by Logan Jacobs
“I figure I’m going to spend two-hundred, maybe two-hundred and fifty gold,” I said.
“Yeah, you are,” she snorted. “So no on the twenty. I’ll give you five.”
“Fuck that,” I growled as I rolled my eyes. I was acting though. I would have given her the gold just as long as she passed me the information. Knowing what was going on with the elves for the foreseeable future was easily worth two-hundred and fifty gold.
“That’s my offer, handsome,” she purred.
“Fifteen,” I countered.
“Ten,” she snickered.
“Done,” I agreed, and then I spit in my hand and held it out to her.
“Not too bad.” Rindell smirked as she spit in her own hand.
“How soon can this happen?” she inquired as we shook.
“Give me some time to take care of some things first,” I said as I scratched at my chin. “But, if you let me, I promise to make this profitable for both of us.”
“What does ‘some time’ mean?” she pressed. “I have girls out there looking for work, and they will find it any way they can.”
“I need two weeks,” I replied.
“Not fast enough.”
“That’s the best I can do for that amount of coi--”
“Ah, what about my girls?” She shook her head. “I can’t lose that talent to some other cheap dancehall.”
“Okay…” I tilted my head as I tried to think of what we could do. “How many girls do you have?”
“I have fifteen little doves,” Rindell replied.
“Let me rephrase the question,” I chuckled. “How many can you not afford to lose?”
“Fifteen … ” she repeated with a cocked eyebrow.
“C’mon now, Madame,” I leaned forward, “work with me here. There have to be a few ugly ducklings in that nest of yours.”
“Well,” Rindell closed her eyes, “you’ll have to let me in on what you’re thinking before I answer, darlin’.”
“Fine,” I breathed. “I can talk with the owner of the theatre and see if he has any room for a few of your girls.”
“Look at you.” The Madame slapped her knee. “Since when did you have important connections?”
“How many doves will it be, Madame?” I asked and ignored her question.
“Let’s see here,” she clicked her tongue as she thought, “I’d be happy if you can help five of my girls. One of them is a halfie, so I hope that wouldn’t be too hard of a sell for you, darlin’.”
“I can work with five,” I said. “Give me some time, and we can meet again soon.”
“Very soon,” Rindell answered, “and honey, remember I will not just go away.”
“I understand that,” I said as I stood up from the bench. “Keep your instincts sharp, Madame.”
“I will, and you better give Penny all my love,” Madame winked as she stood, “and don’t you two die on me. You’ve got a whole coop of women counting on you, and they’ll pay you both handsomely in ways I know you’ll appreciate.”
“Really?” Dar’s eyes seemed to bulge from his skull.
“Oh yes, dear, they love the small ones like you,” she said as she blew Dar a kiss.
“We’ll be in touch.” I waved, grabbed my halfling friend, and turned to walk down the road toward Hebal’s.
“Shit, man, did you hear that?” Dar chuckled like a little kid after we took a few steps. “So, you think you can get five girls into the theatre?”
“Yeah, but not for you to drool over,” I sighed. “We’ll have to talk with Cimarra and Penny before we do anything with the theatre. That will be a popular topic to discuss. But for now, that was me buying us some time with Rindell.”
“Can we even afford to build her a new dancehall?” Dar asked. “I know ya just made the deal, but I didn’t think we had that much coin yet.”
“We’ll be fine as soon as we can distribute without Hebal in the Dwarf District, and continue to expand in the Halfling,” I replied.
“Well, then I see nothing to worry too much about.” Dar grinned, but then that grin faded into a frown. “Except maybe the four bodies dangling near the theatre. That’s not the most welcome sight for new customers. Any idea on how to deal with that?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I admitted as I scratched at my neck. “Right now, I just need Rindell to stay patient with us.”
“I think the crazy bitch loves us too much to do anything stupid,” Dar said as he pulled out his tobacco pipe from his pocket.
“She may like us, but she has a lot of dangerous people wrapped around her dainty little finger.” I clenched my jaw. “I can’t let us be another one of her puppets.”
“I didn’t know she had that much pull around the realm,” Dar mused as he lit the pipe in his mouth.
“Anyone who deals with elves as much as she does will have some serious influence,” I said as we passed the hanging bodies. Blood still dripped down the corpses and tapped against the wooden platform like an annoying knock.
“Do you know that for sure about her?” Dar asked and blew out a puff of smoke from his nostrils.
“Just like Rindell, I have my own instincts that I trust,” I explained as I moved aside to make room for a group of human mourners. There were ten of them, all wearing long black cloaks with sacks of ashes around their necks.
It was such an odd sight, so I paused along with Dar and watched the ceremony play out.
Each of the mourners stepped in unison with one another like they were performing a dance routine. Then, as the leader approached the four platforms, he removed the small sack of ashes around his neck, lowered his hood, and poured the ashes all over his head. After the cloud of gray dust vanished, the other nine mourners lined up next to him and did the same thing. Then they all dropped to their knees and wailed in unison for the murdered human.
“Well, even with those instincts of yours, fuckin’ humans and elves have the weirdest cultures.” Dar tilted his head as he watched the mourners wail. “Between these guys and the elven mourners we saw in the temple, you’re both crazy.”
“Are you comparing humans, the pile of shit in this realm, to the elves, who use diamond and gold crested swords to perform executions?” I arched an eyebrow. “Yeah, fuck that.”
“Just saying, you both do some weird shit.” Dar raised his hands in protest.
“Speak for yourself, halfling,” I chuckled. “C’mon, we better hurry. I don’t want to deal with a grumpy Hebal after all of this.”
“Same.” Dar nodded and followed me down the street.
As we walked, the people in the streets looked solemn and defeated from either witnessing or hearing about the executions. This was precisely what we needed to fight against. We couldn’t allow the elven fear tactics to affect us on a daily basis anymore.
If the keys were right, and the elves themselves were responding out of fear, then I already had them where I wanted. People didn’t think things through when they were functioning out of fear. Now, were elves like everyone else in that way?
I suspected they were.
We walked for a few more minutes until we reached the street where Hebal’s shop was.
“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Dar said as he scraped the tobacco from his pipe.
“Hmm,” I nodded toward Hebal’s store as it came into my view, “I don’t see any goons outside.”
“Has he had one outside a lot lately?” Dar asked as he put the pipe back in his pocket and then spat on the ground.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Ever since I stabbed him.”
“Maybe he’s on break or something,” Dar said as he pointed down the block. “I think there is a popular restaurant around the corner.”
“Naw, I doubt it,” I said when we were only about fifty feet from the store entrance. “Are we late?”
“No way,” Dar sighed as he looked straight up toward the sun. “It’s high noon. We are right on time.”
“Shit,” I whispered as I noticed
the “closed” sign draped across the front window. Although, that didn’t necessarily mean Hebal wasn’t there since he could still be in the back office.
“Should I try the door?” Dar asked as he gripped the handle.
“Yeah, give it a tug.” I nodded, and then the halfling tugged on the door with no result.
“Yep,” Dar grunted. “It’s definitely locked.”
“Middle of the week at noon, right?” I scratched my head. “Am I missing something?”
“Just a dwarf,” Dar snorted. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, a dwarf who could ruin our business,” I muttered.
“Fuck, you’re right,” Dar sighed. “Would he stand us up? He’d lose a lot of coin if he doesn’t pick up the barrels, you know?”
“Unless,” I leaned my head against the glass window to try to get a better look inside the small store, “he found out how to do it on his own?”
“How to distill?” Dar challenged. “No way.”
“He’s a sneaky bastard just like everyone else in this damn realm.” I squinted, saw the shelves inside were still full of trinkets, the lights were off, and there was no sign of Hebal. “He could’ve learned or hired someone else behind our backs.”
“I guess we were trying to do the same thing to him,” Dar muttered, “but he might’ve just beat us to the punch.”
“I doubt it,” I said.
“Why?” Dar asked.
“Cause if he knew how to make whiskey, we’d be dead already.” I pushed myself away from the window and then turned to Dar. “So he doesn’t know, so where the fuck is he?”
“We should look in the back alley,” Dar suggested.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “We need to find out what the fuck this dwarf is up to.”
Chapter 3
Dar and I waited around Hebal’s store for a good hour, but the dwarf never came back. Dar’s suspicion that he found out how to distill on his own or hired someone else to do it was making more and more sense, but I still didn’t want to believe it. For one, we hadn’t caught anyone spying on us, and two, we were all still alive, and I knew Hebal would murder me as soon as he had no use for me.
So, Dar and I eventually journeyed back to the Entertainment District and met with the girls and Selius in the stables.
“Did ya see the poor bastards executed over there?” Selius asked the moment we walked through the door.
“We saw it happen live, kid,” Dar sighed and moved over toward the table where Penny and Cimarra sat.
“What’s wrong?” Cimarra asked as soon as she saw my face.
“We have a lot to talk about,” I said as I shut the stable door, greeted Azure at my feet, and walked over toward the barrels along the wall.
“You mean, there’s more to talk about besides the four dead bodies on the corner?” Penny stood from her seat and rubbed her head. She was wearing a loose-fitting blue top and black tights that were splattered with white paint. “Cimarra and I have been busting our asses to make sure the theatre is ready for the re-launch, and then these fucking elves go ahead and--”
“Yep,” I cut the pixie off since I was well aware of the issues surrounding us. “There’s a growing list of things we need to do, and everything on the list is important.”
“What do we need to do first?” Cimarra asked as she stood and walked over to me. She was wearing a loose-fitting white top with black tights, but there wasn’t nearly as much paint splattered on her. “Whatever it is, we can handle it.”
“Where do we even begin?” Dar sighed near his bed, where he held up our new sample bottle of whiskey. “I need a drink.”
“Shit,” Penny breathed. “Are we robbing another elf or something? If so, send that bottle this way.”
“Naw,” I chuckled as I turned to face the pixie. “We just have to talk about your good friend, Madame Rindell.”
“Ugh.” Penny rolled her eyes.
I went on to explain how the entire day went. I started with the executions and finished with recapping the conversation we had with the Madame after the killings. I told the girls how Rindell kept her mouth shut when she was questioned by the commander, but was now holding that over our heads. I also mentioned I turned that into a benefit by offering to build her a new dancehall, but only if we get to keep some profit and glean any information her girls gathered from their elven clients.
“She must’ve been devastated having to perform those judgments.” Cimarra wrapped her arms around herself as if a cold breeze entered the room.
“Quite the opposite, actually,” Dar snickered. “She’s a crazy bitch.”
“That’s true but irrelevant,” I began. “Either way, I bought us some time with her, and that was my main goal. But there is one thing I needed to throw in with the offer that we have to discuss now.”
“What’s that?” Penny glared at me.
“Do you have any room for five more girls in the theatre?” I asked Cimarra. “If we can fulfill this part of the deal as soon as possible, I think she’ll be even more patient with us building her a new hall.”
“Are they a few of her dancers?” Cimarra asked.
“Yep,” I replied. “Her five best.”
“I think we can make it work.” Cimarra nodded. “I don’t know if we can offer them a job unless they are really good dancers, but I know the dancing they do is a bit different from what we do. Either way, they’ll have a place to live and food in their bellies.”
“Perfect,” I breathed a sigh in relief, “that’ll take a bit of pressure off my shoulders.”
“Is that it?” Selius asked as he sprawled out across some hay.
“I wish, kid.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Now, we gotta talk about Hebal.”
“I was wondering how your meeting with him went,” Cimarra said as she tapped a whiskey barrel.
“Well, it didn’t happen.” I shrugged.
“Wha?” Penny furrowed her brow.
“He stood us up,” I explained. “Dar and I waited for a good hour, and he never came back.”
“Where is he?” Cimarra wondered. “We still have the miners and the small café’s delivery to fulfill.”
“We don’t know,” I said as I shook my head. “When is Skam supposed to be here? I can just send him and Dar out to do the deliveries.”
“Okay, that works,” Cimarra replied. “Skam should be here soon.”
“Perfect.” I took a deep breath as I tried to keep all the details straight in my head.
“Either way, we gotta find the fucker fast,” Dar said as he took a swig of the whiskey.
“Don’t drink too much of that, you still got a story to tell the miners.” I pointed to Dar and then turned to the dancer. “But he’s right. That’s exactly what we have to do.”
“Do you think he’s making his move to drop us for good?” Penny asked.
“I don’t see any other reason why he’d do this,” I sighed. “He either hired someone he trusts to try to duplicate our own whiskey, or he somehow learned how to do it himself.”
“What if he just forgot to show up?” Selius questioned from the pile of hay in the corner.
“There’s no way,” Dar shook his head, “he wouldn’t close his store for nothing. On top of that, he’ll lose a ton of profit, and for any decent businessman, profit runs the world.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Penny muttered before she turned back to me. “So, what’s the plan?”
“And what do we do with all of this whiskey?” Dar nodded toward the barrels. “I mean, I can drink but not that much.”
“We use what we need for the theatre re-launch,” Cimarra suggested.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking, too,” I agreed. “We can hash out those details soon, okay?”
“Sounds good to me.” Cimarra nodded.
“Now, what about Hebal?” Penny asked again.
“I’m open to any ideas you guys have.” I gestured toward everyone. “We have a few things we need to think about.”
/> “Like?” Penny prodded.
“Well,” I started, “Hebal is a dwarven mafia boss, and he wouldn’t do something like this unless something came up, or knew he could beat us and doesn’t need us anymore. Now, that makes me wonder if he somehow found out where we operate.”
“Impossible,” Dar scoffed. “We’ve been ultra-careful with everything we’ve done. There’s no way he’d find out.”
“I know we’ve been careful, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t done his own due diligence, you know?” I tapped my chin. “Does anyone know where Ava is?”
“She’s still off defusing her situation with her guild leader,” Penny answered before she narrowed her eyes. “Do you think she ratted on us?”
“No, no,” I waved my hand through the air, “quite the opposite. I was hoping to have her track the dwarf down.”
“Hmm.” Cimarra hummed as an idea formed in her mind. “I think that’s exactly what we have to do, Wade.”
“Track the asshole down with Ava?” I questioned.
“Ava can’t follow him forever,” Cimarra added, “and she’s much too useful in other areas.”
“I agree.” I nodded.
“But we need to get eyes on Hebal every day,” Cimarra continued.
“What’re you thinking?” Penny asked.
“Who’s always out on the streets?” Cimarra wondered aloud as she looked at the rest of us.
“Uh, there are a few bums, but they usually just hang around the Entertainment District.” Dar shrugged.
“Yeah, they wouldn’t work, but I think we’re on the right train of thought,” Cimarra said as she pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear.
“What about the street kids in the Halfling District?” Dar suggested. “Those fuckers are always hanging around, they’re small, can hide anywhere, and would probably be cheap to hire.”
“Shit, man,” I grinned, “they’d be perfect for the job. Great idea.”
“Do we know any of them?” Cimarra asked.
“We definitely do.” I smirked at just the thought of the little bastard. “Wilimar Bindle.”
“I know that name.” Selius perked his head up. “He’s a big mouth, ain’t he, Wade?”
