by DB King
Thief’s Bounty
Dungeon of Evolution 1
DB King
Copyright © 2021 by DB King
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
v001
Free progression Fantasy Novel!
Join my email newsletter to receive a free ebook of the progression fantasy novel, Hellion Mage.
Contents
Free progression Fantasy Novel!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Kensei 1: Rebirth of the Sword Saint
Free progression Fantasy Novel!
About the Author
Chapter 1
Kraken City slept uneasily. The great hulking metropolis squatted on the steep volcanic island like a sinister monster, packed with seething life from the lowest slum to the highest glass tower of the noble Overlords. Kraken City was many things to many different people. For Marcus, exile of the thieves guild, it was where he found his destiny.
Marcus the Exile was a young man, swift and stealthy as a cat. He moved with light steps through the gloom of the tightly packed slum district, the lowest tier of the steep city. A thick sea fog had rolled in, settling over the stone buildings and creeping through the slum district’s narrow streets and filthy alleyways, filling every space with a warm, unhealthy, airless damp.
The thick night heat didn’t bother Marcus the Exile. He was used to it. He moved along through the shadows cast by the rough walls, making no more noise than the fog.
Tonight was the night. His night. The night he would begin his escape.
He was on his way toward the Middle Watch, a long, ragged line of stone wall and rough earthwork that divided the slums at the bottom of the city from the Merchants’ Town. Merchants’ Town occupied the climbing slopes above the level of the slum dwellers, and there the wealthy common folk of Kraken City lived. Merchants’ Town was the home of the artisans, the merchants, city traders, and ship’s captains, guildsmen, and all the others who lived what they called a respectable life. Their comfortable manses and well-stocked manufactories were prime targets for any thief or vagabond who could worm his way up from the levels of the slum district. For this reason, the barrier of Middle Watch was constantly patrolled by the city guard.
Marcus came to a spot he knew well. A low building of poorly laid orange brick had enough hand-grips and footholds between the stones that a skilled and nimble man could climb to the roof easily enough. Marcus was both skilled and nimble, and his calloused hands found familiar holds as his toes in their soft leather boots pushed up off the ground. A breath of wind stirred his cloak and toyed with his raised hood. Above his black leather facemask, his red eyes glinted warily as he climbed.
In the blink of an eye, and silently, he maneuvered up onto the slick wooden tiles of the sloping roof and gazed out toward the Middle Watch.
The barrier was near, and the guards who patrolled it were not as wary as they should be. The Kraken City guards were notoriously corrupt, and they could be paid to turn a blind eye to a man slipping over the Middle Watch in the dead of night. Not tonight, though. Tonight’s mission was too important for Marcus to risk his face being remembered by a dishonest guard.
Tonight, Marcus was going to rob a Diremage.
He crouched in the shadows on the rooftop. His leathers were soft with years of wear and made no sound as he moved deeper into the shade. In his belt-pouch, he kept a few supplies—dried meat, a little gold, some poison for emergencies. Hanging at his belt in a secure sheath was his plain workman’s dagger.
Beneath his mask, the scar that ran up the left side of his face—the relic of an old street brawl—began to itch. It often itched when he was tense. Carefully, he reached up and rubbed it gently, remembering the flash of a blade in a dark alley. The man who’d been chasing him had missed his throat, and had lost a chance at the bounty. He’d also lost his life.
For years now, Marcus had lived in a state of constant watchfulness. He had started his life on the streets of Kraken City. For as long as he could remember, he had run with a gang of rough kids, stealing, scamming, and living by his wits. As a baby, he’d been left on the wharf, with only a toy soldier and a bundle of old fishing nets to shield him from the elements—since then, Kraken City’s massive docklands had been father, mother, and teacher to him. The docklands were often a harsh tutor, but they offered many opportunities for a quick-witted youngster to make a dishonest living, and Marcus had taken every chance he could get.
Kraken City occupied most of a substantial island that rose out of the sea and climbed up to a single high peak. The city covered almost all of the mountain slopes, but on the eastern shoreline the docklands dominated. Centered around two massive stone wharves, the docklands stretched out on either side, providing berths for every size and style of ship imaginable. Everything from the smallest fishing vessels to the gargantuan trade galleys and warships of Doran found a home at Kraken City’s docklands.
The goods that flowed through the docks were as many and as varied as the ships that carried them, and so the area around the docks had developed into a packed, expansive district of warehouses, taverns, workshops, administrative buildings, brothels, barracks, hiring houses, smokehouses, and every other building that could service the sailors, the ships, the traders, and the goods that were the lifeblood of Kraken City.
It was a fertile ground for a young boy to do his growing up. He learned to pick pockets, cut purses, run messages, and steal food from the many open shop fronts. Then, when he was about eight years old, Marcus had pickpocketed a member of the thieves guild. That decision had changed his life.
Instead of being beaten and chased off by his victim, the professional, a young man with quick blue eyes and a sleek head of bright silver hair, had taken the young amateur back to the guild. A child could not begin professional training until he was at least fifteen, but the guildmasters saw potential in the young Marcus, so they kept him. When he worked out that they would also provide two meals a day and a safe place to sleep, the young Marcus was more than happy to do as he was bid.
Nobody knew exactly how old Marcus was, but he remained at the guild as a child novice. He cleaned, ran errands, helped in the kitchens, and learned to read and write in the language of the Doran Kingdoms, in the bastard dialect of Kraken City, and the old tongue of the High Nobility. He remained within the grounds of the guild for a year before he was allowed out to run messages. Then, he became a trusted runner—quick and reliable, and honest if anything went wrong.
The masters watched him, noting his potential, educating him, and nourishing his body with food and his mind with langu
ages and new ideas. Because no one knew his age, he was considered a boy until hair began to grow on his face and his voice began to deepen. Then, his real training began.
Those were happy years. Sitting in the dark on the roof, Marcus couldn’t help but smile to think of those years, despite how things had ended up. He had been trained in a host of skills, some more deadly than others but all useful, depending on the mission. He’d learned to move as quietly as a shadow, lift weights like a Doran strongman, read and write like a poet, sing and play the harp and the pipes, and, of course, kill quickly and accurately with every weapon known to man.
By the time his body had become that of a young man, he had become proficient in the rapier, the quarter-staff, the straight-sword, the slingshot, and Kraken City’s favorite weapon combination: the net and spear. By the time he was obliged to either shave his face or choose to grow a beard, stealth had become second nature, and there was no better climber in all of the guild.
One day, he looked at his reflection in one of the big shiny brass plates in the kitchens, and instead of the boy who had been, he saw a young man of about seventeen looking back at him. Brown hair, a strong jaw with a respectable bit of dark beard. Prominent cheekbones, a high brow, and big eyes with irises of a startling bright red.
It was around then that his master had decided the time was right for Marcus to graduate from the first stage of training. He was gifted with a level up in the guild, and granted three spells. These came in the form of brightly colored, sweet-tasting powders that Marcus had dissolved on his tongue. The first granted him the power to turn a lock by placing his hand over it and concentrating, and the second granted him a constant high level of stealth. This stealth ability could be enhanced for short bursts, making him almost impossible to detect unless someone looked straight at him. The third spell gave him the ability to detect and disarm lower-level traps and magical wards.
The spells did not mean he had reached journeyman status, but they meant he had graduated from Novice to Initiate. His masters were proud of him, and though he’d never made close friends with any of his fellow pupils at the guild, all was well. A promising career in the thieves guild had seemed to await him.
And that was when everything went wrong.
The bungled robbery had not been his fault, he knew, but he had taken the blame for it all the same. His partner on the exercise had messed up a simple stealth buff, creating a flash of light that woke a sleeping guardsman. They had escaped, but Marcus had been seen by the light of a candle. His buddy got away without consequence, but the guard knew Marcus from a tavern brawl that had happened the year before. The merchant whose house they had been robbing put a bounty on Marcus’s head.
He gritted his teeth in the dark as he watched a city guardsman standing at post atop the rough wall of Middle Watch. It had been the worst of luck. No member of the thieves guild could have a bounty on their head. The guild worked in the shadows, hiding in plain sight, but a bounty put all eyes on him—all eyes on the guild.
Marcus had been exiled from the guild as soon as the news got around. Everybody was very regretful, but it didn’t change the fact: no member of the thieves guild could have a bounty. Marcus was expelled and had to leave straight away. He must never return to the guild, under pain of death. He must never claim the guild’s protection or use their name, no matter what the reason.
Just like that, he was on his own again.
At least he’d been left with more than an old fishing net this time. The guild gave him a good set of clothing, enough gold to keep him for a few weeks with care, a short sword, and their blessing. They left him with his three spells, too. Once you swallowed a spell-powder, the gift was yours for life. And they hadn’t taken his skills either.
He might not be able to claim the guild’s protection, but he was not prohibited from using his education. He could read and write in three languages, could fight with all manner of weapons, and he knew how to talk to people; the graduates of the thieves guild often became the most skilled diplomats. Nothing was stopping him using those skills. In the years that followed, he made good use of his training, but all that had seemed cold comfort when he’d turned his back on the guild and walked away for the last time.
Marcus went back down to the docks and sought out his childhood friends again. It didn’t take long for him to find his old crowd. Some had died, some had moved on, and there were many new faces, but there were some who knew him well enough, and they welcomed him. He needed a place to stay, so they showed him where they lived.
He moved in.
Living in the Underway was a shock at first. He soon got used to it, but he never forgot his roots as a docklands urchin. The docklands had a way of staying with people, in them, like blood on a white cloth.
The Underway was a labyrinthine network of abandoned tunnels under the city that stretched for miles. No one knew its full extent—it had never been fully explored—but the Gutter Gang had made their home in one section, where there was an entrance near the slum district of the city. Here lived a gang of rough men and women from all walks of life, people who had fallen on the hardest of times and had nowhere else to go.
Marcus was welcomed in like a long-lost cousin.
The Underway could be a dangerous place to live. The Gutter Gang were not the only inhabitants. There were the ratmen, giant rats the size of humans, who walked upright and wore leathers and armor like men. They fought with cunning weapons and were notoriously cruel. They inhabited a large, deep section of the Underway, and nobody who went there ever came back to tell the tale.
Then there were the murgals, vicious half-troll, half-amphibian creatures that lived in gangs near the waterway exits from the Underway. They could sometimes be encountered roaming through the tunnels on the hunt for food.
Battle spiders—monstrous spiders the size of horses, with a taste for human flesh—occupied the cliff faces out on the wild, uninhabited rocky coast near a long-abandoned Underway entrance. They were highly intelligent and could be induced to fight for pay if an envoy could get close enough to them to negotiate without being killed.
And, of course, there were other gangs of humans living down there. Though they mostly kept to themselves and didn’t bother the Gutter Gang, it was a bad idea to stray too close to their dwellings. The biggest gang called themselves the Sewer Slayers, and they were rumored to have a steady stream of income from managing smuggling operations for unscrupulous ship captains. Because the Underway had many openings out to the sea, contraband could be moved into the Underway on small boats and then transported to one of the many exits within the city. The Sewer Slayers charged a good price for this service, but they defended their territory and their business interests fiercely.
As a member of the Gutter Gang, Marcus put his skills to good use, thieving and selling his stolen goods to make a living, but it was never enough to do more than live day to day, and always the bounty hung over his head. He could never quite relax knowing that one day, down on the docks or drinking in one of the cheap dockside taverns, he might be recognized and seized.
There was no doubt about what would come next. He would be sent to the salt mines on Bitter Island—a small island not far from the docklands coast. Kraken City did not execute criminals, but nobody had any illusions about what became of those who were sent to the mines. No one ever returned from Bitter Island. The salt mines there were as good as a death sentence. From the few stories he had heard about the place, it sounded like a headsman would have been kinder.
Eventually, Marcus had decided he’d had enough. In his favorite dockside tavern, he had heard about a ship that was soon to come in, bringing a special delivery for Diremage Xeron. His ears had pricked up at that. Diremage Xeron was rumored to be a former vampire hunter from Doran, a powerful mage who had come to Kraken City in suspicious circumstances some years ago.
He had extensive trading interests in the docklands and lived in a big manse up in the Merchants’ Town. He was famously
rich and arrogant, and he was supposed to be dismissive of the threat of thieves. The mage was taking no chances this time, however. The rumor was that he had hired the Bloody Hand—a mercenary company—to guard his villa for the next two weeks. The Bloody Hand didn’t come cheap, everyone knew that, and the thought of that loot had itched at Marcus. Then one day he heard what the cargo was. One of the customs men from the port authority had too much to drink in a tavern one night and let it slip. Soon the rumor was all over the docklands—the cargo was spell-dust, a large consignment.
Any thief who walked away with that would have enough gold to live for a year if he were careful. And a man who wanted to escape Kraken City altogether and start a new life, well, there were always ships that could be hired, and Kraken City gold was just as good in Doran as in Kraken. Marcus kept thinking about it and thinking about it until at last he decided he just had to go for it.
If he were caught, he would be sent to the Bitter Island salt mines or to some other back-breaking hard labor for the rest of his short life. That was, of course, if he was not killed outright during the robbery. But if he escaped and got away with it? He would have enough money to get a berth on a ship headed for the Kingdom of Doran, and to set himself up in a new life when he got there. He knew the language, he could read and write and do figures, and he knew how to use the courtly manners that would be expected at the King’s court in Doran City, the huge, shining capital city across the sea.
“An opportunity like this, for someone like me, only comes once,” he had told himself. And that had been that.
For days, he watched the docks.
At last, the ship came in, conspicuous because of the strong company of Bloody Hand mercenaries who guarded its unloading. Many people gathered and watched the show. Marcus had just been one face among many, gazing on as the mercenaries formed up around three covered wagons drawn by hooded and cloaked riders on black horses. Spears at the ready, the mercenaries escorted the goods up the hill from the docks toward Merchants’ Town.
