Lair of Killers

by Will Molinar

  Several people shouted all around the fracas as the jeweler continued to try and placate his costumer, his guards forgotten already. Anyone else nearby scattered as the looming foreign guards stood ready to hack anyone that presented a challenge or threat to their master.

  “Hey, you!”

  Anders felt something coming close, but he was too distracted by the shocking carnage. He did not quite turn away from the view before someone struck him from behind, and he went sprawling. The world spun.

  Chapter Six

  The marble pillars were beautiful in a decadent, blasé sort of way if one was into that kind of thing. It was no better than owning any other kind of junk. Such nonsense only weighed one down, no different than wearing a ball and chain. It was a subtle type of imprisonment where who owned who was undetermined.

  Still, Zandor was impressed with the workmanship. Many people worked very hard, and someone spent an awful lot of coin to make these fancy houses the way they were, so kudos to them. The mansion they were standing in front of was an impressive sight.

  “You like this, Jerry? Got a certain style to it, I guess.”

  Jerrod grunted. It was about the only sound he ever made towards Zandor, and he leaned against a colonnade, smoking. A couple of his men, hoods off, stood in the street talking. They laughed and joked, seeming at ease after the simple takeover of the wealthy quarter. It had all been over for a while.

  “See all this?” Zandor said and pointed at the palatial mansion arrayed before them. “This one here’s the governor’s mansion. Now it’s our home. We can do whatever the hell we want, just like up the coast at McDowell’s. The whole neighborhood is under our control. It’s pretty amazing what a few men can do with some uniforms, isn’t it?”

  Jerrod grunted again and spat on the ground. He seemed to be more interested in his smoke. “I s’pose.”

  “You suppose? You hear that boys? Our man Jerrod supposes.” They laughed. Zandor stepped closer to him. “See, Jerry, that’s your problem. You can’t appreciate all the work that went into this place. You can’t have any fun either.”

  Jerrod shook his head. “Yer a damn fool. It won’t be all that once they send some folks in to clear us out.”

  Zandor smiled. “Who they gonna send? Cops are on strike, fella. I made sure of it. City watch ain’t allowed to operate in this quarter, foreign owned and all that. Once I convince these fops only private security can win back the neighborhood… well, guess who they hire?”

  Zandor looked around at the men, a mixture of his people and the toughs. “Who, fellas? Who they gonna hire now that their security is found wanting?”

  They laughed. “Us!”

  Zandor slapped Jerrod on the shoulder, and the bigger man frowned. “Lighten up, Jerry. All this here, it’s ours. Let’s enjoy it while we can, yeah? You need to live life in the moment, son. All that stress, this life of yours, it’s gonna eat you up someday. Enjoy the spoils of war, my friend.”

  Jerrod shook his head. “We should take the goods and get out. Nothing else makes sense, you blasted idiots. In and out, no more.”

  Zandor felt a rush of annoyance and held back an angry retort. “Well, I say different. Didn’t I always teach you to look at the bigger picture? There’re opportunities here. It’s more than a few baubles, you lunkhead. Think for one damn minute.”

  Zandor could see the gears moving in Jerrod’s thick melon but not fast enough. “Listen. We set up here, running private security for these wealthy merchants. The arena and tents… well, we need to pay them fellas and Ignacio a visit. For now, though, we should run this thing into the ground for all its worth.”

  Jerrod shrugged. “Whatever you say. Would be easy to pop that prick Ignacio in the mouth a few times, if what you say is right.”

  Zandor felt his pulse race. “Listen, Jerry. I’m giving you another chance here, so try to show some damn appreciation, yeah?”

  Jerrod scoffed, tugged his shoulder away, and crossed his arms. “Whatever.”

  Zandor turned away, violence flashing in his mind. Doubts about having Jerrod killed before troubled him but the man had such great uses. Brutal, efficient, fearless, the son of a bitch did not muck about. He and his toughs could have ran any gambit, so far with shocking speed, and Zandor had plenty more jobs for them to do, including locking down the neighborhood further. There was a cruelty within their mentality, the full scope of which had not been realized yet, and Zandor was determined to bring it out.

  For the moment, it was worth dealing with Jerrod’s sullenness. If it got to the point where he was too big a hassle, Zandor would have killed him and been done with it. After that, he would take control of the toughs and soak in the ones that were trustworthy to behave into his own fold.

  “Hey Zee! Zee!”

  Zandor narrowed his eyes at the sight of Felix running up to him. The big blonde man was huffing and puffing, and it wasn’t like him to be so bamboozled.

  “What’s the problem, Felix?”

  “It’s… uh, they just…”

  “Breathe, will ya? Gadzooks, man. You runnin’ from the devil or something?”

  Felix took a second or two to catch his breath, and then pointed to the northeast. “We got word from Baker and his boys, guarding the forest behind the building there. They saw some men coming up.”

  “How many?”

  “’Bout ten maybe. Baker only has a few guys up there. They want reinforcements.”

  “Sure, let’s give ‘em some.” He patted Felix on the back and sent the man on his way. Zandor went back to where Jerrod was with his toughs. A simple plan formed in his mind.

  Whomever was trying to enter the neighborhood, whether it be some of the leftover private security or some other force the merchants had hired to retake their homes, they were at least being smart about where to enter. The woods to the northeast was the only accessible spot at the moment. Zandor and his people had shut down the front gate and made everywhere else difficult at best to get passed.

  Save for that patch of trees to the direct north of the city’s geographical limit. Much of the wealthy quarter was surrounded by sheer cliffs, impassable to anyone, and this made it the best place to hole up and wait for people to come to them. At some point they would come, chipping away at their defenses. This first foray was smarter than the direct approach, so his curiosity piqued.

  Maybe it was that Becket guy leading the charge. He was smart and capable, so maybe this was his initiative. Or maybe Lord Cassius. Zandor did not yet know enough about the man to have an opinion on whether or not he could be bribed or coerced.

  From what he gathered, Cassius used another noble, Lord Damour, as a figurehead, giving the foppish man a position without power but using him as a puppet to sway the royalty to his whims.

  Maybe Zandor could have kidnapped Damour and ransomed him to the king. Zandor knew the man was not among the fifty prisoners they had still locked up at the moment. When he had gone in deep with Becket and those couple dozen there, he thought it was a good risk to take and was resolved to see it through.

  But then if they went after the real royalty and even Cassius, they might have risked reprisal from the king. They were already pushing it to be so deep into the neighborhood. If the city could not have gotten things under control, it was only a matter of time before the foreign owners sent something heavier at them.

  Zandor would have a contract in place before that happened. Then they wouldn’t have to concern themselves with gleaning and clearing the mansions. They could do that if necessary, but it was a time consuming pain in the rear. Steady income was preferable to fencing the tons of goods in the wealthy quarter. It was still possible to take the arena and tents back. Ignacio and his boys would have to be dealt with, but first things first.

  At the moment they had to deal with some ranger wannabes intruding upon his turf. He found Jerrod there sulking and smoking.

  “Hey Jerry! Got a little job for you and your boys. It’d be nice for you to stretch t
hose long legs of your for a bit, yeah?” Zandor told him what to do.

  * * * * *

  A slight rain pelted the treetops by the time they reached the forest. The heavy drops of water, however, did not penetrate the thick canopy overhead so the men stalking through stayed dry.

  Jerrod was thankful for the little mercies. It was far better than being drenched and slogging it out through the muck and mire of what the forest would have been if it came harder from above. Unexpected things happened fighting in the mud. It made it complicated for both sides, and it also meant that the people who were not as good as the other side were at an advantage to those that were better.

  Jerrod had fifteen toughs with him, all good fighters, including the one named Donald. He was not too bright but reliable and strong. They carried short swords, better in the close confines of the woods, and wore leather armor. Jerrod had his favored long sword, not giving a fuck if it were appropriate or not. He sensed the toughs were uncomfortable not wearing their v-necks shirts as well as being in a forest instead of the streets of the city.

  Too damn bad.

  They met Zandor’s scouts deep in the woods, men with brown and green camouflage clothes that allowed them to blend in with their surroundings.

  “Jerrod, isn’t it?” one of them said and held out a hand. “I’m Goodwin.”

  Jerrod ignored the hand. “Where are they?”

  “Um, yes. Well, I think we might have scared them off. We killed one for certain, wounded another. They ran off.”

  “Where?”

  Goodwin pointed to the southeast. “That way. We have another group, two men. Name of Charles and Inigo. They are set up.”

  “Whatever. Stay here, and if they come back, kill every single one of them this time. Got it?”

  Jerrod did not wait for a reply, but as he turned away the fool muttered something about watching this point of entry or some other kind of bullshit.

  Jerrod divided his men into three groups and had hoped these scout fools would not start shooting arrows at them as they tracked the interlopers through the woods. He led one group of five east while the other two groups went north and south. These two wing groups would circle around and flush out the men trying to get in. Jerrod’s group in the center would kill them.

  Picking up their trail a few minutes later was easy. They were some fool city men trying to get in. Pffft. Even if they had tried to cover their tracks, Jerrod had the skills to find them. The woods were more dense than where he had his cabin, with taller trees but pockets of open space here and there. Maybe he could have rebuilt. Then he could have robbed these rich idiots any time and holed up in his cabin again, left alone. Jerrod would have gotten a regular whore and have her visit when he wanted. No, a different one every night, but then he would have to deal with her bullshit.

  Plenty of broken branches and even bits of bark torn off trees marked the forest floor, left by the clumsy dunderheads storming through the forest in retreat. More than a dozen of them armed with axes. The underbrush was thick in spots so that made sense.

  The fools perhaps thought people wouldn’t be watching from this location, knowing it was the best way into the neighborhood. They should have at least come during the night so they could take advantage of the cover it provided. Destroying brush was not so detrimental in that case.

  Wait. No one was this stupid. Jerrod held a hand up and motioned the men with him to stop. They all crouched down and waited, the forest floor crunching underfoot. This was a trap; designed to pull out some of the infestation from the neighborhood. It would have been an easy slaughter if they were ambushed here. That was why they ran off so fast when Zandor’s scouts attacked. It was a feint. Jerrod took a deep breath.

  Jerrod ignored some of postulation about Zandor being behind this, but the idea pissed him off. He rubbed his face feeling the coarse stubble there. It was the same length of the hair on his head but far less soft. The five men around him muttered.

  “Shut up, all of you!” Jerrod said. “I’m thinkin’ here. You wanna get killed?”

  They kept quiet.

  Jerrod stood and drew his sword. “Let’s take it nice and slow like, boys.”

  They followed, more alert and tense than a moment ago. The trees thinned out where he lost the trail. Studying the lower reaches of several trees gleaned no sign of passage.

  After a few minutes of mucking around in the mud, he found the trail again, and they followed it. Shouts rang out in the same direction. They ran towards it. Ambush or not, Jerrod was determined to make some of the fuckers dead. They dashed through the underbrush, Jerrod keeping a mental picture of where his other two teams should have been.

  A man busted through the foliage, and Jerrod took in as many details as he could in scant seconds: brown uniform, thick leather, heavy boots, truncheon on his belt, no sword in his hands. A private security man, no doubt. His eyes widened when he saw Jerrod and company. He tried to side step away, but Jerrod took a long stride forward and hacked him down with his long sword, severing half his chest from shoulder on down.

  Another man crashed through and stopped short, holding up his hands. “No! Wait!”

  Jerrod cut his left hand off before slicing into his neck. The blade cut deep. Blood spurted. The toughs were standing still, damn them, stunned at the sudden violence. The twang of a bow string made Jerrod duck and roll, and one of the toughs cried out in pain. Another bow twanged, and a dead man crashed through the brush to their right.

  “Get down, you stupid bastards!”

  They responded. More sounds of fighting erupted around them. Jerrod tried to judge the direction from whence it came, but in the chaos it was difficult. He crawled forward to get a better look, pushing through the bushes, but he was hampered by the length of his sword. Damn it all. A few feet deeper and there were two groups fighting in a clearing.

  There were four black garbed toughs battling with several brown leather wearing security men while off to the side Jerrod spied a couple of camouflaged scouts firing into the melee, and he frowned. They had better watched where the fuck they shot those things.

  Jerrod leapt up and charged the nearest brown clad fool, but the man surprised him by turning and blocking his first swing. He cut back with a short sword, and Jerrod ducked. Stabbing forward caught the man on his side. Drawing the sword back raked his ribs and split the skin.

  The man gasped in pain and dropped his sword slapping his elbow down on the wound. Jerrod kicked him in the face, and the metal plate within his heel connected with the man’s chin. His eyes went out before he hit the ground. The battle was on.

  * * * * *

  Torchlight flickered in the antechamber. It was late at night, so the dearth of illumination from the street made the warm glow of the torch more irritating yet at the same time more sinister, owing as it was to the location.

  Tranquility’s Palace at night always made Lord Governor Cassius ill at ease. He did not understand why he felt strange, only that the shifting shadows within the vaulted ceiling reflected weird light through the stained glass. It splayed creepy images upon the floor. It made him feel as if the gods were somehow angry with him, but he could not decipher the message they had for him. He worried that he had fallen so far out of their favor.

  The ruling agent of the City Council was no more powerful than a dock worker when compared to Arc Lector Morlin and his following. The church had more money and influence than any five other agencies within Sea Haven. It was by Arc Lector Morlin alone that stopped Janisberg from pushing forward and destroying even more of the city when their navy lay siege.

  After some time, he was shown into an inner chamber where Morlin saw close personal friends outside the cathedral’s operating hours, and he felt buoyed by this special privilege. It was a smaller room than Morlin’s main office, with more casual appointments. There were a few paintings, a large table in the center framed by a comfortable looking couch, and two chairs flanked it; both were big enough to swallow an ogre.


  Cassius sat in one of these chairs, enveloped like a bug in a bushel of wheat. Nervous energy caused him to bite his nails. The attendant, a young boy perhaps nineteen, offered him a drink, but he refused. He felt too sick at what had happened the last time he was inside so deep in the cathedral and what might have happened to him now that he was back. Cassius took a deep, shuddering breath and sat back. It was necessary to do whatever it took.

  Without the Arc Lector interfering, much like he did that day when the canon blasts bombarded their shores, Cassius could not have seen how they could wrest control again of the wealthy quarter. The merchants would continue to rail against being bereft of home, and since they were already at odds with the Guild about lax security for their goods, they might leave the city. Many had already. The city’s coffers would run dry and everything he had worked for would have been for naught.

  The police were on strike, the private security ineffectual in regaining control, and the criminal element that had taken over the wealthy quarter was sophisticated. There was something unknown going on, and Cassius’ options were few. If they attacked full force with the City Watch, the only viable group of men large enough to win it back, they risked losing the location. The contract, looked over by his legal experts, was very clear about professional forces occupying the neighborhood.

  If they employed any people that were not private security paid for by the lease holders or if the police were not able to fulfill their duties, the contracts were null and void, and negotiations for new ownership would be initiated. The foreign owners could have done whatever they wanted.

  The property was sought after by many the world over. Most of the merchants were locals brought up like he and Muldor were, simple men and women that had slogged it out for years developing business relationships on the streets. Maybe this was some way of clearing that chaff away. Maybe the criminals worked for someone that wanted the buildings there, so they could set up shop in the marketplace and build a business dynasty. If a wealthy enough power were to come in and offer to take their places within the marketplace many were sure to take the payment and leave.