"It was faint, but I sensed it. You need improvement."
Her remark was no surprise to Lucius, for he never expected an easy compliment from her.
"As it happens, I wanted to see you as well," she continued.
"Oh?"
"I have a contract, one that may bring us into conflict. By the terms of the Shadowmage charter, I must inform you of this and find a resolution between us."
He rolled his eyes. "Which, I presume, is Shadowmage language for 'stay out of my way'?"
"As you say," she shrugged.
Sighing, Lucius shook his head, then a thought struck him.
"You've been contracted by the Guild of Coin and Enterprise, haven't you?"
"My employers are making some aggressive moves in the city, and you are within their chief target. I recommend you leave the Night Hands and find a more stable contract. Forbeck can help you out there. I might be able to put a word in with my current employers too, if necessary."
"It's not going to be that easy, Aidy," Lucius said, a smile beginning to flicker on his lips. "Your current employers are scum, and I will do everything I can to bring them down."
"I cannot force you to do one thing or another," Adrianna said. "But I would advise you to remember the oath you took."
"I'm not going to attack you, Aidy."
"It is likely that our current employers will force the issue, one way or another."
Adrianna's inhuman attitude was beginning to grate on his nerves once again, and he marvelled at how little time was needed in her presence before anger flared. He briefly wondered whether he was alone in his constant head-butting with her, or if it was common in everyone she met.
"It was the Guild who drew first blood, Aidy," he said, letting himself ride the wave of anger she had sparked. "There was a truce between us, the city had been carved up — there was an agreement."
She shook her head carelessly. "That is not my concern. The accord has been broken, and my specific role is to ensure my employer is victorious in the struggle ahead."
"And your contract is all you care about? There are good men within the Hands, Aidy, they don't deserve this. The Guild is full of cold-blooded killers."
"While the thieves of the Hands are entirely honourable? Don't kid yourself."
"The Hands are not the ones allying themselves to devils from the sea."
That checked her, Lucius saw, and her scorn was replaced by a puzzled expression.
"What do you mean?"
"You're telling me you weren't there at the docks? Yesterday evening?"
Adrianna frowned, and Lucius was at least gratified to see her stumble when someone was accusing her for a change.
"Lucius, I swear to you, I have not been directly involved in any of the Guild's operations around the docks. I know they want to take that territory away from the Hands, and I know they planned an ambush there last night, but I had nothing to do with it. I am contracted for specific… duties, no more."
"It was my operation they ambushed."
She looked him up and down briefly. "You seem to have survived."
"Oh, I did, but many of the men I took with me didn't. Do you have any idea who the Guild is dealing with these days? I'm telling you, they have an alliance with something truly evil."
"I'm sure you are exaggerating."
"Really?" he said, moving onto the attack. "Scales, bulging eyes, webbed claws. Hordes of them, Aidy, coming from the sea to tear us apart — and I mean, tear us apart. They killed most of us within minutes, and damn well nearly got me."
Her next words were slow in coming, as she chose them carefully. "Assuming you are not making this up, I have no idea what you are talking about — truly. That the Guild was planning to disrupt the operations of the Hands on the docks as a prelude to taking them over is all I am aware of. I… I can talk to Master Forbeck, perhaps he knows what you are speaking of."
"Well, that's something," Lucius muttered.
"But if you are right, Lucius, you need to be careful. The Guild is not messing around this time, they want the Hands gone. Smashed, broken, the members either dead, fleeing from the city, or on their side. And they can do it. They have the power and the determination. That is not something you want to be caught in the middle of."
He suppressed a smile. "Well, at least you can spare a thought for me."
Adrianna closed the distance between them in a single long stride and jabbed a finger, painfully, into his chest.
"What I want, Lucius, is for you to go," she said adamantly. "To leave this city, to disappear. What I want to avoid is breaking my oath to the Shadowmages. I will be on the frontline in this fight, and woe betide anyone who stands between me and the completion of the contract."
Spinning on a heel, she stalked away, their meeting clearly at an end.
"Well, just ask yourself this, Aidy," Lucius shouted at her retreating back. "If the Guild are capable enough to hire a Shadowmage when most people haven't even heard of us, who or what else have they employed, eh? Do you even know what you are fighting for? Just which one of us is the mercenary here?"
His voice still echoing through the empty warehouse, Lucius cursed the shadows into which Adrianna had disappeared. He had known he would not find a friend in her stern glare, but had hoped to discover at least an ally.
CHAPTER 12
There were no smiles among the Council or the senior thieves surrounding the table in the meeting room. Too many deaths had taken place within the Night Hands, and more than a few were thinking about Caradoc. After all, if someone could strike at the lieutenant of the Hands, how safe were the rest of them when they left the guildhouse?
Various theories had been put forward by Council members as to what was happening and who was responsible, but while few doubted the Guild's involvement, Magnus kept demanding proof. With none of the Council able to provide anything more than rumour, he turned to Lucius.
Lucius was acutely aware that all eyes in the room were now focussed on him, and that not all were waiting for his explanation. He was still, officially, a low-ranking thief within the Hands, and though he had not yet been made a senior, many had taken note of Magnus' obvious favouritism toward him. It was breeding jealousy, he knew, and Lucius was distinctly conscious of being part of an organisation whose members, while overtly supporting one another, were just as likely to settle a difference or imagined slight with a knife in the back.
He cleared his throat as he marshalled his thoughts.
"The Council is correct — the truce has been broken," Lucius said to them all. He hoped that by affirming the Council's thoughts, he might find a friend amongst them or, at least, make it look as though he were paying his proper respects and not trying to subvert anyone's position. It was a small gesture, but he knew that when the danger to the Hands was over, differences would be settled one way or another.
"Our operation on the docks was disrupted at the Guild's instigation," he continued. "And they orchestrated the attack on Caradoc, though I have no information on who exactly was responsible."
"So it could just be a few troublemakers in the Guild?" asked Nate.
"It hardly matters," said Elaine, a tall middle-aged woman who controlled the Hand's concerns around the docks. It had been she who had provided Lucius with information on the AllantianVoyager from her paid contacts among the dockmasters. "Whether it is just a few or the whole Guild, we are still under attack and we must defend ourselves."
This raised some murmurs of assent from the table.
"Where did you get this information, Lucius?" asked Nate.
Lucius hesitated. "I cannot say," and inwardly winced as a collective look of contempt swept the table, but it was halted by Magnus' raised hand.
"He does not need to say. Lucius, for now, has my trust," he said. That would create a few enemies, Lucius thought.
"Could he be mistaken?" Elaine asked. "There is always the possibility of another player coming into the city, and starting a war between the exist
ing powers is a good way of getting a foothold. Divide and conquer."
"We use the information we have," Magnus said. "I won't have us jumping at shadows."
"Could it be the work of an insider?" asked a tanned man whose face looked more like that of a weather-beaten sailor than a thief. "After all, it was you, Elaine, who provided the lead for Lucius' disastrous operation at the docks."
"You dare accuse me!" Elaine spat.
A hand slapped the table, bringing all attention to Magnus. "I will not have us fighting each other!" he said, eyes flashing dangerously, challenging anyone to make another charge of treason. For a few seconds, the Council was quiet.
"Then we must hit back," Nate said. "And hit back hard. We cannot just roll over and let them take our operations from us. If they tried to take out Caradoc, Magnus, they are deadly serious. Striking at a lieutenant is unheard of! Who will be next? One of us? You?"
"There will be blood in the streets," someone muttered.
The Council broke down into bickering parties, some wanting to wipe out the Guild in a single night of violence, others supporting the idea of another parley in an attempt to discern the Guild's true intentions.
Clearing his throat, Magnus brought the arguments to a halt. "Reluctant as I am to admit it, Nate has the truth of it. Right now, we are just waiting for another arrow from the dark to strike one of us down, and who knows what our foot soldiers will face on the streets as they go about their work. We do need to demonstrate that we will not roll over. More than that, we must show the Guild that we can strike them where it hurts the most."
"We go for Jewel?" Nate asked, a little doubtfully, and Lucius understood his hesitation. He was not sure which of the Hands would be capable of accomplishing that goal.
"We go for the merchant's quarter," Elaine said flatly. "Disrupt their protection rackets, squeeze their main source of revenue. Starve them of gold."
Magnus nodded in appreciation. "Your strategy does you credit, Elaine," he said. "That is how we start. If they are trying to take the docks from us, we will flood the merchant's quarter with our own men, making it impossible for them to operate."
"If I may?" Lucius asked. Feeling a little foolish, he ploughed on. "If we go in mob-handed, someone, perhaps a great many, will die. It will be the start of an all out war."
"Well, that is what we are discussing here," Nate said, a little contemptuous.
"Let him speak," Magnus said, raising a hand.
"We can be smarter than that," Lucius said. "We rough up their collectors — giving our men strict instructions to spill no blood — we fire a few warehouses, maybe plunder a few. Turn the merchants against the Guild by showing they cannot be protected, and make it impossible for the Guild men to fulfil their obligations. Then we pull out, quickly and quietly, and do the same thing the next day."
The Council was silent as they digested this. It was Nate who spoke first.
"Will it make us look weak, a half-cooked response to the start of a war?"
Magnus rubbed his chin in thought. "It is appealing. We have a chance to make the Guild back down, without doing anything irreversible. A chance to avoid all-out war."
"And we can always turn up the heat later, if it does not seem to work," Elaine said, adding her support to the idea.
"Right, we give it a try then," Magnus said, nodding. "We send six teams in, men we can trust not to let their passions get the better of them. Lucius, you will head one of the teams, seeing as this was your idea. You get to share the risks."
Lucius bowed his head once to show his acceptance. He knew this was a chance to shine. He just hoped they did not meet anything unexpected, for a second disaster that cost the lives of thieves might well put him on the hit list of their friends.
Squeezing through the stacks of large wooden crates marked with a Vos brand proclaiming they were filled with Malmkrug liquor, Lucius nodded at Lihou, who was laying a trail of oil on the warehouse floor. The young thief, like him, had recently been elevated from the ranks of the pickpockets, and he had the unnerving feeling the lad looked up to him.
The warehouse belonged to one Dietrich Schon, a merchant known to have extensive business interests in Turnitia and who was a fully paid up member for protection from the Guild. This evening, Lucius intended to show him that the gold handed over for a quiet life of business and profit was only so much waste.
As they made their way back to the warehouse's loading bay, Lucius and Lihou were joined by other members of their small team — Ashmore, Teton, and Judi — all trailing their own line of oil from other stacks. Looking up at the wooden pillars, supports and rafters of the building, Lucius could not help smiling. Most of the warehouses in the merchant quarter were new constructions, many of the originals having been destroyed by Vos when the army had entered the city as part of its reign of terror. These new buildings were designed to be large, cheap and quick to construct, so the Vos merchants who had all but paid for the invasion could start business as soon as Turnitia was pacified. This meant they had been built entirely of wood — this fire was going to be huge.
The team continued to pour oil from their leather flasks, joining their lines just outside the wide door that led to a street lined with other warehouses. Phase one of the plan complete, thought Lucius. Now he just had to wait.
Across the merchant quarter other Night Hands were at work in their teams. At least one other was firing warehouses, though no glow on the skyline had yet made itself visible. Others were paying personal visits to merchants staying in way houses or taverns, encouraging them to do business elsewhere or otherwise be forced to pay protection money to the Hands. Another team armed with clubs and saps was actively hunting down collectors from the Guild, intending to convince them they were working in dangerous territory.
Lucius had thought he could kill two birds with one stone, and so he and his team waited until their final member, Banff, appeared, with three Guild collectors in tow. Banff had been brought up from the pickpockets at the same time as Lihou, and Lucius had taken advantage of this, gambling that no one in the Guild would recognise him as a Hand. It had clearly worked.
The Guild collectors were clearly taken aback when they realised they were outnumbered, but bravado carried their leader forward.
"This is private property," he said, eyeing them warily. "Be off with you!"
"This property is under our care now," Lucius said, adopting a polite tone to mock the collectors. "We have a message for you to take back to your masters in the Guild. The first part is this; your time here is over. This quarter now belongs to the Hands."
"Arrogant son of a whore," muttered one of the collectors.
"The second part of the message is this," Lihou said, striking his tinderbox and igniting a rag whose end had been doused in oil.
Lihou glanced back at the collectors, then grinned as he threw the burning rag into the pool that had formed from the joint trails of oil that ran through the warehouse.
"Oops," he said, smiling.
The flame guttered for a moment, then flashed as it greedily consumed the oil. Fire swept out in four lines that shot straight into the warehouse. The look on the faces of the collectors was almost comical as they realised, finally, what was going on.
"You fools!" said the leader. "You have no idea who you have just messed with! They're going to be coming after you for this."
"I wouldn't worry," said Lucius, keeping his voice calm. "We are pretty sure we know what we are doing. However, there is a third part of the message we would like you to deliver."
The leader frowned, puzzled, until Lucius clicked his fingers and the rest of his team moved forward, eager for violence. As one, the collectors turned and ran, but they were brought down within a few yards by Lucius' team, who proceeded to pummel them senseless.
A dull crump from behind told him that the first crate of liquor had been burst open by the flames, which would now be spreading voraciously throughout the furs, spices and other goods of luxury s
tored in the warehouse. He watched his team go to work on the collectors and, though they were clearly enjoying the job, happy to be able to hand something back to the Guild after having been put on the back foot of late, he was pleased to see their discipline remained. He had warned them to use fists and feet only, unless one of the collectors drew a weapon. The point of the exercise was to frighten them and deliver a clear message. Not kill them in the street.
He had to conclude, though, after watching Judi hiss and spit and curse as she dug her boot into a man's groin — causing him to curl up and start sobbing — that perhaps the use of a dagger might have been more humane.
Seeing the collectors had taken enough punishment or, at least, understood the message, Lucius gave a low whistle. His thieves stood up from their task, all breathing heavily from the exertion. As they hurried down the street, leaving the scene, the open doors of the warehouse began to glow with the orange light of the flames inside as they took hold. It would be a few more minutes before the fire swept through the rafters and became visible to the whole city, but Lucius knew the place was already doomed. Even if a Vos patrol happened by now, it was too late; the only question was whether they would be able to save the warehouses either side.
"What's next, Sir?" Lihou asked as he trotted alongside.
Lucius smiled as he drew a rolled parchment from under his tunic. "No need to call me Sir, just Lucius will do." Consulting the parchment he nodded. "The Three Springs tavern. That is where our merchant, Mr Schon, is staying for the next week as he tries to sell what remains of his stock."
"There's not much profit in ashes," Judi said.
"True. And less in doing business with the Guild, as we shall prove tonight."
The Three Springs lay just a few streets over from the warehouse and was one of several establishments devoted to visiting merchants who could not bear to be far from their goods. No one else would visit a tavern nestled deep within the warehouses, so such places also formed a natural forum for negotiations and deal making, where traders could talk shop without being disturbed. There were also other pleasures available to those rich enough, even some that could technically be described as illegal in other parts of Turnitia. It was all part of a specialised service.
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