wear incognito. It had saved his life just then, turning deadly stabbings into mere bruises.
Around him, the fog was dispersing as well, blasted off by some spellcaster’s magic. He could see shapes running around, some calling his name or just screaming incoherently while the clash of steel against steel rang from all directions.
Ed focused on the other part of the ambush—the one happening underground, in the dungeons of the city. He used dungeon vision and his consciousness traveled down dusty catacombs and rooms full of shambling, mindless undead until he found the contested room. Only half a minute at most had passed since the ambush started.
A man dressed in a luxurious tunic and silver armor stepped out of a summoning circle set between four pillars. Two men in leather armor and armed with knives guarded the rotting wooden door against the undead pounding on it from the other side.
The man’s eyes glowed Evil Eye green and a dozen drones appeared around him. The imp-like creatures were different from Ed’s. These had sharp fangs, cruel expressions, scaly black skin, and wore red and black tunics. They set to work, dancing all across the room, some of them contesting Ed’s possession of that part of the dungeon and the others building a Seat. The Dungeon Lord then turned to the summoning circle and began to summon his minions one-by-one. A scarred succubus Diviner first, then a four-armed miragefiend like the ones Ed had just killed. Ed recognized that particular one—it was Dorrez. He looked pleased with himself.
Oh, no you don’t, Ed thought. Just as the succubus enchanted the room against scrying and shut Ed off, he commanded the drones of the catacombs to lure a group of wild zombies through a secondary passage into the room, then ordered every Haunt-aligned skeleton to hack the main door to pieces. Finally, he ordered a drone to trigger a manual trap that would douse the room with a substance based on the fairy dust drug.