The two women high-fived, their matching auburn hair bouncing with a zest glam, before pulling their hoods back on. Then they ducked as a third barrel slammed into the central tower directly above them, leaving a prodigiously bloody splat and showering them with wooden splinters.
“Ooo. Jody didn’t make it,” Candace winced.
“Less talk, more killing,” Angela said as she yanked her dagger from the fallen sentry’s nose and stepped over Jody’s bleeding-out body.
The door to the main tower opened silently. The two assassins swept in. Three more guards fell on the stairs, one to Candace’s blade “Rat Bastard” and one each to Angela’s main blade “Throat Slitter” and her Saturday Night Special blade “Ralph.” The door at the top of the stairs glowed in the sooty torchlight. A quick game of parchment, rock, dagger gave Angela the main door and Candace the outside window.
Angela watched her friend find a grip on the stonework and slip out into the darkness, then counted out ten seconds. “One bloody dagger, two bloody daggers, three—”
She threw the door lever up on ten and rolled in, coming to her feet with Throat Slitter pointing just to the right of the king’s Adam’s apple. She shoved it home savagely, yearning for the pulsating arterial hit that would spurt blood all over her face and down her shirt.
Nothing happened. Her blade had sunk about a half inch into thick leather. She pulled back and found a regally-dressed sparring dummy staring back at her.
Someone cleared their throat behind her. She spun, throwing Ralph in a smooth motion that resulted in a high-pitched, metallic ring as her second-string-killing-thing bounced off a longsword. She drew back Throat Slitter for a second try, but a voice interrupted her.
“Ah, ah, ah …” King Reginald Noway the Fifth stood in his royal pajamas, wagging a finger from side to side. He pointed around the room. Six guards stood on the circular perimeter, all pointing cocked crossbows at her. Angela smirked, knowing exactly what she was going to do. She tensed.
“Nope. Feinting at me and dropping to the ground so they all shoot each other in a buffoonish crossfire isn’t going to work,” the king said. “We train for that.”
Angela paused, taking in the king’s total lack of armor and essentially useless-for-close-combat longsword. She could kill him even without taking out the guards.
“And, no, you can’t kill me without taking out the guards because I have this,” the king lifted the longsword from his shoulder where it rested casually. “Some people call it Assassin’s Bane or King’s Shield or whatever, but I call it Assassin’s Ass In.” The king gestured to the upper walls of the room where two dozen human butts hung like hunting trophies, all with longsword-blade holes conspicuously stabbed through them. The names below them read like a who’s-who of assassin pedigree. There was Jenny “Cut Up” Comeatian, Barbara “Slash and Bag” Barbary, Caroline “Shove a Knife Right Through Ya” Bunnylove, and, of course, Ted; all the greats that the bards still sang stories about. Angela paused a second time, then a smile split her face.
“You’ve thought of everything Reginald, except one … I’m not alone!” Angela dropped to the floor, listening for the whoosh of Candace’s blade as it sailed from the window into the king’s smug face.
Nothing happened. Angela jerked her eyes towards the window and found Candace staring back at her, the points of three pikes hovering just above her head from the parapet above. The two assassin’s eyes locked.
Candace swallowed.
Sweat broke out on Angela’s forehead.
Then Candace dropped from view in a perfectly timed get-your-assassin-out-of-here free fall.
“Candace!” Angela’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. Her BAFE had just abandoned her.
“Well, well. Looks like you are alone now. How about we have a little chat, then,” the king said.
Angela waited a few seconds, mind racing for a way to get a little more blood out of this job without losing any of her own. But Candace’s abandonment had messed with her blood-spilling mojo and after an awkward silence she pushed herself up off the floor and brushed herself off. “Okay, then. What’s the subject?”
King Noway put Assassin’s Ass In point down and rested his hands on the pommel. “I let your little assassin party get all up in here because I have a job I need done and I need the best.”
Angela stood up a little straighter and nodded. So far everything was making perfect sense.
“And now that the best just dropped out of sight from that window, I’m stuck with you.”
“Hey!”
“Ah, ah. Let’s be honest. The best assassin is the one that didn’t get caught, am I right?”
Angela just glared.
“Anyway, a former teammate of mine in the old Rape and Pillage game, also known as Noble Life, took something from me and I need someone to get it back—”
“Ah! Stop right there.” Angela held up a hand. “Can’t do it.”
“Oh, I think even you are capable of—”
“Nope. Not gonna’ happen.”
“Hold on a minute—”
“Whole lotta’ nope. You just said took ‘something.’ Unless that something is a life that needs to be ended I’m not your girl.”
“Did you not see the line of asses on the wall?” The king gestured to them again, incredulous.
“Yep, saw them. Can’t help you.”
“Yours is going to be up there unless you hear me out!”
“Listen, you want something, so what you need is a thief. I’m an ass-ass-in.” Angela said it slowly to let it sink in. “I belong to the Ass-ass-ins’ Guild, which is in the business of killing people, and only killing people. I can’t go stealing stuff or the Thieves’ Guild is going to hire someone from the Assassins’ Guild to kill me for crossing guild lines. Got it?”
The king closed his mouth and stroked his chin dramatically. “Ah yes, and since you are obviously not the best assassin—”
Angela bristled.
“—you would have to worry about actually getting killed … eventually. Whereas, if you don’t hear me out you will most certainly be killed right now. That is a tough decision …”
Angela glared.
“So, as I was saying, I need you to steal back the Magufin from Prince Gavashat who has hidden it—”
“What’s the Magufin?”
“What is wrong with you?! Can’t you let a single sentence be completed without interrupting?!”
“I just like to know what I’m getting into.”
“Fine.” The king regained his composure and continued. “The Magufin is the MAGical Universal Fairy Immobilizing Nutsack, which is such a mouthful. We just shortened it to MAGUFIN.”
“Wait, nutsack?”
“Yeah, a sack for carrying nuts. You know, hazelnuts, walnuts, acorns, you name it. Really pretty useful on its own, but if you drop this particular sack over a fairy and cinch it up the little F’er can’t get out no matter what it does.”
“Why do you need a sack for fairies?”
“Um, er, you know, entertainment and such …”
Angela raised an eyebrow and wrinkled her nose, some pretty sick images running through her head.
“Oh, alright. You’re an assassin so you’ll probably be into this stuff.” The king ripped a sheet off a birdcage dangling near his bed, revealing a bruised and battered wood sprite in garish fighting leathers who spit out two teeth and glared at her.
“What the …” Angela started.
“I Sprite Fight. I know, I know, it’s illegal! But I can’t get enough of seeing the little people beat the glitter out of each other. What can I say? I love it.”
“But you said this sack catches fairies?”
“Fairies, sprites, it doesn’t matter. The thing will hold whatever you can fit in it. Sacks aren’t really into the details, you know. They’re just sacks. Anyway, the first rule of Sprite Club is ‘Don’t talk about Sprite Club,’ so let’s get back to the job. As I was saying, yet again, Prince Gavas
hat hid the Magufin inside an orphanage in the Principality of Innocence.”
Angela suddenly perked up. “So, I might have to hack through some innocent orphans to get it?” The blood of the innocent had a special feel when it ran down your skin. Kind of silky and extra warm.
“Yes, yes. You will probably have to eviscerate quite a few.”
Angela swallowed down her building interest. “Go on. I’m listening.”
“So, I need you to hack your way in there, get the Magufin, and then get back out, without anyone knowing where you are going with it. This is absolutely critical! Nobody can know that I have it. This sport is cutthroat in more than one way, as your presence here shows. Anyway, to help insure this you will need to plant this at the scene of your crime.” King Noway held up a hair pin emblazoned with the crest of his chief rival, King L’Oreal, also known as King Finehair.
Angela shook her head again. “Can’t do it. Slander Guild would be up in arms. Plus, how does that make any sense? Is King Finehair himself supposed to have stolen the thing and dropped one of his hair pins on the way out? I mean, really? Who’s going to believe that?”
“You obviously don’t understand fake news. Anyway, not my problem. You do this or you die. What’s it going to be?”
Angela shook her head and threw up her hands. “Fine, I guess I’ll do it. Can I have Ralph back?”
The king looked confused. “Who’s Ralph?”
Angela pointed at the dagger that lay near the king’s feet. “My dagger.”
“Your dagger’s name is Ralph?”
“Of course.”
“Ah …”
“Can I have it?”
“Sure …”
Angela scooped Ralph from the floor and sheathed him, uncleaned. She slid Throat Slitter home, too, then put her hands on her hips. “Can I go now?”
“Of course. And remember, no one can know I have it.”
Angela nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Plant hair pin, yada, yada.” She took the hair pin and descended the empty steps.
* * *
Angela stalked the back alleys imagining the “oh-shit-I’ve-been-stabbed” face the people she passed would make if she slid a knife into their kidney. She couldn’t go back to the Assassin’s Guild after being captured without incurring a few rounds of torture to ensure she wasn’t compromised. Plus, she was pretty sure she’d kill her no-account, backstabbing, probably pre-menstruating, ex-BAFE Candace on sight if she saw her there. So instead she mumbled to herself as she walked.
“I know for a fact that if I’m not a thief and I steal something, the Thieves’ Guild is going to hire me dead. And I don’t want to be dead. You can’t kill people when you’re dead. Unless you’re a wight, but then you’re stuck in one place forever. And I’m not sure they can feel blood spraying all over their face and down their shirt when they kill. So that’s a no-go. And I don’t think I’d even know I was killing someone if I was a zombie, and technically I’d be undead which might not be enough for the Thieves’ Guild. They’re kind of pedantic. Vampire would be good … but then I’d be undead again and …
“Wait a minute!” Angela stopped dead in her tracks. “I don’t have to die, I just have to join the Thieves’ Guild!”
Most people joined only one guild, except for those gotta’-have-it-all, can’t-make-up-my-damn-mind fighter/mage/thief pricks, but they never got anywhere anyway so most people just ignored them. The important thing was that there was no law that said you couldn’t belong to more than one guild. But that still left the Slander Guild.
“Screw ‘em. I’ll just claim the story that I planted the hair pin was fake news and therefore I’m the one being slandered. It’ll be tied up in the Law Guild forever and eventually everyone will just forget about it.”
Her mind made up, she turned left and headed for the Thieves’ Guild main meeting place, the Fish Out Of Water.
* * *
A fake bag of coins jingled on the handle as Angela opened the front door of the Fish Out Of Water and stepped in. All heads turned, eyes roving over her body looking for sacks of gold, jewelry, anything with her Sovereign Security Number on it. The thief usual. Finding nothing but a pitch black—but somehow still blood-stained—cloak and a tightly drawn hood, they turned back to their ales. The minstrel in the corner resumed strumming on his lute.
“And Quick Finger slid Barbary’s coins from her pocket, but Barbary jammed her dagger into his eye socket …”
Angela resisted the urge to fling herself into the shadows and start stabbing and instead walked up to a table in the middle of the room and sat down next to the lone thief sitting at it. He was tall and thin and wore ratty clothes and had an eyepatch. Of course.
“Hey, I got a big job lined up and I want to join the Thieves’ Guild.”
The thief looked up at her with his one good eye. “You can’t just join the Thieves’ Guild, missy—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. You gotta’ apprentice and do little odd jobs until you have enough thieving credits built up to join the Thieves’ Guild West, and then hope you get a Guild contract that pays the minimum and work your way up from there until you’re in the big game. But this job is big. Capital ‘B’, capital ‘I’, capital ‘G’, big. Like notorious. From the top. I just need someone to take me on as an apprentice and then we’ll both blow right past all that crap in one go and be thick as thieves.” Angela stopped and looked around the bar, nodding her head confidently.
No one said anything. Some heads shook. She detected a smirk from a far, dark corner.
Angela slammed her hand on the table impatiently. “Okay, hold up, people. I’m the real deal. Hell, in the time it took you to just stare at me I could have gutted this guy and then choked him out with his own small intestine.”
No reaction.
“I’m serious. I can show you—does anyone have a puppy?”
Heads jerked back in shock. People gasped.
“It doesn’t have to be a very big one,” she clarified.
A scandalized thief hugged her drooling Were-Pomeranian closer to her, covering his ears. Another thief dropped his stew spoon and covered his mouth to hold back vomit.
“Now just a minute!” the barkeep yelled. “We don’t want any of you sick, moral-less assassins in here! This is a fine, upstanding establishment of pilferers, pinchers, grab-baggers, pocket-cleaners, and chest-ticklers—the lock-picking kind, not the feather-carrying ones. You go back to your blood-spilling kin and leave the good, thieving people in here alone!”
Angela frowned, not understanding the hubbub. “What, are you guys fresh out of puppies? The Assassins’ Guild bar always has a bunch in the back—”
“Get out!” The barkeep pointed to the door with a single meaty finger. Angela glanced around the room, finding nothing but outraged eyes glaring back at her.
“Fine, I’ll just steal it myself and make you all look like chumps.” She shoved herself back from the table and strode towards the door, yearning for someone to jump her from behind so she could slit him open and prove her gut-choking skills. Nobody did.
“Bunch of pansies.”
She yanked open the door and stepped out.
* * *
Her initial plan blown, Angela crouched in the alley closest to the front door of the Fish, blowing on her hands to take off the chill of approaching dawn. She raised a single eyebrow at the noise beside her.
“Er, excuse me.”
“Spit it out, shortstuff, I’ve been listening to you sneak over here forever. What are you wearing, Bardish tap shoes?”
A small man stepped out from behind a bin of rotting fish and dipped his head politely. “Pardon me, miss, I thought I was moving silently, like a summer breeze.”
“Well keep on breezing, clatter-trap, I’m busy.”
“Busy breaking guild lines?”
Angela turned her head slowly, looking at the man for the first time. He was short, a little over four feet at most, wearing a basic linsey-woolsey cloak with a plain-pommel
ed dagger strapped round his waist. His round face reminded her of a meat pie, with mashed potato cheeks and a dumpling for a nose.
“Man, I must really be hungry.”
“What?” the man replied, confused.
“Nothing.”
“Oh. Well, my name is Thaddeus Podruck, though my friends call me Thad—”
“Yadda, yadda—what do you want Potluck?”
“It’s Podruck, miss, I was named after a famous squire—”
“It’s Potluck to me. Done deal. Now get on with it.”
Potluck shut his mouth, frowning for a second, then shook off his annoyance. “I overheard your predicament in the Fish Out Of Water and wanted to offer my services as a mentor, I have recently attained guild status after years of dedicated—”
“Fine, you’ll do. Let’s go.” Angela stood and strode into the street, hailing the first horse-drawn cart she saw.
“Ah, don’t you want to know my thieving history?” Potluck shouted as he scrambled after her.
A cart stopped and silvers exchanged hands. “No. Get in the cart, Potluck, you’re holding up the show.”
* * *
Two days and endless cut-short conversations later, Angela and Potluck jumped down onto the hard-packed dirt on the side of the road near a cherub-encrusted sign that read “Welcome to the Principality of Innocence.”
“Wow, they really take their name literally,” Potluck remarked.
Angela replied with her new catch phrase, “Shut up, Potluck,” and peered into the woods. After some head-bobbing she pushed back a branch to reveal a narrow path. Potluck followed her, too short to bother dodging the branch.
“So, this job …” Potluck began as he labored to keep up.
Angela did not interrupt him. Somewhat surprised, Potluck continued.
“We just have to sneak in and steal something, right?”
Guilds & Glaives Page 26