Hell to Pay (Ascend Online Book 2)

by Luke Chmilenko

  “They wouldn’t let me pass,” Sawyer said slowly as he panted from his earlier exertions, still being restrained by the two guards’ grip, giving me, Quinn, and Molly enough time to note that his blood-red armor had been seriously scarred and damaged since the last time we’d seen him. “Told me this wasn’t a place for Bounty Hunters.”

  “In normal circumstances, they would be right,” Stroud stated rather brusquely.

  “Is there anything about today that’s normal?” Molly shot a dirty look towards Stroud as she moved forward to check Sawyer. “Are you hurt?”

  “Nah, these scrubs couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.” Sawyer shook his head as his breathing returned to a more normal rate. “But as for the armor, Edith roughed me up before she took off, but it took me a while to get here and I’m fine now.”

  “You found her?” Isabella asked at the mention of Edith’s name, looking over Sawyer, unable to not notice the dried blood streaked across his face. Motioning for the two guards to let him go, she glanced at the other Thief Lords briefly before pressing on. “What happened?”

  “We were outclassed,” Sawyer sighed defeatedly as he rubbed his wrists while carefully watching the two thugs exit the tavern and take up position just outside the now broken door. “Not just me and my team, but an entire group of thugs that managed to get the drop on her.”

  “What do you mean?” Sable asked with concern, jumping into the conversation at the mention of a group of thieves being involved.

  “We didn’t see the beginning of the fight,” Sawyer began to explain. “We were still, uh…tracking Edith when a fight drew our attention.”

  “Wait, tracking?” Quinn questioned. “What do you mean?”

  “Uh, it’s something that Bounty Hunters can do,” Sawyer said as his eyes flicked to the mage before shifting back to me. “To help us find our targets instead of wandering around aimlessly all the time.”

  “I didn’t realize you could do that,” Quinn said uneasily. “But that explains how you found us earlier in the day.”

  “Yeah, well, we don’t talk about it that much…for obvious reasons,” Sawyer replied, clearly unwilling to divulge any more secrets than he had to.

  “Anyway, we were about a block away from her when one of your groups”—Sawyer waved at the Thief Lords—“beat us to the punch and broke into the safe house she was hiding in…not that the surprise did them any good, from what I was able to piece together after the fact.

  “I know you said Edith had changed, Lazarus,” Sawyer continued, looking at me with a bewildered expression. “But I really wasn’t prepared for what you meant by that.”

  Thinking back to the moment when I had first seen Edith at the pier, I couldn’t help but nod grimly in understanding. “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.”

  “By the time we realized that it was Edith causing the commotion and managed to make our way closer, there was nothing we could do to help the thieves.” A haunted look crossed the warrior’s face as he recalled the scene. “We intercepted her just as she finished off the last thief, and despite the injuries she had from the fight before, she still managed to put down both of the other Hunters I had with me without too much trouble—not that they were exceptionally skilled to begin with.”

  “Shit, man,” I cursed.

  “After that”—Sawyer motioned to his armor as he spoke—“the two of us proceeded to have a vicious duel in the middle of the street, and while I was able to keep pace with her, nothing I did could put her down. The longer the fight went on, though, the more frustrated she got, and eventually she landed a solid enough hit that threw me through a storefront window.”

  Sawyer let out a sigh and splayed his hands out in a gesture of helplessness. “By the time I managed to get my shit together and crawled out of the mess, she was gone.”

  “She just ran away?” Isabella said in disbelief.

  “Like a lightning bolt,” Sawyer replied. “We didn’t exactly exchange that many words during our little brawl, but she seemed to be in a damned hurry; I think the thieves knocking on her door must have really surprised her.”

  “Why didn’t you just keep tracking her?” I asked. “You did it when you found her the first time; can’t you do it again?”

  “No,” Sawyer replied with a pained expression on his face as he was forced to disclose more of his faction’s secrets. “My tracking ability only works for a short period of time every day. It eventually resets itself, but I’ve used all of it up looking for Edith. That’s part of the reason why I tried so hard to keep the other Bounty Hunters with me, so we could split the use of our ability.”

  “I don’t suppose we can count on them for help, can we?” I asked, already knowing what Sawyer would tell me.

  “They dropped group as soon as they died,” Sawyer answered bitterly. “It was hard enough keeping them interested this long, with the nobles getting ready to brawl in the middle of the street.”

  “Fantastic,” I grunted as I rubbed my forehead in frustration.

  “I don’t think Edith knew Dorian had been discovered,” Molly said softly as she brought a hand to her face in thought.

  “Doesn’t sound like it,” Quinn agreed. “Which way did she run?”

  “Which way?” Sawyer looked confused as he looked at the mage. “What do you mean?”

  “North, south, east, west.” I waved my hands around as I rattled off the compass directions, understanding what Quinn was getting at. “Do you have any idea which street you were on?”

  “Oh.” Sawyer blinked twice as he considered my question. “She ran south, I was able to make out that much, at least. As for the street, I don’t know what its name is offhand…”

  “We have a map, you can show us.” I waved the Bounty Hunter over towards the table, only to find myself staring at both Stroud and Smiling Jade, who had moved to interpose themselves in front of the table.

  “That will not be possible,” Smiling Jade stated in a firm tone. “There is a substantial amount of information on this table that would best not be disclosed to a…Hunter. It could prove to be problematic in the future.”

  “You have to be fucking kidding me,” I hissed as I shifted my glance from Smiling Jade’s faceless mask over to Stroud’s unreadable expression. “We don’t have time for this! If you haven’t noticed, Sawyer is actually trying to help us!”

  “Today,” Stroud explained as he watched me unflinchingly. “Tomorrow he may not be.”

  “Eberia may not be here—” I felt my temper begin to flare at the two Thief Lords’ comments, before Sawyer interrupted me from behind.

  “They’re right, Lazarus,” Sawyer said wearily. “I know what sort of reputation my job brings in certain circles and why Hunters have always been kept at arm’s length.”

  “This isn’t the time for this sort of petty shit!”

  “It isn’t,” Sawyer agreed, directing his voice towards the Thief Lords. “But this isn’t productive either. All I can tell you for certain is that I was in the northwestern part of the district about two streets west of the main thoroughfare, which I remembered crossing on my way here.”

  Saying nothing, I saw Sable turn to look over the table as Stroud and Smiling Jade stood in front of us stoically. After a few moments of scanning, the dark-furred Tul’Shar let out a low growl.

  “It was one of your crew assigned to that area, Stroud.” Sable’s voice was tinged with anger. “The streets also give Edith a clear route towards the south, and while we have a handful of checkpoints along the way, I’m not confident that they would slow her down.”

  “I see,” Stroud commented tonelessly, his only reaction to the news being to momentarily close his eyes for a few seconds and reopen them.

  “If Edith was that far north into the district, then she wouldn’t have had time to be warned by Dorian, assuming he even knew where she was,” Molly stated as she moved to stand beside Sawyer and me. “I’m tempted to believe that he had no idea where she was hiding out,
either, or else she wouldn’t have been caught by surprise.”

  “Was there anything of interest in the safe house?” I turned to look at Sawyer while doing my best to push down the anger I was feeling.

  “It was pretty plain and hidden away, just a small apartment above a few shops,” Sawyer said. “I tossed the place after Edith got away, but there wasn’t anything inside it other than some food and a bed.”

  There was a short pause as we all digested that information, giving Sawyer a chance to look around at all of our expressions in confusion.

  “What’s going on?” He asked. “Why does it matter which way she ran or where in the district this happened?”

  “Dorian beat us to the punch and managed to put out a warning to the rest of his guild,” Quinn explained while looking directly at Stroud and Smiling Jade, watching to see if they would interject. “Based on the number of empty hideouts we’ve had reported to us, we think he’s gathering his forces somewhere in the southern end of the district, since they got the warning to abandon ship and others further north into the district didn’t.”

  “And that’s where we may have a problem,” Isabella said in a tone that none of us had ever heard before. “That entire southern half of this district is owned by House Phineas; in fact, their familial estate overlooks the ocean. If Dorian is gathering his forces there…”

  “What?” I managed to gasp, feeling my blood go cold as I turned my head to look towards Isabella, then towards the rest of the Thief Lords, all of whom already had made the connection.

  “Phineas and Denarius are the only two Houses that haven’t been drawn into the standoff between the other three,” Molly spoke, instantly realizing the implications. “That means either House Phineas is involved…”

  “Or more likely, it is Dorian’s next target,” Isabella finished grimly. “And I cannot stress just how…disastrous it would be for us if Dorian openly attacks a Noble House.”

  “We need to check it out,” I stated, a sudden feeling of dread passing through me as I remembered what Edith had told me what seemed like a lifetime ago on the pier. “I—”

  “Whoa!” a shout of surprise echoed from just outside the still broken tavern door as a crimson light flashed through the tavern’s windows.

  “What the hell was that?!” Quinn exclaimed, the first to react to the light as we all turned around to face the entrance.

  No sooner did we all turn around than did the familiar face of the veteran thief rush through the open door, a look of confusion and worry on his face.

  “There’s something weird going on with Eris,” he said, clearly not knowing how to explain it any better. “It’s…smoldering in the sky.”

  Moving without a word, I took a single step forward, which caused everyone to follow me as we all rushed outside and into the crimson glow that now bathed the night. Running away from the building, I craned my head upwards as I searched the sky for the larger of the twin moons, my vision finally landing on the bright crimson orb that peeked from a gap in the cloud-covered sky. Glowing with a red aura, a vibrant corona billowed out around Eris’s edges, making it appear as if the night itself were on fire, casting its eerie light through the heavy clouds. A soft chime rang in my ears as a bright and urgent text appeared in my vision.

  A World Event has begun!

  Strife and Discord has consumed the city of Eberia, causing Eris to burn in the sky as a Lord reaches for power beyond his station. In his quest, he seeks to bring down one of the founding pillars of the nation, his hand forced by distant whispers in his ear. Unless the Lord is brought to heel, a new power will rise in Eberia with the morning sun, and woe to all who dare to oppose it.

  “It wasn’t like that when I got here!” Sawyer exclaimed as we all huddled into a mass and stared up at the moon.

  “This is wrong,” Smiling Jade whispered as she looked up into the sky. “This is very wrong.”

  “Is Dorian doing this?” Molly asked aloud as she looked towards me. “Can he do this?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied slowly as I gazed up at the burning moon. “But something tells me we’ve just run out of time.”

  Chapter 22

  Finding myself rushing through the streets for a second time in the last hour, I did everything I could not to gaze upwards as Eris slid behind the thick summer clouds and its crimson light faded from the sky, temporarily plunging the night back into darkness. Turning my head slightly as I ran, I saw Molly, Quinn, and Sawyer easily keeping pace with me as we moved through the streets, each of their faces nervously scanning ahead of us.

  Things had moved almost blindingly fast after witnessing Eris’s transformation. The Thief Lords immediately dispatched each and every spare guard at the command post to comb through the district and locate all the teams they could find.

  And to send them towards House Phineas.

  Having already seen Dorian’s hand in arranging the murder of the noble heirs, none of the Thief Lords doubted his resolve should he have decided to move against House Phineas, and were terrified of the fallout if he had. It was already a longshot that Dorian’s head would be enough to satisfy Crawridge’s and Wynbrandt’s desire for vengeance, and adding in a third angry Noble House into the equation was the last thing that any of the Thief Lords wanted.

  While the rest of the Thief Lords reorganized the guilds, Isabella had chosen to send the four of us ahead to scout out House Phineas’s estates, which made up the entire southern portion of the New District and presented us with a rather unique problem.

  It was completely walled off from the rest of the district by a fifteen-foot tall stone wall.

  A byproduct from the early years of The War, when an unruly populace was just as viable a threat to the nobility as the Orc Tribes that besieged the nation, the wall was once intended as a safety barrier to the House by providing a line defense should the commoners within the city break out into riots.

  Now, in more recent years, with The War slowly becoming a fading memory, the weathered wall now served more as a symbolic barrier rather than a defensive one, reminding everyone of the separation between the common folk and those from the higher class, only admitting those with express permission into the world past it.

  Fortunately for us, however, thieves didn’t tend to care much for walls or for obtaining permission.

  “Turn here,” Molly whispered just loud enough for all of us to hear as we ran, indicating a back-alley street that led behind a row of apartments.

  Trusting Molly’s sense of direction, I didn’t hesitate as the four of us turned down the alley, the sound of dried leaves crunching softly under our feet while we ran.

  “Why here?” Sawyer asked softly, curiosity tinging his voice, despite moving to follow her without any hesitation. “This is a dead end.”

  “Main street has a direct sight to the gate leading in,” she answered in between breaths before motioning for all of us to slow down once we had made it halfway down the alley and were far enough away from the street. “We’ll get spotted if there’s anyone watching.”

  “Ah,” Sawyer grunted in understanding. “What’s the plan, then?”

  “We go up,” Molly stated as she pointed up towards the apartments surrounding us. “The wall is tall enough, but it was built before these buildings were. We won’t find a better vantage point anywhere else.”

  “Oh,” Sawyer replied, as he followed Molly’s finger upwards. “Is this a bad time to mention that I’m not that great with heights or climbing?”

  “I’m going to second that, actually,” Quinn added, waving a hand over his thinner body. “One of the side effects of being a mage is next to no upper body strength.

  “No time like the present to get over it,” I grunted as I began to walk towards the building while looking up at its side for handholds.

  “Actually, no,” Molly whispered. “If you can’t climb quickly and quietly, stay down here. The last thing we need is an inept climber causing noise and waking anyone insid
e these houses.”

  “I’ll stay, then,” Sawyer said with a shake of his head.

  “Yeah, me too,” Quinn chimed in.

  “Go wait at the alley entrance, then, and send the Thief Lords our way when they arrive,” Molly ordered as she motioned for me to start climbing. “Lazarus and I will go up together.”

  Wasting no time as Sawyer and Quinn retreated back down the alley, I focused my attention on the building, quickly pulling myself up to the flat rooftop.

  Guess those two days of nonstop climbing Fairfax subjected us to the other week have really been burned into my memory, I thought to myself, feeling a distant pang of sadness wash over my heart before fading as my deceased mentor came to mind. Rubbing my face as I waited for Molly to catch up to me, I let out a soft sigh before moving away from the edge and scanned the rooftop, in case any guards had been posted up here. Hard to believe so much has happened in the last two days.

  Finding the roof empty, I let myself relax slightly, hearing Molly’s feet brush the hard title behind me as she pulled herself onto the roof a moment before her hand landed on my shoulder and gave me a squeeze.

  Moving with a practiced ease, the two of us crouched low while crossing the rooftop, barely making a sound as we made our way towards the far edge of the building that overlooked the main street that led into the House Phineas Estate, blocked by a large, ornate gate that controlled access into the gated community of nobles.

  Squinting at a sudden brightness, the first thing that we spotted was that the neighborhood behind the wall was illuminated by several mage lamps, large glass orbs that had been enchanted to cast a brilliant, pale light in every direction. Scanning the horizon first, I counted several tall buildings that reached even higher into the sky than the one we stood on. Given the late hour, I wasn’t surprised to find all the windows dark, yet there was something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on that had me feeling unsettled.

  Maybe these buildings are all housing for servants and extended family who wouldn’t have a place within the main house? I thought to myself as my eyes passed from building to building, silently wishing I could see the Phineas mansion from our perch, but found it to be blocked from the building ahead of us.