Skulduggery 10: Building a Criminal Empire

by Logan Jacobs

  Still, I would just have to squint if it got too bright and hope for the best, because there was no way that I was going to wait until it was dark again before I rode back to the city. The king had made me rich off of his whiskey and then spared my life in the revolution, and that meant I owed him everything, so if I could do anything at all to help him, then I would do it in a heartbeat.

  Once I finished with my horse, I ducked back inside my wilderness cabin to grab the last of my things. I couldn’t wear my elven armor or my cloak as captain of the guard, since both of those would signal me to belong to the enemy, so instead, I slipped on an old leather armor vest that would at least protect me from some damage. Then once I had my sword and spear in hand, I hurried to the kitchen table and grabbed one last item.

  I didn’t think I would be able to complete it in time, but I had just finished it up last night, and now I wanted to make sure that I brought it with me as a little bit of a surprise for Wade. Right before the king told me to flee the Capital until the initial uprising was over, I had searched the records in the city until I found a sketch of the last human king’s banner.

  I had taken the sketch with me out here to my private cabin, and since there had been fuck-all else to do while I waited anxiously to hear about any news of the revolution, I had started to sew a new banner for him. I used white bed sheets as the background for the banner, and I sewed three of them together so the banner would be as thick as a real flag. I had a red quilt that I was able to piecemeal together to make the red dragon on the white background, and when it came to the ten blue stars, I grabbed my guard’s cloak to tear it up and use its fabric.

  After all, I had been responsible for my own sewing for as long as I could remember, since as a soldier, I constantly had to stitch up my own clothes to keep them in good repair. I had even stitched my own cloak when I became captain of the guard, so when I ripped up my captain of the guard cloak to use some of the fabric in my new king’s banner, it hadn’t been difficult to make it work for my needs.

  The banner was a little rough around the edges, but there was no doubt that it was a red dragon on a white background, surrounded by ten blue stars. And there was sure as hell no doubt that this was the banner of a king.

  No, it was more than that.

  This was the banner of my king.

  I carefully folded it and then rolled it up, placed it into the satchel that hung from my horse’s saddle, and then hopped up onto the back of my mount. After I walked him out of the stable, I adjusted my position in the saddle slightly and then glanced back at my wilderness cabin.

  There was a half-decent chance that this might be the last time I ever saw it, but even if that turned out to be true, it would be worth it to help the new king usher in a better world. If I could have been part of the revolution when it started at the equinox festival, then I would have been, but I appreciated that Wade thought it was too dangerous for me. It would have been too easy for someone to think that I was an enemy instead of an ally, and unlike Clodia, I didn’t have magic to protect myself.

  No, it made a lot more sense that I had waited out the worst of it outside the city, or at least I had waited out the initial bloodshed. But now that I had a chance to help Wade, I couldn’t get back to the city fast enough.

  It was about goddamn time my kind had lost power. They had sure as hell never done anything for me except look down on me and laugh at me behind my back, and it also didn’t make a bit of sense why they had all the power and money in the empire, but they were still the most miserable bunch of assholes that I’d ever known.

  Well, they used to have all the power and money in the empire, anyway. The power dynamics had definitely started to shift, and I knew that with Wade as king, the world was about to become a much fairer and better place.

  After I took one final look at my cabin, I dug my heels into my horse’s sides and started back toward the Capital. The faster I rode, the more I had to squint against the bright sun, but I didn’t let it slow me down, and at first, I didn’t see another soul for miles around.

  Then again, I didn’t call it my wilderness cabin for nothing. I had built it precisely so I could get away from the city whenever I wanted some quiet time alone in the country… or whenever I needed to escape from my debt collectors. That had been before I started to work for Wade, of course, but it had come in handy more than once.

  In fact, until I had recently told Twila the location of my cabin, the only other person who knew about it was Tevian. I had regretted it the moment I told him, but I had been so excited after a recent gambling win that I had blurted it out without thinking. Tevian had been surprised that I had a retreat of my own, but I couldn’t tell if he was more surprised that I had the funds to build it or that I had told him about it at all.

  It wasn’t like Tevian and I had ever been the best of friends.

  After all, the night elf general had only ever tolerated me at best, but I knew that was because he never really respected me. He had never taken the time to get to know me, so he had assumed that just because I wasn’t great with money or with gambling, I must be a waste of space. He had always sneered at my home-stitched clothing, too, and even though Tevian might have meant to tease instead of to be cruel, it didn’t change the fact that he could be a real asshole.

  I wondered what he was up to right about now.

  The messenger had only told me that the city belonged to Wade now, and that Twila said the king needed to speak with me urgently. He had also been nice enough to tell me that there were a few human guard patrols outside the Capital, just to act as lookouts for any signs of trouble, so I would do my best to avoid them or, if they did spot me, to unfurl the king’s banner as fast as I could to show that I was an ally.

  But since the messenger hadn’t told me anything else, I hadn’t been able to learn any other details about the rest of the empire, so there certainly had been no details about what had happened to Tevian.

  I knew that the night elf general didn’t drink, so he wouldn’t have accidentally poisoned himself with the nightshade at the equinox festival. So if he hadn’t died from the poison, maybe he had been killed in the initial slaughter. He could have led the charge against Wade’s forces and been killed almost immediately, but I didn’t even know what city he currently called home.

  But somehow, I had a very definite feeling that Tevian was too fucking smart to have been killed already. He would have weaseled his way out of it or been able to retreat to safety in time, or maybe he had fled from his current home city when the elves first started to drop from the nightshade.

  Either way, I could almost feel the fact that Tevian was still alive somewhere.

  I rode almost three-quarters of the way back to the city before I came across another single living soul. But as I galloped down the rough path back to the Capital, I suddenly spotted a clump of trees in the distance, and at the base of the trees, there was a cluster of day elf soldiers all huddled together.

  For a second, I wondered if I should just ride past them and pretend I hadn’t seen them, but I immediately knew that wasn’t the answer. If I left these elves here, then they might attack the humans later. Hell, they might even be spies that had been sent to keep an eye on what Wade’s forces were up to in the Capital.

  Whatever the case was, I needed to stop them before they could do any damage to the new king or his soldiers, and I was pretty sure that I had the perfect idea in mind to take care of them. All I had to do was get them to trust me, and even though I didn’t have my uniform as captain of the guard with me, I still didn’t think it would be too difficult.

  They just needed to believe that I had some answers, and then they would be all mine. When I had spoken to Twila’s messenger, I might not have gotten all that many details about current events all over the empire, but I had at least learned the most important facts, and that included where the human guards had patrols outside of the city.

  If my sense of geography was right, and I was pretty
sure that it was, there should be a human patrol not too far from here. In fact, they should be almost right on top of the spot where Wade’s childhood village used to stand, at least before the orcs had burned it to the ground.

  I couldn’t think of a much better present for the new king than to lead a squad of elven soldiers straight into an ambush.

  As I rode a little closer to the day elves, I raised my hand and started to slow down, so they wouldn’t panic or try to run. I didn’t know how on edge they were or where they had come from, so I didn’t want to run the risk that I might spook them before I was able to eliminate them.

  When I was a few dozen yards away, I slowed my horse down to a walk as I moved toward the soldiers, and I tried to put on my most reassuring smile. There were five of them in total, but several of them had bloodstains on their leather armor, and I noticed that the blood was both red and blue.

  That meant they had been part of the fighting in the city, so they had already either injured or killed some of the other races. It was enough to deserve a death sentence, but I knew that Wade wanted to give all the elves a chance to surrender before he wiped them out, so I would try to do the same thing with these five soldiers.

  “Are you hurt, my friends?” I called out as I approached them.

  “C-captain Golierian!” one of the elven soldiers said. “Is that really you?”

  “Yes, indeed, it is,” I replied.

  I didn’t recognize any of the soldiers, but then again, there had been a hell of a lot of soldiers under my command when I was captain of the guard. So really, it made sense that they recognized me, while I couldn’t put a name to any of their faces.

  One of the other day elves stepped forward to speak for the group, but he just shook his head when he couldn’t seem to form any words.

  “Did you come from the city?” I asked and then pulled my horse to a stop right beside them. “Can you tell me any news?”

  “W-we’ve been hiding out here since yesterday,” the lead day elf replied. “Don’t you know what’s going on? Where have you been?”

  “Of course, I know what’s going on,” I said as I rolled my eyes. “That’s why I asked you for news. Have there been any changes or updates?”

  “We were able to sneak out of the city yesterday,” another elven soldier replied, “so I don’t know what’s happened since then, but it was a fucking slaughterhouse when everything started, and then we just kept trying to hide until we were able to sneak out.”

  “Why didn’t you just surrender?” I asked. “I’m sure you would have been treated fairly.”

  “Surrender to the humans?” the first day elf sneered. “That must be a joke.”

  “But if you were outnumbered and overwhelmed, then why not?” I demanded. “That is what we expect our enemies to do, isn’t it?”

  “That’s different,” another elven soldier said. “The humans are so… human. We could never lower ourselves to surrender to them, and we certainly couldn’t ever give ourselves up to the man who calls himself the new human king.”

  “So what was your plan?” I asked as I tightened my grip on the reins to keep myself calm. “Sneak out of the city, and then what?”

  “We hadn’t gotten that far,” one of the soldiers wailed. “We just wanted to escape, and then… we just hoped we would be able to wander around until we found the wilderness fort, since we don’t know its location or anything.”

  “But you do, right?” the first day elf demanded. “You’re the captain, so you know all the locations, and you could lead us there, right?”

  “Absolutely,” I said with a smirk.

  “Then once we join forces with the soldiers there,” the first day elf continued, “we can all march back into the Capital and destroy every last human who thought they could oppose us.”

  “And we’ll sure as hell destroy their fucking king,” another soldier said, “right after we rip his brains out through his nose, of course.”

  “And scramble his intestines with a hot poker,” a third elf said.

  “And then string him up by his thumbs for the fact that he ever thought he could stand against the might of the elven empire,” a fourth elf said.

  I saw that my knuckles had started to turn white from how tightly I gripped my horse’s reins, so I forced myself to relax slightly, even though I wanted to take out every last one of these soldiers myself. They would learn soon enough that they could not threaten Wade and get away with it, but I knew that I couldn’t attack them all myself. I needed the help of the human guards if I wanted to execute them, so it was about time that we started to move.

  “Then we better get to the wilderness fort,” I said. “That’s actually where I was headed now.”

  “Where have you been, Captain Golierian?” the first day elf asked. “If you had been in the city when everything happened, then maybe we wouldn’t be in this boat. You would have really shown those humans who’s boss, right?”

  “Or I would have gotten myself killed,” I said with a shrug, “and then I wouldn’t be here to lead you all to a glorious victory.”

  “But where were you?” another elf asked again.

  “Well,” I said, “the, uh, equinox is a very special day for me, so I, uh… I just like to spend it alone in contemplation, instead of with a whole crowd of drunk elves, so I just headed out to the country for a few days, but then when I started to ride back, I heard word of what happened while I was gone.”

  “But you don’t have on your uniform,” the first elf said. “Why not?”

  “I thought it would be easier to ride across the countryside without a giant target on my back for the humans to see,” I replied. “Now, are you all coming with me or not? Because I want to get to the fort as soon as possible.”

  “I’m just glad you’re here now,” another elven soldier sighed. “We’ll go wherever you lead, Captain. So which way do we head?”

  “Follow me, lads,” I said with a grin. “I’ll lead you all exactly where we need to be.”

  I urged my horse forward at a trot, and as I started to ride back in the direction of Wade’s childhood village, I glanced over my shoulder to see that all five elven guards followed me at a brisk pace. They still looked scared, but they seemed reassured, so they should follow me right into the ambush that I had planned for them.

  I was glad that they had been so shitty about Wade and the other humans, so I didn’t feel bad at all about the fact that I was about to lead them to their deaths. If they had wanted to surrender or even if they’d just been open to it as an option, then I would have encouraged them in that direction, and I would have helped lead them to safety.

  Instead, they had just dug their own graves.

  Wade’s village was on top of a massive hill outside of Falrion Forest, so when my horse reached the bottom of the hill, I stopped and looked up. The human guards should be at the crest of the hill, but from our position down below, we couldn’t see anything. Now I just needed to go warn the human guards to be ready, and hopefully, they wouldn’t kill me before I could speak.

  “Wait here,” I ordered the soldiers. “I need to check out the top of the hill, but I’ll give you the signal when it’s all clear.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want us to just come with you?” one of the day elves asked.

  “No, and that’s an order,” I snapped.

  The five elven soldiers all clicked their heels and saluted, so once I was sure that they would all stay where they were, I rode my horse up the hill as quickly as I could. I only glanced over my shoulder once, since if I checked on the soldiers’ positions any more than that, they might have been suspicious.

  So far, they hadn’t moved, but my heart still throbbed against my rib cage, as if any second now, one of them might launch a spear at my back and pierce straight through my lungs. I had to remind myself that I was the only one who knew what I was about to do, but it didn’t change the fact that I still felt like I had a giant target on my back.

  W
hen I reached the top of the hill and rode forward a few paces, there was no one in sight, but there were fresh footprints in the soil, so I knew that the human guards must be hidden in some of the rubble around here. I glanced back one more time, but since the elven soldiers were now out of sight, I figured that I was safe enough to make my move.

  Just as I heard the sound of steel weapons behind one of the crumbled stone walls, I slid off my horse, raised my hands in the air, and dropped to my knees.

  “Don’t make a noise!” I called out in a loud whisper. “I am not your enemy! I am Golierian, but there are enemies at the bottom of the hill.”

  Ten humans all carefully stepped out of their hiding spots and moved to surround me. They were as well-equipped as the elven soldiers that I’d left behind, but they didn’t look scared or nervous. Instead, they just looked confident as hell.

  “You’re Golierian?” one of the humans repeated. “We were told to be on the lookout for you, but how can you prove that you are who you say you are?”

  “There are five elven soldiers at the bottom of the hill,” I said, “and if I give them the signal, they will think it’s safe to come up here, and then they’ll be at your mercy.”

  “Will they surrender?” the human soldier asked.

  “No,” I replied, “but as proof that I really am Golierian, I’ll help you execute them.”

  The human soldiers all looked at each other, murmured a few things that I couldn’t hear, and then all nodded together.

  “Then give the signal,” the lead human guard said. “We’re ready for them.”

  I jumped back onto my horse, guided it back along the hill far enough to see the other elves, and then signaled for them to follow me up the hill.

  “There’s no magic casters, are there?” one of the humans asked.