“Hey, Carrot, Rolly, look what we have here,” came Hugo’s malicious voice.
“You broke my nose, you little runt,” Carrot said angrily, scowling at the young thief.
“And you made Hugo fall on me! Nearly crushed me he did! May even have busted a rib or two,” accused Rolly.
“Shut up, Rolly, you idiot. What’s in the bag, runt?”
“Nothing important, now leave me alone.”
“I’ll decide what’s important. Now hand over the bag and we’ll only beat you a little bit.”
With a sigh, Azerick slid the bag off his shoulder and set it down behind him. He turned as if to open the bag but instead grabbed the strap with both hands and swung it as hard as he could into Hugo’s face, catching Carrot right in the nose on the follow through. He slung the bag back onto his shoulder and ran, hitting Rolly with his shoulder and spinning the youth around as he sprinted past.
With a curse from Hugo, all three ran in pursuit with Carrot holding his now twice-broken nose. Once again, Azerick found himself chased down the streets and alleys of the common quarter toward the old industrial district. He knew he could not run straight to his hideout, and not only because he was afraid of giving away his best kept secret, but because the three thugs were rapidly closing the lead on his slight head start.
He needed to either slow down his pursuers or lighten his load, so he slipped the bag off his shoulder as he sprinted around the corner of the next alley, stopped, and extracted the pry bar from the bag. He listened as the pounding foot falls drew closer and readied his weapon. Azerick lashed out with the pry bar just as the three rounded the corner and caught Rolly, who was the thinner and faster of the bunch, across the shin with the heavy length of steel.
With a loud cry of pain, Rolly tumbled face first onto the cobbled street, just barely able to cushion his fall with his out-flung hands. Hugo came next, tripped over Rolly’s prone form, and crushed the already injured boy’s face into the unyielding stone. Azerick swung the bar into Carrot’s stomach as he tried to jump over his two friends to avoid tripping over them while still holding his nose in an attempt to stanch the flow of blood.
The pry bar caught him in mid leap dead in the midriff and blasted the air from his lungs. The force of the expulsion created a spray of blood from Carrot’s brutalized nose as he too plowed helplessly into the hard cobblestones. Hugo was on all fours trying to regain his feet and got a heavy wallop across the kidneys with the pry bar for his effort.
“Next time you see me, I strongly suggest you leave me the hell alone,” Azerick warned the trio.
Azerick slipped the steel bar back into his sack and hoisted it onto his shoulder. He quickly made for home with only curses and threats now chasing him as he ran down the alley, thinking to himself that one day those three were going to make him pull sharp steel, and not everyone would be walking away then.
He finally made his way back to his home, tired but none the worse for wear, and took stock of his inventory. He pulled out the stiff, metal wires, worked them with the tools he had, and made them into a set of acceptable lock picks. He practiced with them on a couple of old locks he had scrounged up on one of his many forays for hours until he could open them in a matter of seconds. In the evening, he put on his new clothes and scouted out the homes of the city’s wealthier denizens trying to decide which ones had the most promise with the least risk.
***
Magus Aegir Illifan was sitting in his tower within Castle Stonemount studying an ancient tome about long dead kings, queens, wizards, and conquerors in hopes of discovering a clue to the location of another ancient artifact when a luminous falcon flew through his open window.
Magus Illifan was in his mid-sixties with shoulder-length grey hair shot through with traces of brown, but he still moved and sounded like a man of middle years. He had once taught at The Academy, but he had decided to travel and study for several years before King Jarvin appointed him as one of his leading counselors and Court Mage.
That is Alleel's sending. They must have discovered something, the wizard thought.
The Magus extended his arm for the magical messenger bird to land. As soon as the falcon lit upon his arm, it burst into tiny motes of light that drifted to the floor before disappearing, its message transferred to the recipient in a series of vivid images as soon as they touched.
"This is not good, not good at all," the wizard muttered to the empty room and rushed out in search of the King.
It took the wizard nearly thirty minutes to find King Jarvin. He eventually flagged down a serving maid who had just sent hot wine and bread to the King's library. He rushed toward the library to deliver his news to his liege. When he burst into the room, he found King Jarvin sitting in a high-backed chair across from Bishop Caalendor.
"Ah, Magus Illifan, please join us. The Bishop and I were just discussing some rumors of Dundalor's armor he was able to uncover within some scrolls in the church's archives. Have you any news of Captain Brellion's progress?" Jarvin asked his court mage.
"Yes, Your Majesty, but I fear it is not at all good. Captain Brellion and his party fought their way through to the citadel's vast underground caverns. They found the sorcerer king's deep chamber where sat a large suit of armor, the central piece composing Dundalor's breastplate."
"So the sorcerer king had the breastplate all these years, fantastic!" the Bishop said enthusiastically, interrupting the wizard's oratory.
Aegir continued, "When Captain Brellion and his party approached the artifact, it, along several other suits of armor, animated and mercilessly attacked his party. Several men were slain including the Sumaran, Khalar."
"That is most unfortunate. He was a good man and Captain Brellion's close friend, if memory serves," Jarvin said, bowing his head in a silent prayer for the fallen man.
"Your memory is correct, Your Majesty. They were able to defeat the magical constructs, including the one wearing Dundalor's breastplate, but not before Magus Alleel was severely injured. They interred the dead in the great chamber and carried their wounded as well as the artifact back to the surface. However, they were ambushed by a large group of unknown men barely a mile from the citadel. Magus Alleel regained consciousness just long enough to see Captain Brellion and several others fall and send me this message. I fear the breastplate has been lost," concluded the wizard.
"Damn it all to the abyss and back!" Jarvin shouted as he sprang to his feet and paced the room. "That is the third group I have lost on these expeditions. Are you sure it was humans and not orcs or goblins from the fortress?"
The Magus shook his head. "Alleel was confident it was men and not beasts, sire. I was able to see what she saw in the last few moments of her life and concur with her observations."
"I haven't the men to spare on these lark hunts without anything to show for it. We must find a way to recover at least part of Dundalor's Armor. If we cannot control it in its entirety, we can at least prevent my enemies from acquiring the complete suit. Gentlemen, we must obtain that armor at any cost," the King insisted.
"Of course, Your Majesty, but who else can we send? Your special guard is already severely short on men, and the Blackguard is in even more dire shape. It will take years to train and replace the slain Blackguards, and their numbers were never great to begin with. I fear if we send any more of your personal guard your enemies may send an assassin," the hawk-faced bishop warned.
The weary king scratched at his beard before speaking. "I must think on this. Thank you for bringing me news, Magus. Allow me to ponder this alone for now, but if you conceive of any way to alleviate this problem please come to me immediately. You two are my closest advisors, and I need your good counsel now more than ever."
The King dismissed his two advisors and slumped back down in his chair, swirling his wine, and thinking on the unfortunate events just brought to him.
CHAPTER 9
Azerick identified three splendid houses that often had the shutters open on the upper flo
ors to let in the evening air, had fences low enough to scale with ease, and few guards. They each had a great deal of flora growing in the manicured lawns the wealthy took so much pride in but also provided excellent concealment for would-be burglars.
Now he needed to find out when the inhabitants of the elaborate homes would be away for at least a few hours in the evening so he could complete his audacious raid. Some daring thieves would break in even when the owners were at home, and the most heartless would slay them without a thought if they were unfortunate enough to wake and confront the intruder. But even in these hard times, that was a rare occurrence.
You could not have too many of the wealthy or noble families being murdered, or that would cause a great crackdown on the thieves guild, and the guild masters were not about to let that happen. More than once, justice for a slain noble or rich merchant came not from the Watch but from the guild itself. The overzealous thief’s body would be found dead, hanging from the statue outside of the Watch’s headquarters or the elaborate iron gate of the dead man’s manor itself, often with a note of confession and apology written in the hand of the thief, or a guild boss if the murderer was illiterate.
This was of no concern to Azerick. He would run like the wind before confronting anyone within the house. He continued to case the fine homes and kept an ear to the streets.
Azerick frequented the taverns in the area and offered himself as cheap day labor to the houses. It was by doing this that he was able to determine the perfect time to pull off his heist.
A stableboy had come down too sick to muck out the owner’s stables, so Azerick was able to get hired on by the house’s major domo to clean them out.
While eating a lunch provided by the kitchen staff, he listened to their gossip hoping to learn something useful. Azerick had tired of hearing about the latest tryst of the master or of the mistress when the scullery maids finally brought up a topic of interest.
It seemed there was a ball or gathering of some kind next week at the Duke’s castle, and the mister and missus would be attending until late in the evening. This was interesting indeed. Today was his last day of work. The regular stableboy would be back tomorrow, which would be plenty of time for everyone to forget all about him.
Azerick cased the manor house from the outside as best he could until the gardener or some other staff member chased him back to the stables. He knew the layout of the kitchen and even the hall and few rooms beyond when he “accidentally” took a wrong turn to use the privy. At the end of his workday, he collected his few coppers and returned to his own home beneath the streets.
He slept in the stable for the three days he worked and took special care to study the movements of the six guards patrolling the outside grounds. The master of the house, who was a sportsman, kept several hunting dogs on the premises. This could be a problem and a gamble he would not normally take, but he knew this house as he knew no other and so decided it was still worth the increased risk. He thought of how he could neutralize the threat of the dogs then laid down on his pallet and slept, reasonably certain of his solution to the dog problem.
The week passed, but far too slowly for Azerick’s taste. He spent nearly the entire time reading and practicing his lock picking skills. He made no forays into the streets, not wanting to risk being caught, injuring himself, or in any way jeopardize his chance at this job. He stayed up late the night prior and slept until early evening the night of the big job.
Azerick stole from his dark den about an hour before midnight, which should put him at the eastern-facing fence about a quarter to the hour. He had to make a couple of detours and hide in the shadows of an alley or building a few times to avoid the Watch and other pedestrians.
Once in the lower nobles quarter, he avoided everyone, city watch or not. He found it ironic that he found himself in the very quarter he had lived in, its inhabitants once his equals. Dressed in his new clothes, he was just another shadow on the street or side of a building.
Azerick had just made it to the manor house as the distant bell toll sounded the hour. He watched the fence until he saw the house guard stroll past. A few minutes later, he was over the wall and on the grounds of the manicured lawn. He darted from sculpted hedge to sculpted hedge toward the side of the grand house itself.
Plastered smooth, the walls gave him nothing to grip to climb up. Instead, he skulked along the side of the house until he came to a mature maple tree that brushed up against the wall. Azerick made the easy climb nearly to the top, which still left him a full story below the top of the mansion. However, it put him close enough to try to loop his silk rope over one of the decorative crenellations.
It took him nearly a half dozen tries before he was able to lasso one. Once he knew his rope was secure, Azerick swung out of the tree and lightly landed on the side of the house. That was the plan anyway. Instead, he twisted in midflight and struck the wall solidly with his left shoulder.
Azerick had just begun his careful climb up the side of the building when the second guard reached the spot where he had scaled the stone and wrought iron fence. Unfortunately, this guard had one of the master’s hounds with him, which instantly perked up at the new scent running across the lawn.
“What is it, boy? What do you scent?” the guard asked the hound as the dog followed Azerick’s trail.
The hound followed the unknown scent from the fence, around the fancy hedges, and along the wall to the big maple tree and was now sniffing along the base of the tree Azerick had just vacated a moment before.
The young intruder had cleverly prepared for this contingency. Fortunately, he was also clever enough to have coiled the excess rope around his neck and shoulder instead of leaving it to dangle down the wall for the guard to see and the hound to smell.
Bracing his feet against the wall and wrapping a loop of rope around his hand, Azerick slowly worked the drawstrings loose on the pouch hanging from his belt and reached inside. He grabbed a small fistful of finely ground red power he had purchased with his last few coins and several promises to Azeel, and tossed it out toward the tree and the dog beneath it.
The hound continued to circle the tree, snuffling loudly until it found some of the powerful spice Azeel actually put on his food. It was so strong, just carrying it in the bag nearly brought tears to his eyes.
The hound got just one whiff of the powder up its super-sensitive nose and went into a sneezing fit, running and rubbing its muzzle and face in the grass.
"What is it, boy? What'd ya get a hold of?" the guard asked futilely, running after the dog as it pawed at its nose to no avail.
Once they were sufficiently distracted, Azerick continued his ascent up the side of the house. It took less than a minute for him to reach the summit and pull himself over the decorative crenellation and onto the roof. Sweating profusely, he took a minute to rest with his back against the stone crenellation.
Azerick caught his breath and wiped the sweat from his brow. Unfortunately, it was with the same hand he had used to throw the noxious spice at the dog. With his eyes burning and watering, he cursed Azeel and his devil spice from the abyss, though only halfheartedly, knowing it saved him from the dog and may well save him again if he runs across more dogs inside or on the way out.
Azerick wiped his stricken eyes clean with his untainted sleeve and made his way across the roof once his eyes cleared enough to carry on with his mission. He went to a trap door in the roof, but he found it locked with no keyhole for him to attempt to pick.
He took his piece of flat steel, jammed it between the edge of the door and the wall and worked it around the edge of the trap door. Azerick located the simple bolt holding the portal shut, but he had no room to work the bar back. The thief gave up this approach without remorse, never expecting for an instant that access would be so easy. Azerick hunched over as he ran to the wall opposite the side he had climbed. He came to a corner where a series of rooms stood out from building forming a wing off the main structure.
Aze
rick fastened his rope to the roof once again and climbed down the L-shaped corner. He stopped at a shuttered window and secured the rope under his thighs with a loop that made an uncomfortable but stable seat that left his hands free to work. He took out his slim length of steel once again and slipped it between the two shutters. With an upward flick of his wrist, he tripped the latch that secured them and climbed inside.
It was dark, but the well-lit streets allowed enough light for his night-adjusted eyes to make out the larger details. The room was well kept and the bed perfectly made with no personal effects left out. He pulled his rope into the room and left it coiled on the floor below the open window. He thought about closing the shutter as he had found it, but that would put the room into total darkness. Azerick paused a moment to listen for any sounds or alarm that may have been raised by his intrusion. He heard nothing but the pounding of his own blood through his ears. He took several deep breaths to calm himself before making a closer inspection of the room.
Azerick stepped quietly across the room to a large wardrobe. Slowly opening it, he peered inside and found nothing but empty space. He opened several drawers of a dresser and found the same.
It must be a guest room. Just my luck.
A truly lucky man would have climbed right into the master’s bedroom and found piles of jewels that had not matched the Lady’s evening attire laying on top of the nightstand just waiting for him to pluck up and drop into his bag. Nevertheless, Azerick had never considered himself a terribly lucky man, and it continued to hold true tonight.
Azerick crossed the room and listened at the door. Still no sounds emanated from within the house. He pulled the handle down ever so slowly and eased the door open. The ornate, solid-wood door opened on well-oiled, perfectly balanced hinges without a sound. Azerick darted his head out and checked both directions of the hall. The floor was clear as far as he could see.
He stepped out into the carpeted hall, silent as a ghost. The young thief closed the door behind him but did not latch it. With his luck, it would lock behind him and he would have to take precious minutes picking the lock. Azerick looked at the lock and was reasonably confident he could pick it if he had to but would rather not find out. There were two more doors on each side of the hallway with a large set of double doors at the end.
The Sorcerer's Path Box Set: Book 1-4 Page 14