by Noah Layton
‘That’s how he can afford to buy a tavern. He’s got a lot of gold stashed away, and he’s used plenty of it to keep himself well-guarded until you decide to try and go looking for him. His guards have been instructed to cut you down the moment they see you. Not that you’ll get the chance to go anywhere near him, that is…’
‘And you?’ I asked. ‘Why didn’t you go with him?’
‘Killian might be my boss, but he’s still an asshole. Coward didn’t even have the balls to wait for you to come and get him so that you could face off against him man to man. Just wants his lackeys to do it for him.’
‘And you? Is this us facing off man to man?’
‘We were man to man the moment you stepped through my front door. You’re lucky that I haven’t already crushed your head like a raisin.’
‘So you’ve been waiting here for me this whole time. I guess that warrants some credit.’
‘For what, exactly?’
‘Bravery.’
‘Hahaha!’ Wargo laughed. ‘You think I need to be brave to face off against you? I didn’t see any sense running, but I didn’t want to underestimate you again. That’s why I decided to wait. Plus, you know, I’m the one holding the gun.’
‘And here we are,’ I said quietly.
‘Here we are indeed,’ Wargo smiled again.
‘You still didn’t answer my question properly.’
‘Which one?’
‘The one about whether you were involved with the order for my killing.’
‘I told you. Killian and I, and Bartram too, we had an understanding about what was best for our situation. It was a group decision, and a long time coming at that.’
Wargo took a long pause, sighing and looking around the room. The barrel of the gun was still aimed directly at me.
My heart had been racing the entire time during our conversation, despite my best efforts to keep it steady and to keep my mind cool.
I knew what was coming.
‘You know I’m a gambler, right?’ He continued. ‘Of course you do. I’ve seen you writing in that journal of yours. We never did manage to find it at your quarters, but you know everything about everyone, don’t you? Well, I used to think you did, anyway.’
‘I’m actually kind of surprised. Sitting down and having a real conversation with you for once, you seem smart. I didn’t think you would be the type to gamble.’
‘Smart people still gamble. For a lot of people it’s the thrill of the win or the loss, but for me… I like the unpredictability. The bounty hunters have lost that, and I get my fix of it on the tables. But what about you? Do you have a plan?’
‘I do.’
‘And that plan led you here, to the end of your own gun.’
‘Yep. I’ll bet it looks like a pretty stupid plan now.’
‘Yes, it does. I gamble for a taste of unpredictability, but when it really comes down to it, I just know when to shut the fuck up. I know what I like. And what I like is making gold, crushing skulls, and shooting smug bastards like yourself in the face for thinking you can stand out of line. Goodbye, Drake.’
Wargo gave a final smile, propped the gun up on his forearm, aimed the barrel directly at the centre of my face and pulled the trigger.
Click.
He looked down at it in confusion and pulled the trigger again. Click.
‘I wanted to talk to you first,’ I said calmly. ‘I killed Bartram too quickly and didn’t get a chance to hear much from him, but you… You’ve told me more than I could have possibly wanted to know. I know you’ve never handled a gun, and I know you wouldn’t know if it was loaded. I just had to make sure that you were in on it so that I could get rid of any last shreds of guilt I felt about killing an old colleague like you.’
I dived forwards from the chair, kicking against it and propelling myself with such force that it clattered back across the room.
My hands clenched into fists around the scruff of Wargo’s collar in mid-air, and with the momentum of the leap I slammed my forehead against his nose with all the force I could muster.
‘ARGHHH!!!’
Wargo moved to grab for his cracked nose as blood poured from it like a broken faucet. Instead his hands landed on me.
He threw me back roughly onto the bed amongst my weapons where I landed on my back.
Damn good thing my blades were sheathed or I would have been skewered alive.
‘YOU BROKE MY FUCKING NOSE, YOU FUCK!’
I scrambled for the first thing that I could find – my trusty sword – and rolled off the bed with it clenched in my grasp.
My eyes had adjusted to the dark, but the room was still just a mosaic of flickers and shadows.
Fortunately Wargo was big enough for me to see.
And he was stampeding straight towards me, his huge hands outstretched.
I swept madly in an arc, slashing through his arm and creating a huge gash – and another howling scream.
I scrambled back onto the bed and over to the other side, then backed up towards the window.
‘Come on,’ I panted. ‘You’re all talk, Wargo.’
‘Fuck you, lone wolf,’ he growled, grabbing his bed and shoving the entire frame out of his path. ‘You thought you could take down the gangs in this city on your own, but you’re full of shit. Looks where it’s got you – seconds away from having your eyeballs exploded out of their sockets once I’m done with you.’
Wargo burst into a sprint across the small apartment. He would be on me in seconds.
I had to time this perfectly.
I dropped as Wargo rushed me. He adjusted his path, his huge hulking figure dropping slightly as his eyes lit up in the encroaching streetlight with demonic rage.
CRACK.
The bullet from the rifle whistled through the open window and struck Wargo in the top of his lowered head. The force wasn’t enough to send him back; his body sailed towards me and landed on me limply.
‘Drake?!’ Cassandra called out. ‘Drake, are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ I called back, struggling to hold up the heavy weight of Wargo’s huge body. ‘At least I will be in a second…’
I mustered all of my strength and shoved him aside, then crawled out from beneath his legs and stood up.
I had to get out of there.
I grabbed my weapons and quickly checked myself for injuries. Besides the scrapes and scuffs from the brief scuffle that I had endured, I was fine.
And it was all thanks to the foxgirl wielding a rifle on the fire escape across the street.
16 – Assemble
Cassandra and I returned to the hideout under cover of darkness, where Veronica promptly took our clothes and dumped them into the wash tub.
I uncorked a bottle of whisky and poured each of us a glass.
‘Not to be rude,’ Veronica said, ‘but like I said before, I’m not an enormous fan of this stuff.’
‘You will be when I tell you what I’m about to tell you,’ I replied, downing a double and pouring myself another.
I relayed the whole story that Wargo had told me to Cassandra and Veronica. They listened the whole time, literally on the edges of their seats, until I was finished.
‘Maker…’ Veronica whispered, lifting her glass to her mouth and downing the whole thing with a shiver. ‘That is quite a story…’
‘All of the guilds are in on it?’ Cassandra exclaimed. ‘They all let the gangs run riot for a fee and everyone just shuts up about it?’
‘That’s what he said. I can’t believe I didn’t see this. I guess I just thought that there was some good left in this city, somebody fighting to stop the crime, but… Now I realise just how naïve I was.’
‘You’re not naïve,’ Veronica assured me. ‘You were just trying to do the right thing.’
‘Yeah,’ I replied resolutely. ‘And that’s what we’re going to carry on doing. Killian is the only one left alive and he’s hiding in a tavern he owns over in the Pale District. He knows that I’m alive,
but he doesn’t know that I know his location. We can use that to our advantage, and I can finally get my revenge on the bastard that ordered my death.’
‘This place sounds like a lion’s den,’ Cassandra said. ‘Are you sure this is a smart idea? We’ve had some pretty close calls.’
‘There are a lot of close calls in this job. With the number of criminals I’ve hunted down I’ve had more than I can even count. Just look at me.’
I motioned to my body in a presentational manner.
‘Women love scars,’ Veronica laughed. ‘Me included. In fact, definitely include me in that group.’
‘The point is it’s dangerous,’ I continued, ‘and Killian isn’t just dangerous, he’s smart. He might be complacent, too, but he’s got a twisted mind, and he’ll take me down the first chance he gets, once he’s gloated in my face a little. With how I’ve brought the guild down, he’ll probably enjoy it too.’
‘And you said this is a tavern, right?’ Cassandra added. ‘Plenty of space. Which means he’s going to have a lot of backup.’
‘Right. He’s been fleecing gold from our bounties for years, and if he’s in bed with the gangs then who knows how much he’s got stashed away. No doubt he will have used that to hire plenty of protection, which means we’re going to have to figure out some ridiculously elaborate way to get to him.’
‘Oh, this is like a heist!’ Veronica exclaimed. ‘Please let me help with this!’
‘How is it like a heist?’
‘Because we are breaking into somewhere highly-secure.’
‘But we’re not stealing anything.’
‘Uh, yes we are,’ Veronica said smugly with a matter of fact tone. ‘We are stealing a life. Case closed.’
‘Stealing a life,’ I repeated. ‘Damn, that sounds dark.’
‘Coming from the guy who kills people for a living?’ Cassandra said with a raised eyebrow.
‘I retract my statement. Okay, so it is kind of like a heist. This place is going to be locked down and armed to the teeth, and Killian will have his guards cut down anybody who gets close to the front door.’
‘So we have to get past his paranoia. I guess you should take that as a compliment first, that he’s so terrified of you he’s holed up in a tavern surrounded by guards.’
‘I do,’ I said, turning to Veronica. ‘Now, secondly, why are you so keen to get in on this?’
‘Because I can use my talents.’
‘Cleaning and cooking?’ Cassandra grinned sarcastically.
‘You know, I do believe most would take that as an insult, as I’m sure you intended, foxgirl, but I shall take it as a compliment. I’m sure Drake would complain if his stomach was empty and his clothes dirty.’
‘I think you would complain if they weren’t dirty.’
‘True, but that’s beside the point; I hardly ever get to use my real talents of speed and agility. Just like Cassandra I am fast and sharp, but I am also terribly well-balanced. You can use me.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said. ‘But Cassandra’s a fighter. I’ve never seen you fight, and I don’t want you to get hurt if things go south.’
‘Which, judging by our track record, they most certainly will,’ Cassandra said. ‘But somehow we always manage to come out on top.’
‘And we will this time. I just need to figure out how we’re going to do this…’
***
The next day Cassandra held down the fort while Veronica and I headed to the Pale District. The moment we crossed the line into its respective area, I was on high-alert. We both wore our masks to cover the lower halves of our faces and kept to the backstreets until we reached the street where Killian’s tavern, The Rude Goblin, was located.
We ducked into a side alley and looked up towards it.
‘A hundred yards that way,’ I nodded, ‘That’s where he is.’
‘But we can’t just walk up to the front door and investigate it, right? He probably has his guards at every entrance.’
‘Right, which means we’re going to need to get a look at this place from a different angle.’
We both looked up at the buildings next to us. Three stories and rolling all the way along the street in a straight line.
‘How are you with heights?’ I asked.
‘I thought you would never ask.’
Veronica may not have been a fighter, but she could damn well move, and in that moment she proved it to me.
She moved to crouch as Cassandra had done the first time we had gone hunting for the Jones Bandits together, but instead moved much lower.
Her toned legs dropped with almost unnatural flexibility, her behind almost touching the floor with how low she sank.
Suddenly she leaped into the air, soaring several yards to the grating around the edge of the lowest level. She didn’t need to go for the ladder; it was easy enough for her to reach the first section without even trying.
‘Holy shit…’ I muttered, marvelling at her abilities. ‘I forgot you could do that.’
‘You saw me jump up to the garden above the hideaway just a few days ago.’
‘Yeah, but not that high.’
‘Well, we learn something new every day, don’t we, Drake? Now, I would say that we could race to the top, but I think that your efforts would just make me sad. So how about we take it nice and slow?’
‘You’re a real charmer,’ I laughed. ‘You know that?’
‘I do try.’
Veronica kicked down the ladder and I jumped up to it, pulling myself up to the bottom level. We ascended the stairway together until we reached the top level, then made it to the rooftop of the building.
‘What a view,’ Veronica exclaimed, marvelling at the city as it stretched out for miles. ‘It is beautiful, is it not?’
‘It really is,’ I agreed, taking a rare breath of fresh air that briefly came my way. ‘But it’s nowhere near as secluded as our hideout, and the longer we risk staying in one place, the more we risk being seen. Let’s get moving.’
We stayed low as we moved across the uneven stone rooftops. After clambering over tiled platforms and almost losing our heads on more than one occasion, we arrived at a secluded spot with a stone barrier that had crumbled in a small section a couple of feet long, situated directly across from The Rude Goblin.
Veronica and I dropped to our stomachs and army-crawled across to the gap. We glanced through and over the precipice, getting a clear view on our enemy.
The tavern was a bold, exposed building with a redwood exterior. Black paint lined the edges of the windows, and a pair of heavy wooden doors that were firmly closed blocked the entrance to the innards of the building.
Security was as tight as I had expected. The windows were shuttered, allowing zero insight as to the interior, and in the large stone yard out front that set the building back further than the others in its row there were a considerable number of guards scattered about.
‘Hired muscle,’ I said. ‘How many do you count?’
‘Six, I think.’
‘Me too.’
The guards were spread out across the yard, and even though they were dressed in the varied clothes of the average man in the street, their true identities were obvious from the other details of their appearances; they all wore short swords in sheaths at their waists, and their hefty bodies practically screamed that they were mercenaries for hire.
‘That’s a lot of men to take down, especially on our own,’ Veronica said. ‘Are you sure we can’t just roll three barrels of explosives into the sewer tunnels beneath the building and blow it to pieces like you did with that gangster outside of the city?’
‘Setting off an explosion that size outside of the city is fine,’ I replied, ‘but inside of the city it’s out of the question. There’s too much risk for damage to citizens, and it would cause mass panic.’
‘What a pity… It would have been nice to see one of those explosions up close. Hey, someone’s coming!’
Veronica pointed down t
o the street below. Merchants and citizens were moving by in steady droves as they did every day, but none had veered into the courtyard before the tavern.
Until now.
A merchant manning a covered wagon pulled by a pair of horses turned left, moving off the road and into the courtyard. The mercenaries stepped aside and let him past as he approached the front door of the tavern.
‘Who is that?’ Veronica asked.
‘Looks like a delivery, and a regular one at that. They seem to have been expecting this guy, whoever he is.’
The driver of the wagon hopped down from the seat and shook hands with one of the mercenaries. The guard said something, and the driver laughed and nodded.
Two guards headed inside and returned a minute later, rolling empty wooden barrels across to the wagon. They loaded them into the back, and one of the guards handed over a pouch to the merchant.
No doubt it contained gold, the question was what was being purchased.
I fished out my telescope and peered through the sight. Scanning the wagon, I recognised a symbol painted on the side of the wagon, almost completely faded, and the words beneath it.
‘Tiger’s Brewery,’ I read. ‘I know that place. They supply mead and liquor to taverns all over the city.’
‘Three barrels worth, though?’ Veronica said. ‘Who are they keeping drunk?’
‘There must be more than six guards. I’d bet there are way more inside. One way to keep bored mercenaries happy is to fill their coffers with gold and their bellies with booze. Looks like they’ll be making another delivery tomorrow… Maybe we can use this to our advantage.’
‘We just need something strong,’ Veronica pondered. ‘Something powerful enough to take them all down at once. Something they won’t expect.’
‘Something strong…’ I repeated, my mind drifting. And then the answer came to me. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
‘A good one?’
‘I’ll answer that question after we’ve pulled it off.’
***
‘I should’ve known that I would see you again, Drake. Explosives are like booze. Once you have your first taste, sooner or later you always come back for more.’
Grimdrom pulled up his goggles as Veronica and I entered his workshop.
