There were no smiles among the Council or the senior thieves surrounding the table in the meeting room. Too many deaths had taken place within the Night Hands, and more than a few were thinking about Caradoc. After all, if someone could strike at the lieutenant of the Hands, how safe were the rest of them when they left the guildhouse?
Various theories had been put forward by Council members as to what was happening and who was responsible, but while few doubted the Guild's involvement, Magnus kept demanding proof. With none of the Council able to provide anything more than rumour, he turned to Lucius.
Lucius was acutely aware that all eyes in the room were now focussed on him, and that not all were waiting for his explanation. He was still, officially, a low-ranking thief within the Hands, and though he had not yet been made a senior, many had taken note of Magnus' obvious favouritism toward him. It was breeding jealousy, he knew, and Lucius was distinctly conscious of being part of an organisation whose members, while overtly supporting one another, were just as likely to settle a difference or imagined slight with a knife in the back.
He cleared his throat as he marshalled his thoughts.
"The Council is correct — the truce has been broken," Lucius said to them all. He hoped that by affirming the Council's thoughts, he might find a friend amongst them or, at least, make it look as though he were paying his proper respects and not trying to subvert anyone's position. It was a small gesture, but he knew that when the danger to the Hands was over, differences would be settled one way or another.
"Our operation on the docks was disrupted at the Guild's instigation," he continued. "And they orchestrated the attack on Caradoc, though I have no information on who exactly was responsible."
"So it could just be a few troublemakers in the Guild?" asked Nate.
"It hardly matters," said Elaine, a tall middle-aged woman who controlled the Hand's concerns around the docks. It had been she who had provided Lucius with information on the AllantianVoyager from her paid contacts among the dockmasters. "Whether it is just a few or the whole Guild, we are still under attack and we must defend ourselves."
This raised some murmurs of assent from the table.
"Where did you get this information, Lucius?" asked Nate.
Lucius hesitated. "I cannot say," and inwardly winced as a collective look of contempt swept the table, but it was halted by Magnus' raised hand.
"He does not need to say. Lucius, for now, has my trust," he said. That would create a few enemies, Lucius thought.
"Could he be mistaken?" Elaine asked. "There is always the possibility of another player coming into the city, and starting a war between the existing powers is a good way of getting a foothold. Divide and conquer."
"We use the information we have," Magnus said. "I won't have us jumping at shadows."
"Could it be the work of an insider?" asked a tanned man whose face looked more like that of a weather-beaten sailor than a thief. "After all, it was you, Elaine, who provided the lead for Lucius' disastrous operation at the docks."
"You dare accuse me!" Elaine spat.
A hand slapped the table, bringing all attention to Magnus. "I will not have us fighting each other!" he said, eyes flashing dangerously, challenging anyone to make another charge of treason. For a few seconds, the Council was quiet.
"Then we must hit back," Nate said. "And hit back hard. We cannot just roll over and let them take our operations from us. If they tried to take out Caradoc, Magnus, they are deadly serious. Striking at a lieutenant is unheard of! Who will be next? One of us? You?"
"There will be blood in the streets," someone muttered.
The Council broke down into bickering parties, some wanting to wipe out the Guild in a single night of violence, others supporting the idea of another parley in an attempt to discern the Guild's true intentions.
Clearing his throat, Magnus brought the arguments to a halt. "Reluctant as I am to admit it, Nate has the truth of it. Right now, we are just waiting for another arrow from the dark to strike one of us down, and who knows what our foot soldiers will face on the streets as they go about their work. We do need to demonstrate that we will not roll over. More than that, we must show the Guild that we can strike them where it hurts the most."
"We go for Jewel?" Nate asked, a little doubtfully, and Lucius understood his hesitation. He was not sure which of the Hands would be capable of accomplishing that goal.
"We go for the merchant's quarter," Elaine said flatly. "Disrupt their protection rackets, squeeze their main source of revenue. Starve them of gold."
Magnus nodded in appreciation. "Your strategy does you credit, Elaine," he said. "That is how we start. If they are trying to take the docks from us, we will flood the merchant's quarter with our own men, making it impossible for them to operate."
"If I may?" Lucius asked. Feeling a little foolish, he ploughed on. "If we go in mob-handed, someone, perhaps a great many, will die. It will be the start of an all out war."
"Well, that is what we are discussing here," Nate said, a little contemptuous.
"Let him speak," Magnus said, raising a hand.
"We can be smarter than that," Lucius said. "We rough up their collectors — giving our men strict instructions to spill no blood — we fire a few warehouses, maybe plunder a few. Turn the merchants against the Guild by showing they cannot be protected, and make it impossible for the Guild men to fulfil their obligations. Then we pull out, quickly and quietly, and do the same thing the next day."
The Council was silent as they digested this. It was Nate who spoke first.
"Will it make us look weak, a half-cooked response to the start of a war?"
Magnus rubbed his chin in thought. "It is appealing. We have a chance to make the Guild back down, without doing anything irreversible. A chance to avoid all-out war."
"And we can always turn up the heat later, if it does not seem to work," Elaine said, adding her support to the idea.
"Right, we give it a try then," Magnus said, nodding. "We send six teams in, men we can trust not to let their passions get the better of them. Lucius, you will head one of the teams, seeing as this was your idea. You get to share the risks."
Lucius bowed his head once to show his acceptance. He knew this was a chance to shine. He just hoped they did not meet anything unexpected, for a second disaster that cost the lives of thieves might well put him on the hit list of their friends.
Squeezing through the stacks of large wooden crates marked with a Vos brand proclaiming they were filled with Malmkrug liquor, Lucius nodded at Lihou, who was laying a trail of oil on the warehouse floor. The young thief, like him, had recently been elevated from the ranks of the pickpockets, and he had the unnerving feeling the lad looked up to him.
The warehouse belonged to one Dietrich Schon, a merchant known to have extensive business interests in Turnitia and who was a fully paid up member for protection from the Guild. This evening, Lucius intended to show him that the gold handed over for a quiet life of business and profit was only so much waste.
As they made their way back to the warehouse's loading bay, Lucius and Lihou were joined by other members of their small team — Ashmore, Teton, and Judi — all trailing their own line of oil from other stacks. Looking up at the wooden pillars, supports and rafters of the building, Lucius could not help smiling. Most of the warehouses in the merchant quarter were new constructions, many of the originals having been destroyed by Vos when the army had entered the city as part of its reign of terror. These new buildings were designed to be large, cheap and quick to construct, so the Vos merchants who had all but paid for the invasion could start business as soon as Turnitia was pacified. This meant they had been built entirely of wood — this fire was going to be huge.
The team continued to pour oil from their leather flasks, joining their lines just outside the wide door that led to a street lined with other warehouses. Phase one of the plan complete, thought Lucius. Now he just had to wait.
Across the merchant quarter other Night Hands were at work in their teams. At least one other was firing warehouses, though no glow on the skyline had yet made itself visible. Others were paying personal visits to merchants staying in way houses or taverns, encouraging them to do business elsewhere or otherwise be forced to pay protection money to the Hands. Another team armed with clubs and saps was actively hunting down collectors from the Guild, intending to convince them they were working in dangerous territory.
Lucius had thought he could kill two birds with one stone, and so he and his team waited until their final member, Banff, appeared, with three Guild collectors in tow. Banff had been brought up from the pickpockets at the same time as Lihou, and Lucius had taken advantage of this, gambling that no one in the Guild would recognise him as a Hand. It had clearly worked.
The Guild collectors were clearly taken aback when they realised they were outnumbered, but bravado carried their leader forward.
"This is private property," he said, eyeing them warily. "Be off with you!"
"This property is under our care now," Lucius said, adopting a polite tone to mock the collectors. "We have a message for you to take back to your masters in the Guild. The first part is this; your time here is over. This quarter now belongs to the Hands."
"Arrogant son of a whore," muttered one of the collectors.
"The second part of the message is this," Lihou said, striking his tinderbox and igniting a rag whose end had been doused in oil.
Lihou glanced back at the collectors, then grinned as he threw the burning rag into the pool that had formed from the joint trails of oil that ran through the warehouse.
"Oops," he said, smiling.
The flame guttered for a moment, then flashed as it greedily consumed the oil. Fire swept out in four lines that shot straight into the warehouse. The look on the faces of the collectors was almost comical as they realised, finally, what was going on.
"You fools!" said the leader. "You have no idea who you have just messed with! They're going to be coming after you for this."
"I wouldn't worry," said Lucius, keeping his voice calm. "We are pretty sure we know what we are doing. However, there is a third part of the message we would like you to deliver."
The leader frowned, puzzled, until Lucius clicked his fingers and the rest of his team moved forward, eager for violence. As one, the collectors turned and ran, but they were brought down within a few yards by Lucius' team, who proceeded to pummel them senseless.
A dull crump from behind told him that the first crate of liquor had been burst open by the flames, which would now be spreading voraciously throughout the furs, spices and other goods of luxury stored in the warehouse. He watched his team go to work on the collectors and, though they were clearly enjoying the job, happy to be able to hand something back to the Guild after having been put on the back foot of late, he was pleased to see their discipline remained. He had warned them to use fists and feet only, unless one of the collectors drew a weapon. The point of the exercise was to frighten them and deliver a clear message. Not kill them in the street.
He had to conclude, though, after watching Judi hiss and spit and curse as she dug her boot into a man's groin — causing him to curl up and start sobbing — that perhaps the use of a dagger might have been more humane.
Seeing the collectors had taken enough punishment or, at least, understood the message, Lucius gave a low whistle. His thieves stood up from their task, all breathing heavily from the exertion. As they hurried down the street, leaving the scene, the open doors of the warehouse began to glow with the orange light of the flames inside as they took hold. It would be a few more minutes before the fire swept through the rafters and became visible to the whole city, but Lucius knew the place was already doomed. Even if a Vos patrol happened by now, it was too late; the only question was whether they would be able to save the warehouses either side.
"What's next, Sir?" Lihou asked as he trotted alongside.
Lucius smiled as he drew a rolled parchment from under his tunic. "No need to call me Sir, just Lucius will do." Consulting the parchment he nodded. "The Three Springs tavern. That is where our merchant, Mr Schon, is staying for the next week as he tries to sell what remains of his stock."
"There's not much profit in ashes," Judi said.
"True. And less in doing business with the Guild, as we shall prove tonight."
The Three Springs lay just a few streets over from the warehouse and was one of several establishments devoted to visiting merchants who could not bear to be far from their goods. No one else would visit a tavern nestled deep within the warehouses, so such places also formed a natural forum for negotiations and deal making, where traders could talk shop without being disturbed. There were also other pleasures available to those rich enough, even some that could technically be described as illegal in other parts of Turnitia. It was all part of a specialised service.
As they approached the small building, its two floors and narrow frontage looking faintly ridiculous as it nestled between two giant warehouses, Lucius spotted Gunnison and his team coming from the opposite direction. Gunnison, waved anxiously at them, and then dove into a narrow alley that lay between two warehouses.
Motioning his team to follow, Lucius trailed the veteran thief. Short, wiry and with a pointed face some might describe as rat-like, he had always thought Gunnison the archetypal rogue. The image most people saw in their mind when thinking of a burglar or pickpocket.
Gunnison gestured him to come closer as he crouched. Joining him, Lucius gave a quizzical look.
"Thought we might find you here," Gunnison said, his eyes constantly darting back to the street they had left.
"What's wrong?"
"The Guild has reacted far quicker than we thought. They've got men on the streets hunting for us."
"Yeah, we saw them," Lihou said cockily. "Gave them a right kicking, we did!"
Ignoring him, Gunnison spoke only to Lucius. "Armed men. We saw Wade's guys get hit. He got away, but left two of his men — killed or captured, I don't know."
Lucius sighed. "We should pull out, abandon this evening's operations."
"That's what I was thinking," Gunnison agreed.
"What? We can handle them, Sir," Lihou said. "There's more of us here, I'll bet."
"We are not set up for this," Lucius said, grabbing his arm. "We've already lost two men because we were not prepared for this kind of response. It is too dangerous to continue."
"Besides, if we have running battles in the streets, the guard would be on top of all of us before you could sneeze," Gunnison said. "Keep your team together Lucius, but we'll make our own way back to the guildhouse. Magnus will know what to do."
Nodding in agreement, he watched Gunnison and his men leave. Before he disappeared into the twilight gloom, Gunnison turned back to Lucius and said "Looks like the Guild means business after all."
Leading his team down the opposite end of the alley, Lucius poked his head out into the next street, carefully looking up and down the quiet warehouses to make sure the way was clear.
"Come on," he said. "If you see any trouble, run back to the guildhouse. I don't want any heroics tonight."
They padded up the street, moving slower than Lucius would have wished, but staying within the shadows of the tall buildings as they went, all but invisible. A patrol of Vos guards marched from an adjoining road, causing them to double back a short distance, and skip between two warehouses to take a parallel street out of the merchant quarter.
Lucius heard shouts in the distance as the burning warehouses dotted around the quarter began to be noted and men rushed to douse the flames. He became more confident then, as he knew the Vos guard would be drawn to the disturbances, likely giving his team a free run all the way back to the guildhouse.
He heard Judi hiss a warning, and looked over his shoulder to see they were being followed. A half dozen men, armed with clubs and short swords were calmly walking up the centre of the street as if they owned it, not bothering to keep to the shadows.
"Get ready to run," he whispered to his team. "Split up if you must and find your own way back to the guildhouse. Tell Magnus what happened. When I give the word, mind. I'll watch your backs."
"Lucius…" Lihou said in a quiet voice, as they saw a half dozen more men detach themselves from shadowy doorways, alleys and from behind resting wagons ahead of them. They, too, were obviously armed, and Lucius felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.
"Right…" he said. "Go! Now!"
As one, his team scattered, dashing for the narrow passages that lay between the nearest warehouses. As one, the men before and behind them scattered as well, matching their movements as they sought to cut the escaping thieves off.
Only two remained on the street, and Lucius made to draw his sword as they approached then, thinking better, reached down for a dagger with his left hand. Knowing his team would need his support in all haste, he resolved to dispatch the men quickly.
He saw immediately that they were barely trained to use the blades they carried, and he spun to dodge one overhead slash, while catching the other with his dagger. He thrust with his weapon, feeling it enter the belly of his opponent then, kicked out with his boot to push the man back to the ground.
If the second man was aware his friend was already dead, he did not show it as he screamed an inarticulate cry, while swinging his sword at Lucius' midriff. Taking a step back, Lucius avoided the blow, and shook his head in astonishment. The man was using his sword as one would a club. His next swing was easy to counter, and Lucius turned it aside before taking a step forward and driving his dagger into the man's throat. Gargling as blood swept down his chest, the man sank to the ground, a look of incomprehension in his eyes.
More shouts, much closer this time, spurred Lucius into action. Taking a guess, he tore across the street and raced down a narrow alley to follow the sounds. He emerged onto a wide road, one of the main thoroughfares of the merchant quarter, and saw Lihou and Judi running together, their feet barely touching the cobbled surface as four men chased them. Racing after them, he watched as they dived into an alley on the far side, hoping to shake their pursuers off in the network that ran between the warehouses. Panting heavily now, he cursed with painful breaths as he saw they were, out of obvious fear, sticking together and not splitting up.
Shouting a challenge, he gained the attention of one man, who turned aside from the chase to face Lucius with a club. Lucius did not bother to confront him, ducking instead down another alley he hoped would continue to run parallel to the one Lihou and Judi had taken, intending to outpace them to the other side.
Now with his own pursuer, he sheathed his dagger and sought the threads of power, summoning a flame to his left hand. Holding it as one might hold an apple, he stopped and turned, concentrating for a second to bind more energy to his bidding, then threw it at the man. Sizzling through the air, the lavender flames struck the man in the chest with the force of a hammer. He tried to scream, but fire sucked the air out of his lungs as it consumed his flesh. Knowing the man would be dead before he hit the ground, Lucius hurried on.
Racing out into the next street, Lucius looked to his left and saw Judi, standing at the entrance to an alley from which she had just emerged. He tore towards her, seeing the shock and fear on her face.
"They got him," she cried, pointing into the alley where Lucius could see three men kicking at someone curled up on the ground.
"Get out of here now!" he shouted at her. "Back to the guildhouse. I'll look after Lihou!"
He grabbed at her arm and bodily pushed her up the street away from him. Stumbling, Judi found her feet and began to run.
Drawing his dagger, Lucius padded quickly down the dark alley, closing fast on the men who were, so far, unaware of his presence. The first died without knowing what hit him, Lucius' dagger planted firmly between his shoulder blades, and the second had barely started to raise his sword as Lucius' own blade slashed across his face, leaving it a screaming ruin.
The last of the thugs held a hand up as he backed away, and Lucius snarled at him. Casting a last look at his bawling companion who was clasping bloodied hands to his face, he turned and ran.
Lucius silenced the screaming man with a quick thrust, as much to save his ears from the anguished cries as stopping him from bringing the guard down on their heads. He reached down to the huddled mass on the ground, and found Lihou, battered and bruised but alive. The lad's nose was clearly broken, and his whole face was a puffed up mass of injured flesh. As he tried to pick Lihou up, the boy moaned in pain, and Lucius went down on his knees to support him.
"Judi," Lihou muttered. "Tried to save her. Not running fast enough."
"You did fine," Lucius said, checking Lihou's body for other injuries, his hand came away sticky with blood. Running a hand across Lihou's tunic, he was shocked to find a mass of stab wounds.
"She got away," Lucius said, not knowing what else to say. "You showed real courage."
"Knew… I wouldn't amount to much," Lihou mumbled past broken lips.
As Lucius searched for another platitude, he felt Lihou tense suddenly, then relax. A last breath escaped the lad and he was still.
Silent anger boiled within Lucius as he carefully laid Lihou's body on the ground. He had seen plenty of people die in the past, many of them at his own hand, but he felt something different this time. Like the men who had died on the Allantian ship, Lihou had been under his leadership, had been his responsibility. It was not a feeling Lucius welcomed, and he cursed himself for accepting the roles Magnus had placed upon him but, most of all, he felt the need to bring down the men who had caused so much death. The Guild had to be brought to task.
Lucius sprang up and rejoined the main thoroughfare. As he trotted up the street, he kept alert, straining his senses to penetrate the twilight for any sign of Hands in trouble, or the Guild men after them.
More cries, including one prolonged and agonised wail which could only mark a man's death, guided him across a junction and into a side road. Rounding a small lean-to built against a warehouse, he saw a pitched battle in the middle of the street.
Men were clumped in groups, the fight scattered across the entire street. As one combatant sank to the ground, overcome by a deadly sword thrust or clout to the back of the head with a club, those fighting him moved to another victim. Closing in on the melee, Lucius found that he had trouble recognising who was on which side, though he spotted a couple of Hands he had spoken to in the common room on previous days, and rushed to aid them.
Ashmore was there, and Lucius gave him an angry sideways look for having got caught in the fight rather than making his way back to the guildhouse as instructed. To his credit, the thief seemed almost sheepish as he buried his small knife into the kidney of a man attacking another Hand.
"The guard!" someone cried, and Lucius ducked under a club swung at his skull, before rolling away. He glanced down the street in the direction of the cry and saw a patrol of six Vos guard — their eagle-faced tabards menacing in Kerberos' half light — approaching at a trot, with their swords drawn and mail chinking with each footfall.
The club swung down towards him again and, caught on the ground, Lucius barely had time to raise his sword to catch the blow. The blade dug deep into the wood, locking the two weapons together, and while the man attacking him strained to release them, Lucius hacked down with his dagger, driving it through the man's foot.
Reeling back in agony, the man collapsed to the floor, clutching his injured foot, while Lucius stood on the club and pulled, jerking his sword free. With one thrust, he ended the man's pain.
Hitting the fray like a bolt of lightning, men started to go down as soon as the guard entered the melee. Lucius shouted for the Hands to follow him, to escape, but some were already in a deadly fight with the armoured guard, and others were reluctant to leave them. Hoping it would not be the last decision he made, Lucius charged forward, catching a guard in the side and bowling him over, he stabbed down, but his sword was turned aside by the guard's thick mail.
Another guardsman, seeing his comrade in distress, rushed into the fight and was about to decapitate one of the thieves when he started shouting "Red diamond! Red diamond!" Lucius was amazed to see the guard turn from the man and march resolutely toward him. Lucius ran.
Shouting again for them to follow, other Hands gradually got the message and they scattered into the alleys, desperately trying to put ground between them and the guard. Instead, they found more guardsmen waiting for them.
Pulling one man out of an alley that another patrol of guard had started to close upon, Lucius ran with him down the street, this being the only clear path he could see. But as he approached the junction, yet another patrol appeared, trotting round the corner, weapons drawn. Seeing an alley to his left, Lucius shoved the man into it ahead of him and together they sprinted down the cobbles, only for Lucius to run into his comrade as the man suddenly stopped.
Blood pumping in fear as much as excitement now, Lucius looked at what had caused the man to halt in his tracks. The two warehouses that formed the alley had been joined together by a new connecting structure that towered above them, blocking their exit. One glance at the smooth planks that formed the soaring wall told Lucius that even Hawk would have found it difficult to scale.
"We've got to get out of here now," he said to the other Hand, and grabbed his shoulder to propel him back up the alley. A Guild man appeared at its entrance, and pointed towards them.
"Red diamond!" Lucius heard him say as the Vos guard appeared next to him. The guard sergeant nodded in understanding, then led his patrol down the alley toward them.
Lucius heard the man standing next to him curse, then throw down his sword. The guard approached two abreast, those marching behind them training crossbows on Lucius' chest.
With an angry cry of frustration, Lucius turned and kicked the wooden wall of the warehouse, having nothing else to take his fury out on. He then hurled his weapons to the ground and stared ruefully at the guardsmen, his hands splayed out to either side in surrender.