Skulduggery 8: Building a Criminal Empire

by Logan Jacobs

It was the last day of the week, and that meant it was auction day in the Gold City, so we headed toward the main square, but we made sure to keep an eye out for Tevian the whole way there. I wasn’t sure what had happened after I left him frozen in the dead elf’s booth, but I knew he was just slimy enough that he might have squirmed his way out of any possible trouble.

  But by the time we reached the main square, we hadn’t run into Tevian, and I hoped this wasn’t the sort of place that he’d show up at, even though it was early evening now.

  Still, even though Tevian might not show his face here, that certainly didn’t mean that it wasn’t crowded. The square was packed full, and if I’d still been just a thief, I would have had a goddamn field day with all these distracted people. They were all so busy looking for a good time that they forgot to look after the one thing that could buy that for them-- their fucking purses.

  But I had bigger fish to catch than a few random purses, so I led my friends through the clusters of fire-breathers and whores, past all the contortionists and musicians, and finally up to the front of the crowd that had all gathered around the auction block.

  It was still empty at the moment, but that was only because the auctioneers didn’t like to display their merchandise before it was time to sell it. There were a hundred reasons that a gladiator might be on the auction block, and that could be anything from a personal losing streak to the fact that his owner could have lost a bet. Either way, I didn’t really care what the reason was, as long as the gladiator was human and looked like he could fight.

  Because I knew that as soon as I told the gladiators that I had bought them to free them, not to own them or exploit them, I would have their undying loyalty. After all, I had freed Osman from his owner, just like I had freed my friends from our bonds to the guilds, and now I planned to do the same thing with these gladiators.

  And eventually, I planned to do the same thing with every person and every race that the elven bastards had enslaved and forced to serve them.

  “So, um, how many gladiators are you thinking about buying?” Penny asked.

  “As many as we can, Penny,” I said. “Or at least, as many as we can without raising any suspicion. If anyone asks, I’m buying them to serve as some additional personal guards for myself, but if no one asks, there’s sure as shit no need to volunteer that information.”

  “Got it,” the pixie thief said.

  A few minutes later, a day elf dressed like an executioner walked out onto the middle of the platform, raised his hands to quiet the crowd, and then signaled for the slaves to join him on the auction block. A row of ten slaves shuffled out behind him, and each one had heavy chains that bound their wrists and ankles together. A few of them looked more like servants than fighters, but there were still six gladiators on the block, and four of them were human.

  If I could have bought all the slaves up for auction instead of just the human gladiators, I would have, but I knew the time was wrong for that. I had to start with only the humans first, since they were the most oppressed of all the races, and that meant they had the least to lose. Eventually, I would work my way up to get the other races allied with me, too, but for now, I had to stay focused on what I needed at this moment.

  The elven auctioneer took out a long black whip and cracked it against the stage to begin the auction. About half the slaves jumped at the sound, but the other half curled their lips in disgust, and they looked angry enough to rip the day elf’s head off with their bare hands.

  They should be perfect.

  The auctioneer started the event with the non-gladiator slaves, but since I couldn’t do anything for them right now, I just waited until they had all been sold and taken off the platform by their new owners. Then the whole line of gladiators stepped forward together, and I took a deep breath as the auctioneer prepared to start the bidding.

  The first gladiator up for sale was a human man who looked almost as big as an orc. He was massively tall with a broad chest, and his muscles were so developed from fighting that I wondered how quickly he could actually move, or if he just used brute strength to win.

  “And now, fresh from a winning streak of twelve matches in a row,” the auctioneer began as he pointed to the huge human, “we have this giant of a man, and trust me when I say that you won’t find any other gladiator with such an enormous winning streak, especially not a fucking human one!”

  The crowd roared with laughter, but I just continued to study the human gladiator. He had no weapons on him, of course, but when he clenched his fists at his sides, they looked like they could pack just as much of a punch as my war hammer.

  “Think of all the coin this human could earn you in his fights!” the auctioneer continued. “I guarantee that you’ll at least double your investment before he meets his match--”

  “What does that mean?” Ava whispered.

  “He means before the gladiator dies in a fight,” I said and forced my hands to remain still at my side, when all I wanted to do was beat the elven auctioneer until he was nothing but a pile of bloody pulp and bones.

  “And besides,” the auctioneer laughed, “once he dies, you’ll have enough money to invest in someone even bigger and badder! This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we in the business like to call a sure thing.”

  Nothing the elves said or did was a surprise to me anymore, but it was still hard to swallow when this elven bastard talked so casually about the death of a human. He said it like it was all just a routine business transaction instead of someone’s fucking life, but then again, that was all we were to the elves.

  They just saw us as a way to make money for themselves, as people they could bleed dry, and as people they could kick around for their own amusement because they thought that we would never fight back.

  But eventually, even a kicked dog bites back.

  “So, what should we start the bidding at?” the day elf called. “Do I hear five gold?”

  “Five gold for the life of a man?” Penny growled. “Is he trying to be insulting?”

  “Easy there, sweetie,” I said. “The lower he starts the bidding, the easier it will be for us to win.”

  I waited until someone else bid on the gladiator first, and then after two more people bid and raised the price to ten gold, I raised my hand and gave a little nod.

  “That’s eleven gold, eleven gold to the human over there,” the elf said. “Do I hear twelve? Twelve gold from anyone? Twelve-- ah, thank you, I see your hand out there in the back.”

  I gritted my teeth but waited a few more bids before I raised my hand again to bid fifteen gold. The bids continued for another minute until only one other person kept bidding on the gladiator along with me. I couldn’t see them in the crowd around us, but I also didn’t need to because it didn’t matter who I was up against. All that mattered was that I was going to win.

  “Twenty-five,” I finally called out.

  “Twenty-five!” the day elf said. “We’ve got twenty-five from the human down here in the front, and now I can’t guarantee that this bastard is worth that much or that your investment will be repaid, but there you have it! Twenty-five gold for this human gladiator, and do I hear twenty-six from anyone?”

  There was only silence from the crowd, and I couldn’t believe that I was about to purchase a fucking human for less than a quarter the price of a barrel of whiskey. It was enough to make me want to start the revolution at this very moment, but instead, I just took a deep breath and waited for the auctioneer to declare the sale complete.

  “And sold to the human here in the front for twenty-five gold!” the day elf finally finished. “Alright, next we have another gladiator up for sale, and this one is a hulk of a dwarf. I tell you that you’ll never see anything like--”

  “What now?” Dar hissed.

  “We’ll make our payment and get the gladiator at the end of the auction,” I said, “but for now, there’s still three more human gladiators that I want, so just keep your eyes open for any sign of Tevian.
Or any other kind of trouble that could complicate things for us.”

  None of the other human gladiators were as expensive as the first one had been, and I also didn’t have as much competition, so by the time I successfully bid on all four human gladiators, I still hadn’t paid the full price of a barrel of whiskey.

  I hated that the elves considered human lives to be so cheap and replaceable, but at least it let me buy the gladiators without too much trouble. One day, we’d show them exactly how much our lives were worth.

  Just before we took their own.

  Once the auction was over, I waited for everyone else to pay the auctioneer for their purchases first, and then I made my way forward to complete my own sales. As I handed over the gold, I wasn’t sure who was more curious about me: the gladiators or the elven auctioneer. After all, it wasn’t every day that a human purchased anything from the auction block, let alone four gladiator slaves.

  After the auctioneer handed me the bill of sale for all four slaves, plus the key to unlock all their chains, he waved me away, and I stepped over to address the gladiators. I didn’t want to tell them all my plans right out in front of everyone, but I also didn’t want to lead them all the way back to our apartment before I knew for sure whether or not they would actually be on board with our plans.

  So instead, I settled on one of the private fountains that were set up all around the perimeter of the square. They were screened from public view, and each one had a bench or two, plus a small fountain with flowers all around it. Each one could have been like a little oasis in the middle of the city, except for the small fact that they were usually used by whores who wanted to ply their trade in the middle of the day.

  “Follow me,” I told all four gladiators. “I have a special job for all of you, but we need a little more privacy first.”

  The gladiators raised their eyebrows and looked at each other, but I jerked my head for them to follow me, and once Ava and Dar appeared behind them, they shrugged and started to move forward. Penny was already ahead of us, so when she glanced back over her shoulder, I knew that meant she had found an unoccupied fountain where we could all speak in private.

  Once we reached the screened fountain, I paid a few coins to the halfling just outside it as the fee for us to be left alone for a quarter of an hour. The halfling glanced at all eight of us like he had never seen such a thing, not even in the Gold City, but then he just pulled aside the screen, let us all in, and then moved it back into place after us.

  “If this is some sort of--” one of the gladiators started.

  “Take it easy, friend,” I said as I gestured for them all to sit down on the benches beside the fountain. “I just want to talk to you all, and I wanted to do it somewhere that the elves wouldn’t overhear us.”

  “Well, that’s got my attention,” another gladiator said and then sank down onto one of the wooden benches.

  I remembered that he was the first gladiator that I’d purchased, and I had a feeling that I was going to like him as much as I’d initially thought I would. At first, I’d thought that he was too massive to move quickly, but the way he’d sat down just now told me that he might actually fight more like a cat than a bull.

  “So do you run some kind of illegal fighting ring or what?” the massive gladiator asked.

  “Well, what I do is illegal, but it’s not a fighting ring,” I said. “Well, not exactly. Dar, keep an ear out by the screen, would you? I’d hate for anyone to eavesdrop on our little conversation in here.”

  “You got it,” my halfling friend said and then stepped over to keep his ear against the screen.

  “Now, before I go into details about the offer that I’d like to make all of you,” I said, “there’s just one important thing we need to take care of first, and that’s to tell you that you don’t belong to me.”

  “What’s that mean?” one of the smaller gladiators asked. “Do we belong to the redhead there, or what?”

  “Psh, you wish,” Penny said. “Hand me the key, and maybe that’ll get it through their heads.”

  I turned the key over to the pixie thief, and as she started to unlock one slave after the other, I could tell that they still thought this was some sort of trick. I wondered how long they had been slaves and how long they had been gladiators, just like I wondered where they had all come from originally.

  But at the end of the day, it didn’t matter where they came from. It only mattered where they were going, and if they wanted to get there with me.

  “You’re free,” I said. “I may have money, but I’m also human, and I’ve got a fucking conscience. You can’t own another person, and that means I don’t own you. You’re free to go wherever and do whatever you please.”

  “Is there a catch?” the smallest gladiator asked. “You can’t tell me that you just… I mean, did you really just hand over all that coin for us just to set us free?”

  “There’s no catch,” Penny said as she stepped back from the last gladiator that she freed. “Wade here is the start of something brand new, and that means no owners, no guilds, no bullshit authority that tells you what to do and when to piss.”

  “Thanks, Penny,” I said with a smile. “She’s right. I won’t force anyone to do anything that they don’t want to, so if you don’t want to stay and work for me-- for fair wages, I might add-- then you’re welcome to walk right out that screen and never look back.”

  “And if we stay?” the massive gladiator asked. “If we choose to work for you, what does that look like?”

  “That, my friends,” I said, “is something I’ll only tell you if you choose to stay. It’s dangerous, it’s illegal, and it might get you killed, but I guarantee that if it does, at least you’ll go down as free men.”

  “I’m in,” the massive gladiator said immediately. “I don’t give a shit what I do, as long as it doesn’t earn any more money for those elven fuckers who enslaved me in the first place.”

  “Good to have you on board,” I said. “I’m Wade, and this is Ava, Penny, and Dar.”

  “The name’s Leif,” the gladiator replied.

  “Leaf, like from a tree?” Penny asked.

  “Sure,” he laughed, “but I prefer to think of it as the way that my enemies act when they see me coming. You know, because I make them shake like a leaf.”

  “Well, if Leif’s on board, then so am I,” one of the smaller gladiators said.

  “Me too,” the third gladiator added.

  “And what about you?” I asked the last human gladiator.

  “I’ll stay,” he replied. “We’ve got no other skills that anyone else would care about, and if you offer us a chance to earn our own money, then how could I refuse?”

  “You won’t be disappointed,” I said with a grin.

  Then as quickly as I could, I told them about my plans to train the humans in the Gold City how to fight, and I told them about our whiskey business and how that earned us enough coin to do whatever we wanted. I would need their help with whiskey deliveries around the city, not just with training a volunteer human army, so if they were going to work for me, they might as well know as much as I felt comfortable telling them.

  Of course, I did leave out the fact that I could travel from one city to another with a magic compass, but I didn’t think that was relevant information for them to know.

  “So what do you think?” I asked. “How would you all like to deliver whiskey and teach a ragtag bunch of human volunteers how to fight, all without the elves finding out?”

  “Fuck, yes,” one of the gladiators said, and he was echoed by two others, so they all agreed except for Leif.

  “One day, I’ll need you to do more than just train the humans,” I continued. “One day, I’ll need you to help me lead them when we rise up-- but of course, there’s time for all that later.”

  “I’d say that we just struck the lottery,” one of the smaller gladiators said.

  “Leif?” I turned to the massive gladiator. “Did you change your mi
nd about working for me?”

  “N-no,” the huge man whispered.

  Then I realized there were tears in his eyes.

  Immediately, Ava moved toward the big man and sat down beside him. At first, she didn’t say anything, but she laid a hand on his shoulder as Leif sniffed and then tried to get a hold of himself.

  I was surprised to see a grown man cry, but then again, I understood the feeling. For all I knew, Leif could have been a slave for his entire life, and this might be the first time that anyone had ever told him that he was free. After all, even for humans who weren’t slaves or gladiators, that wasn’t something that we heard very often.

  “When Wade told me that I was free, I felt the same way,” Ava murmured to the big man. “I never knew anything different. I had only been taught how to hunt and how to kill.”

  “That sounds about right,” Leif sniffed. “I should be ashamed for crying like a baby, when--”

  “There’s no shame in what you’re feeling,” I said.

  “Wade’s right, you know, but I understand what you mean, since I had always been told that I couldn’t even think for myself,” Ava continued and then looked at me with a smile, “much less feel anything for another person.”

  “Thank you,” Leif sighed and then looked at both of us. “It’s just that… well, it’s like when you’ve been dreaming of a thick roast turkey your whole life, and one day, someone just walks up and hands you one and then tells you there’s more where that came from. You can eat all you want, and things are going to be better from now on.”

  “Now that’s a dream I can understand,” Dar snickered from beside the screen.

  “I always wanted to strike back against the elves,” Leif said, “but I guess I’m just saying that-- well, I just didn’t know how. And I sure as hell didn’t think I would ever get a chance to.”

  “Trust me,” Penny said, “if ya stick with Wade, you’ll get to kill the fucking life out of some elves. And in the meantime, we get to rob them blind every time they buy our whiskey.”

  “I’d be honored to work for you, Wade,” the massive gladiator said. “You and your friends have my eternal thanks.”