by Mark Acres
Of course Shulana had thought Bagsby mad to head for Kala. Valdaimon, she argued, would never leave the treasure in so obvious a place as the city. But Bagsby had countered that the one man who would most likely know where Valdaimon was, and therefore the location of the treasure, was Nebuchar.
Amid the burned-out buildings of the city, scuttling around like the few surviving citizens, the foursome had not attracted much attention from garrison troops. These men had lost their edge, Bagsby noticed, from their easy duty. Penetrating the Thieves’ Quarter, however, was another matter. Every protected cutthroat in the city, Bagsby knew, would be looking for him. He would have to strike, strike quickly and quietly, and get out.
“One thing in my favor,” Bagsby had told his small gang, “is that I know all his tricks. That tiny room he holes up in is a secret fortress. None of the usual ruses will work.”
“What do you mean?” Shulana had asked.
“Well, for example, an invisibility potion is no good, because he has hidden sigils in the floor that break the spell. Nebuchar was always a master at protecting himself.”
“The sigils could be seen by a wizard,” Shulana had suggested.
“But I’m not a wizard,” Bagsby had said.
“But I am,” Shulana had answered.
Thus Bagsby found himself waiting in the street outside Nebuchar’s tavern. Shulana had almost exhausted the powers of her magic preparing for this bold strike. She had rendered Bagsby invisible, and then silent. Not only could he not speak, no action he took would make any sound. Next, she had cast a spell that, she said, would enable her to see magic auras of any kind, even those from Nebuchar’s invisible sigils.
Now, armed with nothing more than a handful of violets and a small sack of gold, she was venturing alone inside Nebuchar’s tavern. George and Marta were stationed just across the narrow alleyway outside, while Bagsby stood right by the door, close enough to touch anyone coming in or out and within easy earshot of any disturbance inside.
Shulana flung open the tavern door and strode boldly inside. Her slight feminine, elven form was clad in a short green tunic, belted at the waist. Hanging from her belt was a coin purse, and in her hand she carried a bunch of violets, nothing more.
“I seek Nebuchar,” she announced loudly.
Her statement was greeted first with stunned silence, then with catcalls from the carousing vermin who frequented the place.
“He ain’t here, honey, but we’ll be glad to help you find what you want,” one drunk bawled out.
“Me too,” voiced another, and soon the room resounded with raucous laughter from would-be “suitors.”
“I said, I seek Nebuchar. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell him I’m here. I have something he wants,” Shulana said.
“We bet you do!” one rowdy replied.
Shulana’s eyes drank in the scene; she saw the aura of magical items scattered about the room. One thief had a magic ring; one villain carried an enchanted blade; a third had an amulet that radiated powerful magic.
“I have come to bring him Bagsby,” Shulana announced.
The room fell suddenly silent. Each man pondered whether to capture this elven wench and wring the secret from her or to be the first to alert Nebuchar of her presence. As it was, no decision was required. Nebuchar himself appeared in the doorway of his tiny room.
“Come in. I’ve been expecting you,” he gruffly commanded.
What sort of treachery does she have in mind? Nebuchar wondered, as Shulana slowly and carefully, somewhat timidly, made her way through the tavern to his door.
“We must talk,” Shulana said simply.
“Then sit down, close the door, and talk,” Nebuchar said, taking his own chair by the plain table.
Shulana crossed the threshold. As she did, she dropped a tiny violet petal from her hand onto the sigil on the floor directly in front of the door. Other sigils were hidden beneath the table, on the seats of chairs, and in the corners of the room. Some were designed to make the invisible become visible; others had a more deadly effect—they could kill upon a word of command from the one for whose benefit they had been placed.
“Bagsby is in Kala,” she said. “I can take you to him. My price is ten thousand gold crowns.” She walked nervously around the room, dropping more petals as she went.
“Why should I trust you?” Nebuchar asked. “You’ve been traveling with him. Perhaps you’re his ally.”
Shulana noted that two of Nebuchar’s gold rings glowed with a magical aura.
“Perhaps I am,” she said, continuing her nervous pacing. “You’ll have to decide.”
“I’ve no need to pay you,” Nebuchar said coolly. “I can find Bagsby for myself.”
“So far you haven’t.”
“Maybe I will now, that I have a prisoner from his gang.”
Nebuchar stood and moved quickly to the door. He thrust it open and called out, “Take this elf prisoner—and see that no harm comes to her. I may want her alive later.”
Even as Nebuchar spoke, Bagsby, squeezing himself as flat as possible, slipped through the doorway. Once past Nebuchar, he jumped over the area marked by the violet petals toward the center of the room.
A group of rowdies moved to obey Nebuchar’s command.
“Wait, please!” Shulana cried out. “There is more I can offer you!”
“What can you offer me that I cannot take for myself?” Nebuchar snarled.
“Close the door and I’ll tell you,” Shulana said, giving Nebuchar what humans called a “wink,” just as Bagsby had taught her.
“A moment,” Nebuchar said. He slammed the door and took his seat again. “All right. What else do you have to offer that I can’t take for myself?”
“Your life,” Shulana said flatly, her eyes suddenly as hard as any murderer’s that Nebuchar had ever known. “Be silent or die.”
As she spoke, Nebuchar felt the tickle of cold, sharp steel against his throat and a vice grip around his chest.
“What magic is this?” Nebuchar whispered, stunned.
Shulana made a slight gesture with her hand, and Nebuchar heard the voice of Bagsby whisper in his ear.
“The kind that works, unlike yours. No matter what you do, you’ll die before you can harm me or her. So tell us what we want to know, and we’ll go away quietly.”
“Bagsby!” Nebuchar whispered. “Is that you?”
“The same.”
“‘Then I have something you want or I’d be dead already.”
“Where is Valdaimon?” Bagsby hissed, putting more pressure on the blade.
“Since I’ll die whether I tell you or not, why should I tell you?” Nebuchar said softly.
“I need you alive to get the elf out of here.”
“So if I don’t talk, she dies.”
“Do you really think that matters to me?” Bagsby asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Nebuchar thought hard. He had no doubt that the Bagsby he had known couldn’t care less whether the elf lived or died. And, since Bagsby was somehow invisible, despite the sigils that protected the room, he would likely escape.
“You’ll kill me anyway once we’re outside,” Nebuchar argued.
“But it’s such a long walk through your tavern. You’ll think of something.”
Nebuchar grinned. Bagsby was right. He would think of something. “Lundlow Keep,” Nebuchar breathed.
“You may be lying,” Bagsby suggested.
“Why should I? If I can’t kill you, I’m only too glad to send you to a confrontation with Valdaimon.”
“You’re right,” Bagsby said agreeably. He cut Nebuchar’s throat from ear to ear. The big man looked surprised for an instant. He tried to shout, but could only gurgle. Then he slumped in the chair, clutching his throat, and felt his life force gush out onto the floor.
“Wait!” Shulana gasped as Bagsby stepped on the sigil by the door and became visible. “How do we get out of here now?”
“Simple,” Bagsby said. He grabbed Nebuchar’s body and threw it over the table, then drew his longsword and hacked off the head. Holding it aloft by the hair, he threw open the door and stepped into the tavern. The startled Shulana walked behind him.
“I am Bagsby!” he shouted, holding the head high in one hand and his sword in the other. “This piece of garbage is Nebuchar,” he added, shaking the head for emphasis. He strode forward, eyes meeting each and every man’s as he walked past him. “I’m taking over, as of now. Any objections?”
As Bagsby anticipated, there were none. The crowd was too stunned to think how to react.
“Good,” Bagsby said, nonchalantly tossing the head to the tavern keeper. “My second in command and I will be back in an hour. See that my room is cleaned up.”
Bagsby walked out the door without glancing back. Shulana, still stunned, followed him into the narrow street. George and Marta fell in behind the new, if temporary, lord of the Kalan underworld who walked boldly through the Thieves’ Quarter toward the ruins of the once great city.
“We go tonight,” Bagsby announced.
George’s eyes lit up with interest. The past two days had been boring. Camping in the woods about a mile from some old castle, studying it from every angle, thinking through and discarding one plan after another; none of this was to George’s taste. But the thought of action and treasure interested him greatly.
Marta tossed another branch onto the tiny fire the group allowed themselves. The woods were full of camp fires, as refugees from Kala and the surrounding towns struggled to stay alive and out of the way of the brutal garrison troops. One more fire would hardly matter.
“What plan have you decided on?” she asked. So far, it seemed to Marta, they hadn’t done much to hurt the Heilesheim cause. The prospect of actually encountering Valdaimon, an important servant of the king, appealed to her greatly.
“Well,” Bagsby said, grinning, “we wait until dark. Then we walk in the front door, kill everyone, and steal the treasure.”
“Right,” George said, lying back down. “That worked once, with a lot o’ magic to ‘elp you. I don’t think it will work again, not against a wizard like old Valdaimon. And not against a hundred some guards like we counted at that castle.”
“Hmmm,” Bagsby teased. “You may be right. Shulana, what magic do we have available?” While she talked, Bagsby worked on a tree limb with his dagger, pruning off tiny branches, skinning off the bark, forming a half-finished quarterstaff.
“You’ve seen almost everything I can do.” Shulana said. “I can cause silence. I can render things invisible for a while. I can move almost undetected in this cloak of mine, and I can throw a ball of magical fire. Oh, and I can see whether things are magical or not, and I can shrink things to a tiny size. Also, I have learned to cause a certain number of foes to fall asleep. As a young elf, my magical powers are quite limited.”
“You’re sure the treasure will be in the tower room?” Bagsby asked for what Shulana thought must be the hundredth time.
“Of course. Any wizard would put it there, under heavy magical guards—fire traps, stones that strike you dead when you step on them, other things I may not know of.”
“Good!” Bagsby exclaimed. “Then we go tonight! All we need is a length of rope.”
“But ‘ow? ‘Ow we gonna get in and out?” George asked.
“Like I said,” Bagsby taunted, “we’re going to walk in the front door and take what we want.”
The night was dark with little light provided by the sliver of a moon that hung on the horizon. Bagsby, George, and Shulana sneaked out of the woods into the meadow that surrounded the hill atop which Lundlow Keep was set. The tallness of the grass aided them as they approached the front of the hill. The castle itself, a small stone keep dominated by its sixty-foot round tower, loomed ahead like an indomitable fortress. George still had little understanding of the plan, and Shulana had grave doubts, but Bagsby moved forward with quiet confidence, stopping only once when he had to pinch his nose to stop a sneeze, for he had a shoot of grass up one nostril.
Stealthily the trio crept past the outer sentries, who hardly took their duties seriously. The damp earth stained their cloaks and tunics as they crawled on their bellies and inched their way slowly up the hill toward the main door. Bagsby was glad to see that their observations of the past few days were correct; the door was not locked. Men of the garrison moved freely in and out past the two guards posted at the doorway.
The thieves crawled up to within twenty yards of the door. They could hear the quiet conversation of the guards carried on the night air. George crawled up close beside Bagsby and whispered, “What now?”
“Wait for Marta,” Bagsby mouthed back.
The wait was not long. From beyond the opposite side of the castle Marta ran into the open field, screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Thieves! Murderers! Cutthroats!” she shouted. “There’s one, there, on the castle wall! He’s going up the castle wall!”
The woman’s shrill shrieks could be heard all over the compound. The response, as Bagsby had hoped, was both swift and confused.
The outer perimeter sentries, and those posted by the stables on the far side of the keep, came running in toward the castle, not a few making directly for Marta to see what all the shouting was really about. The castle doors flew open and a soldier with some authority stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light from the main room behind him. He barked orders back inside as he pulled on his helmet. A troop of half-armored, half-armed, half-awake men came running to the doorway behind him.
“Fan out!” he ordered. “Search the perimeter.”
The men scrambled out into the darkness and quickly dissipated into disordered clumps, vainly beating the bushes and asking one another what was going on.
Marta kept up her shrieking. “There’re thieves inside the castle! I saw them going up the wall, climbing it like spiders, they was,” she babbled. Repeatedly she pointed to the tower room, and eventually one soldier had the brilliant idea of reporting this news to the commander inside.
“There are thieves afoot, in the tower!” the soldier shouted as he raced in through the main door. Bagsby strained to see through the doorway. The huge single room inside was in chaos. Men were running about, grabbing clothes, armor, and weapons, while others staggered to their feet, still groggy from being awakened from their deep sleep.
“Shulana, are you ready?” Bagsby asked.
The elf nodded, and Bagsby slapped George on the back. “Go!” he ordered.
George stood up suddenly, let out a roar, and charged forward with his great pike. Bagsby followed close behind, his quarterstaff in one hand, dagger in the other. George skewered the first guard before the man could react. The second managed to level his weapon to break Bagsby’s charge, but Bagsby, anticipating this move, leapt high into the air and, avoiding the spear, hurled himself feet first at the man’s chest. The guard crashed against the stone wall and collapsed to the ground. One quick thrust from Bagsby’s dagger finished him.
“Now, Shulana!” Bagsby shouted.
The elf was already in position just inside the doorway, her hands extended toward the great hall. Swiftly she muttered the incantation for sleep, and as she completed the spell, more than thirty men in the huge room fell over as though struck dead. That left only about fifteen active—the rest of the garrison was already scattered throughout the compound.
“Follow me, George, and stay close,” Bagsby said. He waded into the room full of still-startled warriors who grabbed what weapons they could to oppose him. As soon as he was inside, Bagsby began shouting toward the huge circular staircase that led upward to the tower room.
“Hurry! Hurry! We can’
t hold them for long!” Bagsby called.
“Yeah, hurry up! There’s a bunch o’ ‘em down ‘ere,” George echoed, grasping the idea.
Bagsby’s homemade quarterstaff landed a crushing blow against one man’s skull, and a forward thrust jabbed it into the chest of the man behind him. George, meanwhile, had already dispatched two with his pike, one with a blow to the head with the flat of the business end and the second with sharp, stabbing thrust.
More of the men came running to oppose the pair, but several of the remainder took to the stairs, lingering, looking first up and then down at the melee below, uncertain what to do.
Bagsby swung his staff like a giant club, knocking down two more opponents. Then he ran forward and, planting the end of the staff on the stone floor, vaulted upward, landing about five feet up the stairway. One guard took the challenge and swung with his sword at Bagsby’s head. Bagsby dodged the blow and somersaulted backward down the stairs, feigning a fall.
“By all the gods, hurry. We can’t keep them down here much longer,” he shouted.
“The tower room!” one of the guards finally yelled.
“They’re in the tower room. Quickly!” The cluster of guards on the stairs lost their hesitation as that man charged up the stairway, sword in hand. They turned and followed.
Shulana and George, meanwhile, had succeeded in either killing or knocking out all the remaining guards downstairs.
“Hurry,” Bagsby said. “There’ll be more coming from outside.”
Running full tilt, Bagsby charged up the stairs behind the seven soldiers, thrusting his staff forward to entangle the legs of the rearmost man. That hapless soul toppled downward, where George grabbed him and, with a mighty heave, tossed him on down the stairwell.
“Six to go,” Bagsby muttered to himself. “Better leave at least four alive.”
Bagsby and George continued the chase up the stairs until the door to the tower room came into view.
“Hold them off,” shouted the soldier who, in the crisis, had assumed command. Two of the guards turned and stood side by side, facing down the stairs, to ward off Bagsby, George, and Shulana.
