Gord attacked Swutch even as he spoke, his dagger glinting darkly in the pale light. Gellor, meanwhile, sprang forward to engage Taw, who pulled a heavy-bladed knife from his belt the moment his partner shouted the warning. The combat was noisy and protracted, but little if any of the sound would reach any listener above.
Gord wounded his opponent several times, taking only a small cut in return. Swutch wasn’t nearly as skilled at dagger work as the young thief. The lieutenant feinted a move toward the stair, leaped the other way, and struck out at one of the heavy candles, which went out. Gord understood his desire. In darkness, Gord’s skill and acrobatic movements would be negated. The fight would become blind groping, striking at sounds. Swutch made another feint, hoping to drive Gord away so that he could extinguish the other candle. As he reversed himself toward the taper, Gord moved squarely into his path, and Swutch fell back, wounded again by the keen point of Gord’s long dirk.
“Take it all!” Swutch cried. “Kill Taw if you have to, but let me go! I’ll never be seen again-honest!” But even as the bandit lieutenant begged for his life, he hurled his blade. Gord sidestepped quickly, and the dagger, which had been headed for his throat, caught him in the shoulder instead. With Gord momentarily disabled, Swutch lunged for the stairs. He leaped to the fourth step, rushed upward, and strained to heave open the trapdoor. Two daggers struck him in rapid succession as he did so. The first was Gord’s, the second Swutch’s own-withdrawn from where it had stuck in Gord’s left shoulder. That blow finished the would-be escapee, who slumped lifeless at the top of the stairway.
As he turned, Gord saw Gellor avoid a knife swipe and then lunge forward to strike Taw a tremendous blow to the temple with the pommel of his dagger. The bandit fell heavily. Gellor added a couple of blows with the blade of his weapon for good measure, then turned to Gord when he was satisfied that Taw was finished.
“Let me see that wound,” Gellor said, moving close enough to examine where Swutch’s blade had bitten into Gord’s shoulder. “You’re bleeding heavily, but you’ll be all right,” he said calmly as he reached into his belt-sack for a swatch of cloth.
The flow of blood was easily staunched, for the wound was clean and not terribly deep; Gord’s padded doublet had taken much of the force away. Gellor bandaged the puncture with the surehandedness and swiftness of one who had done this sort of thing often before.
“It’ll pain you for a few days, and unless you get a cleric to take care of it, you’ll have to get someone to sew it shut, but you’ll survive.” He was grinning as he said that, and Gord smiled broadly in return.
“Let’s get that coin and get out!”
Both men began quickly separating the coins. Copper went onto the dirt floor, silver to one side of the chest, electrum to the other. Eventually, they had the stuff roughly divided, and then it was time to load it up. Using the shirts of the two lieutenants, they created makeshift sacks for the luckies, tossing in a few of the silver nobles to complete each load.
“That was inspired, Gord. Good thing for you I’m fast on the uptake,” Gellor said as they bent to the sorting of coins. Then he paused and looked at his companion. “What made you think of this? I saw you put the drug in Flatchet’s ale, but the rest was one of the best-planned deceptions I’ve seen in a long time!”
While Gord kept working on the loot, he told Gellor that the powder was something used by the Rhennee. Then he explained his thinking. “I could tell that Flatchet was lying through his teeth-he isn’t very clever, and certainly not smart. Whatever he’s doing, he’s been set up, I think, and he’s in way above his head-Hey, Gellor! Take a look at this!”
Gellor looked down into the huge iron box. “You’ve hit the bottom,” he said. “Let’s get going.”
“No, take another look at the bottom. It’s about half a foot too shallow!”
Gellor reached down, put the fingers of one hand on the floor of the iron container, then extended his outside arm down to the floor. “Right you are! Let’s find the secret panel.”
With that, they two thieves began a careful and painstaking scrutiny of the great trunk. Gord spotted where access to the hidden space beneath the false bottom could be gained and called his comrade’s attention to it. Both examined the place minutely.
“Don’t screw around with it, Gord. Those tiny scratches are some sort of magical runes-and there’s at least one needle trap here, too. See the hole? It’s time to take what we’ve got and clear out.”
“I’ve got another idea to try before we give up,” said Gord.
“Help me tip this thing so it’s bottom up, and I’ll show you something you’re going to like.”
Gellor shook his head in doubt and disagreement, but he took a hold on the chest and assisted Gord in standing it on its side. Coins spilled out and rolled across the hard-packed earth. Gord tugged the lid shut, and the pair levered the big box to rest on its top. A rusty slab of iron covering the underside of the trunk presented itself to view.
“Now what?” Gellor asked sarcastically as he watched Gord draw his dagger. Then he gaped when he saw Gord’s dagger-point scribing a shallow gash in the metal bottom. “What the hell you got there, Gord? I’ve never seen a blade cut like that before!”
Gord merely grinned through his clenched teeth as he pressed harder on the weapon. A couple of more strokes, and he had made a squarish set of lines about an eighth of an inch deep in the iron. With these to guide his work, the young thief began to make gouging motions with the weapon, so that the dagger’s blade passed back and forth along the channels, from one to another. It was like a normal knife blade cutting oak-slow work, but certain to succeed. In minutes the task was done. The square of metal clattered down into the place between false bottom and real one. There was, as predicted, a half-foot space beneath. Gellor brought a candle near, and golden light was reflected back in its flickering illumination.
Using utmost care, the two proceeded to gather up the stuff hidden in the false bottom of the chest. The orbs there were bright yellow gold all right, but each bore the horned and crowned death’s head of the Hierarchs on its face, with a coiled serpent on the obverse. With these coins were a soft leather bag and a tube of bone. The two thieves tucked the small bag and the coins in with the rest of their booty, and soon after that they had managed to open the tube.
“Gord, those deviates could have put this here as part of the protections….”
“I’ve heard of such things, Gellor, but cursed or not, we must examine it. Anything to do with the Horned Society is likely to bode ill for us anyway.”
Without further hesitation, the one-eyed thief unrolled the parchment within the cylinder, while Gord moved beside him so as to be able to read it too. What was there was nothing magical at all, nor was it a map. It was simply a set of instructions written clearly in Common. After scanning it quickly, Gellor replaced it in the tube and tucked that into his belt. The two men exchanged a few quick words about what they would do next, then turned the iron chest back upright. Gord picked up both of the shirt-sacks stuffed with coins and went upstairs. Gellor followed him a couple of minutes later, dragging the body of Swutch with him. He took it into Flatchet’s bedroom, dropping it near the still-comatose body of the bandit captain. During this time, Gord had been piling straw from the floor of the bedchamber around the base of the dry wooden walls of the hut. As Gellor returned from the cellar with Taw’s body, Gord was applying a candle flame to several spots along the mound of straw. Then Gord and Gellor picked up their loot and let themselves out, closing the door on the flames that were beginning to lick at the walls. They scooped up the registry volume and hastened outside. A faint whitening of the horizon told them that dawn would come soon. They were entering the Towergate of Stoink when it did.
Chapter 17
The great hall of the lord mayor’s palace was aglitter with candles and flambeaux. The crowd within was a sparkling array of the elite of Stoink. His Authoritative Lordship Dhaelhy led the festivities, and with him were the various ward leaders, clerics, guildmasters, and other officials who were his liegemen. Attendant to all, of course, were entourages of guards, retainers, servants, and females-grand ladies as well as other sorts. The half-hundred important men, with thrice that number of others in service to them, plus the palace guards and staff, nearly filled the huge chamber. The crowd of lesser bureaucrats and minor leaders of Stoink and its environs brought the crowd to near three hundred.
Long trestle tables were arrayed in the hall, and these boards groaned with the weight of the food and drink upon them. The major domo slammed his ceremonial staff down on a wooden platform constructed so as to issue a booming sound when so struck. At this sound, minstrels ceased their strumming and singing, and jongleurs ceased their tricks, as did the capering jester. A hush fell over the place, for Boss Dhaelhy was about to speak.
“Lords and ladies, masters and mistresses,” (a few titters) “gentlefolk… welcome to this palace!” (Cheers and applause.) “You are commanded here to celebrate because I have just saved Stoink from disaster!” (Louder cheers and heavy clapping.) “
Wait…
wait… There is more than that. I have strengthened our state, and assured its preeminent position as leader of the Alliance of the States of the Free Lords!”
This last announcement precipitated such a tumult of applause and cheering that Boss Dhaelhy stood silently for several minutes, hands raised, basking in the adulation. At his signal, the major domo again made the hall boom to his staff, and the assemblage was again hushed. The boss continued.
“I discovered a most wicked plot by our former allies, the Hierarchs of the Horned Society.” (Catcalls, hisses, boos, jeers, and whistles.) “Those bastards would embroil us with the cursed Tenha Host, and with us most of the Free Lords of the East, while their filth-devouring legions ran unopposed over our Brothers to the West!” The boss and lord mayor paused here, but the listeners made little noise, for the impact of his statement was being assessed. Then he resumed.
“I discovered this scheme, and brought its leaders low. The agents of the Hierarchs were here-yes, here in Holdroon! They are dead now, their warchest a part of our treasury, and the men-at-arms they recruited with deceit and lies now serve me! Soon I ride with them to Riftcrag. There, a Grand Council of Free Lords will meet, and there we will pursue our crusade to remove the Hierarchs’ troops from Warfields and Wormhall… and I shall be Chief of Lords!”
Dhaelhy beamed as a storm of wild jubilation swept through the crowd and filled the hall with such noise that even the most strenuous beating of the mace-butt on the drum boards could not be heard above the din. A magic-user in the back took the opportunity to cause an illusion of appropriate nature to appear. A line of chained hobgoblins clanked through the suddenly opened doors of the chamber. Each carried the head of a human on a golden platter, and each bloody head was crowned with a horned coronet. This file of captives and grisly trophies was guarded by huge soldiers in black armor, armed with halberds and wearing the blazon of Stoink-a white field embellished with an azure bend, and a golden spear superimposed over all. As this procession entered, heralds blew silver trumpets likewise decorated with armorial bearings. The throng quieted as everyone turned to watch the spectacle. The audience applauded when the hobgoblin captives hurled the heads down at the table before the boss, and each gory pate dissolved into a shower of golden coins and raihbow-hued jewels. The mace drummed again, the illusion vanished, and the onlookers were again silent.
“There is just a little more, dear peers and subjects. I did not accomplish this all alone. Faithful men served to assist, and we are here not only to celebrate my triumph, but to share with these subjects Our glory and accomplishment!” Subdued remarks as to the generosity and magnanimity of the Boss accompanied the applause that followed this remark.
“The Honored Guests of the revel are here, near me. I present them to you all: Gellor, a magsman of Our Thieves’ Guild, and his associate, Gord, a freesword late of Leukish and likewise a member of Our Guild. It is Our decision that each be given honor hereafter as Deputy Bailiffs and Subalterns of the Constabulary Guard!”
There was polite applause and a few raised eyebrows at this, for the boss never gave out such positions unless something big had been done by the recipients. Deputy Bailiff status literally meant a license to steal, and that office, as well as that of the Guard, bore remuneration that even after payoffs and kickbacks would amount to five or six luckies a month-for no work. The pair now standing and inclining their heads bore watching by each of the assembled officials, either as potential rivals or possible climbers whose friendship could be useful. Then His Authoritative Lordship signaled for the festivities to continue, and the revelers were soon engaged in eating, drinking, and conversation once again.
Gord was seated next to the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and all of his attention was on her. Evaleigh was her name, Lady Evaleigh. Her hair of pale platinum and her violet eyes bespoke elvish blood-perhaps from a grandparent or great-grandparent. Gord could not guess which and anyway cared for nothing save the result.
Evaleigh was gowned in velvet of the same color as her eyes, and the low bodice of the dress revealed the perfect symmetry of her creamy breasts. Gord found himself staring at the single amethyst nestled between these hemispheres and wishing he were that pendant. When she turned to speak with him, her long tresses, bound by a fillet of thin gold, rippled as silk stirred by a soft breeze. It was difficult for Gord to understand what she said because her full mouth and soft lips fascinated his eyes to such an extent that his audial senses seemed out of touch with his brain.
The young woman’s face was somewhat drawn, however, and Gord saw great sadness behind the beauty of her eyes. Evaleigh demonstrated no particular enjoyment of the banquet celebration, no happiness in being at the boss’ head table, no pleasure at the flirtation and compliments from the officials and influential men who sought her attention. Gord wanted to be alone with her, and he finally decided give voice to his thoughts, in the hope that he could improve her disposition-and give himself some pleasure, too-by taking her away from the table.