by DB King
Taking his cloak from the hanger by the door and sweeping it around him, Marcus stepped out into the rain with Ella at his side. She cast her hood up over her head again to keep the rain off.
“Let’s get away from the noise of the forge,” Marcus suggested.
They moved in silence across the flagged courtyard, Marcus’s well-made leather boots splashing in the running water that flowed over the stones. He was dressed in soft garments of well-worn leather, and his cloak was a black wolfskin. As he walked, he dug in his pocket and drew out a gold ring with a black stone, and put it on the third finger of his left hand.
The air was cold after they left the heat of the forge, and Marcus drew in a deep breath as he felt the sweat cooling on his skin. He made for a covered storage shed near the outer wall and stepped in, pushing his hood back and turning to Ella.
“What news?” he asked.
She smiled. “Scouts have reported that a delegation from the Traders’ Council have passed the Middle Watch and are making their way here under a banner of truce. They should be here any minute.”
Marcus raised his eyebrows disbelievingly. “Really? I’m surprised! Surely it’s some trick?”
Ella shrugged. “We’ll find out soon enough, but I doubt that it’s a trick. After all, what could they do? They have been worse affected than us this past month. It’s in their interest to have peace. After all, we do not threaten them.”
Marcus stepped out of the covered shed. “Let’s go up onto the walls and see.”
They made their way to a flight of steep steps that gave access to the top of the wall. The outer defensive ring was fifteen feet high, and five feet thick, meaning that two men could pass each other easily on the top. A further three feet of battlement gave some protection against projectiles. The ring wall was broken by a single gate, facing toward Kraken City.
A slum dweller, dressed in new-forged chainmail and carrying a gleaming spear saluted Marcus smartly as he and Ella gained the top of the wall. Marcus nodded acknowledgement to the guardsman and stepped to the battlement, looking out over the gray mile of wasteland between the stronghold and the slums.
Sure enough, about midway between the two, a small group of people were making their slow way toward the stronghold. It looked like there were about ten of them, and they were carrying a white banner that hung limp and sodden in the endless rain.
“Well, who would have believed it,” Marcus said. “You’re right. They’re coming to make a truce!”
Chapter 2
The Traders’ Council was a loose affiliation of the wealthiest, eldest, and best-connected of the Merchants’ Town traders. It was a body made up of seven permanent members, each representing one of the regions of Merchants’ Town, and seven temporary members, elected from the lower classes of merchants, traders, and artisans. The guilds had a council of their own, and mostly kept to themselves, though the two organizations did collaborate on occasion.
Since the battle, the occupants of Merchants’ Town had been seriously inconvenienced by the lack of cheap labor from the slums. For as long as anyone could remember, the slum district had provided a steady stream of laborers to work on the docks and in the warehouses, usually for only a token salary. The council, horrified by the rising of the slum dwellers and the appearance of the strong and as-yet-unknown new power of Marcus and the Gutter Gang so near the city, had closed the Middle Watch against them. The Middle Watch was a long ring of stone wall and defensive ditch that separated the slums from the Merchants’ Town. A man could pass up from the slums if he had a work permit or enough money to bribe the guards, but mostly the two classes of people had been kept apart.
But the closing of the Middle Watch had consequences. The hundreds of slum dwellers who had been generally available for exploitation as cheap labor had nearly all come over to Marcus, and he had paid them better and treated them better than they had ever thought possible before. Now, there was a severe shortage of labor on the docks, and the flow of goods in and out of the mighty stone wharves at the heart of the docklands had slowed to a trickle. Prices had begun to fluctuate wildly and the exchange rate for Kraken City’s coinage had dropped through the floor, forcing the Council to mint more money. Worst of all, there were even rumors that trading ships had begun to bypass Kraken City and make their way straight from Doran in the north to the Isles of the Sun to the south. This was a dangerous passage, rife with pirates and other threats, but a merchant captain will dare much for a reliable price.
All this Marcus had learned from Anja and Ben, who together made up one of his two adventurer teams. Anja had led the slum dwellers in their rebellion during the battle, and she and Ben had set up camp in Marcus’s new stronghold in the following weeks. They had been a great help, traveling to the docks to purchase supplies, and overseeing some of the ongoing work. Marcus’s other adventurer team was a group of three duelists led by the flamboyant Jonah the Thrice-Blooded. Jonah and his men had shown up for the battle as well, but afterward he had begged Marcus’s leave to return to the Duelists’ Plaza in the docklands. The duelists were a class of fighters-for-hire who did a steady trade fighting honor bouts on behalf of rich merchants and traders in the city, and Jonah did not want his guild to suffer the negative consequences that an association with Marcus would certainly bring.
Marcus understood. For the duelists, nothing was more important than honor. He let Jonah go and told him he would be welcome to return once things had settled.
“Will you make a truce with the Traders’ Council?” Ella asked, tearing him from his thoughts.
Marcus nodded slowly. The delegation was inching their way toward the stronghold. They were a small group of brightly dressed figures, their rich clothes of yellow, blue, red, and green seeming to shine out in the gray expanse of the wasteland like a candle in a darkened room. The featureless dark gray sky stretched across the horizon, and the dark bulk of Kraken city loomed up tier upon tier behind the little figures.
Above the stone and slate roofs of Merchants’ Town lay the mysterious Tower District, Kraken City’s upper level. That was where the high nobles dwelt, in soaring towers of glass and steel, with flying machines and other strange technologies at their command. Their area was always wreathed in mist and hidden from view by a magical barrier. As Marcus looked at the wide-stretched view in front of him, he thought he caught a glimpse of the sun glinting on metal up there through the mists, but perhaps it was just an illusion. For now, the high nobles of the Tower District were not what concerned him. He was concerned with the Traders’ Council.
“Oh, I’ll make a truce with them,” Marcus said to Ella. “But it’ll be on my terms. Come on. Let’s get inside. I’ll meet them in the main study.”
The internal spaces of the stronghold were still under construction, but the lower levels were complete. Here, Kairn had instructed the builders to work in the dwarven style, creating many rooms in a small space, connected by narrow corridors and steep staircases. This made the best use of the area, leaving more space for rooms, cupboards, and storage, but it made the access areas narrow and warren-like. The inside of the stronghold was lit with flaming torches in sconces, casting flickering shadows on the walls as Marcus and Ella made their way up to the first floor study.
Here, through a narrow door, they found themselves in a spacious room. The contrast between the bright, cozy room and the dark corridor was refreshing, and Marcus smiled as he swung off his cloak and hung it on the peg.
“Ella,” he asked, “will you go and tell Kairn, Anja, and Jay what’s happening, please. Tell them to meet me here, and find Dirk as well. He should be here to represent the slum dwellers.”
Ella nodded and hurried off. As Marcus made himself comfortable in the spacious study, a powerfully built, red-coated dog who was curled in front of the fire stood and shook himself.
“All well, Hammer?” Marcus asked as the dog loped over to bump against him and nose his hand.
“Be good if you could stoke the fire
up,” the dog suggested. He sniffed Marcus’s pocket. “Got any treats in there? Smells like you’ve got some cured beef.”
Marcus smiled, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a stick of dried meat. He tossed it to the dog, who caught it neatly in his huge jaws and went off to one side of the hearth to devour it.
Not everyone could understand Hammer’s speech, but understanding the tongues of animals was one of Ella’s magical traits. When Marcus and Ella had allied, that power had passed to him. It was incredibly useful to be able to communicate directly with Hammer, even if most of the dog’s conversation these days revolved around asking for treats. Hammer had belonged to Diremage Xeron’s household, but he had chosen to come along with Marcus and Ella when they had escaped from Xeron’s manse up in the city, all those weeks ago when this whole adventure had begun. Neither Hammer nor Marcus had ever had cause to regret the arrangement.
As Hammer noisily devoured his strip of beef in the corner, Marcus shoveled coal onto the embers of the fire and stirred it with the poker until the flames danced in the grate. Hammer, half the chewy treat dangling from one side of his mouth, moved back to claim his prime spot in front of the warmth. He gripped the meat between his big forepaws and worked at it with his back teeth. When he was finished, he sniffed the rug thoroughly to make sure nothing had been missed, then sighed contentedly and stretched out to warm his belly.
The dog’s big eyes followed Marcus as he moved to a side-table and poured a glass of Ashmolean brandy, a rare and expensive drink that came from the Isles of the Sun.
“Is it still raining?” Hammer asked after a moment.
“Can’t you hear it?” Marcus replied.
“Hm. Yeah. I can smell it, too. Can’t smell anything else.”
“You don’t like the rain, do you, big guy?” Marcus asked, bringing his drink over to the fire and crouching to scratch the soft spot behind Hammer’s ears.
The dog groaned contentedly and stretched. “It’ll be good once the rainy season’s over,” he agreed, before dropping into a light sleep.
The room’s walls were stone, but the floor was wood, covered with rugs of bear skin, wolf skin, and woven sheep’s wool for warmth. There were shelves of books, scroll racks, a couple of glass cases with items of value on display in them. At the back of the room, against one wall, a weapon rack held Marcus’s longsword, a short battleaxe that Kairn had made for him in the forge, and his dungeon mace.
He looked at the dungeon mace. The green crystal at its core held his dungeon chambers, ready to be placed by magic when he willed it. He was tempted to reach out to the mace and see what the status of the dungeons was, but he knew it was futile. He had other things to think about just now, and he turned away.
A big window let the gray daylight in through panes of whorled glass, illuminating a big desk of dark wood that was covered in papers.
The narrowness of the corridors meant that large pieces of furniture like this had to be built in the rooms they were intended to furnish. Marcus smiled as he remembered the carpenters—a talented team from one of the slum families—working in the room early on. As a mark of respect for Marcus, they had equipped this study first. There was a snug bedroom in an adjoining room where he slept most nights, and on the opposite side of the chamber, about six feet from the floor, there was an entrance to a small room where Ella had a small mattress and window of her own.
He sat down at his desk and cast his eye over the papers. There was work here in several languages. He had begun an account of his adventures with the dungeons so far, and a description of the battle of the Underway. During his early years in the thieves’ guild, Marcus had received an extensive education. He had learned to read and write in three languages, as well as learning the many arts of the thief—stealth, weaponry, climbing, and deception. He had reached the higher apprentice status and been granted three magic spells, enchantments that he could cast to divert the attention of an enemy, to break locks, and to detect traps and magical wards.
That had all been before he had been cast out of the guild. A bungled robbery had caused him to have a bounty put on his head, and that was a non-negotiable line in the sand for the thieves’ guild. The worst of it was that it had been no fault of his. His companion in the robbery had gotten away, but Marcus had been seen. The guildmasters were regretful—Marcus had been a promising student—but there was no way around it. Marcus had been exiled from the guild, and had been obliged to take an oath swearing that he would never operate on behalf of the guild, nor claim their protection.
They had not taken his spells or his skills, however, and he had put them to good use as a member of the Gutter Gang up to the day when he had rescued Ella from captivity and become the master of dungeons.
He smiled as he looked at his clear, firm handwriting on the rough paper. He had not used his writing skills for a long time, and he was rusty. As he practiced, however, he found that the skill quickly returned to him. His hand had ached at first, but soon he became stronger at it. Now, he often sat up late into the night, his quill and ink bottle to hand, writing his account of all that was happening around him.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come,” he said, and the door opened to reveal his friends and closest advisors.
Kairn Greymane wiped black soot from the forge off his shovel-like hands with a huge green handkerchief. His iron-gray beard covered his broad chest and big belly, and his gray eyes gleamed when he spotted the brandy bottle on the side table.
Jay was next. He was a tall man with a short salt-and-pepper beard and a weather-beaten face. His black eyes were as bright and watchful as a hawk’s. Jay was the founder of the Gutter Gang, and had been their spiritual leader for a long time. He was blessed with visions of the future, but for many years, he had been blind, his body broken down by old age. Now, the influence of Marcus’s dungeon magic had performed a miracle—it had restored his eyesight and his vigor, but it had robbed him of his prophetic visions. Jay assured Marcus that he was content with the exchange.
Anja, small and lithe, with long dark hair loose about her shoulders, was the most capable and intelligent of Marcus’s dungeon adventurers. She wore light leather armor from head to foot and carried a plain, serviceable sword on one hip and a steel dagger on the other. Her boots were spattered with mud, and her woolen cloak was sodden with the rain. She hung it up on the hook by the door and smiled her hard, knowing smile at Marcus as she walked to the fire and stripped off her leather gloves to warm her hands at the blaze.
Hammer stirred, groaned, opened one eye, and raised one ear at the newcomers, and Anja crouched to scratch his ears.
Dirk came through the door last, Ella flying at his shoulder. Dirk Ninelives, as he was called, was a small, wiry man in his early thirties, quick-eyed and quick-witted. His hair was thin, showing his scalp above a high, lined brow. Dirk was not a strong or a bulky man, and carried no weapon save his belt-knife, but he was said to be deadly in a brawl despite his stature.
Dirk was the closest thing to a leader that the slum dwellers had. With no formal arrangement of a council like the upper levels of the city, the slum dwellers were loosely represented by a group of wise elders who settled disputes among the folk. However, Dirk Ninelives was the one they went to when swift action needed to be taken. He got his name because of his remarkable talent for avoiding almost certain death in ridiculously risky situations—people said that he was like a cat in having nine lives. Coupled with his quick, penetrating gaze and his constant watchful aura, he certainly was as catlike as a man could be.
Marcus had felt a little unsure of Dirk at first. He was clearly a man who knew more than he said, and never gave away more than he had to. But the slum dwellers trusted him implicitly, and since they were the most affected by the changing relationship with the rest of Kraken City, it made sense to have him here to represent their interests.
When everybody was in, Marcus explained the situation to them quickly and laid out the terms he
would offer the delegation from the city. Everyone agreed that it would benefit all concerned for open relations to be re-established with the Traders’ Council and the rest of Merchants’ Town, but they also agreed with Marcus that it could only happen if a better arrangement was put in place—one that guaranteed the slum dwellers’ right to be treated fairly and paid properly.
“It’s a simple enough demand,” Marcus said, “and I’m sure we’ll not have too much trouble with them. These people are traders to the bone. They’ll see the advantages once we lay them out clearly.”
When the Traders’ Council delegation arrived, they met with a united front in Marcus’s study. The little room was crowded, and the seven members of the delegation were forced to stand, dripping, with their backs to the door while Marcus sat in his chair behind the desk, flanked by his closest friends. Ella, not wanting to show herself to the council, had retreated to her alcove.
Their leader, a massive, white-bearded trader named Robert Strongfellow, made it clear from the get-go that they were here to make terms whatever it took.
“We have no quarrel with you, Marcus,” he said with all the dignity he could muster, and all the others nodded and muttered agreement. “But we do not like change. Change is bad for trade, and what’s bad for trade… well, you understand. But we recognize that you have a right to be here as much as any of us do, and we ask that you come to terms with us to allow the flow of trade and labor to move freely in the city again.”
They haggled when Marcus laid out his terms—it was in their nature to haggle, after all—but in the end they agreed to everything. The hardest thing for them was to accept that workers from the slums must be paid on a fixed scale, and that no merchant had the right to strike a slum dweller.
Robert Strongfellow huffed and clenched his fat hands and blew into his great white beard, and his companions grumbled and raised their hands in frustration, but it was clear that Marcus was not bluffing and would not be negotiated down. Marcus glared at them, and Dirk Ninelives fixed Strongfellow with his piercing gaze, and eventually the traders conceded the point.