Authors: Todd Shryock
“I do, Master Fist,” Sands answered, a
definite tone of respect in his voice. “Lord Wren is working with other gangs,
violating our agreement.”
“Agreement,” Sands sneered. “What
agreement can you have with a man who is a liar and a cheat?” He stood up, his
bulging arm muscles straining to break out of the thin cheap shirt he was
wearing. He walked over to the small window and looked out at the street below.
“This ‘agreement’ has worked for three years now to the benefit of everyone,
but now he violates it. Why?”
Sands started to speak but caught himself
as he realized Fist wasn’t done talking.
“His stupid son. His stupid jackass of a
son who was so drunk that he nearly got himself killed by some street urchin.”
Fist paused and shook his head as he was lost in thought. Sands stood silently
watching him. Fist ran his hands back through his hair and sighed. “I can’t
control everyone,” he said so softly that Quinton could barely hear him. Fist
turned to face them again. “I can’t risk all-out war based on this one
incident.” His mood was somber and his voice thoughtful as he continued. It was
a side of Fist that Quinton hadn’t seen before. “I need more information.”
Sands nodded once in acknowledgement but
said nothing. Fist stared at him for a moment before speaking again. “Red eye
told me that we lost three maggots last week, which is way more than normal.
There were also a few reports of street urchins coming up missing, though to be
honest, who can really tell when an orphan disappears for good or not. I’m not
sure if they are related, but I need to know one way or the other. If they are,
Wren is up to something besides killing off street scum. He wouldn’t need to be
secretive about that. Sands, I want you to set up an overwatch in the warehouse
district. I’ll have Red eye send some maggots down that way and you watch to
see if these other gangs show up. If Wren’s working with them, it’s the perfect
place to pick somebody off. There’s a minimal amount of foot traffic and lots
of places to hide. It won’t be easy to set up, but if anybody can pull it off,
it’s you.”
Sands nodded in respect and replied,
“Yes, master. I shall be ready first thing tomorrow.”
“Good.” The tone of his voice told
Quinton their audience was over. Fist was lost in thought as he turned to look
back out the window. Quinton saw the large armored glove with the spike where
the middle knuckle would be and shuddered to think what that would do to a man.
Sands’ hand guided him to the door.
The two walked down the narrow hall until
they were out of earshot of Fist’s office.
“I’ll keep you with me,” he said. “One, I
need your climbing ability to help me out, and two, I don’t want Red eye
picking you to be the bait.”
Quinton gave Sands a confused look. Sands
snorted. “Fist is sending out a few maggots tomorrow as bait to see if Wren and
his boys take it. We’ll be watching to see if they do and figure out who they
are if it happens. Once we know what’s going on, we report back to Fist. Odds
are, whoever is bait won’t be making it back for the evening slop.”
Quinton nodded in understanding. He was
hoping Red eye would pick Lacoris and Vergoth, but they were probably too
valuable to risk. More than likely he’d pick a few of the younger crew who
didn’t know how to take care of themselves and would never stand a chance. Such
was life in the maggot pit.
“Come on, we’ll scout things out,” said
Sands. “I’ve got a few ideas on how we can make this work.” They made their way
through the winding streets and past the honest people, passing nary a glance
to their mundane work or what mission they might be on. The sun was getting
late in the sky when they finally arrived at a mostly deserted corner of the
city near the wall. Sands looked down the street at the hulking blocks of the
wall and the distant silhouette of the guards atop it.
“At the base of the wall is a small sally
gate,” he told Quinton while looking to the rooftops and scanning the street.
“In the morning, the warehouse managers exit using that gate, as do some of the
servants heading out on morning business on this side of town. It’s not
uncommon for maggots, or even the occasional master, to use these winding
streets to pick off a target or two first thing in the morning. If I were Wren,
this would be a great spot to set up an ambush. No one would raise a fuss no
matter what you did, and most of the warehouses along here have been empty for
years, so you would have plenty of options as to where to set up a headquarters
or rallying point.” He looked up at a small watchtower that rose out of one of
the warehouses. “That’s where you’ll be. The owner built that so a watchman
could see when the ships arrived at the harbor down at the pier. He would ring
a bell, letting the workmen know to head to the docks. Tomorrow, you’ll be up
there watching for trouble. I’ll give you a small mirror. If you see trouble,
point the mirror at the sun and move it back and forth like this.” Sands
mimicked the motion of holding a mirror and tilting his hand to and fro. “The
reflection will tell me that something is up and I’ll move in.”
“Where will you be, master?”
Sands looked across the street. “I’ll be
on the rooftops across the street somewhere. You won’t be able to see me -- I
hope -- but I’ve got a vantage point where I can see the gate and most of the
next street. That gives us a pretty broad area to watch and hopefully catch
some action. If nothing happens in the morning, we’ll send the maggots back in
the evening. If the guards spot them, and I’m sure they will, word will be
passed to Wren, who may send in his boys late in the day to make a catch.”
“What do I do if I spot someone -- after
I flick the mirror, that is, master?”
Sands thought for a moment. “Run like
hell back to the guild and don’t get caught. I’ll try to grab one of the other
gang members and interrogate him.”
Quinton knew that anyone caught and
interrogated would meet an untimely end. Such was life in Star Gleam City.
The two spent most of the night in Sands’
small room. Quinton was restless and dreamed of dark shadows pulling him into
hidden alleyways, where there was no escape. He was in that in-between place of
sleep and wakefulness when he heard Sands start to stir. He sat up, pulled his
raggedy clothes around him and waited for his master.
Sands sat up on the edge of his small
cot, wiped the sleep from his eyes and looked at Quinton. “Good, maggot, I used
to have to kick you to wake you up. If you learn to wake yourself up at the
slightest noise, you won’t have to worry about someone slitting your throat in
the night.”
Quinton didn’t like the idea of having
his throat slit so made it a point to make sure he woke up at any noise. Within
a few minutes, they had finished their meager breakfast of stale bread and
water that tasted as if it had sat in the metal pot too long. The boy was
hopeful he could pick off something better on the way back to the warehouse district,
but the hour was so early, he decided it was unlikely that anyone would even be
about.
A few minutes later, when they were out
on the streets, his prediction was confirmed. It was too late for the revelers
but too early for the workers. It was the most dangerous time to be out,
because if you were out at this hour, you were looking for trouble. Murderers,
thieves and deviants were prowling the cobblestones, looking for victims. The
weak were quickly taken down and never seen again. It was a time that Quinton
tried to avoid by being back at the guild with his nightly quota. This time, he
was with Sands and felt safe. The man walked confidently through the streets,
daring anyone hiding nearby to approach him. No one did. They quickly wound
their way through the streets, even cutting through a few narrow alleys to
shorten the trip, but not even the rats bothered them.
When they arrived at the street they had
scouted out earlier, Sands handed him the small broken fragment of a mirror.
“Remember, turn it so it reflects the sun toward me if you see anything. Red
eye said the maggots would be here early working the streets. It will be two of
the younger maggots, so you’ll probably recognize them.”
Quinton wasn’t entirely sure why Sands
thought he would recognize them. He tried to spend as little time in the pit as
possible, and when he was there, he wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to
the many faces that came and went. Sure, there were the regulars who had been
there as long or longer than he had, but all the others just blurred into a
collective whole. In his mind, they were all the same little dirty face of a
young boy thrown out by the world, each no different from the one next to it.
When your clothes were mostly rags and filth, everyone looked pretty much the
same.
“Now get up in the tower and keep a close
watch on the street when the maggots arrive.”
Quinton nodded in acknowledgement and
headed for the warehouse with the tower. The large wooden door was partly
rotted and swung open with a squeal so loud he wondered if the guards at the
end of the street heard him. Beyond the door was complete darkness. He had no
light and only a vague idea of where the tower was relative to the front of the
building to guide him. Hoping that no one was inside waiting, he stepped in.
The air was cool and smelled of spices, which wasn’t uncommon. There were a lot
of plants harvested in the surrounding area that had various medicinal or
hallucinogenic properties that were gathered in large amounts and shipped back
East, back to civilization. He touched the wall with his left hand, feeling the
cool stonework and used it to guide him along the front of the building as he
took slow, methodical steps through the blackness. His eyes were closed, as
there was nothing to see and he was concentrating on his other senses to guide
him. Before long, he found the corner and turned away from the street. The
entrance to the tower shouldn’t be too far from the front of the building, he
reasoned.
As he worked his way down the wall, he could
hear the distant squeaks of rats. The small rodents had never bothered him as
they did some people; he didn’t see their plight as much different from his
own. Each was living a miserable existence trying to scratch out a living in
the world. After a few more steps, Quinton felt the air temperature change
slightly and stopped. The smell of spices wasn’t as strong and he thought he
could smell the city -- that strange odor that was part stone, part smoke and
part sweat. He must be close now. He took a few more steps and felt the wall
pull away from him to his left, and he could feel the slightest of breezes
coming from above. This had to be it.
He turned into the opening and his foot
hit a step almost immediately. Relieved, he started climbing the circular
stairway using his hand to guide him. His pace quickened and he opened his
eyes. Above him, the slight grey glow of twilight was already painting the sky.
There was no reason to slow, as the steps were stone and solid. If they had
been wood, he would need to test every step, making sure it was steady before
moving on. As he reached the top, the air changed completely, taking with it
the smell of the warehouse and replacing it with the smell of the city.
The top of the tower was a small
square, with the stairs spiraling down the middle of it. There were four
waist-high walls surrounding it, and from what Quinton could make out in the
dim light, a couple of stacked empty crates on the side nearest the street that
had probably been placed there by some other unfortunate watchman years ago so
he could rest his weary body while watching the horizon for distant sails. The
tower had a covered roof over it but was open on all four sides except for a
support post in each corner. He walked to the side and looked down at the
street below. He could see the dark shapes of the warehouses looming in the
darkness, but it was still too early to see the wall or the guards on it. When
the sun came up, it would be the perfect vantage point. He looked across the
street and could make out the lower roofline of the buildings there, but
nothing else. Somewhere out there, Sands was taking up his position, waiting
for the game to begin.
It wasn’t long before the twilight gave
way to the first golden orange rays of dawn that stretched like an old man who
had slept too long, reaching for the far side of the world. There was always
something comforting about dawn, because every day brought hope -- even to a
place like this. Quinton kept a vigilant watch for the young maggots, because all
it would take would be a moment of inattention to miss them, and they would be
gone before he could signal Sands. He looked down at the small piece of mirror
in his hand and held it up to his face. He hadn’t looked at himself in a long
time, and that was usually in the blurry waters of the river. What he saw
surprised him. He looked much older than what he remembered. His dark hair was
matted and dirty, his blue eyes carried a sadness caused by witnessing too much
despair and his mouth was clenched in either nervousness or anger. He quickly
put the mirror down. He preferred to think of himself from the days with his
mother -- clean, smiling and happy.
He threw glances down both ends of the
street. No sign of the maggots, just a vagrant sifting through dead leaves and
rotted sticks, hoping to find some scrap he could sell for a morsel to eat. The
vagrant looked vaguely familiar and Quinton wondered for a moment if it weren’t
Sands in disguise, but dismissed that idea because the man was too short. He
searched his memory for some other place he might have encountered the man but
couldn’t place him. The vagrants all looked the same, much like the maggots. If
you had seen one, you had seen them all. Quinton watched the man make his way
down the street in the early morning light, slowly working closer to the
building he was in. He had a long walking stick and used it to flip over every
leaf pile and probe every unknown item. Occasionally, he would bend over, pick
something up, hold it up to the light, then satisfied it wasn’t worth anything,
toss the item back onto the ground.