He was presently sitting in one of the seedier taverns near the port district, drinking watered wine and listening for rumors that might point him toward a profitable venture, when he overheard a rough-looking, foul-smelling, drunken sailor bragging about how he had gutted a whore who was once a rich merchant’s wife. Azerick drew a few curious looks when he choked on his wine, immediately understanding the event to which the man was referring.
Harlow regaled his tablemates of how he took her on her bastard son’s bed and how when she refused him he had bled her out with a couple dozen cuts and stabs. He laughed as he waved his blade around in the air in a macabre reenactment of the grizzly event.
Azerick thought quickly and flagged down a serving woman. He whispered a quick message into her ear, glanced toward the men at the table, and slipped her five coins of silver. Azerick left the tavern as the wench delivered the large man’s drink and an invitation to meet her in the alley.
The woman disappeared into the kitchen as Harlow walked out to the alley next to the tavern thinking she was slipping out the back to meet him. It was not unheard of for a whore to service a man in the alleys of a tavern that boasted no rooms.
Murder in the streets was so common in the lower wards that it scarcely drew anyone’s attention unless you were the one who was killed. However, when Harlow’s body was found the next day, the manner of his death was so gruesome that word quickly spread throughout the district.
His revenge nourished his soul, but he was far from satiated. Azerick’s ability to avenge his mother served to strengthen his resolve that if he kept searching, he would find all the people he sought. Azerick continued searching for clues of his father’s murder and his true involvement with these alleged artifacts, but he was able to find out surprisingly little. The King’s Blackguard had boarded his ship and found something aboard they deemed treasonous. The guards had arrested him, and someone had snuck into his cell and killed him.
Two years of searching had gotten him no closer to finding the murderer of his father. Discovering the sailor who had killed his mother had been a fluke encounter, but despite the satisfaction he received from taking his revenge, he still felt hollow inside. His desire for justice still gnawed deep in his stomach, and the more time that passed the more the hunger grew.
Azerick was unable to find anyone who had been sailing with his father on that trip. He knew he had crossed the sea for the exotic goods that made him popular amongst the wealthy. Other than that, the trail was cold and no one knew anything. If they did, they were not talking about it. Days, weeks, and months went by as he did what he must to survive, hoping to one day pick up the trail of who had set up his father. For now, it was all he could do to eke out a living and feed the normal sort of hunger plaguing him.
He was currently staking out an open market in the common quarter that catered mostly to food vendors. Farmers had set up tables laden with crates of fruit, vegetables, and all variety of tubers, each proclaiming that theirs was the freshest and most succulent.
There were an annoying number of City Watch strolling the grounds, and Azerick was about to give up on the food market and go elsewhere when a boy and a girl, maybe a couple years older than Azerick was, caught his eye. The young man was handsome and broad-shouldered with dark hair. The girl was pretty, maybe even beautiful if she combed her long, brown hair and wore better clothes.
The two were trying to look inconspicuous and not together but failing badly at both. Azerick watched the pair pick their way through the crowd and amongst the tables of produce, seemingly perusing the wares but were actually looking for an acceptable target.
Azerick already knew how they would play it out. The girl was going to cause some sort accident or scene and the young man would grab up as much food as he could and make a break for it during the confusion. The couple trying not to look like a couple soon chose a stand and made their move.
The girl pretended to stumble over something in the street and fell heavily onto the corner of a produce stand, sending an entire crate of fruits and vegetables crashing to the ground. The young man scooped several of the pieces into a bag as they rolled across the ground and made to sprint off through the crowd. Unfortunately, the proprietor was no more fooled by the farce than Azerick was.
The farmer grabbed the girl by the wrist and hauled her to her feet. “I got you, you little thief!”
The girl tried to pull away, but she was unable to break the farmer’s grip. “No, it was an accident!”
“You think I’m stupid, girl? You don’t fool me, and you won’t fool the Watch,” the man snarled and began yelling for the nearby Watch.
“Bran, help!”
Her cohort had only taken a few steps and turned back when his accomplice cried out. Seeing his friend in danger, Bran dropped his bag of pilfered goods and lunged at the man gripping her wrist.
“Andrea!” Bran yelled as he ran back to her.
Seeing the look in the large boy’s eyes, the farmer released his grip and backed away, holding his hands defensively in front of his face.
Bran grabbed Andrea’s now free hand and pulled her after him as the owner of the stand continued to shout for the guards. It took only seconds for the Watch to give chase, blowing their shrill whistles as they ran.
In a spur of the moment decision, Azerick darted through the crowd, snatched up the bag the young man had dropped, and chased after the thieves and guardsmen. There was a limited number of avenues through which to escape, and it did not take Azerick long to get ahead of both groups.
Running across the rooftops, often across rickety boards precariously spanning the gap between buildings, Azerick managed to get ahead of the fleeing pair.
“Hey!” Azerick called down to Bran and Andrea. “Run down the next alley on your right!”
Both young people looked up at Azerick with startled expressions plastered on their faces. The boy named Bran nodded and nudged his girlfriend to make the next right.
”Climb the rope at the end of the alley,” Azerick shouted to the fleeing couple before turning back the other way.
Azerick quickly found the guards pursuing Bran and Andrea less than a block away, and they were closing in. He reached into the bag Bran had dropped and pulled out the pieces of produce. He needed to buy the two thieves some time.
“Hey, kettle-heads!” Azerick shouted and began pelting the Watch with produce from above.
Intent upon catching the fleeing thieves, the guards largely ignored the bombardment of fruits and vegetables. Frustrated at his attack’s lack of success, Azerick picked up a brick and hurled it immediately after launching his last potato. The brick struck with a resounding clang that sent the hapless guard staggering and his helm flying from his head.
The effect was sufficient to shift the Watch’s ire squarely onto Azerick. One angry guardsman lifted a light crossbow and snapped off a hasty shot. Azerick ducked away from the ledge of the building and let the quarrel zip harmlessly past. He peered back over the edge, flashed a rude gesture to the shouting guards, and raced along the rooftop, drawing the Watch away from Bran and Andrea.
Azerick made certain he never got out of the pursuing guardsmen’s sight for long as he led them on a short chase down several streets and alleys. He wondered if the guards even realized the futility of pursuing someone who was completely out of their reach. It was obvious to him that the Watch did not hire people based upon their intelligence.
Deciding the chase had gone on long enough, Azerick skimmed along the edge of a roof that ended in a dead end—for the guards anyway. The City Watch pulled up against the brick wall blocking off the end of the alley and shouted impudent curses at the boy grinning down at them.
“You guys really are incredibly stupid,” Azerick taunted. “How did you ever think to catch me from down there?”
The answer came in the form of a barrage of crossbow bolts. “Let me catch you on the ground, you little rat, and I’ll show you who’s stupid!” one of the men shouted.
; Azerick carefully peeked back over the ledge. “Well that was just rude. As fun as this all is, I really have better things to do. Goodbye, kettle-heads.”
Azerick leapt a narrow span between buildings and raced back toward the alley where he had last seen the hapless thieves. He spotted the pile of rope they had obviously pulled up after themselves and quickly found them only two buildings over from where they had climbed up. They hid behind a large chimney, apparently waiting to see if their young rescuer was going to return.
Azerick smiled and waved at the couple as they stepped away from the chimney. Although Bran was considerably larger than Azerick was, he still approached the younger boy with a measure of caution, never releasing the hand of the girl with him.
“Thanks for your help,” Bran said.
“Yes, thank you so much,” Andrea added. “I have never been so scared in my life!”
“Yeah, it looked like you needed some help.”
Bran finally released his grip on Andrea and stuck out his hand. “My name is Bran and this is Andrea.”
Azerick gripped the proffered hand and shook it. “I’m Azerick. You two do not look like you have been doing this for very long.”
Bran’s face reddened in embarrassment and a small amount of anger at what he perceived as a slight against his abilities. Andrea spoke up before he became defensive.
“We haven’t. My father used to drink when he wasn’t out fishing, but now he goes out fishing when he isn’t drinking. Unfortunately, that is not very often these days. I had a job cleaning up at an inn, but I was fired after I broke a mug against a man’s head for pinching me. We were getting desperate for food, and that’s what brought us to the marketplace today.”
“I’ll get better! I just need some practice,” Bran responded defensively.
“You won’t get much practice if you get caught up by the watch,” Azerick replied. “I know a fair bit about running the streets, and working as a team can have some benefits if you want to work together and learn a few things.”
Andrea enthusiastically accepted Azerick’s offer of help, but Bran’s pride took some reasoning and an outright threat from Andrea before he accepted. Azerick wasn’t certain he had made a wise decision, but he liked the idea of working with someone again and having friends to talk to. It reminded him a little of Jon and the others, but that also brought back the pain of their loss as well. Was he setting himself up once again for more pain? Azerick decided he would chance it while doing what he could to shield himself from any more loss.
***
Azerick, Bran, and Andrea were staking out the market square, watching for inattentive shoppers or purveyors from which they might be able to relieve a few items of value or at least a morsel or two of food.
He had been friends with Bran and Andrea for a little over a year now. Although Azerick was technically the only homeless one among the three friends, the line of distinction was hair thin. Bran and Andrea lived at home with at least one parent, but were every bit as poor as he was, and quite honestly, Azerick would not trade homes with either one of them for anything.
Bran was sixteen, just a little more than a year older than Azerick was, but a fair bit larger. Despite being bigger, Bran made no qualms about recognizing Azerick as their unspoken leader. The younger boy’s plans and strategies were often what made them successful in their urban forays.
Andrea was an attractive girl bordering on womanhood. She was closer to Azerick’s age, which put her at one of the most vulnerable periods in her life. Running the streets made her particularly susceptible to illegal slavers who would snatch street children in the night, the bolder ones even in broad daylight.
She was nearing the age where she would have to find her own way in the world, and being unskilled, uneducated, and poor left her with few prospects. Being poor, she lacked any sort of dowry, which meant the only marriage prospects lay at her own economic level leaving her in the same pit she had grown up in and married to a day-laboring drunk like her father. Being uneducated, she could not hope to get any sort of skilled work or apprenticeship. Her work options left her with washing clothes, working in a bar, or most often, prostitution.
Azerick knew she was desperate to move out of her home and away from her father. He felt guilty not offering her a place to live with him in his own private sanctuary, but he prized his privacy above all other things and still felt the painful loss of Jon and the others. He could not bear the responsibility and the pain of losing someone else he allowed to get close.
The plan for their current operation was simple. Bran, being and looking the oldest, would buy a loaf of bread from the stall a baker had set up. Using the finger of one hand, he would dig a small hole into the bottom of the loaf out of site from the baker or other customers and slip a dead mouse into it. Bran would then break open the loaf in front of the baker and as many customers as possible and raise a cry of shock and revulsion at “discovering” the dead mouse that had, by all looks, been baked inside the bread.
He, along with most if not all the other customers, would demand a refund after dropping their potentially tainted loaves upon the counter in disgust. Azerick and Andrea would slip several loaves from the counter amidst the upheaval, demanding a refund for their loaves as well, often pocketing a few for consumption in the process. It was not a scam they could run very often and was usually saved for extraordinarily lean times such as now.
Bran moved in as the crowd looked to be as thick as it was likely going to get and pushed his way to the front. He ignored the glares he received, and dropped his few copper pieces onto the counter in exchange for a small, round loaf. The frenzied baker swept up the coins and replaced them with the bread. Bran picked up the loaf and had the dead mouse inserted with the deftness of a street magician.
He turned and made eye-contact with a few of the other patrons as he broke the loaf in twain, and just for added effect, brought the piece with a dead mouse sticking out of the end inches from his open mouth.
Just as he expected, a woman saw the dead mouse protruding from the bread moments before an apparently unsuspecting customer chomped it and screamed. Customers followed the horrified woman’s eyes to the loaf Bran held near his face. He looked at the piece of bread in front of him and added his own curse to the chorus of shouting, gagging, and retching sounds of the crowd.
The baker, a balding, rotund man wearing a customary checked apron, stood in shocked disbelief at the mouse-tainted bread and the disgusted and angry crowd. He was shocked into motion by people pressing against the counter, hurling bread at him and demanding refunds. Word quickly spread, and customers who had already purchased and departed began returning, also demanding refunds.
The baker was helpless to defend himself against the demands of the angry crowd, emptying his purse before the crowd became a mob. Azerick and Andrea received refunds for seven loaves they had never purchased and still managed to walk away with six more tucked under their shirts and arms.
Once his stomach was full, Azerick almost felt bad for the cruel manner in which they had swindled the baker. He and the others would begin spreading rumors throughout the district that the baker had been the victim of a cruel hoax. None of them had the desire to drive a man out of business, even one that obviously never lacked for food as they so often did. It was not a swindle they could pull off very often otherwise people would become wise to it and would set the crowd against the perpetrators.
The trio of friends had a reasonably successful week, enough so that Azerick was able to spend a few days reading and tinkering with his alchemy set brewing potions with various reactions. His latest resulted in a stench so foul he had to open the hidden door to the sewer to bring in a fresher source of air.
The pungent concoction convinced him to climb out of his hole and find out what Bran and Andrea had been up to lately. Azerick crossed the market square and saw that the bald baker was back in business, thanks largely in part to the success of their counter-rumors proclaiming his i
nnocence in the matter.
He spotted Bran’s tall form moving through the crowd and noticed that his older friend was not moving with the careful grace that would indicate he was looking for a mark to pickpocket. In fact, his normally carefree face was shadowed with a look of concern. Azerick wondered if he had gotten into some trouble recently.
Despite the fact that it did not look as though Bran was currently working the crowd, years of habit caused Azerick to move smoothly and quietly up to Bran’s side instead of shouting to get his attention.
Bran realized Azerick was by his side before his friend had a chance to say anything. “Azerick, have you seen Andrea in the last couple of days?”
Azerick sensed the tension in Bran’s voice and instantly knew something was not right. “No, I was going to ask you where she was. I have not seen her since the last time all three of us were together a few days ago.”
Bran’s lips disappeared into a thin line as he clamped his mouth closed. “Damn it!”
“I’m sure she is all right. Maybe she got a job or something and has been busy.” Bran glared at Azerick, both knowing it was unlikely. “You’re right, I was just hoping. Have you gone to her house?” Azerick asked, already knowing the answer to that question too.
Bran shook his head. “Naw, you know her old man and I don’t get along.”
“I think we need to though.”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
The two young men walked to the docks and headed toward the rows of shacks mostly owned by fishermen and sailors who often spent weeks and months at sea. They were shabbily-built and intended primarily as temporary shelters just to keep them through the winters until the ships sailed out once more. Andrea’s father, when he did manage to sober up enough to work, usually managed to attach himself to a fishing boat hauling in nets or unloading cargo from the merchant ships. He was one of the few people who made Sailor’s Row his year-round home.
Azerick and Bran approached the house, which was little more than a one room fishing shack with a small iron stove used to cook and fight off the many drafts that found its way in through the single-ply walls and the winter chill.
The Sorcerer's Path Box Set: Book 1-4 Page 18
