Skulduggery 10: Building a Criminal Empire

by Logan Jacobs

  “This must be Melia,” Wade said as soon as he reached us. “She’s even prettier than you said, Dar.”

  “My king,” Melia said and started to bow.

  “You don’t need to do all that,” Wade said. “I’m just glad that I finally get a chance to meet the woman that Dar can’t seem to shut up about.”

  Melia glanced at me with a smirk, but I just rolled my eyes.

  “Didn’t she beat your ass the first time you met?” Ava asked as she joined us. “I think I like her already.”

  “You sound like Penny,” I groaned.

  “Oh, I’m here on her behalf,” Ava said with a wink, “and I’m under very strict instructions to tease the shit out of you, Dar.”

  “Great,” I moaned. “That’s just fucking great.”

  “I think it’s sweet,” Melia said as she squeezed my hand.

  “Oh, really?” I asked. “Well, in that case…”

  “So how’s everything going here?” Wade asked. “We just came through the portal a few minutes ago, so I’ve only just started to look at all the defenses you’ve been working on.”

  “So far, it’s actually quite impressive,” Ava said.

  “You say that like you’re surprised,” I laughed, “but let me tell you what we’ve done so far.”

  After I caught Wade up on the state of our defenses so far, I told him about the tripwires that we had set up across the bridge and across the river at either end of the city. If anyone tried to come across the bridge, they wouldn’t see the thin rope until they tripped over it and unleashed a volley of arrows that were hidden all along the sides of the bridge. It was like some of the traps set up in the catacombs on the way to the portal room, only now elves would be the ones who had to dodge the arrows instead of us.

  Before I could tell Wade about any of the tripwires over the river, one of the Elite beside the river suddenly called out.

  “Ava!” he shouted. “You need to come see this!”

  “Be right back,” the blonde assassin said, and then she disappeared to go see what was the matter.

  We continued to discuss Riverhome’s defenses until she returned, but when Ava strode back over to join us, she already had her bow in her hand, as if she was ready to unleash a fiery hail of death on some unseen enemy.

  “So, there’s been an interesting development,” Ava said as she ran her fingers along the curve of her bow. “A boat just pulled out of the harbor downriver, and it’s currently headed downstream as fast as it can go.”

  “How?” Melia demanded. “We have guards posted there.”

  “And who’s driving it?” I asked.

  “Elven nobles, from what the lookout said,” Ava replied. “Maybe they somehow snuck past the guards, although it’s more likely that they just hid on the boats when the revolution started, and they’ve just been waiting until they thought the coast was clear.”

  “They’re about to be real disappointed,” Wade snickered. “Let’s go make sure they don’t leave town.”

  “Actually, if they’re headed downriver,” I said, “then they should run into the tripwires that we set up across the water here pretty soon.”

  “They wouldn’t happen to be connected to any arrows or traps, would they?” Wade asked.

  “No, the river’s too big for that,” I said, “but it’ll definitely slow them down for a second, and that should give us enough time to catch up to them.”

  “We can use fire-tipped arrows to sink their boat,” Ava said. “I’ll lead a unit of archers across the river to make sure the ship is surrounded on both sides.”

  “I’ll go with you and show them how to avoid the tripwires,” Melia volunteered.

  “Perfect, thank you,” Wade said. “That means you’re with me, Dar.”

  “You got it,” I said.

  The king and I set off at a brisk jog toward the docks to see how far downriver the boat had made it by now, and Wade ordered one unit of archers to follow us on this side of the river, while another unit went with Ava and Melia.

  We should still have plenty of time to stop it, and I shook my head at the stupidity of the elven nobles. I couldn’t believe that they really thought they could escape from the city right under our noses, as if we didn’t have guards and lookouts posted all around the perimeter of Riverhome and all along the river itself.

  I wondered if they would surrender or if we would have to sink their ship. With elven nobles, it could really go either way since they might be so filled with pride that they refused to give up, or they might be so scared that they would piss themselves before they could even call out their surrender.

  When we reached the docks, I saw that the boat hadn’t made it very far downriver at all. The torches all along the riverbank cast an orange glow along the sides of the boat, and even though there were only a few elves visible at the helm of the ship, I had no doubt that more were hidden inside the boat itself. Even the elves who were steering the ship kept crouching down to try to hide from view, but their pointed ears still stuck up over the sides of the boat.

  Based on its position on the river, the boat hadn’t run into the tripwire yet, but that should happen anytime now, so we would want to be in position before that happened. Wade called out orders to the Elite archers to fan out along the riverbank, but no one was to fire until he gave the word, since we still had to at least offer them a chance to surrender.

  As the archers spread out to carry out the king’s orders, Wade and I hurried forward until we were positioned on the riverbank just ahead of the boat. The moment we were at a good angle, Wade grabbed one of the torches, hurled it up high into the air, and then froze it as it plunged down toward the river just in front of the boat.

  The elves on board all shrieked but then quieted themselves, as if that would be enough to make them just magically disappear from our sight. The torch stayed in the middle of the air for a few seconds before Wade released it, and then he signaled to all the archers to light the tips of their arrows.

  “This is the king,” Wade called out to the elves on the boat. “You have one chance to surrender, and if you don’t, then we have no choice but to sink your ship to the bottom of the river.”

  The archers all raised their fiery arrows, and at the same time, Ava had the archers on the other side of the river all raise theirs, so a line of light appeared all along the edge of the water.

  “As you can see, there is no way out for you,” Wade said. “Surrender now, and your lives will be spared.”

  One of the elves poked their heads up from behind the side of the boat. He sniffled and wiped his eyes as he glanced at all the fire-tipped arrows, and then he stood up a little taller so his voice would carry.

  “What about our money?” the elf called. “We’ll surrender, but only if we can keep all our riches.”

  “What a fucking bastard,” I muttered. “This asshole and his little friends thought they could sneak out of town with all their money and set up shop somewhere else.”

  “Should we tell them that we control every other city in the empire, too?” Wade smirked.

  “How much money do you think they have on board?” I asked.

  “Enough to have fun with, I’ll tell you that much,” Wade said.

  “Hello?” the elf called when no one answered him right away.

  “Any money on board your ship will stay with its rightful owners,” Wade said with a wink to me.

  “Okay,” the elf called back, “that’s a good start.”

  “Oh, shit,” Wade laughed. “It sounds like our elven friends think that they’re in charge of this negotiation.”

  “Then they’re about to be in for a rude surprise,” I said. “Their boat is gonna run into the tripwire in about three… two…”

  As soon as the boat hit the rope, it jolted to a stop and then started to spin around so that its back end was pressed up against the rope, too. The elves on board shrieked again, so when Wade hurled another torch into the air and froze it right above th
e boat itself, the elves all screamed and started to jump ship.

  “We surrender!” the sniffly elf cried out. “Please don’t use any more human magic on us! We give up!”

  “Then turn your asses right back around and head back to harbor,” I said, “before I decide to let this torch drop and set you on fire after all.”

  The elf steered the boat around as quickly as possible, but even as he started to pilot it back to the docks, other elven nobles continued to jump overboard and swim toward the shore.

  “I guess they didn’t want to go down with their fearless leader,” I snickered.

  “Help them out of the water,” Wade called to half the Elite on this side of the river just before he let the torch fall into the water and sizzle out. “The rest of you, head back to the docks with me to meet our new elven friends.”

  By the time the boat made it back to the docks, Wade and I were there to meet it, along with a number of black-clad Elite soldiers. But a quick glance around told me that we weren’t the only ones who had showed up to the docks at the same time.

  A small crowd of halflings and humans had gathered around when they saw the Elite and their king move toward the docks, and the longer it took the boat to pull into the harbor, the more people came to see what had happened, until the street just beside the dock was damn near filled to the brim with people.

  Our soldiers quickly tied up the boat and boarded it, so only a few minutes later, they escorted the elven nobles still on board right back into the city that they had tried to escape.

  “You’ll be treated fairly, as promised,” Wade told the sniffly elf, “and so will all your friends that we just pulled from the river.”

  “And our, um, things?” the elf asked.

  “You mean the riches that you made from the labor of the other races?” the king asked. “The treasures that your kind stole from ours, and then tried to flee the city with like fucking cowards?”

  “Quick spoiler,” I said. “You won’t be getting them back.”

  “But he said--” the elf started.

  “I said that the money on board would stay with its rightful owners,” Wade interrupted. “Dar, run on board and check how much treasure there actually is, would you?”

  “Right away, my king,” I said and then slipped past the elven prisoners to search their boat.

  It didn’t take long to find their treasure. The cabin on board the boat was filled wall to wall with gold and silver coins, and wherever there weren’t coins right out in the open, there were more coins in every sized sacks imaginable. There were also sacks of jewels like diamonds and rubies, and it was enough to make me laugh, even as it turned my stomach at the same time.

  The elves had managed to escape to the ship with more treasure than most people could even imagine, but they hadn’t taken a single item of food or drink with them. If that wasn’t a clear picture of elven greed, then I didn’t know what was, and it made me chuckle to think about how far down the river they might have made it before they realized that all their riches didn’t mean shit if they didn’t have food or drinking water.

  But even though it should have been funny, it mostly just pissed me right the fuck off. Most of the non-elf citizens of the empire struggled to put food on the table at every meal, and plenty of them didn’t even have a home to return to every night, but these elven nobles had hoarded so much money for themselves that it probably would have paid for a year’s worth of food and lodging for every goddamn citizen in Riverhome.

  It was more than time for the balance of power to be restored to the people.

  As I exited the ship, I glanced across the river and saw that all the fire-tipped arrows had disappeared, so Ava must be on her way back across the river, along with Melia and the rest of the Elite. The elven prisoners, half of them wet from the river, were already being escorted to their cells. The sniffly elf protested at the fact that his hands had to be bound behind his back, but he didn’t put up too much of a fight as the human guards shuffled him along.

  “So?” Wade asked, while the elven prisoners continued to shuffle out of sight. “What’s the word on the elves’ treasure? Is there anything?”

  “Oh, there’s more money on board than you can shake a stick at,” I said. “It’s ridiculous. Gold, silver, jewels, the whole works.”

  “Would you say it’s enough to split among all the citizens of Riverhome?” Wade grinned.

  “Oh, hell, yeah,” I said. “There’s more than enough.”

  “Good news, my friends!” Wade called out as he turned toward the crowd that had gathered around us. “In case there was ever any doubt, the rightful owners of the riches on board are here with us tonight, and all the coins and jewels will be distributed evenly among them.”

  The sniffly elf stopped just before he disappeared around the corner, and he craned his neck over his shoulder to hear what Wade would say next.

  “I know you are all nervous,” the king continued, “and I know you are all worried about a possible attack from more elven soldiers, but I am here to give you good news.”

  I caught sight of Melia among the crowd, and the halfling woman started to push her way through the mob to join me.

  “We will be able to defend the city,” Wade said. “We will be able to defend your homes, and we will do it with the power and blessing of the Ancients themselves.”

  Melia found me and slipped her fingers into mine as naturally as if we had held hands for years and not just for the first time tonight.

  “And how do I know that the Ancients are with us?” Wade demanded. “How do I know that they will watch over our campaign and that they will watch over every single one of you who stands up for justice and for our cause?”

  I squeezed Melia’s hand a little tighter, and the beautiful halfling woman leaned a little closer to me.

  “I know this,” the king continued, “because on board that elven ship, there is enough coin to feed every family in this city, and there are enough jewels to house every family in this city.”

  The entire crowd fell silent as if they couldn’t quite believe what the king had just told them.

  “Do you want to know who the rightful owners of all these riches are?” Wade smiled. “Because I’ll tell you. It’s you, my friends. You are the rightful owners of what the elves have stolen, so we will distribute these stolen goods among you all, until every single citizen of Riverhome is given what is rightfully theirs!”

  The crowd erupted into cheers as Wade finished his speech, and I couldn’t help but think that the Ancients really were behind him. How else could I explain the fact that we had just discovered enough money to give a whole year’s salary to everyone in this city? It was the perfect way to give them a morale boost, just like it was the perfect way to remind them that our cause didn’t just feel righteous… it actually was.

  I squeezed Melia’s hand again as I looked up at my king, and I knew that the riches on board the boat were only the latest sign that Wade was favored by the Ancients. After all, the Rainbow Keys had found him, and so had the Opalstone necklace, and so had the last human king’s battle gear.

  But at some point, I had realized that Ava was right all along. He hadn’t come into possession of those items because they were magic. They had been drawn to him because he was magic, and ever since he had accepted the fact that he was the rightful king, Wade’s magic had started to grow even more by leaps and bounds.

  And based on everything that I had seen so far, it didn’t look like it was going to slow down any time soon.

  Chapter 13

  It was obvious that Dar had things well in hand in Riverhome, so after we stopped the elven nobles from escaping on their boat, I decided that I wouldn’t spend long here before I headed back to the Capital. I spent most of that night on an inspection tour of the city, but when everything looked under control, I turned in for the night so Ava and I could get an early start back to the Capital in the morning.

  When the sun rose the next day, I
put Dar and Melia in charge of the distribution of riches from the elven boat, assigned one unit of the Elite to stay in Riverhome, and then prepared to return to the Capital with Ava and the rest of the Elite to oversee defenses there.

  “I don’t doubt your judgment or anything, Wade,” Dar said as he walked me back to the portal, “but are you sure just one unit of the Elite is enough? If we’re next on the elves’ hit list, then shouldn’t we… I don’t know, shouldn’t we be more worried?”

  “You’ll be just fine,” I said. “I only want to leave one unit of the Elite here to help train Riverhome’s guards, to make sure that everyone is capable of fighting off cavalry.”

  “I guess we can send a messenger to you if there’s any trouble,” Dar said.

  “Of course, you can,” I said. “You’ve done a fantastic job with the defenses here, and they should certainly be able to hold off the elves until I can come to you with reinforcements.”

  “That’s true,” my halfling friend said.

  “Plus,” I added, “none of this actually matters if the elves don’t even show up, so it may not even be an issue at all. That’s why I’m going back to the Capital, now that I’ve seen you have everything under control here.”

  “What do you think our chances are that the elves will show up?” Dar asked. “I know the alternative is that they all march on us together as a united army under Tevian, and that’s not great, either, but what do you think the odds are that we’ll have to fight one fort here versus a whole bunch of united forts somewhere else?”

  “Honestly?” I stopped when we reached the portal and glanced back at Ava and the Elite soldiers behind me. “I’d say the odds are probably fifty-fifty.”

  “That’s what I figured,” Dar replied. “I’ll make sure we always have lookouts in the watchtower here, just so we can see any signs of movement off in the distance, and at the first sign of trouble, I’ll send you word.”

  “And I’ll send you word at the first sign that Tevian has managed to unite all the forts,” I said. “I wouldn’t trust the defense of Riverhome to anyone else, my friend, but…”