by Logan Jacobs
We left Zarina’s directly to the guard headquarters in the center of the city. The building was directly next to the charter office where we turned in our bounties, but I hadn’t paid much attention to it before. In truth, there wasn’t that much to look at, anyway, at least not compared to the palace-like charter office with its grand white pillars or the Arcane University Tower nearby that shimmered from every angle of its mirrored surface.
The guard headquarters was comparatively bland, designed for function over beauty, a single-story, rectangular building of gray stone. The little patch of grass that surrounded it was kept neatly trimmed, but it was nothing compared to the potted roses and manicured topiaries that stood outside the university tower and the charter office. The headquarters itself mostly suffered from the same lack of ornamentation, though at some point someone had clearly tried to make it fit in with the surrounding buildings by having some stone reliefs added to the walls on either side of the main entrance.
These reliefs depicted the various peoples of the realm, from humans and elves to ladonae, panthera, orcs, dwarves, and others I couldn’t immediately recognize, all standing hand in hand. A few were dressed in the formal version of the city guard’s uniform, and I supposed they were all meant to be singing since their mouths were all shaped into Os. The problem was, their expressions didn’t really make it clear what their mood was meant to be. They didn’t look like they were singing out of the spirit of harmony and joy. I guessed that the artist had meant to convey the look of a person lost in their song, earnest and heartfelt. The singers instead appeared rather pained. Maybe a little gassy. Either way, it wasn’t a great look.
To add insult to injury, the reliefs seemed to have become the favorite nesting site of the city’s pigeons, and a couple years’ worth of white slime coated all the singers. Most had nests in their open mouths or tucked into the crooks of their shoulders. It didn’t exactly inspire a feeling of pride in one’s city, and I had to wonder what the criminal classes of Ovrista or visiting diplomats thought of the guards because of it. How could they keep the city in order when their own headquarters looked like this? I supposed that the city hadn’t descended into chaos and lawlessness yet, at least.
We headed quickly up the narrow stone walkway and entered the building. The inside was just as sparsely decorated and drab as the outside, but at least there wasn’t pigeon shit everywhere. There were a few chairs organized around a coffee table just off the doors on the right-hand side of the room, to give the impression of a waiting room, though I expected the guard headquarters saw few visitors, if any.
As if to confirm my theory, the young ladona man behind the front desk looked up in surprise when we entered, set down the book he’d been reading, scooted his chair across the floor, and leaned forward attentively.
“Good morning,” he called pleasantly before the whole of our party had even stepped through the doors. “How can I help you?”
I still had the bandit’s note and Zarina’s decrypted copy in my hand, and I brought them up to the desk.
“I guess you could say it’s a tip,” I told the ladona man. He had on a nametag that read Cassio. I spread out the papers on the desk. “My guild and I were attacked by bandits on our way back to the city earlier today. We discovered this note on them and managed to decipher some of it. We believe they were among a larger group that plans to rob a number of houses here in Ovrista. We don’t know for sure, but we think it’s supposed to happen on the blood moon in a few days.
Cassio raised his eyebrows and looked over the papers. “Well, that would really be something,” he said finally. He had seemed more excited to see us than he was to receive news of a potential heist.
“Are you going to do anything?” I prompted when he passed the papers back across the desk to me.
“Oh, yes, of course,” the ladona man replied, though his tone suggested more of a spirit of friendly customer service than actual alarm. “I’ll let the captain know as soon as he returns from lunch.”
“Don’t you think you should write any of that down?” I asked with a frown. I’d been prepared for the guards to brush us off if we hadn’t been able to decode the note, but I’d thought that the information we’d brought had to be a cause for a bit more concern on their part.
“Certainly.” Cassio’s friendly smile became a little strained as he made a quick copy of the note on a piece of paper. I got the sense that he’d done it just to appease me. “Is there anything else that I can help you all with today? Perhaps a tour?”
“You do tours here?” Emeline asked. She sounded genuinely interested, but we had more important matters to deal with.
“Maybe we should wait for the captain and tell him ourselves,” I suggested. We would try to stop this heist before it started, but we were still working with incomplete information, and I would feel better if I knew the city had some defenses in place, just in case, and I didn’t trust Cassio to take this as seriously as he should.
“Tell the captain what, exactly?” came a deep, gruff voice from behind us.
We all turned to face the man who had just walked through the door. He was barrel-chested and square-jawed, and his brow was furrowed into a deep frown. His bright orange hair was shaved into a no-nonsense buzzcut, and there was a nasty-looking scar through his left eyebrow.
He was also about three and a half feet tall.
“Are you the captain?” I asked the halfling.
“What?” he shot back, as though the mere question annoyed him. “’Course I’m not the captain.” He scoffed. “Who’d be stupid enough to take on that job, eh? Get trapped behind a desk all day, filling out paperwork, when there are criminals running around? What this place needs is some good old-fashioned law and order.” When he got to the last part, he brandished each of his fists, and I saw that the words “law” and “order” had been tattooed across his hairy knuckles. He pulled out a flask as he strode up to us and took a swig.
“Dehn, you can’t drink on duty,” Cassio protested, and I could tell by the pleading note in his voice that this was not the first time he’d had this conversation with the halfling. “Gods, at least not in the building. You’re making us look bad.”
“I’m not the one making us look bad,” Dehn replied with a wag of his finger. “You want to blame someone, blame the brass who are too concerned with their damn politics to do anything that needs doing around here.” He snorted derisively and turned back to me and the rest of the guild. “Now, what’s the problem?”
I found myself exchanging a quizzical glance with Cassio before I answered. I didn’t have the slightest idea of who this Dehn character was and I wasn’t sure if I ought to trust him. Still, he obviously worked here, he was standing right in front of me in the city guard uniform, though his shirt was untucked, and his pants were rumpled.
The halfling raised his shaggy eyebrows impatiently at me. At least he seemed enthusiastic about controlling crime in the city. Perhaps he was the right person to talk to if Cassio wasn’t going to take our concerns seriously.
“We found a note on some bandits we encountered earlier,” I explained quickly as I held out the papers to Dehn. “We think a few groups are planning some sort of heist.”
Dehn frowned over the papers and took another drink from his flask. We waited.
“Yep,” the halfling stated after a moment, and he rubbed his stubbly chin. “That looks like a heist plan if I ever saw one.”
“We’re going to try to find the rest of the groups involved and put a stop to this,” I said, “but we thought it might be wise for the guard to increase security around these houses in the meantime.” I cut another glance to Cassio, who looked as though he’d just been forced to swallow a slug.
“Well?” Dehn barked at the ladona man. “File a report for the captain! He’d hate to miss out on any of his damned paperwork.” Then the halfling turned to me and attempted to clap me on the shoulder, but he was only able to reach my elbow. “Now, if you want to actually g
et something done about this, I’m your man. I’ve been beating up bandits since I was a boy. If you’re tracking them down, I’ll join you, offer my expertise.”
“Uh...” I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond. I’d hoped to have more guards out on the streets, I didn’t expect any of them would actually want to leave the city to join us, and while I appreciated Dehn’s enthusiasm, and I was sure his experience would be useful, there was the small matter of my existence as a practitioner of illegal magic. The guard wasn’t affiliated with the Mage Academy, but would Dehn care if I was a manipulator?
The halfling took yet another swig from his flask, belched, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
On second thought, it was possible he wouldn’t even notice or would assume anything strange that he did see was an effect of alcohol. I’d been able to keep my magic a secret from Emeline for a while, and she was much more suited to recognizing it. Maybe it would be good to have the guard tag along. I could be careful about my magic, and he could help us take care of the bandits. I looked over at the rest of my guild behind me to gauge their reactions to the halfling’s proposition. Maruk was trying to hide his obvious distaste for Dehn’s manners, but Lavinia caught my eye.
“The extra muscle couldn’t hurt,” she said, one brow raised.
“How much would you be charging for your... expertise?” Aerin asked with a measured look at the halfling.
“Bah, money!” Dehn waved the question off. “I don’t care about that, I care about putting the hurt on some no-good thieves. You want my help or not?”
Aerin shrugged. “Sounds like a good deal to me.”
“How many criminals have you arrested?” Lena asked the halfling with interest.
“Have I ever had to kill anyone?” Dehn repeated. “Of course I have! The criminals of this city may be a pack of rotten, mangy curs, but they’ll still bite if you let ’em. Only thing to do is lock ’em up or put ’em down. I prefer the later.”
“How many people have you killed?” Emeline’s green eyes were wide.
“Emeline--” Maruk interjected with a disapproving frown.
“Eh, I stopped keeping track,” Dehn replied with a wave. “There’s always one more to go, that’s what I say.”
“That is remarkably cynical,” Maruk said, but the halfling ignored him.
I took Lena and Emeline’s interest in Dehn’s work as an indication that they were in favor of the guard joining us for this mission. Maruk was still looking down his nose at the halfling, but given the incredible height difference between the two of them, there wasn’t much other way for the orc to look.
Dehn’s experience could prove useful, and at the very least, he could provide another target for their arrows when we found them. If he started to become more trouble than he was worth, we could just send him back to Ovrista.
“Um, sure, you can tag along,” I answered finally, and the halfling flashed an exuberant grin and punched me on the arm.
“Excellent!” he cried. “Been a while since I was able to actually do something other than patrol and sit on my ass filling out paperwork. Let’s go!”
“Er, shouldn’t you let your captain know you’re leaving first?” I asked.
“There’s no need to stay, it’ll be fine,” Cassio said quickly. “Dehn, I’ll uh, I’ll let the captain know you’re taking some personal days, shall I?”
“Tell him whatever you want,” Dehn replied with a wave of his hand. He grinned as he yanked out the last part of his shirt that was still tucked into his waistband, sauntered back through the doors, and left the rest of us to follow him.
Chapter 3
Dehn turned to us and clapped his hands as we joined him outside.
“So,” he said loudly, “which hive of villainy are we gonna crush first?”
“Actually, I think we should still try to bring this up with the council,” Aerin said. “At least so we can negotiate some sort of reward for all this work we’re about to do.”
“If they’ll even listen to us.” Lavinia crossed her arms. “That guard didn’t even take us seriously, and that’s his whole job.”
“Several of the houses on that list belong to council members,” Aerin replied. “I’m sure that will get their attention.”
“It’s worth a try, anyway,” I put in. “We should go.” I turned to the halfling guard. “We’re probably going to be out of the city for a few days, at least. If you need to go pack some supplies, we can meet you back here after we’ve met with the council.” The truth was, I wasn’t as concerned about Dehn’s needs as I was about the fact that the halfling smelled rather strongly of spirits already, and it was barely afternoon. Better we petition the council without him and meet him later.
To my relief, the guard gave a curt nod. “See you back here, then,” he said, and with a mock salute, he turned sharply on his heel, wobbled a bit, and then strode off down the street.
The rest of us started off in the opposite direction, past the charter office, and toward the city hall. The building was impossible to miss at four stories tall with floral moldings around the dozens of windows, a roof of turquoise tiles, and the clock tower rising above it all. The clock itself was kept illuminated from within at all hours and had a face on each of the tower’s four walls. It stood so high that the clock faces could be seen clearly from any point in the city, even the oft-neglected areas closest to the walls, and I’d learned recently that it was the only structure in Ovrista that was taller than the Arcane University Tower. This fact seemed to be a point of pride for many city officials, and I had to wonder if it had anything to do with the unspoken rivalry between Ovrista’s governing body and the Mage Academy.
Dutifully manicured trees lined the multiple pedestrian paths that led toward the city hall like the spokes of a wheel, and their golden leaves shivered in the slight breeze as we passed beneath them. Nearly half the leaves had fallen off the branches by this time of the year, but either due to some enchantment or the efforts of some overworked civil servants, the paths had been swept completely clear of them. I kept my eye out for any leaves that fell to see what would happen, half-suspecting that they would vanish the moment they touched the pavement, but none fell before we reached the grand double-doors of the city hall.
As I stepped into the cool antechamber with its checkerboard-tiled floor, polished to a shine, I suddenly became aware of how travel-worn we all were. We hadn’t stopped to change since we’d gotten back, and we were all covered in dried mud, blood, scorch marks, and other souvenirs of our recent battle. That was more or less typical in the charter office, which saw dozens of guilds rotating through, returning with bounties or preparing to set out, but city hall wasn’t frequented by the likes of us, and we definitely looked out of place. Well, I figured that if the upper-crust of Ovrista didn’t want guilds stomping around in their shiny city hall, they’d at least be willing to address our concerns promptly in order to get us to leave.
There was a large desk of dark wood on the left side of the room, and a small, blond elven man sat behind it with his hands folded neatly in front of him as he waited to receive us. Even from about twenty feet away, I could tell that his smile was forced.
I glanced back to the others. Emeline, Maruk, and Lena all had their heads craned back as they admired the intricate painting on the ceiling, a nature scene with rolling hills, fluffy clouds, and fluffier sheep. Lavinia was trying to scrape mud off the bottom of her boot against the molding along the floor, and Aerin elbowed her in the ribs and gave her a disapproving frown. The ladona woman mimicked Aerin’s expression mockingly, and I set my shoulders as I started for the desk.
I hadn’t gone more than a few steps, however, before a group of men strode out of one of the rooms in front of us, and I nearly crashed into a tall mage in trim silver robes. I stopped short, and my heart skipped a beat as I recognized him. Eamon Maderel, High Mage of Ovrista’s Mage Academy. He was flanked by two other senior mages in gray, and three men who wore the red sashes tha
t identified them as members of the city council followed after them.
They had been in the middle of a conversation, and one of the council members was still talking, but I didn’t hear anything he said, because at that moment, Eamon Maderel turned his cold gray eyes on me. When our eyes met, I got the acute sense that the mage was able to look right into my head and read all my thoughts, and I looked away automatically. My gaze fell instead on the silver pin that Maderel wore on his cloak, fashioned to resemble a wolf’s head, and I could have sworn that it was looking at me, too.
“Excuse us,” I started to say, with every intention of slipping past the mages and going over to the reception desk to schedule our own appointment with the council, when Eamon Maderel reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Vega, isn’t it?” he asked, though his tone indicated that he didn’t actually need me to confirm it, and before I could have, he went on. “I was just telling Lord Outen here about you and your guild.”
My blood was ice.
“This young man and his guild,” Maderel’s gaze passed over me to the others behind me where they shifted nervously, “are the ones who dealt with that small problem we had a few weeks ago, the night with all those... charming fireworks.”
He had to be talking about Cuvier, the blood mage who’d tried to have Emeline executed before we killed him and exposed his crimes to the rest of the Academy, that much was obvious. What was far less obvious was why Eamon Maderel was here discussing that with the city council at all.
“I’ve told you,” one of the council members, who I guessed was Outen, replied forcefully, “that was Mage Academy business. There’s no reason for the city guard to be involved. You mind your tower, we’ll mind the streets.”
Maderel gave him a slow smile. “Think on it, please, councilor.” While his words were perfectly diplomatic, there was something to the High Mage’s tone that made his request, however politely worded, sound instead like an order. “Ovrista is our city, too, after all.”