by Ed Greenwood
Farl stared up at it. “By the gods, a proper archer! Let’s begone!”
So it was at an undignified run that the two fetched up, puffing, behind the boarded-up shop to lose loot and gear. Then Farl smote his forehead. “Gangs!” he hissed. “They’ve always someone to spare, must’ve set a watcher!” He turned and ran back the way they’d come, motioning to Elminster to hurry on down the alley.
Elminster continued to flee, moving purposefully but not running, looking around warily from time to time. He’d gone two streets farther when Farl dropped down from a nearby rooftop, puffing, and said, “Right … let’s dump all of this and buy some of Hannibur’s hot buttered rolls! We’ve earned an early even-feast!”
“The watcher?” Elminster asked.
“I threw a blade at him an’ missed by half a league—but he was so startled he fell over backward off his roof—and split his head open on the edge of a wagon, below. He’ll be watching nothing, forevermore.” Elminster shuddered.
Farl shook his head and looked gloomy. “What’d I warn you? Gangs! There goes the high tone of Hastarl!”
SIX
SQUALOR AMONG THIEVES
There is one sort of a city that’s worse than one where thieves rule the night streets: the sort where thieves form the government, and rule night and day.
URKITBAERAN OF CALIMPORT
THE BOOK OF BLACK TIDINGS
YEAR OF THE SHATTERED SKULLS
The best Calishite silks rarely made the long and perilous way up the pirate-infested and storm-racked coast of the Great Sea in numbers enough that Elembar, Uthtower, and Yarlith did not drink them all in—leaving some for the long, arduous pole-barge journey up the Delimbiyr. It was rarer still for the merchants who owned such barges to stop in tiny, provincial Hastarl, where homespun was the favored wear and a good sword scabbard was more admired than an elegantly cut jerkin. It was rarer yet for the shining, ornamented purple-and-emerald Tahtan weaves from the fabled Cities of the Seabreeze farther south to accompany the silks. Crowds at the docks were heavy. Some of the fat, strutting cloth merchants didn’t even bother to climb the streets to the tall, narrow shops of the master tailors, but sold all their wares on the docks.
Farl and Elminster thought themselves subtle indeed not to try for a single thread of that first exciting landing. When a second followed, they left it alone, too, and watched from afar as an unfortunate grab-artist of the Moonclaws was caught stealing silks, whipped skinless, and hanged from the city wall.
The master tailors had no guild because the magelords did not hold with guilds. They did, however, meet earnestly over wine and roast boar in the Dancing Dryad feasting house and come to a business agreement of mutual advantage. A lass who served them at table and collected rather too many pinches for her liking told Farl and Elminster (in return for four gold coins) what had been decided. ’Twas money well spent, Farl judged. Elminster, as was his wont, said nothing.
And so this moonless night found them on the roof of a warehouse overlooking a certain dock, waiting for the creak of oars and surreptitious shining of unshuttered lanterns that would mark the arrival of the private shipment to the master tailors, including (it was rumored) cloth-of-gold and amber buttons.
It was a crisp, breezy night, the first heralding of leaf-fall to come and another cold damp winter, but wrapped in their dark cloaks, they hadn’t time to grow stiff and cold before the flashes of lamplight were seen glimmering over the dark waters below.
The two thieves waited in patient silence for their victims-to-be to helpfully load the wagons, four in all and heavy-laden, then slid silently down from their perch, avoiding the lumbering hireguards who clustered around the lead wagon. It was the work of but a moment to hurl a stone over into the heap of rusted metal pans in the alley behind the confectioners’ shop, and while heads and blades were turned that way, to slip up into the fourth wagon from the other side of the street. Then they’d have a breath or six to sort before another diversion became necessary to cover their leaving.
It was about the time of the fourth breath that they heard a startled oath from somewhere nearby, the scream of a wounded horse, and the skirl of steel. “Competition?” El breathed into his friend’s ear, and Farl nodded.
“Our diversion,” he murmured, “provided by the Moonclaws, no doubt. Wait a bit, now—that horse means they’ve got at least one bow with them. Let the fight get well underway before we go out.”
The fight obliged, and the two companions hastened to finish sorting and stowing their loot for carrying. When they were done, they drew their daggers and unlatched the back doors of the wagon to peer cautiously out into the night.
A face with a blade held ready beside it was glaring up at them. Farl leaped high to avoid the man’s thrust, landed with both feet atop the blade, and jumped down on the sword-wielder’s arm, burying his dagger in that face before the man even had time to cry out.
As El jumped to the cobbles beside them, staggering under the weight of their booty, Farl tugged his dagger free and hurled it into the night, which seemed to be full of running men and drawn swords. It struck the brow of a hireguard, who cursed, clutched at the streaming blood, and ran.
Farl scooped up the long sword that had fallen from the shattered arm of his first victim and hissed, “Come on, out o’ this!”
They ran to the right, toward one of the rising side streets where folk dwelt who were too respectable to live in hovels but not rich enough to have walls around their homes. Daggers flashed and spun in the night on all sides, but the Moonclaws hadn’t a decent blade-tosser among them. It seemed the guards had been inept, or spineless, or paid off: the fight was over. All the other folk yet alive in the street were Moonclaws.
Farl and El didn’t waste breath on curses. They dodged from side to side erratically to discourage the Moonclaws’ archer and plunged along the street, puffing for breath. The expected humming of a seeking arrow came to their ears accompanied by a startled curse from close behind them. The arrow wobbled past them strangely; Farl frowned at it and looked back. A Moonclaws man who’d been pursuing them was stumbling and rubbing at his shoulder.
“Dare they … shoot again?” El gasped. “With … their own folk …”
“Hasn’t stopped ’em yet,” Farl puffed. “Keep dodging!”
The next arrow came as they reached the top of the street and turned aside to duck along an alley, crouching low. The humming grew louder, and they both dived to the cobbles. The arrow whipped low over them, and cracked into some shutters across the way just as a patrol of armsmen shouldered out of the alley, halberds held high. The patrol captain peered down in the dimness at the two men sprawled in front of him and snapped, “Get that light up here! Something befalls! Swords ou—”
The Moonclaws had a second archer, it seemed. His shaft hit home with a solid thump—and the captain gurgled, spun around, and plunged to the cobbles, strangling on the long, dark shaft through his throat.
Farl and El rolled to their feet while startled armsmen were still wrestling their halberds down, and ran down the alley past the patrol, hooking the feet out from under the only armsman who tried to block their path.
As the soldier crashed to the cobbles, Farl swarmed up a draper’s outside wooden staircase, with El close behind. The roof was an easy leap up from the rail, but slippery with puddles of rainwater. The next roof was thatch, and they burrowed thankfully into its far slope to catch their breaths.
They looked at each other in the darkness, panting. “There’s naught for it,” Farl said a few frantic breaths later, “but to form our own gang.”
“Tyche aid us,” El murmured.
Farl looked at him. “Don’t you mean Mask, Lord of Thieves?”
“Nay,” Elminster replied. “I was praying that this ‘gang’ does not end our friendship … or our lives.”
Farl was a silent for a long time. Then Elminster heard him murmur, “Oh, Lady Tyche, hear me.…”
“Ah, Naneetha! Those velvet ha
nds …” Farl was laughing—and then he stopped. “That’s it! We’ll call ourselves the ‘Velvet Hands’!”
Groans and laughter rang round the tiny room. It was dusty and stank of decades of salted fish—but the owner of the warehouse was dead, and the two broken-down carts they’d carefully jammed together in the mouth of the alley made it unlikely any patrols would get close enough to hear them. Over a dozen folk were in the room, keeping a wary distance apart, with careful eyes on each other and their hands close to their weapons.
Farl eyed them all, and sighed. “I know none of you are delighted at this idea … but everyone here knows it’s band together or be slain—or leave Hastarl to try our luck elsewhere … in strange places where we’ll be marked as suspicious outlanders an’ find a local gang of thieves waiting to sink knives into us.”
“Why not join the Moonclaws?” Klaern rasped. He was one of the Blaenbar brothers, who lounged together by a window where they could give a signal to someone outside.
“On what terms? he asked reasonably. “Every time Eladar or I have crossed paths with ’em, they’ve tried to put their blades into us before a word was exchanged. We’d start out on the fringes, all of us, untrusted and expendable.”
“More than that,” Elminster put in, drawing startled looks from all over the room. “I’ve wondered at all those leathers an’ matching badges they wear. Expensive, that—an’ right from the outset, before they’d taken two coins to rub together. Good weapons, too. Does that remind all of ye of anything? A private bodyguard, belike? An army in Hastarl that strikes at thieves—us—whenever they see us. That sounds like the work of someone in the hire of a magelord, or the king, or someone rich and important. What better way to rid the city of thieves and arrange ‘accidents’ for thy rivals but than to put thine own band on the streets?”
There were thoughtful nods all around the room now. “Now that,” fat old Chaslarla said, scratching herself, “makes more sense o’ the mess than I’ve heard since I first saw ’em. An’ it explains why some armsmen seem to look the other way when they strike out—under orders, belike.”
“Aye,” young Rhegaer said, idly turning a little knife in his fingers as he perched atop a barrel taller than he was. As usual, he was very dirty … but then, so was the barrel, and a peering eye might have missed him, but for the flash and turn of the little blade.
“Well, I think it’s so much smart lies and fancy-castles talk,” Klaern snarled, “an’ I’ll not listen to more of it. Ye’re fools, all of ye, if ye listen to these two dreamers. What have they but smart tongues?” He strode out of his corner to stare around the room, and like a silent wave rolling in his wake his two brothers came to stand at his back in a solid, threatening wall of flesh. “If there’s to be a band to rival the Moonclaws, I’ll lead it. ‘Velvet Hands,’ indeed! While these two perfumed dancing lads are strutting an’ crowing, my brothers ’n’ me can make ye rich … guaranteed.”
“Oh?” A very deep voice rumbled out from one dark corner. “And just how, Blaenbar, are ye going to manage to make me trust thee? After watching thy bullying and blustering in the alleys these past three summers, all I know of ye is that I’d best never turn my back—or thy blade’ll be in, right sharp.”
Klaern sneered. “Jhardin, everyone in Hastarl knows ye’re as strong as an ox—but anyone might give ye a good run in a race of wits. What can ye know of planning, or—”
“More than some folk,” Jhardin growled. “Where I come from, ‘planning’ always means some clever jack is going to try to trick me.”
“Why don’t ye go back there, then?”
“Enough, Klaern,” Farl said with cold scorn. “Trust is something the rest of us can never have when you’re near, that’s for certain. You’d best leave.”
The red-maned man turned on him. “Afraid ye’ll lose mastery of this little band of Pawing Hands, eh? Well, let’s just see who speaks for ye, here?”
Elminster stepped a silent pace forward.
“Yes, yes, we know yer pretty boy does … as well as anything else ye ask him to.”
Amid his coarse laughter, Jhardin lumbered forward a pace, eyes hard. Rhegaer leaped lightly down from his barrel, and Chaslarla wheezed forward too.
Klaern looked around. “Tassabra?”
The lithe figure in the deepest shadows shifted slightly and said in a low, musical voice, “Sorry, Klaern. I side with Farl too.”
“Fah! Gods frown upon all of ye fools!” Klaern spat on the floor, turned, and strode grandly out, his silent brothers Korlar and Othkyn backing watchfully away to guard his going.
“I thought he was thy lover,” another man murmured from the shadows.
“Take care, Larrin!” Tassabra’s voice was testy. “That rutting boar my lover? Nay, he was but a plaything.”
Jhardin looked to Farl, who nodded. The huge man walked out of the room, moving with surprising, silent lightness. Klaern might well have less time left in life than he realized. Farl stepped forward. “Are we agreed, then? Do the Velvet Hands fare forth in Hastarl from this night on?”
“Aye,” came the rough voice of one-eyed Tarth. “I’ll follow your orders.”
“And I,” Chaslarla said, wheezing forward, “so long as ye turn not into one of those cold-hearts who thinks himself the true ruler of his city an’ sends us out to stab armsmen and magelords all the night through.”
There was a general rumble of agreement. Farl grinned and bowed. “We have agreement, then. As our first work together, let’s get out of here with blades ready, and as I bid—in case the Moonclaws are waiting for us with bows, or’ve told a patrol when and where to expect us.”
“Can I have first blood?” Rhegaer asked eagerly.
Behind him, they heard Tassabra’s low laugh. “Just be sure it’s not yours,” she said. The darkness covered the look he gave her … but they could all feel it. There were chuckles in the night as they went down the stairs together.
All Hastarl knew the noble Athalantan families Glarmeir and Trumpettower had been joined that same night in a true love-match. Peeryst Trumpettower had worn a high-plumed hat and cloth-of-gold doublet specially crafted for the occasion, with his usual bell-trimmed hose and best curl-tip shoes. Strapping on his father’s lightest sword, he proudly paraded his lady to the shrines of Sune, Lathander, Helm, and Tyche before the hand-fasting was completed under the sword of Tyr.
The father of the bride had gifted the happy pair with a statue of the rearing Stag of Athalantar (the beast, not the dead king) that had been sculpted from a single gigantic diamond, and was worth more than some large castles. The servant who carried it around all day on a glass-domed platter thought it might well have been heavier than some castles, too. Under a heavy guard, this eminently practical gift had been installed in the bridal bedchamber at the foot of the bed, where, as old Darrigo Trumpettower had put it with a wink and a leer, “ ’Twould be in a fine position to watch!”
Nanue Glarmeir had worn an exquisite sky-blue gown crafted by the elves of far-off Shantel Othreier; her mother had proudly announced it had cost a thousand pieces of gold. Now it lay crumpled on the floor like so much discarded wrapping—which is precisely what the squeakily excited Peeryst thought it was—as the newly wedded couple toasted each other with sparkling moonbubble wine, and turned to raise their glasses to Selûne, that she might smile down upon the bridal bed. The first pale rays of her radiance had peeked in the window far enough to touch the statue of the stag with moonlight, where it stood rampant and watchful on its own table at the foot of the bed.
Neither man nor wife noticed the deft pair of black-gloved hands reach up from under the bed and take away the gem-headed hairpins Nanue had just drawn out to let her hair cascade unbound down her elegant back (to Peeryst’s breathless delight). Both newlyweds, however, did notice the sudden appearance of a pair of booted feet that blotted out the moon and then crashed through the fine glass of the largest arched bed-chamber window, followed by their owner: a woman clad in ti
ght-fitting black leathers with a badge on her breast, who wore a black half-mask.
The shapely intruder smiled at them sweetly as she drew a needle-thin blade from one boot and approached the stag. In all this excitement, none of the three heard an exasperated sigh from under the bed.
“Scream just once,” she warned softly, “and I’ll slide this into you.”
Having been handed the idea, Nanue screamed—just once. Piercingly, too; shards of glass fell from the window frame with a tinkling clatter.
The woman’s face darkened into a snarl, and she ran across the room, poniard raised to stab. Seemingly by itself, a footstool beside the bed leaped up from the floor to catch her in the face; she reeled, lost her dagger, and fell heavily sideways into a wardrobe—which promptly toppled, slowly and grandly, over on top of her.
Nanue and Peeryst both boldly seized the initiative, shrieking in unison.
Downstairs, befurred and bejeweled elders of both families heard the mighty crash and the screams. They raised knowing eyes and grins toward the ceiling and then toasted each other.
“Ah, yes,” Darrigo Trumpettower said, leering over his glass at a Glarmeir lass almost half his age and blowing his bristling mustache out of his wine with a practiced puff. “I remember well my wedding night—the first one, at least; I was sober for that one. ’Twas back in the Year of the Gorgon Moon, as I recall …”
A dark figure rose up from beneath the bed, crept across the room, and ducked behind a lounge onto which Peeryst had grandly tossed his boots, one after the other, not so long ago. The intruder was safely out of sight before the next two thieves in leathers burst in through the other two windows, raining fresh glass onto the thick fur rugs. Peeryst and Nanue clutched each other, naked but not noticing anymore, and howled in fear, clawing at each other’s backs in a frantic attempt to get going elsewhere—anywhere!
