Rise of the Champion (The Champion Book 1)

by Clara C. Johnson

  Part of her wished Caden was here instead because she felt he was more trustworthy than these men. They glared at her, and one of them spit to the side. She said nothing as the rest hopped off the boat.

  The fog made it difficult to see anyone moving around the dock, but she kept a sharp ear for any sounds. Voices and clanked tankards echoed in the air. She climbed up the side of the wooden platform above her.

  There were two guards drinking and chatting in the distance. Each of them was dressed in colors of red and silver: The colors of the Adhelm city guards. Though these men were the less than respectable type, considering they were drinking on their shift. There were four guards in total by her count. The two she heard and the other two that were passed out against the wooden wall behind them.

  Some guards they are, she thought. Finn followed suit and kneeled next to her. He shook his head, stating that he found no other guards, then muffled a chuckle when he saw the guards down below.

  Serra readjusted herself to move silently across the platform to keep an eye out for the others. The door was still locked and the other lookout near the boat was paying little attention to anything but the door, as if staring at it would magically make it open. When he finally looked her way, she gave the signal with a small wave of her hand to tell him they could continue. He nodded and made his way to the door.

  One of the guards stood and walked towards the end of the walkway, undoing his pants. He grunted as he relieved himself and braced his hand on the post.

  His messy, dirty-blond hair hung forward. “Oi, you better learn to aim better this time! You ain’t coming anywhere near me if you miss and piss your pants again!” the other guard shouted. It was loud enough to awaken one of the sleeping guards. He turned over on his back and rubbed his eyes.

  The guard who was already awake kicked the sleepy one. “When the idiot is done with his business, I want you two to do your rounds. We don’t want to upset the boss now, do we?”

  Serra cursed then shifted herself back to the other side of the platform to signal the other lookout, but he was nowhere to be found. She leaned toward Finn. “We got a problem,” she whispered. Finn understood immediately.

  “You watch them, and I’ll find our other useless lookout.” He left her side and made his way down to the main walkway. Serra moved back to watch the other guards.

  “C’mon, mate. The sooner we get back, the sooner we can finish our ale.” The sleepy guard stood, while the other took one last chug of his drink before wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “We’ll make this quick. Just focus on the main deck. Yell if you see anything.”

  Serra saw that Finn had stopped dead in his tracks and was looking up at her. Both contemplated what to do to warn the others, but the lookout was still nowhere to be seen. Serra mouthed, “What do we do?”

  Finn looked as though he had an “aha” moment before he winked at her. It was his way of saying, “I’ve got a plan.” She gave him a warning look and pointed her index finger at him to not do something stupid, but he ignored her and headed towards the other guards.

  “Fellers, how... are you this… evening,” Finn said in a joyous tone between hiccups. His body was unbalanced, shifting to his right side until he hit the wall.

  Serra smirked as she realized what he was doing. He would distract them while the others worked on getting the door open. Finn’s plan would work for the time being until they needed to leave. He would have to make up some excuse.

  She glanced back at the others. The door to the cargo was open. Their leader—who couldn’t be bothered to give her his name—was carrying a crate to the boat. She put her hands around her mouth to make a coo sound. It was the signal they taught her in case the guards were on the prowl.

  The leader stopped for a moment then hurried the others along, each rushing to grab a case. She didn’t know how many in total there were. Regardless, she hoped they would be quick about it. Finn could only keep up this charade for so long.

  “What’s a dwarf doin’ down here? You drunk, dwarf?” the guard with the black hair said, pushing his hand against Finn’s head. He almost fell back on his bottom, making it look like he was about ready to lose his footing. Effective, if a bit silly looking.

  “I be lookin’ for a drink. You see, my wife left me and took everything, the bitch. Women, huh?” Finn laughed at himself. Serra wondered if he chose the wrong profession as a smuggler. With his improvising skills, he could’ve easily been an entertainer. Although, he never could give up his love of coin. Even kings wouldn’t pay much for a castle fool.

  The guards raised their cups. “Aye. You are right about that, mate. Come here, I’d like to see if the rumors are true about you dwarves. I’m told you are the best at holding your ale.”

  “Care to prove it to us, dwarf?” the other guard spoke up after kicking the last sleeping one in the chair.

  “I will. Can you,” he belched loudly, “humans keep up?”

  The guards offered him a seat, giving the others the time they needed. She watched between Finn and their companions to monitor their progress. So far, things were running smoothly until the lookout she had been searching for earlier appeared with a case in his hands. In his rushed movements, he lost his balance, and the case fell into the water, causing a very loud splash.

  The guards jumped out of their seats. “What in the hell was that?”

  Finn coughed. “Ah, it’s nothing. Someone probably just—"

  “You two! Check it out!” the lead guard ordered. Finn tried to insist it was nothing.

  Serra’s pulse elevated as she inhaled a sharp breath. The guards were only a couple of paces away from finding her companions stealing the goods. Their team leader threw the lookout into the boat and rushed the others to finish.

  Serra had to act quickly. It was a matter of seconds before they were discovered and the whole job would be ruined. They would be caught and killed on sight. She glanced around for anything to distract the guards and noticed that the barrels around her were tied with rope. Pulling out her dagger, she began cutting the ropes fiercely.

  “What’s going on here, dwarf? Why do you look so sweaty suddenly?” the lead guard spoke accusingly.

  “I’m not nervous. I just think you humans are too jumpy,” Finn argued.

  Serra finished cutting the rope then kicked the barrels off the platform onto the guards beneath her, knocking three of them off the walkway and into the water. The lead guard unsheathed his sword, ready to stab Finn.

  She kicked another set of barrels toward him as Finn took cover against the wall right below the platform. Covering his face, another guard was knocked into the water with the others. The shock of the freezing water combined with the fog should make for a clean getaway if they were quick.

  Serra jumped down to the walkway, landing too close to the edge. Regaining her balance, she saw the others carrying the last pieces of cargo. Their leader untied the knot on the post. They would leave them there. Bastards.

  “Come on!” she called out to Finn.

  He ran, trailing behind her, to the boat as they loaded the last case. With the rope undone, the boat moved away from the dock before Finn could reach it. Serra held out her hands and grabbed Finn as he jumped from the walkway right into her arms, causing her to fall back into a seat.

  Finn groaned. “Ugh, I’m getting too old for this shite.” The leader of their group joined in helping the other men row as fast and as hard as they could.

  “You could sure lose a few pounds there, Finn,” Serra teased.

  “Shut up,” Finn replied then brushed off some dirt from his sleeve.

  They made their escape as the guards screamed at each other, trying to find out what happened. The plan didn’t go as well as they had hoped, but they were alive—if barely—and the guards had no idea what had hit them.

  “Well, I must say, I’m impressed. I didn’t expect a dwarf and a little girl to pull off such… improvised stunts.” Grom glared at the lookout that had tripped and
lost one of the cases. “However, if my man Rob here didn’t make a mess of this whole thing to begin with, you wouldn’t have needed to.”

  Rob dropped to his knees. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what happened. The —” Grom shut him up by hitting him across his face with the back of his hand.

  “I don’t want to hear it. Take him out of my sight. I’ll deal with him later.” The men pulled Rob to his feet and dragged him out of the office.

  Grom walked around his desk and took out two small bags from a drawer. He dropped them on the edge of his desk and they heard the pleasant sound of coins rattling. “Here’s your pay. I even added a small bonus for your good work. This whole operation would’ve been for nothing if you two weren’t there.” He tossed a bag to each of them.

  Finn caught it with ease then immediately put it in his pocket. “Thank you, sir. Your generosity holds no bounds, but it was my friend here who saved the day.” Serra blushed at his statement. “If she hadn’t caused that ‘accident’ for the guards, we wouldn’t be here.”

  “Yes, the barrels. Quick thinking on your part, girl. How would you like a permanent position here?” Grom offered.

  She tensed. The look on his face told her he was only offering the position to one of them, leaving Finn in the dust as if he did nothing.

  “I would be honored, sir. But my friend must come along as well. If your men had acted more quickly, Finn wouldn’t have been forced to distract them. It would’ve worked too if that Rob fellow didn’t mess it up,” Serra said, standing her ground.

  Grom turned to him. “And what would you have done if Rob didn’t? What would you have done to get away from them?”

  Finn shrugged. “I always find my way out of trouble. Those men were already drunk. It would’ve taken nothing for them to become incoherent.”

  Grom leaned back in his chair, considering. He fiddled with the loose coins that remained on his desk. “I see. You two are a pair? I either get both of you or neither of you, correct?”

  She nodded.

  Grom sighed as he scratched at the hair on his chest. “All right. I suppose you two have proven yourselves to me. A sweet-talkin’ dwarf will be useful. Spirits know we need someone with a brain.” Grom stood and shook both their hands. “Welcome aboard.”

  The next several weeks were filled with one job after another for Serra and Finn. They managed to grow a decent name for themselves with the rest of Grom’s crew, consisting of Benedict, Rafe, Martin, and Caden. Rob was promptly removed shortly after they joined, leaving one less available hand for any future jobs until they replaced him.

  Tonight, the crew decided to go out for drinks in celebration for their most recent heist. Serra and Finn, for the first time, were invited to join them.

  The night sky was partially covered by clouds as Serra and the others headed for a tavern in the Firum District. Like the Square Serpent, drunks came and went, but she noticed that several small groups decided to leave when they noticed them sitting at their table in the far corner of the tavern.

  Grom must’ve had a reputation here. Connections. That may explain how he managed to get their room so easily at the Square Serpent. It was probably a good thing if she didn’t know the details.

  As Martin ordered their drinks, she noticed that Finn chose to sit next to Benedict instead of beside her. Finn leaned close to Benedict and spoke in hushed whispers. There must be a job coming up, making it the third one this week.

  Despite the small comfort of sitting with Caden, she felt bare without her friend next to her. He’d never been so far from her side like this among strangers. She assumed it was his way of trying to get her to be more sociable with the others and learn to make friends with their new crewmates. The only one she felt comfortable with was Caden, who had been talking to her almost nonstop for the past hour.

  He’d told her about the others and how they came to join Grom’s crew. Martin was a ship captain before a mutiny caused him to be tossed off ship shortly after they left the dock. He was approached by Grom because of his interest in having a “seasoned sailor.” With nothing left to lose, Martin accepted Grom’s proposal when he learned the fate of his ship.

  He was a quiet man and kept to himself. Serra often found him silent during meetings. For an old ship captain, she thought he would have more of an opinion on things. The mutiny hit him harder than she knew. She couldn’t imagine the pain that had caused him. It made her pity him.

  Rafe, on the other hand, wasn’t hired for his brains as a sailor, but as a thief. He had stolen from Grom a precious necklace that had been his mother’s before she passed away. Grom didn’t find out until the next week when Rafe came in demanding a job with the necklace around his neck.

  “So, instead of killing him, Grom decided he was valuable as a thief. In our line of work, it helps to know we have a master thief in our midst. But considering he stole the necklace without his knowledge, Grom told him if he ever stole from him again, he would kill him on the spot. It’s become quite a joke between them in recent years,” Caden said.

  That would explain Rafe’s sly behavior. He always managed to have a smirk on his face whenever a new job was lined up. He relished the chance to claim another possession. Quite proud of himself for a thief. Serra would need to keep an eye on her things.

  Benedict was Grom’s secondhand man. Nothing went through either one of them without the other knowing. Caden admitted that he knew little of Benedict and his history with Grom, but he overheard them talking one night about them growing up in the same city, so it was assumed he was an old childhood friend of Grom’s.

  A captain, a thief, and a childhood friend? And this is the crew I am to be part of when they had known each other for years and me only a couple of weeks? Finn asks the impossible.

  “And with you, he wanted someone who knew how to take care of wounds in case the worse should happen?” Serra said.

  Caden nodded. “Pretty much. Just a few months before you joined us, Martin here had a terrible reaction to some peanuts he ingested during a job.”

  “I swelled up like my face would explode!” Martin said, pulling at his cheeks.

  “That you did, mate. If it weren’t for me, you would’ve died over a simple little peanut. You were told not to eat them, if you remember. If only you could remember the look on Grom’s face when he found out!”

  “Not my fault that Rafe here ended up eating all of our food!” Martin elbowed Rafe in the arm, causing him to rub it afterward.

  “And I told you that our hired help at the time didn’t bother to pack more food,” Rafe countered.

  The men laughed as they continued to talk about past jobs. Serra felt out of place. Alone. She wanted to be part of this crew. They seemed to genuinely care for one another. It was what she always wanted: to be part of something bigger than herself.

  A silly thought. They were smugglers, which meant they were only here to make coin.She continued drinking her ale, offering a smile when they clanked their tankards together for a toast to a successful job. They were welcoming, to say the least. This was their way of seeing them outside of work… with drinks.

  Although, it could be a test to see how she and Finn acted outside of work. To see if they would slip and say the wrong thing. Something that Grom could—and would—hold over them if such a relevant time came.

  Now that she thought about it, to this day, he didn’t seem to trust them fully. He would watch them as if they were about to attack him or steal something from under his nose. Serra even saw Benedict keeping them within his view. With time, she hoped, he would learn to back off.

  Finn laughed at something Benedict said and then gestured to the pendant around his neck. It was a family heirloom, a symbol of his heritage. The pendant was gold with a hammer hovering above an anvil. His family had been builders for many generations before his father decided to invest in business rather than smithery.

  Similarly, Finn did the same as he joined the guard rather than follow in his father
’s footsteps until his mother died. It was how he could teach Serra as much, and she knew about fighting and surviving. Finn had been on his own for several years before they met, though he never wanted to talk about those days much. He could have been lonely and took pity on her at the time, but he grew to love her as his own.

  Finn was like a second father to her. He did his best to take care of her while also teaching her everything he knew. Serra wished she could be closer to the others, but no one could replace her dwarven friend in her heart.

  “So, tell me, girl, do you believe in dragons and magic and all that stuff?” Rafe said.

  She shrugged, uninterested and bored. “I’ve heard the stories like anyone else. I know the dragons were wiped out and as for magic, well, aren’t dragons a symbol of that? I suppose it died with them.”

  When she was younger, her father would tell her bedtime stories to help her sleep. Tales of brave knights and fierce dragons who threatened to burn the world. Her mother didn’t quite approve of the stories, but they always managed to give her that last excitement before bed.

  Rafe nodded, agreeing with her, but his smile said he knew better. “I’ve been on the lookout for a sword. The sword that legend says was built specifically to kill off the dragons. A sword so strong it could pierce the dragon’s hide. The only one in existence.”

  “I suppose you plan to steal it from some noble who’s hanging it upon his wall?” she said as she leaned against her hand. She would never put it past him that he would steal such a “worthy” prize.

  Rafe chuckled softly, leaning in close to her so only she could hear him. “There’s a place we’ll hit later this week. It’s owned by a lord or someone who claims to have the biggest treasure anyone’s ever seen. We’re going there for something specific. A small statue that will catch a hefty payday in the underground market. The original owner died decades ago but since that lord failed to pay us for a job that we did for him a year ago, we decided to get our money one way or another.”

  Rafe touched her shoulder, pulling her closer to him so he could reach her ear. “I think the sword is in there, and I plan to take it. If Grom decides to be extra generous, he’ll let us take whatever we want. That way, the lord will know better than to mess with us again.” He leaned back in his chair.