Skulduggery

by Logan Jacobs

  I could hear Hagan screaming at one of the new recruits from upstairs in his office, and from the sharp words he used, I guessed he was getting close to gutting someone.

  “He’s going to get all of us killed,” I groaned. “Anyone walking by is going to hear the commotion and maybe send the guards here. The elves will find whatever stash of treasure he’s hidden and then murder the lot of us.”

  Penny rolled her eyes and headed upstairs. “I’ll go see if I can calm him down.”

  “Take a wet blanket,” I joked.

  She stopped on the landing and threw me one of those dazzling smiles of hers. “Oh, and Wade?”

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  Her expression darkened. “Don’t ever interrupt one of my card games again.”

  I walked halfway up the stairs and leaned in close to her, much closer than she’d let anyone else get. Then I held the moment. She startled as I reached past her, and I saw her bite her bottom lip as our noses almost touched.

  Then she relaxed when I popped my torch into the holder on the wall just above her left ear.

  “My apologies,” I whispered in her ear. “I’ll never bother you again.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she whispered back, and her breath was hot in my ear.

  “Then what did you mean, dear Penny?” I asked.

  “Damn you. We have work to do.” She let out an exasperated sigh and stalked upstairs.

  I found Dar in the dining room with the two young apprentices, Maldon and Selius. The three of them had a collection of pocket watches spread out on the table to sort, gold ones into a velvet bag for one of us to ferry over to the black market to fence, tin and bronze ones into a box to send over to the Counterfeiters. There, they would be painted gold, spruced up a bit, and sold to gullible tourists as priceless antiques they could get for a song, but only if they laid down the cash right that very instant.

  I fished a watch out of the velvet bag and gave it a look over, then tossed it to Dar.

  “That one’s fake,” I informed him.

  “Really?” Dar squinted at it and held it up to his ear to hear the workings. Then realization spread across his face, and he gave Selius a gentle slap on the back of his head. “Damn, you’re right. You need to look at these more carefully, lads. We’ll lose our best fence if we send him things he can’t sell.”

  “But I bit it to check!” Selius pleaded.

  “Biting’s no good if it’s dwarven plating,” I said as I scratched the back of the watch, and a thick tendril of gold curled up under the path of my fingernail and revealed dull tin underneath. “They dip it twice so it feels soft like real gold when you bite it. That’s why you always have to check how the workings sound, too.”

  Dar nodded and held a good watch up to Selius’s ear. “Hear how quiet a real one is? The fakes clatter like cheap windup toys on the inside,” he explained, “because that’s more or less what they are.”

  Maldon leaned in to listen with Selius. Both boys frowned intently, but I was pretty sure they were only pretending to hear the difference. Hagan always said an apprentice was dead weight for his first two years at a minimum until he’d learned enough of the craft to be useful. Selius was just rounding out his first year with us, and Maldon we got in a trade with the Conman’s Guild only a month ago, in exchange for some fine clothing Penny had liberated from a shop uptown. He was a bright boy, but he couldn’t tell a lie to save his life, poor soul.

  I tapped Dar on the shoulder to get his attention and tilted my head at the door. Maldon’s overfondness of the truth meant we couldn’t talk any real business in front of him.

  Dar stood up briskly and tousled the boys’ hair. “You two keep at it,” he mused. “Remember to polish anything before it goes in the bag. Hagan will have all our necks if we get hit with a cleaning fee.”

  I led Dar into the kitchen, where our second-story guys Jed, Thurgood, and Basher were snacking on leftover roast chicken and playing checkers. I nodded hello at them, and they nodded back and continued munching in companionable silence.

  I grabbed a drumstick and took my time peeling away the crispy, spice-encrusted skin. It tasted heavenly, which meant Basher must have roasted it. He grew up in the Spice District and really knew his way around a kitchen.

  “Nicely done, Bash,” I complimented.

  “S’alright, yeah,” Basher admitted. “Overdid the salt a bit, I think.”

  He was always his own worst critic.

  “You boys mind taking this to the den?” I asked. “I have to have a chat with Dar.”

  “Oh, is this about the heist?” Jed asked in a stage whisper, and the others laughed.

  “The big secret heist? The secret heist at the warehouse that’s such a big secret nobody knows?” Thurgood chimed in. “The secret Hagan can’t shut up about? That secret?”

  “Yes,” I said flatly, “that secret. You know the rules, we don’t discuss each other’s jobs.”

  “Our jobs don’t need discussing,” Basher said. “Just up you go--” He mimed climbing a ladder. “--and back out again, easy going.”

  “Yeah, that’s why Hagan puts us on the important stuff,” Dar laughed. “Since you three have to paint arrows on your ladders to remember which way to climb.”

  “Ohhh, the little man’s got jokes,” Jed said as he pretended to punch Dar in the arm.

  “Aw, go home to your mother and eat a pie, why don’t you,” Dar snapped back.

  That shut Jed up.

  All halflings looked more or less the same to me, but apparently there were stark differences between their various tribes that the four of them could all see. Jed always called Dar small, and Dar always called Jed fat. To my eyes they were both kind of fat, but I didn’t tell them that.

  Jed flicked a chicken bone at Dar, who caught it and threw it back to him.

  I stepped in between them to shut whatever this was down before it got out of hand.

  “Enough, okay?” I said sternly. “If you know about the heist, you know what’s in it for us. Everybody gets a cut.”

  Our breaking-and-entering specialists scooped up their lunch and stalked off to the den as Dar glowered at them.

  I knelt down to his level and forced him to look me in the eye.

  “Hey,” I said. “You good? Get your head in the game. Penny says we have to move things up.”

  The halfling blinked in surprise and turned back to me.

  “What do you mean, move things up?” Dar asked.

  “I mean move things up as in get your gear,” I said as I clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re heading out right now.”

  “Now? We’re nowhere near ready. I haven’t even done my recon,” Dar protested.

  “You think I didn’t tell her that? It doesn’t matter, we’re going,” I said, and my voice sounded more confident than I felt.

  Dar narrowed his eyes at me. “Just on Penny’s word?”

  “You ever know her to be wrong about a thing like this?” I countered.

  “Better not answer that,” Penny said from the doorway.

  I turned to look at her. She’d changed out of her green dress from earlier and was costumed up as a servant-girl, and all of her magnificent curves were obscured by layers of lumpy wool capped off with a crisp white apron. She’d also tucked up her dazzling red hair under a drab brown cap. The transformation was so extreme I couldn’t help but laugh.

  Penny laughed too and turned around to give us the full view. She was practically invisible, even up close, somehow so boring to look at my eyes kept sliding off her.

  Incredible.

  “You look like a sack of potatoes,” Dar said impishly.

  She snapped her apron at him. “You’ll have to change too, errand-boy. And put on shoes.”

  Dar groaned at this. His sort of halflings hated shoes. He didn’t wear them even when it snowed. It was something Thurgood, who was evidently from one of the shoe-wearing tribes, always teased him for.

  “Can’t Wade be the e
rrand-boy?” he whined.

  Penny laughed. “Nobody’d trust a human with errands in the Elven District,” she pointed out.

  It was true. As we crossed into the wealthier neighborhoods, my role would be as it ever was when we traveled together.

  “Let me guess,” I sighed, “bodyguard?”

  Penny tapped her chin and pretended to think. “Mmm, this time I think it’d better be mute bodyguard,” she said. “Can’t have a repeat of last time.”

  “He stepped on my foot!” I protested.

  “If anything, Wade was too easy on him,” Dar added.

  “Maybe so, but now everyone on Weaver Street remembers the bodyguard who told a palace tax collector where he could stick his pencil,” Penny snapped.

  Dar and I laughed at the memory. Man, that guy got so mad you’d think nobody’d ever told him off before. Bureaucrats always thought everybody should be awed into silence by their very presence.

  Penny grabbed our disguises from the closet and threw them at us. It ended our laughter abruptly as we now focused on the task at hand. I changed into my dreary bodyguard clothes, an ill-fitting black costume with little room for improvement. The hidden compartments in the cargo pants and back of the faded jacket were the only positives to my baggy ensemble.

  I looked over at Dar when I had finished and watched as he tussled with his worn pair of shoes. The errand boy costume he donned was fitting, much more so than my own disguise, as it hugged his form like I wished mine would have. The olive woven shirt also made his coal black eyes stand out.

  “I know you’re not too familiar with shoes, Dar, so if you need help ask Penny.” I smirked at him. “I’m not going anywhere near those feet.”

  He pulled the last shoe over his grungy feet and sent a nasty glare in my direction, but it was all a part of our little game.

  “When I’m rich enough to get out of this bleeding hellhole, I’m not sharing any of my women or coins,” he snapped playfully.

  Penny rolled her eyes before she walked out of the room. Her change of appearance still perplexed me, and I had to blink a few times to clear my vision. Her usual wardrobe was filled with silk or satin gowns which hugged her every curve.

  Dar and I trailed after her, and his heavy footfalls in the hall sounded like the drums before an execution. The steady rhythm and consistent beat on the wood planks were enough to pump adrenaline through my veins, and I took a few deep breaths to steady my nerves.

  This was the heist that could kill me. If we were caught, my innards would be given to the orcs, then my head would be plucked from my body and placed on the spire of one of the towers. I’d been locked up before, but never for disobeying a direct elven law.

  That was considered treason, a crime punishable by a very slow, very painful death. It was the riskiest job the three of us had ever taken.

  We exited the Guild out the back entrance and didn’t bother to snag a torch because the lamps had already been lit. We traveled silently down the cobblestone streets, and we used the cover of darkness to hide ourselves in the Halfling District.

  The first set of elven towers soon became visible as we exited our district, and we joined the questionable late-night mix of eatery regulars and pleasure seekers as the light pollution became greater with each step we took. This district might have been considered the tamest, but elven men still had needs like the rest of us.

  The elves frequented the whore-houses of the other districts, despite how they claimed their race was superior to all other creatures. They had their own elf whores they visited in the day, but night was when they experienced the pleasures offered by the other races.

  We passed beneath the gargantuan structures, and we each held our breath as we attempted to appear inconspicuous to the expert sharpshooters in the tower.

  Dar led the pack, and I followed close behind Penny. As we walked, I played with the key in my pocket and prayed no one would sense its magical properties as we continued the easiest portion of our mission.

  The warehouses were on the outskirts of the city, but we took a path through the dense Falrion Forest, which wrapped around the perimeter of the city, so there would be fewer eyes on us. Then we approached the area of the warehouse far from the main gates.

  We huddled in a little-known alcove on the outskirts of the gates, one frequented by the Thief’s Guild to see what new goodies were brought in through the gates. Usually it was the basics like food or livestock, but sometimes you could catch a glimpse of freshly forged armor or bundles of the finest silk.

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked. “Are we storming the gates, or do you reveal some other secret magic object to zap us over the walls?”

  Penny’s emerald eyes pierced me, and a fire burned within them so hot it could have melted the soul of any sane man.

  I was smitten despite the tenacity caged within them. Or maybe because of it.

  “No, we use our disguises,” Penny whispered as she tucked a few stray strands of scarlet hair back under her cap. “During the card game you interrupted, I talked to an imp that knew the way inside. Apparently the wicked little bastard has already successfully stolen from these warehouses himself.”

  “Schmoozing with imps now?” I asked. I didn’t know much about imps, but what I did know was the tales of their trickery. They would do anything for a laugh or a quick coin, including selling out the girl he just sold information to. Now, I understood the reason she forced us into moving the heist to tonight.

  “I’ll do what I have to do to not get in jail,” she whispered. “Same as you, Wade.”

  “Yeah, but can we trust his intel?” Dar asked, and I agreed with my friend. Most imps couldn’t be trusted, and I was sure the imp that fed us the information planned to profit off Penny’s head. We had to act fast and hope he hadn’t blabbed to anyone else yet.

  “We won’t know until we do this,” she snorted. “So you gonna go?”

  “So, what, you want us to just walk up to the front gates and go inside?” Dar asked. “You must be bleeding mad to think that plan is going to work.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting since I know for a fact Lord Gormar is expected here tonight,” Penny explained. “This means it won’t be uncommon for a few servants and errand boys to enter the gate. The guards won’t think twice about it.”

  Her wicked smile told me enough. She had never failed us before with her intel, and without Dar’s scouting report this was the best chance we had at success.

  “We better get to it then if we want to be gone by morning.” I sighed. “Who knows how fast the priestesses will have the sun back up again.”

  Dar’s eyes bounced between us before he resigned with a shrug. “I’ll go first, and you follow me in after. See you guys on the other side.” Then he shot us a wink and was gone before Penny or I could argue.

  I knew he needed his space, but I also didn’t want to find his bloody corpse if this ridiculous plan didn’t work, so Penny and I peeked out through the tree line, with a clear view of the gates.

  Dar dipped into a bow before the elven guards as his family’s training kicked in beautifully. It was the same training he was forced to endure before his well-respected family disowned him after he joined the Thief’s Guild. The guards didn’t kill him after he bowed and gestured with his hands for a few moments, but Penny and I were a bit too far away to hear what he was saying.

  Dar walked through the gates, and I released the breath I had been holding. Penny forcefully grabbed my arm, and we retreated back into the woods.

  “Now it’s our turn,” she explained. “You’re a mute remember?”

  “So, I can’t tell you how beautiful you are?” I snickered, and then feigned locking my mouth shut and throwing away the key.

  “Wade, don’t mess around,” Penny grunted, but it was too dark to see if she blushed. She probably didn’t.

  Then we walked calmly toward the warehouse.

  My hands had grown moist with each step towards the iron gate
s. The entrance into the warehouses was lined by the cold-blooded individuals I feared. Their armor was flawless, and the tips of their spears glinted silver in the lamplight.

  We weren’t dumb enough to question our overlords’ authority, so we averted our eyes in respect as we approached. Penny dropped into a curtsy, I folded into a bow, and then we rose at the growl of the armored guard.

  My heart was hammering in my chest, and I prayed the long eared bastards couldn’t hear it.

  “State your business,” the elf commanded.

  Penny’s training took over, and she faked a soft wobbly tone as she answered them with rehearsed lies. “We are here on the orders of Lord Gormar. He sent for us and told us to meet him here. I am a servant in his house, and this is the bodyguard Lady Gormar sent with me, as the roads at night are lined with blood-thirsty creatures.”

  “I asked you to state your business, not who you work for, you insolent breed. Why did he send for you?” the guard questioned.

  The key turned to ice in my pocket and set my bones to tingling with vicious intentions.

  In time, you will rise above these elven rulers. They will regret the day they spoke to you in this way.

  A shiver traveled up my spine at the key’s words, and I deftly took my hand out of my pocket. I feared the elves could hear the treasonous words of the magic key, and our bodies would be crushed underfoot like cockroaches, or gutted like fish on market day.

  “Lady Gormar sent us to be of assistance to his lordship,” I said as I stepped forward, frowned, and gestured to the road behind Penny and me. “If you are to turn us away, I would like your names so I can give them to her as reason for our failure. If there is to be a head on a pike, I would prefer it not be mine.”

  The guards tensed, and their metal armor rustled as they glanced at each other. Lady Gormar was one of the high ladies of the elven court, and she was known to execute servants and elves alike, but my heart still pounded in my chest as the guards deliberated.

  “You may pass,” one of the elf guards finally grumbled. “Please give Lady Gormar our regards.”

  I nodded my head and allowed Penny to lead the way, but my body still tensed as I waited for them to stab me in the back.