The men loitering in the doorway came on instant alert and one quickly ducked back inside. Several people poured out of the building. At least three or four men, two women and a couple children made their way out of the building and ran off into the night ahead of the oncoming city watch.
As the Watch came upon the building, they quickly spread out to cover all avenues of escape. Four circled around the side and to the back, probably to check and guard for a rear exit, six stormed inside while another four guarded the front for anyone who might try to duck past the invading guardsmen and escape out the front.
In a few minutes, the guards reappeared and regrouped. Since they had no prisoners in tow, Azerick figured everyone who was in the building must have already fled. As the guards continued on their way to check another building, chosen seemingly at random, Azerick continued to watch the building from the safety of the dark shadows in a small alley across the way. After about twenty minutes, he decided that no one was going to return, the original inhabitants chased off by the Watch and the guards themselves would not return to a building they had already cleared.
Azerick slinked carefully across the street and ducked into the dark opening of the doorway of the now vacant building. He looked carefully around the dusty, cluttered room to ensure that it was indeed vacant.
The building appeared to be a long-abandoned tannery given the many barrels that probably once held various oils and chemicals used to treat the hides of animals. He thought he could even detect a faint lingering odor even after this long of disuse.
Azerick crept across the large room and went through a doorway on the far side. He came to a smaller room that had a single closed door in the far end. He crossed the room and slowly pulled it open, his knife held firmly in his grip just in case the building was not as empty as it appeared.
Behind the door was a small storage room. Shelves lined the walls and empty wooden barrels occupied a good portion of the floor. He figured this was as good a place as any to sleep for the remainder of the night. The newly orphaned young man cleared a small area behind the empty barrels that he hoped would provide some concealment just in case someone did take a cursory glance in the room. The youth laid his bag on the floor and rested his head on the clothing-filled half. His stomach growled ferociously, but exhaustion quickly won out and he drifted off to sleep, silently weeping his newest loss.
Azerick,
the voice called softly from within the blackness.
Azerick barely heard the voice that called his name and saw only darkness before his eyes. It was feint and feminine. For a moment, he thought it was the voice of his mother.
Azerick, be my hand. Be my hand of vengeance and bring death to those that have wronged you. Give death to all that deserve their fate,
the voice whispered once more.
“Who are you? I can’t see you,” Azerick called out into the dark.
I am your fate, I am your future, embrace me. Be the hand of Sharrellan.
Someone was playing tricks on him. Everyone knew Sharrellan, goddess of death, vengeance, and all things dark. Gods did not talk to street rats.
“Who are you? What do you want? What do you mean?” Azerick called once more.
Be Sharrellan’s hand
, the voice repeated, fading to nothingness.
“I’m having nightmares,” Azerick said aloud, “it’s nothing but a nightmare.”
The last few hours of darkness passed while he slept in the small storage room. Not even the horrors that his nightmares brought were able to wake him from his exhausted slumber. The sun was just beginning to burn off the veil of evening along the horizon when footsteps and voices woke him once again.
Azerick went alert immediately and listened intently from his hiding place. He could hear low muffled voices and footsteps shuffling about in the rooms outside the door. The voices cut out but he could still hear the footsteps come closer to the door of his hiding place. His hand flew to the hilt of his knife as the footsteps stopped right outside of the door to the small storage closet.
As the door was slowly pulled open, he swiftly pulled the knife out and held it in front of him in a guard position. Standing in the door, silhouetted by the waxing morning light, was a large, bearded man. Azerick could just make out two other figures beyond the open door, in the gloom behind the man.
“Well, well, what have we here?” the man rumbled in a deep baritone voice. “You thinking to cut us all down with that pig-sticker in your hand, boy?”
“Your life will be the least you’ll lose if you think to put hands on me,” Azerick replied, breathing in quick deep breaths. “Just ask the previous owner of this knife if you think I do not speak the truth!”
“Oh, I believe you, boy,” the large man said, seeing the dark spots of blood slightly visible against the metal when just enough light happened to reflect off it, as well as the dark spots along Azerick’s shirt cuff. You’re lucky the guard didn’t come back. Sometimes they like to double back to try to catch us sneaking back into a place they already checked. Now put away that knife, boy, you don’t need it against us, and I’m no more intimidated by it than the guard would have been if they would’a caught you here. I give you my word, we’ll treat you a damn site better than they would have.”
Azerick demanded, “Why should I trust you any more than the rest of the alley-born I’ve run afoul of?”
“I’ll pardon your insult to my good character and intentions and tell you true. Whether you were alley born or a cast off prince like your highborn way of talking marks you, from the looks of you, you’re one of us now, and me and my group take care of our own. Come out now, I got a bit of bread and some cold beans I’ll share, and don’t try to tell me you ain’t hungry. It was your rumbling belly that led us right to this closet you’re hiding in.”
Azerick pondered his options a moment then sheathed his knife. The man sounded honest enough and the odds were not exactly in his favor regardless. If they turned on him, he only hoped he could count on their underestimating enough that he could break free of them.
The nervous boy slowly walked towards the small group with his hand still on the handle of his knife as a precaution. However, they parted ranks and made way for him to leave the tiny room unmolested. He followed the big man into the large room he had originally entered a few hours earlier.
There were a couple of men, two women, and three children already sitting in the room as he and the three men entered it; about a dozen people in all. The large, bearded man bade him to sit down near the wall and took up a seat next to him. He then offered him the piece of bread and a cup of beans as he had promised a moment ago. Azerick mumbled a brief thanks to the man and quickly devoured the proffered meal. As he finished off his breakfast, using the bread to swipe the inside of the tin cup clean, the man spoke again.
“I guess I’ll start the introductions now that there’s a little something other than air and empty space in your belly. My name’s Jon Locke,” he said, and then pointed around the room introducing everyone else in turn. “That’s my wife, Margaret, my oldest boy, Patrick and my younger boy, William. That’s Maggy over there with her little girl, Beth and her man, Steven. Ryan is out foraging.” He continued introducing the others around the room then he looked pointed pointedly at Azerick when he had made the last of the introductions.
Margaret was a comely woman with auburn hair. Patrick looked to be maybe two years older than Azerick and William about two years younger. Maggy was a tiny woman with dark brown hair and a severe look. Her daughter, Beth, had light brown hair and was perhaps four or five years old.
Maggy’s
husband had dirty blond hair and was whipcord lean.
“I’m Azerick, and I thank you for your hospitality.”
“I think ya got it right when ya called him a lost prince, Jon. Just listen to the pretty way he talks!” one of the men crowed, eliciting a round of soft laughs form the group.
Several people in the shabby room got a good chuckle out of Steven’s remark but Jon quickly spoke up for him.
“Don’t you mind him none, like I said, it don’t matter where you came from it’s where you’re at that matters. You can tell us your story if you’ve a mind too whenever you’re ready. You still look rather tired out. Why don’t you go back and get some sleep? A couple of us will stay here and keep watch over you while the rest of us go take care of some business,” Jon suggested.
Azerick was still exhausted from all the activities of the last twenty-four hours as well as the stress and pain of his newest heartbreaking loss. So he excused himself, thanked them all again for their kindness, and went back to sleep in his closet.
It was late afternoon by the time Azerick once again awoke to the sounds of people talking and milling about the abandoned tannery. He left the tiny room that served as his sleeping chamber and joined the others in the main room where he had met them much earlier in the day. Jon hailed him and called him over. Several others gave him a short greeting as he entered the room.
“Just about everyone is back from their forays,” Jon informed him as he took a seat on the floor. “We always meet back here or wherever we’re camped at the time. We divide everything up equally amongst us from whatever we’re able to scrounge up, whether it’s food, clothes, coin, or whatever else of use or value we come up with.” Jon looked at him seriously and continued.
“I’ve talked it over with the group while you slept, and if you want, and if you can abide by our rules, then I’d invite you to stick with us for as long as you like.”
Azerick thought about it for a moment, thought about not being alone and having someone else that could help watch his back. The streets were not a safe place when one was alone and were even more so when one was still just a boy.
“I would like that very much, sir.” Azerick replied.
Jon nodded his big, shaggy head. “All right, first rule is you call me Jon, none of this sir business. Likely go to my head and I’d make everyone say it then I’d be tossed out on my arse. Second rule is we are all family and we treat each other as such. We have our squabbles from time to time but in the end, we always stick together. Third rule, as I already told ya, is we share what we find. So if that’s agreeable to ya, then welcome to our little family.”
“That’s all fine with me, sir, um, Jon,” Azerick stammered with a small grin.
Azerick suddenly remembered his accidental run in with Ewen and pulled out the small coin purse his tutor had given him. It had lain completely forgotten until now; he did not even know how much was in it.
“I have this pouch of coins a friend gave me. I don’t know how much is in here, but I’m sure it can be of some use,” he offered as he handed it to Jon.
Jon took the small leather pouch and turned up a satisfied grin at the weight of it as he hefted the purse in his big, calloused hand. He opened the drawstrings and poured out the contents into one beefy palm and his eyes opened wide in surprise.
“My goodness, lad, you certainly earn your keep quick don’t ya,” Jon said as he looked at the coins of copper, silver, and even a few gold mixed in. “This’ll do well, lad, this’ll do very well, especially with winter
comin
’. Some things are just too darn hard or risky to pilfer, and this will come in right useful it will, and I say thank you, lad.”
“I’m glad I could contribute. I am afraid I am not much of a pickpocket and I really have not stolen much more than a piece of bread or a meat pie. I imagine I’m going to have to learn how rather quickly if I’m going to make it out here.”
“That you will, but not to worry, we’ll train ya up real good before we throw you out the boat and into the water,” Jon said grinning at him. “We’re just waiting for Steven to get back and we’ll settle in to eat, and then maybe you can tell us what exactly brings a boy of your breeding to living in the streets.”
Jon had no more than just finished speaking when Steven strode into the building carrying a sack from which something heavy bulged out the bottom of it.
“What luck today, Steven?” Jon inquired looking at the sack.
“Only the best kind of course, the good kind,” Steven replied and pulled a large smoked ham out of the bag.