

Blackthorn: Once a Thief

Complete Short Story Collection

By

R. F. DeAngelis

Copyright 2015 R. F. DeAngelis Reprint 2019

Published by R. F. DeAngelis at Smashwords

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Calendar

1 Early Days & Life's Lessons 2 Hanna

3 Of Dwarves and Metal 4 Men and Magic 5 Missing

6 Sister of the Night 7 Hopscotch 8 Raided

9 Dreams 10 The Day After 11 To Trip a Trick 12 Jax

13 The Death of Reason

The following is an Excerpt from Chloe's Collar

Prologue

Chapter 1

About R. F. DeAngelis

Books by R. F. DeAngelis

Connect with R. F. DeAngelis

Patreon
Acknowledgements

It's been five years since I started, maybe more. It's been a long strange road. Than you to Dora gates for saving me from homelessness. Thank you to Cammie who drove all night to rescue us. Thank you to my husband Jayson Spencer who looked after me when I got sick. Thank you all.

Calendar

1

Early Days & Life's Lessons

Heliwr 17th 388 AFU

Every story starts somewhere, even mine. If I am to tell the truth, it started the day I decided not to be a beggar and petty thief anymore. The day I talked my best friend into a life where we made the calls, not someone else.

Our town, South Point, isn't small, but it isn't one of the huge places I keep hearing the merchants talk about, like Cliffport. Most of the houses are on the outskirts beyond the wall that guards the city proper. They are nice places, made of wood with sod covering the walls and roof. Grass grows on the sod, and it is kind of pretty.

Others, closer to the walls and city proper, are stone buildings or old wooden shacks with thatch roofs and stone fireplaces and chimneys. The fireplace's function is double; they are used to take care of heating, but also for the day to day cooking. The wooden buildings are rough but not drafty, and while the stone ones are a sign of having more wealth, being outside the city they are still uneven and not polished.

The town's walls are carved stone and high, crenelated at the top and easy to defend. In its history this place, my home town, had been an Unstoman outpost, trade depot and hub; thus a garrison. This is why a town like ours, small though it is, has such good walls.

Inside those walls you have three distinct districts; the rich, the merchants, and the schlubs working for them. Out by the docks you have most of the town proper. Warehouse upon warehouse, some in good repair, some not. Now that the new docks have been built out into a deeper part of the river, the older ones are almost completely run down - though still useable. When the old docks were constructed that area had the deepest waters, best for merchant ships carrying high priced rare goods, but so many years of use has built up the bottom making it too shallow for any but the barges that carry simple things. The old docks and areas around them have become the cheapest land, and have tenements and slums galore. The new docks have them as well but being closer to the work means you get charged higher rent no matter the condition of your housing.

The merchant district is all polished brick buildings with clay shingles. It is the heart of the town. You can get anything in the South Point markets. Granted, you still have to go to the bad parts for some of the more interesting items, but if you work at it and ask around you can find it. There are about a score of houses here, all in good repair, used by the merchants and their families.

The town's center has the Mayor's house and those of the local Lords. All small time, no royalty, but a few minor nobles. The Count has his Estate outside and to the north of town, across the river. All of the town's day to day business is run by the Mayor the Count appointed.

In town there are about five exceptionally fine houses, one of them has even got three whole stories... not counting attics, of course. If counted like that, then all the finer homes stand three stories tall.

Also, in the center of town are two churches. The smaller of the buildings houses the Church of Pentagla. It's a small church with maybe two hundred adherents in town, most of whom are farmers and trappers that live outside the walls. One of the noble families is their patron, but the church itself is modest, unlike its neighbor.

The Church of Ca'talls stands as a genuinely magnificent edifice of the rich and powerful. Gold and gems are to be seen as soon as you walk through its wide oak doors. In its court yard you can purchase clothing, toys, and such things to help support the local orphanage that the church owns and operates. Of course, to make such purchases you need to buy the coin of the church, as money - the root of all evil - is not allowed onto church grounds. You have to have their chits to buy anything at their little 'Angel Made' market. Donations, however? I'm sure you can guess how that goes.

The orphanage sits outside of town by about a mile on its own small farm. I am more than familiar with it. It is where all the Angel Made items come from. The church does all manner of charitable work throughout the city and country side. At least, that is what people believe. I decided to steal from that church. Convincing my partner to join in on it, however? That will be the issue.

"You gotta be kiddin' me Chloe! A church? Of Ca'talls no less? We be smited 'fore we even make it to th' alter!" The gruff voice of the orc girl got others to take notice. They looked at the two of us and quickly turned away. Even at our age an orc is not to be trifled with.

Piper was not happy with my latest idea. She had found me on the streets, taught me how to live as a beggar and kept me safe. Since that time, we had been moving up in the world. Now, we had a break. She may not like some of my ideas but both of us had long grown tired of the hungry bellies that came from asking "them" for scraps.

I drank down the last of my watered beer and looked at her. "There are no gods to smite us, and even if there were, this is the same people I grew up in the care of and why you found me on the streets. Trust me. There is no god there."

With everything going on there in that place, it was as far from godly as you could get. Oh, on the surface everything looked alright. They do the dance of being pious better than most, but behind closed doors all they are is just another bunch of rich leeches using legal slavery to make more money.

Piper made the sign used by her faith to invoke forgiveness and looked up toward the heavens for even thinking of such a thing. How had I managed to get saddled with a best friend that couldn't get that gods were fake? Beyond me, but I loved the girl and trusted her with my life. So what if she was superstitious? She was also smart. She would get it sooner or later.

"ChloChlo girl, you gonna get us caught and roasted 'stead of just caught. I gots no intention of takin' a trip to the coals for a few gold."

I smiled and looked up at her. Piper was over six feet tall, and whip cord thin. She had board straight black hair that cascaded down her shoulders and skin the color of spring olives. As for her teeth, well, for an orc they were straight. Hells, they were straighter than some humans.

Unlike hers, my frame is small, and I have stringy and uncontrollable red curls that I keep as best I can because brushing that mess is pure unavoidable pain. With my pale skin that shows every smudge and my blue-grey eyes we made quite the odd-looking pair of girls, one human and one orc.

"Pip, I ain't talkin' about a few coins. I'm talking about all the candle holders, all the braziers and all the other things that were acquired after the new priest turned the orphanage into slave labor," I let my hands flop onto the table, hissing quietly through my teeth at her, "I am talking about twenty pounds of gold, or more!"

Piper and I had been partners for over a year, and friends since she took me in when I was about seven. We usually stole from those who were able afford it or had it coming, never from the neighborhood, and never from the poor. I myself would never dream of hitting a church, if that church was doing right by people. This one wasn't. I knew it and so did she, despite going there every Firstday.

She lets out a sigh and shakes her head, hair obscuring her face for a moment before she looks back at me, "Ain't no way we can move that stuff. No one take it, and it's gonna be far too hot soon as dawn come. Prob'ly 'fore then!"

Her jaw was set, but not in the 'we are not going to do this' way, more in the 'make it worth it' way. Piper was well aware of what was going on in that hell that was once an orphanage. The guard, of course, would not do anything. So I hit her with the rest of it.

"Covered, Pip." I grinned, "Jax is a waitin'. All we got to do is get it out, and we get our cut. He be needin' us cuz kids walkin' in is no big. We got at least one, if not two more winters 'fore people take us as adults. And I, for one, am gettin' tired of bein' hungry and of just gettin' the scraps the nobles give out for the street kids." I waved my hand, "This'll keep us going for weeks, and maybe even get us a place without us worrying about being rousted."

Piper was not reassured. "Jax is a t'ief. He's only into himself and no others. Why he wants us in on this?"

She had a point. She and I were lifters and sometimes pick pockets. But Jax was big time, a Guild crony who had made good. He ran one of the crookedest money houses in the city. Nobles came to him when they didn't want their money noticed. He always had at least a few willing to fight the guard for him, but on the back end he was a fence.

I rolled my eyes, "D'uh. We are young enough to slip in, and old enough to carry it. But you are right, he'll just get someone else to do it. I hear Tommy is getting desperate."

Tommy was a pinch purse that had the hands of an ox. He got caught more often than not, but since he had the face of an angel, he usually just got put on scrub gangs to wash the windows and streets for a week or two. The guard would make him on sight, him and his tears. It often fooled his marks, but it never worked on the guard. If they caught him at something like this, he would wind up short one of those clumsy hands and I knew Piper knew it.

Piper lowered her head, looking at me from underneath her thick brow, "Low Chlo, real low. But you right. Jax don't care who do it, long as it gets done. He didn't ask for us did he?"

I smiled to myself, "No, but I took it before someone else could."

***

Hours later and dead at night, well after last watch had started, we found ourselves outside the church. Piper had done the run around, and I had checked the doors. She got to go in to take up the time of the priest; go into her dumb orc song and dance. When it got hot, she would get super religious.

I got the snatch. It was a simple enough plan with a lot that could go wrong. If I make a sound while they are in the confessional, the priest will look out and the jig would be up.

It was biting cold, and that made for numb fingers. Despite the temperature I slipped off my shoes so the noise would be less, then tightened my shirt around me with a rope belt. Normally I keep it loose, it made me look more downtrodden when I did. Finally, I grabbed the number one possession of all waifs; a simple grain sack. Normally anything you owned tended to be kept in such a bag.

Yes, guards always wanted to have you turn them out, all supposedly to see what mischief a child was getting up to. At this time of night, with the possibility of the old priest kicking up a storm, I would be less noticeable if I looked a little suspicious. It would help me look more like part of the background.

I watched as Piper walked in, roused the priest from his prayers and got him to take her confession. If I knew her, she would have him bored but obligated inside of a minute. I counted to thirty while I sucked my fingers to keep them warm.

I slipped in when the moon passed behind a cloud. Sliding carefully along the stone floor not on tip toe, but on the balls of my feet, I danced from one place to another. I took what was new, and all of that was gold. My money, my work paid for some of this. I wasn't stealing so much as reclaiming what belonged to me. 'Angel Made' indeed.

Most of the lights had been put out for the night and the place was quiet. I could hear Piper going on about gluttony as she expounded on watching a good, god fearing family feast as she stared in their window. She really knew how to milk the guy's attention. In less than ten minutes I had danced back out into the shadows of the night.

I made my way to the alley where I would stash the stuff to wait on Piper. Her acting needed to be good, but I had faith in her. Then I felt something. Not much, but it made me stop for a second. I shook it off and moved on.

The pain of that mistake was immediate.

First, I could not understand why my head was suddenly moving forward faster than the rest of me. Then, I became aware of a sharp, almost tearing, sensation just at the back of my head where the hair stops, and the neck starts. Finally, a dull thud rang in my ears as I felt a crushing sensation.

When people tell you they remember getting hurt, I never believe them. I have yet to recognize pain for what it is when it first comes to call. Instead, I see it as a slowly opening flower of understanding that something has gone horribly wrong.

All of this dawned on me like a newly discovered secret as I watched the street rush up to greet me. My only thought being, how nice of it to do so as suddenly all I wanted was sleep.

I came to with Jax standing over me. Looking up at him, I was confused. We weren't supposed to meet yet. I tried to speak but between my mouth and my words existed a chasm of pain and the realization that someone had hit me. Faintly, I heard my mouth open and a sound escape it, but whatever it was wasn't what I had wanted to say.

The dark-haired scoundrel loomed over me, chin thick with stubble as he smirked yet somehow politely stated, "Change of plans, love. No offense, but now I know I am going to get my merchandise. Not to worry, you'll still get your cut."

With that he tossed a bag down on my prone form. I grabbed it and looked back up at him. My mind still rang with the confusion and pain. Like the stupid child I was, I didn't recognize the double cross.

"Piper. Pip helped." I was still trying to deal with this man that had just had me assaulted.

He paused, "Oh, your little friend? Yes, I suppose fair is fair."

With that he tossed another bag on my chest and he and his bully boy walked off, leaving me there to my fate. An hour later when Piper found me I was still mostly senseless and bleeding some. I had not much moved, but was clutching the bags tightly in my palms; fifteen shillings each, thirty total, a pittance of the worth of the score. The worth of the lesson, however? Incalculable.

Piper, for her part, never made me feel bad for it, and we got just over a moon's wages for a grown man. We ate well, and we managed for a while to get a small space where we could keep warm. In some ways, it was still a win. At least, we thought so. It took us time to trust Jax again or, as he put it, not trust him. It wasn't much, but it was a start, and we certainly never had to beg again.

From that start we built a working relationship with Jax. We also began to legally pay the rent to lease a warehouse. It was a nice beginning to our own little empire, and a good place to help others that had been turned out on the streets.
2

Hanna

Blodeuo 10th 390 AFU

All it takes is money.

We finally had some and knew exactly what we were going to do with it; set up a group home of our own. A place for kids to be out of the cold and rain. There was only one problem with it. Hanna.

Our pad is the last one in a line of an old warehouses, and Hanna Vel'din was the poor unfortunate Guard who'd been tasked with the onerous duty of keeping squatters out. Hanna was a middle aged woman, somewhere in her third decade, and had gray peeking through her blond hair. She had been a guard for so long that her leathers had faded from bright rust red to a more muddy brown kind of color. For her to be assigned here, to our little home, meant she was severely out of favor.

It's an old place, and too far from both the new docks and the road to turn a decent coin. Our silver was all the owner had seen out of the place since someone bought all the land down river and made better docks. He couldn't sell the place because no one wanted it, which meant he was stuck with the taxes for it. If we paid the taxes and a little extra he didn't care what we did there.

We spent the first few weeks just ducking her. We would get the kids we were taking in into the place and back out of it while she was off duty... right up until she started showing up when she was off shift.

So, we started making false trails and hiding places. We found hidden ways in and out, made sure there were distractions, and found other ways to hide the comings and goings of our tenants.

She worked through them all systematically, finding each and every one.

At the end of our rope we looked into who this woman was. It turned out our new nemesis had once been an up and coming Guard Sergeant and had made it to that rank on nothing but her own merit. Not an easy feat in a profession with mostly men, a lot of whom were bullies.

Something happened and, as politics were not her game, she got the worst duty they could give her. We had to do something, so we waited for her on her rounds and invited her to our office.

Piper and I were legally renting the place. Hanna found this hard to believe to start with, but when the drunkard of a landlord came down and explained us to be the actual proper tenants then, believing or not, she had to take him at his word.

"You've got to be kidding me. They're barely more than girls!" I stifled a giggle as her voice cracked.

The response she got to start with was a belch that wafted an odor with it almost thick enough to see. We watched Hanna take a step back away from Wilfred, the owner of our little castle.

"Be that as is. They got the coin, they signed the proper documentation." Old Will had once been a well to do merchant, back when his father had been alive to run the place. He probably would have been fine had the new docks not been built. "There is no law against children owning or renting property to my knowledge."

She leaned back into the old drunk, "That's for the children of Lords, so they can learn. What are these two going to do with a warehouse?"

He met her gaze with one of his own. Will still had some steel not yet worn away by the rotgut he drank, "I don't care. If they pay on time, they can do anything they like with the place." He chuckled. "Ya can take 'em in, make a fuss, might even get them stripped of it. But as sure as you do that, one Lord will use it on the brat of another, and then where would we be?"

"There is a law against child labor. Where are they getting the money?"

"Not my care. Now be a good girl and take it up with them. Until they miss a payment, this place is theirs." With that he, his rotting finery, and stringy blond hair got up and left the office of our little enterprise.

After watching him leave Hanna turned her glare on us. "Alright, then I will simply investigate you and make your lives miserable until you give this up."

I smiled at her, "How about we make it easy on you instead? Pip, show the good lady what exactly it is we are doing here."

Piper stood, her own grin as fit to burst as mine. She took Hanna around let her look in the small crates, the large ones, and so on. Showed her the pallets and the meager possessions of out tenets, none of whom were here for this. She showed her the working latrine we had rigged up to take the waste out, and the shower we had set up by tapping into the water barrels we had on the roof to collect the rain.

After an hour of poking around, they both came back to where I was still seated on the old desk someone had left from the last time this place had seen use and Hanna got the first shot in, "So, you're some kind of slum lord?"

I watched Piper tense up for a moment before I shot back, "Far from it. Pip and I are from the streets. We go to the temple to learn readin' and writin', and we are looking to talk more proper." I chided myself for the slang that had crept in and doubled my efforts to keep it out, "And we rent our own rooms, but most kids ain't got a place. We begged and saved, then we opened this place and we charge a farthing a night for anyone that wants floor space and a toilet. Shower's two farthing, but most don't take it."

She pursed her lips, "How many you got staying here most nights?"

"About a hundred."

She nodded, "I suppose it keeps them out of trouble, and out of the other warehouses, but I don't like it."

In this town there is in fact a law against sleeping in warehouses, and we all knew it.

"Look, I'll make you a deal." She pursed her lips again, and made a sour face, "You ain't gonna make much money like this, but I will tell you what. You keep them out of the other properties and keep whatever you're really doing low profile. Keep these kids off the street, throw in a shilling a month, and I will not only keep my mouth shut about what goes on down here, I will do my best to keep the other guard off your backs as well."

I could hear Piper's jaw pop. Everything we'd heard about this woman had said she was honest, and here she was shaking us down. We would see maybe three billonbuck in a month from our tenants, but as bribes went this one was small, very small. A shilling might be a lot of money to us, but she could earn that in a day by picking up extra work on the docks.

I held my hand out to stave off Piper's anger, "Why? That's more than we will make from our tenants in three months right now. If you're going for a bribe, that's rather pitiful."

"It's not about the money. The money is so I can say to some people that I am being paid off. It means those people get to think they won." Her expression was grim, "I am no fool, and I know for a couple of pick pockets like you a single silver isn't much to come up with. However, I don't care about that. I'm not on duty at the markets, so that's not my problem. What I do care about is that you can keep some of the street kids safe and keep them out of my hair down here. If you are doing that, I might be able to get what I need."

She was using us. Playing a game where she needed time. Whatever she was doing wasn't my problem. We would help each other out.

I stood and offered my hand, "Done."

With that handshake, two street kids bought themselves an honest guard.
3

Of Dwarves and Metal

Medwch 4th 391 AFU

"He's late."

I rolled my eyes. That was all Varian ever said when the contact didn't arrive when we did, even if we deliberately arrived early to scout the place. I stared up at the moons to give myself time to decide whether to respond to his whining or not.

Alhar had her round, silver face half covered by the night, while Pan's red form crossed and darkened even more of her brightness. The small red moon circled the larger one, so for part of each night Alhar was alone in the sky.

Varian is a good guy. Well, he is at least not a double crosser or snitch. Sometimes expectations for what qualifies as good are low in this line of work. I decided not to bother with his impatience, as it wasn't really worth the fight. He's about a foot taller than me and already starting into his beard growth, with black hair that hangs down to his swiftly broadening shoulders. His dark green eyes and fisher's tan help him blend into the night far better than my moon glow sheen does.

Piper and I worked with him anytime the score was big enough to permit a third. We'd been pulling a complicated lift and lay for the last year. It was meant to be a long game, but it didn't count as a con.

Piper, myself, and Varian were still young enough to slide into places unnoticed. We'd been using it to nick smalls; little things that wouldn't be noticed. Silverware, junk, old jewelry, odds and ends but nothing that would be missed for at least several hours. It was low risk, which also meant low return. That is, until Piper came up with the idea of hording the stuff until we had enough to sell for some real money.

One silver fork doesn't get you much, but a whole set? A whole set, sold complete, was worth a lot more than a piece or two sold for scrap. The only problem was that you were running a higher risk the longer you had the goods on you. Sooner or later you would be found out by the guards. We had an advantage most runts didn't, we had a pad, and we had Hanna.

So tonight on the moonlit docks we sat, waiting on our contact, all to unload all of our junk and not so junk metal. We had it sorted into six piles; gold, mostly gold, looks like gold, silver, silver-plated, and iron. All of it was in neat little crates that we'd stacked on an old wagon.

We'd taken all the stones out of settings in the rings and stuff. Most of the rocks were nearly worthless, but we could sell them in bulk to one of the jewel-smiths at their own back door.

Our metal dealer was an old dwarf who was tired of the ripoff prices the nobles made dwarves, or any race other than humans, pay. The forged documents were ready for him. We'd done this twice before and it worked both times. I learned Dwarven to deal with the guy, out of respect.

Oh, he understood perfect Trade and when he dealt with the local guilds he used it. He said we were young enough to learn instead of treating him like he was lesser, and I agreed with him. It fit in with me and Piper both working to lose our street accents and needing to be seen as educated. The more we learned, and the more languages we picked up, the more we could deal with other peoples. More importantly, we could understand what was being said about us behind our backs.

We had no torches or lanterns to light the space near us, but we didn't need them as we were used to this area. The city sure wasn't going to put any out this way. It would have been a waste of money, time, and energy to keep them lit. Not to mention taken care of, and replaced when they were inevitably stolen.

Varian started fidgeting, "You sure they comin'?"

"It's 'coming' and yes, he is." I frowned, "We got here early Var. Always get there a little early if you can. It helps prevent surprises."

"Or helps get ya caught. An why ya keep work'n to talk like you better'n me?" He looked down his nose at me, "You an da orc both."

I sighed, "Varian, I want you to listen closely to me. When you act nervous, run, or talk like a street kid, the Guard take a bigger interest in you and harass you. Right now, if the Guard showed up they'd want to know what we are doing. What would you say?"

He crossed his arms, "I'd tell 'em I ain't doin' nothin'."

I shook my head, "And they would then harass you." Giving any attitude to the guard meant you were hiding something even if you weren't, "You got to relax."

He snorted, "As if you a big timer. You as much of a runt as me."

He was right, we were both runts; the bottom rung on the Guild's ladder. "Yea, but you? You've been at this for what? Two years? Before that you were what?" Even through the shadows of night I could see him shift uncomfortably, "I'll tell you what you were. For as far back as you, your dad, or his dad could count you were Fishers. You'd still be one if they hadn't locked your dad up."

His voice came out gruff, "So?"

"So, you are damned proud not to be one of the highfalutin, and that is fine, but it lets everyone peg you for what you are and where you come from soon as you open your trap." I took a deep breath, "Var, when you got nothing to hide and the guard search you, no harm. If you are up to no good, you want to appear to be as much someone the Guard don't want to stop as possible."

"Look like a badass. Got it, Chlo."

No he didn't. "No, dumbass. Take us, right here. The Guard came out and started bugging us. What do we do to make sure we walk away clean?"

"Don' know, what?" He crossed his arms back over his chest and sulked at me.

I caught a flash of his eyes in the moonlight as he turned, and I grinned at him, "We're down here necking, or we were getting ready to, but I'm too nervous."

His reaction was an immediate, "Ewwww."

"Exactly. It makes them uncomfortable, we act uncomfortable and everyone is a little put off."

"That works?" he asks, incredulous.

I smiled, "We become innocent by being caught doing something we shouldn't be, but which isn't the guards business. They caught us, we are embarrassed. It covers our guilt because they expect us to feel guilty about meeting out here to kiss and stuff."

"What happen if they ask 'bout da wagon?"

"What wagon? Oh this thing?" My smile got bigger, predatory even. "We needed somewhere out of the way," I shuffled my feet and glanced over at the wagon as if for the first time, "It was here when we got here."

"An if they open it?"

"Then they open it. It is not our problem." I shrugged, "Hell, at that point we want to know what's in there too, and when was the last time you saw a guard turn something out or open something and everyone around not try to get a quick peek in?"

He thought about it for a moment, "True nuf."

"The only people that don't want to know what's in there are the people who already know what's in there."

"Yea, but they'll take it if they open it," he whined.

"Yes, they will. And, better they take that than they take us."

"But we'd lose months worth o' work!" His whine hurt my ears, or maybe it was something deeper inside of me that felt that pain.

"Months of work, or your life? Your call, but for fuck's sake, grow some balls," I growled, "We are suppose to be professionals. Sometimes, you lose."

He's a great kid. If I kept telling myself that I might keep the patience needed not to ditch him. Piper was out moving the stones. I needed back up here, and despite everything, Varian was in on this and did his share of the work.

Note to self, we need a new partner.

"How we gonna signal 'em again?"

At that point, my patience ended. "Good gods, Var. Do you work for the Guard? Are you trying to get us caught? What signal? Should we light a lamp so that anyone looking this way can see it and us?" I took a deep breath. I'd pray for sanity, but that would be insane. I don't talk to imaginary people. "We sit here, they see us, they load the creates. We get paid, we split the take. I get two you get one. One of my two goes to Pip." I spun and looked at him, hissing out through my teeth, "There it is, all out in the open. The Guard can come get me now and you can get your reward."

In a sullen voice he slurred at me, "I ain't no pigeon." His tone was dull, flat and dangerous.

I knew he wasn't. If I thought he was, I never would have said anything. I would have done everything I could to wave our contacts off. "No, you're not. Damn it, Var. You're nervous and that is just about as damned bad."

He crossed his arms, "They're late."

I heard something in the water. Turning towards the town center I saw a fresh light had been lit on the bell tower, like they did every mark, "No, they are right on time." I turned to greet our contact.

Dwarves live underground, so their eyes are sensitive to light. It makes them squint a lot during the day. Humans, tend not to trust them because of this. If all you are used to reading is humans, the squinting makes it look like they are hiding something. Don't get me wrong, they are almost always farmers and herders. They build terrace farms up into the mountainside and are as surefooted as the goats they keep. When they are deep in the mines, however, they see with heat. To them, any heat source shows light. They swear they can see perfectly well by the light given off by people, forges, even banked coals.

The shallow barge came from upriver and glided quietly up to the dock. We stood aside as they tied up the shallow bottomed craft and began disembarking. The first few off ignored us completely and went straight to the wagon with the crates. Varian started to move, but I touched his shoulder and brought him up short. When the last dwarf's feet hit the dock, the first of the crates went onto the boat.

That last dwarf walked up and we traded pouch for papers. Now if they were boarded they would have papers saying they were transporting twenty crates of iron. Only some of those crates, the ones at the back and bottom weren't iron.

After getting the bag Varian and I got off the dock quickly and quietly, ducking over to the shadows of the alley to hide. I reached in and pulled out one of three identical smaller pouches, passing it to him. He opened it and looked inside. "You sure it's all here? You didn' even offer to weigh it."

"It's either there, or it isn't. If it isn't, then we don't work with them again, and they get a bad reputation." You always hear about how there is no honor amounts thieves, but it isn't true. We just have a different code than most.

One, if you double cross someone, and that person is alive to talk, it will destroy you. Two, when on a job you trust your partner to do their part. If you are working a job and worried that your teammate is off doing something else, you are distracted. If you are distracted you are not doing your job. It really is as simple as that.

It was why Varian sometimes got on my nerves so bad. He always worried about what everyone else was up to. So far it hadn't cost us, but if he pulled much more crap I would replace him.

He rubbed his hands on his sides as if trying to get oil off of them, "Glad that's done. Dwarves give me the creeps."

I stopped, turned, and looked at him. I felt one of my eyebrows straining as it reached for my hair line while the other tried to drive my eye closed, "Huh?" It came out more grunt than word, and I hoped it conveyed my confusion, as well as the same warning the crunchy tinging sound of a booted foot hitting thin ice did.

"They're just so creepy. Walkin' round in the dark, grubbin' in the dirt, livin' in holes, and they smell."

Though Dwarves had a distinctive odor, I couldn't believe what I was hearing, "Excuse me?"

Dismissing me and them, he continued, "Don' worry 'bout it. Not like we got a lot of choice in things like this. Dwarven greed'll at least keep us in money, so long as they don' shave the coins they give us."

"Um, this is the third time I've dealt with these men. They never been less than honest in our dealings." At this point I was still trying to reason with him.

"Yet. And who knows? They may be a good lot. Kind of like how you found an orc who isn't stupid. You seem to have knack for it, findin' honest dwarves an' a non-lazy smart orc. 'Course Piper still sounds like a dum..." His words turned into a gagging sound at that point.

That was because my fist had just connected with his throat. "I think your mouth had better say closed. Any sounds coming out that aren't an apology to Anthol and Pip, I might break your jaw as they come out." Anthol had been nothing but honest with me. As for Piper? While True Orcs often were less than bright, thinking of them as dumb was a good way to find out how smart they could be. Half breeds like Piper often had brains that work as well as any humans.

Varian had doubled over from the shot to his wind pipe, but was quickly getting his breath back. "Fuck, Chloe, it's not like it ain't true. Damn, you think they were real people, way you're actin'. It's not like they got souls or anything."

If you have the chance to fight fair, don't. He was still doubled over, so I pretended his head was a leather bladder stuffed with cork like the kind used for games. Funny thing was, it made a similar sound.

I hoped I hadn't killed him, so my next shot was to his crotch. He curled up when I connected, so I knew I hadn't hurt anything he'd need.

"You can go find another crew. I won't tell Jax that you look down on some of your fellow guildies, and you don't mention a girl kicking your ass. I see you again, the deals off." My voice was cold, and that was when I realized how much he had gotten to me. Piper was the only person I had counted on in my whole life who hadn't abandoned me.

I don't like bigots. Jax doesn't stand for them either. Says it's damned unprofessional. To quote him, 'Anyone can be a good thief, and anyone can be a good fence. Leave bigotry to the nobles, the merchants, and the good honest townsfolk.'

A little pain might teach Varian not to judge, or maybe he would come after me. I didn't know, and I don't care. He wanted to make something of this, I would. If he left it, he would have his cut and a bit of a reputation that was still intact. His call, not mine.

As far as the actual job, when it was all said and done it went off without a hitch. Anthol took me and Piper down to the bar to celebrate a good deal. It may have been a seedy hole in the wall, but no one there asked questions. He spent the rest of the night teaching me more of the Dwarven language and culture.

Did you know drinking after you conclude a good deal is a Dwarven promise to continue trading fairly with you? Apparently the nobility around here didn't.

That night Anthol told me of his wife and the fact that he had two daughters and six sons. Dwarves apparently believe in having big families.

I have to say I liked his culture. His gods were as weird as any other people's, but they at least didn't interfere with how someone lived, nor condemn people for being people. The night had proven fruitful, and it was better to get Varian out now than later. As the Dwarven saying goes, 'All metal may look sound, but if you put a twist on it then strike, you find out its real worth.'
4

Men and Magic

Cryf 16th 392 AFU

"I know of something that will make you believe in the gods."

Oh for the love of sanity. Here we go again.

We sat in Black Boar Inn's common room drinking watered ale. Usually we watched the out-of-towners that always seemed to be here and listened to their stories. The barbarians of the south and those of the east were always fun to listen to. Once in a while you got a Beast Man. Great Cats people with four breasts and animal skins for clothing. Sadly nothing that exciting here tonight.

So, when we had no people to watch we discussed what ever came up, and about once a month Piper came up with a new argument. She was always good natured about it and always swore one of these days she would do it.

I shook my head. "All right Pip, go for it." The least I could do was humor her. Besides one day she might realize she had been lied to, to keep her where the high born and the priest thought she belonged.

"Member Olin Gord?" Olin was a guy we both seen around, he was a bit of a break boy. Big but not as dumb as he looked or pretended. Olin, however was dead. He had died when the Guard were on him and his partner.

"Yes. What he sent word from beyond that Meth'adilis is the one true heir to the throne of the All Father?" Ghosts were somewhat common, but they were all insane.

But Piper grinned. "Something like that. The head priest brought him back."

"Back from the dead?" I shuddered.

It was ghoulish. The dead were dead. That a few mages and priest didn't leave them dead always made my skin crawl. "Is he ok?"

She punched me in the arm. "No, he was dead. They brought him back because apparently he had been in the Lordships papers. They wanted to know who his accomplice was."

"No I mean is it still," I paused "him?"

"Yes, from what I understand. They let him go this morning."

"They let him go? He died at the hands of the guard committing a crime."

"No, his partner killed him. Cuzz of that Olin told 'em all they wanted'. And since he had already died for his crimes, the head Priest said let him go."

That seemed mighty decent of them. "Why's Olin doing papers and stuff to begin with?"

"Said someone paid him and sent him with his help. He was supposed to be muscle, probably one of the Lords spying on another. Now granted Olin's hair's all white now, and his eyes gone black. But he is alive."

"Pip, mages can do that too."

"Necromancers, and they got the power from ol' split tail. Devil can do stuff too, only it's twisted."

"I've never heard of anything a priest can do, that a mage can't, a mage or a swindler."

"We got a miracle right here, and you think nothing of it. You got to look for the beauty of life."

"I got a miracle a mage can do. And any how any mage will tell you that anyone can do what they do if you understand the way the world actually works. Stuff like the strings that hum at the smallest part of you, of everything. If that's true and you ask me, you want a true religion, you should worship a bard. Mages swear everything is made of these vibrations."

"Someone had to strike the first cord."

I snorted. "More likely something exploded elsewhere and we are just the vibrations in a puddle of water."

"Well then, worship that."

"What? An accident? Then I would be worshiping my own life. It's one big accident." I decided to have some fun with her. "I like that actually. Chloe, goddess of accidents. I'd have a lot of followers if nothing else so they could placate me and ward off my bad luck."

She looked at me, face fallen. "S'not funny Clo. Better to have no god than a false one."

"How do you think these gods got started? Someone thought they would be a good idea and made them up." OK so I generally thought the motivation a little more sinister than that. But Piper was a good girl and my best Friend. And at least some of them had to be started out of someone's misguided notion of lying to people being good. After all, we tell small children a jolly man delivers toys to them while it was their parents all along.

To my surprise she smiled at me. "You're a smart person Clo. Sooner or later you will see their hand in the world around you."

"Aye my friend, and sooner or later I hope either your faith is rewarded, or you realize that they are just like us, thieves and liars.

5

Missing

Heliwr 26th 392 AFU

Nighttime for a street kid is one of the best times for begging. Good, upstanding stores are closing up and things like food that didn't sell are being tossed away, just like us. Every vendor recognizes that as soon as the day ends, the street kids will come around and scavenge. Most of them realize we will go through the rubbish for a bite. They can't stop us, and the guard won't stop us because the collectors get paid by the pound for the trash they haul off. So at the end of every day there is a free market for us kids. We buy old and bruised picked over fruits, vegetables, sausage ends, and such for farthings and pennies. No one else wants the stuff.

Bakeries are the best. Fresh baked goods sell for quite a bit more than we can afford, day old is cheaper of course, and second day is still sellable for things like toast and for oldsters to give to the squirrels and birds. I know more than a few old timers that buy it just to resell as bird feed for the nobles. Come the third day it is far too hard to sell, and then we get our crack at it. The cheaper taverns will also by third day bread, but they usually prefer to buy fails, breads that didn't rise right or were a bit burnt.

Piper and I each had full sacks when we walked back into the warehouse that night. We had even managed to get a two pound slab of butter that had sat out too long and yellowed. Tonight's toast wouldn't just be edible, it would actually taste good. We had started picking up the bread ourselves after a few of our kids got pinched by the guard for stealing it. It wasn't true of course, but the guard needed someone to wash windows and kids were easy game. We started handing out the bread while we watched everyone else divvy up what other little bits they were adding to the pile. Piper kept looking around like she was waiting for something.

Arm deep in the sack to get the last of the loaves I looked over at her, "What? Seeing if anyone got meat scraps to cook?"

Without looking back my way, "Lowll's not here."

That stopped me. Lowll was a kid with six winters under his belt. He might be late, but he should have been here as he was paid up for the week. Kid had a knack for getting big bowls, beggar bowls that filled up with coins fast, even if they were small coins. It'd gotten him into trouble more than a few times when people who felt they deserved his money more than he did. That why we partnered him up.

I raised my voice and bellowed over the den, "Anyone seen Mal'nak?"

A gnome kid with wiry copper hair came running up. "S'up Chlo?" His small form only came up to about mid-thigh on me. Other than his size he looked like the rest of us, waifs that the world would rather forget.

I turned towards him and asked, "Where is Lowll, Mal?"

A simple roll of a shoulder was his first answer, annoying me, but his second answer pissed me off. "How's I suppose to keep track of him? Little leg pisser keeps running off."

I wanted to slap him, to shake him. If we didn't look after each other who the hell would? Our little enterprise had been going for a year now and we even ran a kind of beggars' camp where we taught you how to get more sympathy and less kicks. As such got to know a lot of our tenants rather well. Unfortunately we also had enough that though we identified them on sight we didn't really know everyone. I picked Mal'nak because I thought he could do the job. My fault, my bad.

Piper stepped forward and looked at him, "Where did you last see him?"

The little gnome looked at the floor and scraped his foot against the grimy floorboards, "Over by Second Square, down next to the garment districts."

My tongue didn't bother asking my brain if it was ok to speak, which I guess is a good thing because I was not so sure I would have been as nice if I had time to think about it, "You left him down by whore alley?"

The kid cringed as I reach back behind me for something to hit him with. Piper grabbed my arm, stopping me, "Not gonna help." She turned to the gnome, "Mal, we got to look out for each other. Go eat. I'll calm Chloe down, and we'll go find Lowll."

The little gnome nodded, head hanging low and looking like we'd come back with dread news of Lowll's death already. I hoped for the Mal's sake Lowll was ok because if he wasn't I might kick his scrawny gnomish ass all over this place.

Back out in the night air Piper dragged me along behind her, making sure I couldn't go back and give the little shit a piece of my mind. "Chloe, how often have we left someone to their own devices?"

"Not the point," I snapped. The look she gave me took some of the fire out of me. "Things were simpler then. You are just as aware as I am that someone is grabbing kids off the street. Lowll's got a pretty face, I would hate for one of them to get ahold of him."

None of the whore houses dealt in kids, though most of them had more than a few hanging around. The prostitutes tended to look after their children, house girls did at any rate. Lately, the Guard had started picking up more and more kids off the street and sending them off to the orphanage. Still not a lot of them mind you, but more than normal and enough for the townspeople to notice. It took us a while to find out why. Someone was stealing kids right off the street and the good church-goers assumed that more kids off the streets and in the orphanage would mean they were safe.

So the Guard, as usual, were doing just enough to say they were doing something. There was a chance they had picked Lowll up, or that these snatchers had. Granted, I hadn't heard of anyone going missing that hadn't been just picked up by the Guard, but I wasn't quite ready to think the child snatching story was a complete lie. Not yet.

"Too much can happen to a boy like Lowll out here. Some drunk could mistake him for a woman, someone might have robbed him again, the guard are just as likely to have caught him and shipped him out to the Bishop's little slave labor camp. Anything, really."

Piper looked at me, "Do you really think a drunk would mistake a six year old boy for a grown woman?"

I shook my head, "No, but I think that is exactly what they would tell the guard." That was one of the reasons I was so mad at Mal and myself, nobody cared about us and that was what made our little group so unusual. We were trying to change that.

She was about to argue, but I saw that argument die a grim death on her face as she realized I was right. "Come on, maybe he just got robbed again."

I hoped so.

***

We got down to Second Square just as the Alley Girls were doing a brisk trade. Most of the street girls had a place to take their fellas, Alley Girls couldn't afford that. We moved from alley to alley, shadow to shadow, trying not to be noticed. The girls didn't care what we saw, but some of their 'admirers' cared a little too much.

As we went we whispered Lowll's name and tried to find the brat. I hoped he was down one of these back allies since it meant I wasn't having to put up with the smell for nothing.

After seeing one too many girl bent over or propped up on convenient creates undoubtedly put there for support hours earlier, I caught the little bastard peeking out from some barrels watching a rutting. I snuck up behind him.

"It's so weird isn't it?" Lowll barely moved as he spoke quietly, not wanting to interrupt the show. "We starve, are beaten, forgotten about, and ignored, and yet adults still fuck. Don't they get that's where us unwanted kids come from?"

I felt myself beam with pride, he had heard me coming. I put my hand on his shoulder. "Come on squirt." I lead him away from the adults.

After whistling to let Piper in on me finding him, I tried to answer his question to the beast of my ability. "I wish I knew what to tell you little man. I've seen people do that pretty much in every alley and dark space throughout the city. If they had kids every time they did it, it wouldn't be a few hundred of us, we'd be in the thousands."

He looked up at me. "Then why do it?"

I felt myself sighing, "The same reason they get so drunk they can't stand, or smoke so much greenweed they sit in their own piss."

Grumpily he looked down, "The devil makes them do it."

"Oh kid, you have no idea how much a part of me wishes it was that simple. There are no devils, no gods. People do that so that for a few moments they can forget how much life sucks. They aren't bad people, they aren't weak." I shrugged, "They tried being strong for too long and broke. A person buying a bit of tail from a whore, a bottle from a tavern, or growing weed be it brown or green, when done in moderation keeps you sane. It's when you start drinking more than not, or screwing more than not, that you got problem." I smiled at him and ruffled his hair. "And watch the language. Cursing is meant to shock people. If they hear you use it all the time, it loses its effectiveness."

Piper slid in beside us as we walked home, "And it makes you look crass."

I smiled and added "That too."
6

Sister of the Night

Tywyllwch 13th 393 AFU

When Sister Beth of the Ladies of Light sat down across from me, it took me a few moments to realize who she was. A Sister in this bar would be highly out of place, but seeing her in plain clothing shook me, almost as if she was naked somehow. It made me more uncomfortable than if she had come in wearing her full kit.

"I know it's you Chloe, you have your father's eyes," she whispered. As she smiled her deep brown skin crinkled around her almond colored eyes. Her ebony hair was laced up in braids tight against her head. I guess it would have to be, her curls were far worse than mine. I always respected the woman, well, I did when I was younger. Now the things she stood for turned my stomach.

Sister Beth had tried to protect me when we were both at the orphanage. Unfortunately, she got sent out to a convent a few weeks before the new Bishop took over the place. I looked straight at her, "My father felt church and god were worth more than me and mom. When he died 'his' church stole everything from us; gold, status, all of it. Like anyone of the faith, I figured it was right. Then mom died and I went to the orphanage, and that was right. Then I, and others, were made into fools. I'm done with it. Ca'talls can rot." Anger stirred within me, giving my smile and my words a sarcastic tone, "If he's even real."

The woman before me didn't deserve my venom, as her only mistake was to believe in a lie she been told her whole life. That made her kind of dumb, but she genuinely believed in helping others. Now, while she was as sweet as could be, she was also a painful reminder of something I had left behind me years before.

She swallowed hard and looked around to see if anyone was watching us, "Father forgive you, me, and everyone else. Your life is your own. I won't ask you to go back to the orphanage, but I do need your help."

I raised an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to continue. Despite what I wanted, I still could not stop myself from being mad with this woman. Her next words began to change my mind and make me like her better again.

"Chloe, I quit the Order," she leaned in and confessed, "The Bishop got stricter and stricter on the Tenets. It got to be so bad that simply disagreeing with him called for a striping. Then," she paused, disgusted, "Then I discovered he had taken to bedding some of the Sisters. Unwilling Sisters."

I leaned back, unimpressed. The Fathers and the Sisters bedding each other was nothing new to me. Chastity was supposed to be the rule, but I had long ago seen how well that went over. As for unwilling? While I was still at the orphanage, one of the Fathers took a special liking to one of the boys. Later, when he left, sent off to a different church or monastery or some such, the boy remained. That boy had a fear of people touching him for years and as far as I was aware, he still avoids it. As I got older, I came to understand what had happened, understand and resent that Priest for still being alive. Just another thing I hated the Church for, them and their lies of gods. I leaned back in my chair and stared at her, unmoved.

She sighed, "I know you have no love for the Order, the church or even the gods themselves." She smiled then, "People talk, and you have been preaching against the gods down here when you are drunk enough."

True enough, I suppose, thought I wouldn't call it preaching. I guess when all you know is the hammer, all problems are nails.

The former sister leaned into me. "I am also aware that you spend a great deal of your ill-gotten gains helping others who have been turned out into the streets."

That froze me for a moment, and I leaned in closer to her, silently urging her to be quieter. If it got out what Piper and I were doing, there would be trouble. Other gangs would try to move in and exploit our little base of operations, as well as the rats we took in so they wouldn't starve. We had been at this for well over two years now, and some of the littlest ones were as young as their fourth winter. Children turned out, outcasts, we took anyone... as long as they told no one. To some, little kids that young were keys into some very wealthy places. To others, they would get the same treatment that made me sick with the Church.

"Not here," I hissed through gritted teeth, still leaning in close, "Follow my lead and meet me down by the old wharf, last dock."

I jerked back away from her and stood up in one fluid, angry motion, knocking my chair over as I did. "You WHORE! Take your seed dripping ass and shove it back on the rod of that bald wank." I threw my drink at her and made damn sure it got her face, hair, and blouse. It confirmed the fact that she and I were not friends and that she and her company were not desirable to me. Also, it just felt good.

Petty? That was certain, but this woman and what she had stood for had ruined not only my life, but the lives of countless others. It had been going on for as long as they had been selling their false gods. How many had been slaughtered, starved, beaten, and all for faith? That drink was my divorce from who she used to be and helped me deal with the woman I would be helping.

***

When she arrived, she still had the same meek way of moving as any other Lady of Light; head bowed, hands clasped before her, eyes downcast.

"Beth dear, you have got to stop walking like that."

As I spoke, she spun around to face my direction. She had one hand clasped to her mouth while the other produced a strand of prayer beads from somewhere and clutched them to her chest, over her heart. A sound akin to that of a wren in the hands of a cruel child escaped her parted lips. She backed up and nearly tripped over her own feet to escape. The realization it was me might have been the only thing that kept her from outright bolting down the cobbled path, screaming about her virtue being in danger.

"Light and darkness! Lunavner take you, child." She hissed out the curse from between thin pressed lips. She looked somewhere between the edge of tears and as if the measuring stick and my bottom would be having one of their long talks. "Tis not nice to sneak up on a folk. My heart nearly jumped to the demons to get away from you."

She cussed. Ok, definitely not the Sister I remembered. She never made it to Mother, and now she never would. I liked her better for it.

Suddenly, it clicked where her accent came from. She hailed from much further south, one of the human settlements on the coast looking out at the Narrow Sea. The Narrow Sea was a strait that separated the island that the old Empire started on from the rest of the mainland. She had grown up a crabber. It was hard work, and it created a hard people. If you startled one, the demon heart thing was a favorite saying of theirs, but it could also be considered complete blasphemy.

"Now, now sister. Language like that and your Father won't protect you. Holding your prayer beads to your chest won't do a blasted thing." I chuckled and unfolded myself from the crate I rested on. This woman was a decade older than me at the least, yet here and now? I was the adult and wiser in the way of things.

Shaking my head, I tossed her a dagger still in its new leather sheath. It hadn't cost me much, but still it was a decent blade. "That'll do you more good than a few wooden beads."

She nodded and slipped the dagger into her sleeve. If she ever got that trick with the beads transferred over to the dagger, she might be dangerous to more than herself. "All right, this is close to my place. No one else's territory. So, talk." I sat to listen, but still I suspected that I was wasting my time with her.

She spoke, and my world turned upside down, "Someone is trying to become a Whore Master in town. They are squeezing every house, room and back alley girl or guy in town. It's all been quiet and no; the Guard don't care. They might be in on it." Her eyes were once again down cast, "So we need help."

I was shaken to my core. She just said 'we'.

This sister really had fallen from the teachings. She smiled at me with the look of someone that knew my perch had just been shaken and my footing was not as sure as it had been even a moment ago. Unfortunately, it was obvious she still had no street smarts. That meant she could only be a house girl, but she had to be one to claim 'we'.

"After I left, well let's just say I got sent to the Order because I hungered." She glanced at me from under hooded eyes, a red flush crept up her cheeks. "It is what the people where I am from call a woman or girl who wants to dominate men in the bedding. It's not a rod of rulership, it's a handle," she explained, "You can turn a man any way you want with their stick. My father sent me to the convent to straighten me up. For a while I became happy. I believed in them."

I could feel the confusion starting to show on my face, "I thought you needed my help because that fat, wet fart of a man is bedding Sisters." I narrowed my eyes suspiciously, hoping she hadn't noticed the confusion. Real feelings were bad for business if they crawled across my face.

"No, that's why I quit the Order. I came to you because I've got several Walkers that no longer have a home to go back to. We hope you can get us an in to talk to the Thieves Guild's Master."

I felt my eyes widen, "I thought the works had a council of people who oversaw things."

She shook her head. "Taken out, all of them are in jail."

I took a pace toward her and waved my hand at the city in general, "Walkers, house tarts, even back alley is legal if it is after light fall. What are they in jail for?" The church didn't like it but one of the Lord's grandmothers had started out a whore. She had been an alley girl, if stories could be believed. She talked her husband into legalizing it after the marriage.

She turns to look straight at me again with a sick smile, "All of them for child running. They've also been accused of taking children off the streets."

My mouth hung open in horror. More than a few of the kids Piper and I took off the street had had that horror forced upon them. That the so-called Lords and Ladies of the Whore had done this made me hate them. From the look in her eyes everything must have shown on my face. Need to remember to stop doing that.

"They didn't do it Chloe." She shook her head and sighed. "Sure, some of them were smuggling kids out of town. Some of them keep kids for housework, but none of them ever let the idea that kids were for 'use' happen." Her gaze urged me to believe her as she continued in a beseeching tone, "They were so against it they helped stop it themselves whenever they found it."

Confusion clouded my mind. Some of those people were Lords and Ladies within the city. Minor nobility and they were almost always looked down upon about like the merchant lords were. "Then how could this happen?"

"Through lies, manipulation, planted documents, and faked evidence. Despite the potential scandal it's all being kept quiet." She looked directly into my eyes, "All the proof the Guard needs is a lot of kids in one place."

My blood ran cold. My place fit that bill, and at least one Guard knew it. "Are they going after everyone like that?"

"Well, yes." She looked confused for a minute. "That's one of the reasons I came to you, to warn you. I also thought it might go well, and it would help convince you to talk to the Guild Master for us."

I nodded, "I will get you in to see him. Meet me here again in three nights. Be prepared to grovel," I said with a sigh, "He'll like that."

Jax would help them. It would just be good business, but he would make Beth squirm first. "How is it you came to talk for them? The workers I mean."

"I may have been only working as one of them for a little over a year, but I've been helping them with healing for a very long time." She smiled sweetly, "I never thought of what they were doing as wrong."

With that, she walked off. As much as I hated it, Piper and I were about to turn a bunch of kids back out onto the street. If you got convicted of running kids as whores, it was the same penalty as if you raped one. You were burned at the stake. Nobody's worth me smelling my own flesh cooking.

Piper and I had to turn the kids away, but only for about a month. We finally came up with a way to have them and survive a raid. Digging a tunnel down to the old docks made for quick escape route.

Beth wouldn't be the last Sister to find me. The next time they came, they pulled my heartstrings.
7

Hopscotch

Gwynt 17Th 394 AFU

This inn is a complete dump, reeking of beer long since gone bad and sweat curdled on bodies that had worked on the docks through the heat of the day. What little light there is crawls forth from rancid fish oil lamps in desperate need of cleaning, and yet here I sit and wait for one of the Ladies of Light.

The old wenches working the floor were too slow to escape the hands of men who were either too desperate or too drunk to care that they were not beautiful. These women had never been beauties in their bloom of youth, and now were coated in the years of grime and exhaustion their lives brought them. I swear men will grab anything that does not move fast enough, but maybe they like the scrape of gums. I suppose it is better to get it from the old than the young.

Each time one of the women walked by me I lifted my arms as I had been forced to do at the orphanage. The old habit served me well, showing them I wasn't taking things and so keeping their attention off me. Granted, my shirt's tucks could have held every coin within reach, but the meager scraps this place offered were not worth the trouble. While I knew they were only doing as the Innkeeper demanded, it made me want to steal something just to spite them and I felt a little guilty for that. So, instead of the coins the wenches held I'd just nick a bottle from behind the bar. Why get the women in trouble when it wasn't their fault?

The Sister had taken my advice, her clothing was shabby and old. Not dirty, but not clean, instead colored with that dinge that all cloth gets with wear. Her hair flowed down to her waist, hanging loose. A sacrilege for her order, but one she believed necessary to help the children. Her feet were bare and she'd walked through dust and ash to make them more like all the others here.

In spite of all her work she was still the best looking woman in this place, but we had taken that into account as well. She had dyed her lips with berry juice and used kohl on her eyelids. Tonight, the Sister masqueraded as the whore, and my whore at that. Even in this den, two women were something to be ignored if they were lovers, especially if one was not yet fully a woman and was buying a bit of skirt to play with. It made them all too uncomfortable to look at us, which was exactly what we wanted.

She played her part well, and she'd better as this wasn't a safe place for either of us. I'm old enough to be used by these drunks, and if I was then Bretta certainly qualified. I at least belonged around here, and it was early enough that the danger wasn't as bad as it could have been. Even so, it was better to be safe than sorry. With us off the table as sport, the beer and the maids that brought it were of much more importance to these men.

Sadly, for what we were doing this den happened to be the safest place to meet. After all, if we were caught a bit of sport might be fun, at least compared to the hangman's noose or the stake. Stealing children from the Church was a crime that would make you taller for your last few uncomfortable moments of life... unless they thought you were using them for other things. For that they burned you.

The Ladies of The Sacred Light believed all of this was worth the risk to get these children out of a place that used them for what amounted to slave labor, complete with daily beatings to maintain discipline. That's where I came in. I found them someplace to go, someplace not here. With children not being allowed to work there were plenty on the streets, but nearly two hundred new faces would be noticed.

A former Sister had approached me months before, driven out because of 'differences' with the new Bishop. I set her and her friends up with Jax. Now I found myself working with a different one on a heist. While it was dangerous for the two of us to be here, if the rest of the Sisters were thought to be in on the conspiracy they would all feel that sudden drop too. So, for children, a Sister let someone she considered still a child pretend to touch the place where men would pay to lay their seed. For those same children, I pretended I liked what I found there.

I actually rested my hand against the underside of her leg with my wrist bent back at an almost painful angle, touching nothing that would make either of us more uncomfortable than we already were. What we seemed, from most angles, to be doing turned these drunks' guts. Not enough to throw us out, but enough so they looked anywhere but at us.

I leaned in for a lovers kiss upon her neck and whispered the words she yearned to hear. "My contact can get them all out at once. It is a risk, but in a moon they will be with the Dwarves. All of them starting new lives among the mountain Clans."

Anthol was a great man in my eyes, and very honorable. When I talked to him about this he didn't hesitate. For him and his Clan taking in these poor children was just a matter of course, like breathing... or drinking.

She leaned in to nibble my ear with the sweet caress of her teeth and tongue. Her words blew into my ear softly, "Good. God forgive me, I don't know how much more of this I can do. I pray every night for forgiveness, but the Bishop is wrong. If I have to damn my soul to the hells to save those children, so be it."

Still in her ear softly, gently, I spoke, "Any god that would damn you for saving the abused is no god to worship, Sister." My words caused her to draw back, so I flipped my hand around and squeezed her thigh painfully. Her intake of breath seasoned with her fear and panic at being overheard made it sound a lover's utterance. The movement was noticed and for a moment we had eyes on us.

I may have misjudged. They may not have been drunk enough yet. Too drunk and they would join us whether we liked it or not. Too sober and they would throw us out, probably after a beating. Months of work about to be blown because I misread the crowd. I can be so stupid sometimes. Thankfully their interest faded as they felt shame for the excitement of watching us. Too drunk to throw us out, not yet brave enough to take us by force.

I reached up and pulled her back in, mouth slightly opened as if to kiss. I breathed my next words instead of speaking them. "Tonight. Make sure the South Gate is forgotten. The gatekeeper there is old. Take him wine before sundown. He'll be asleep before the bell."

I was terrified out of my mind, my guts cramped with fear. I needed to get this explained and quick. I didn't wish this woman any harm. "Then you and the others go to your bath meant to clean up the blood of womanhood." I paused and looked at her. "I know this is done once a week and not due for another two days yet. Make a stink about it, accuse one of your sisters of being of the fish," I smiled at her, "Say that you and the others insisted on being clean for the gods early rather than reek like you came from the docks." I put my forehead to hers and moved as if something far more private began out of sight. "For once the silliness men accuse women of will work in our favor. Your 'joy' at this task will cover our escape."

"How?" she whispered back to me, as much an exhaling of breath as a word.

"A strong wagon and vapors to make the kids sleep. We will move quickly and steal them all away." With that I shuddered and giggled. I made it sound as if it came from the throat of a much younger girl. The shuddering of the men nearest me let me know that we had our audience.

My actions, particularly that giggle, labeled me as 'touched'. Touched children tended to do things like drag a blade across your flesh because red is a much better color on you. It made them sorry for my whore, especially when I grabbed her and pulled her to her feet. "C'mon silly, let's go play outside. It is much too stinky in here." With that, our escape was made. A little discomfort avoided a great deal of pain. Screw my reputation, this might work even better for me and get me left alone if men like this thought me mad.

***

That night, I was still shuddering inside. We had done that three times now, and thankfully would never have to it again. Each time did not get easier as I had wrongly hoped. I knew it hadn't been easier on her either. She bore no unnatural love for children, and I had yet to have any interest in men... or women for that matter. I don't get the big deal and I'm not sure I want to.

The wagon stopped, letting me know we were here. Since I left, the local farms had grown up and around the place. As long as they paid taxes to the Church and the town the Bishop didn't care. The orphanage itself was big enough to hide its sins from prying eyes.

Like I said, this was not the best plan. We could only build one wagon, and two hundred children would not fit in it all at once, despite its size. Any kid we left here tonight would not be able to get out, so instead we were playing hopscotch. No idea where the term comes from, but it's used anytime you have to move a lot of contraband quickly.

Hopscotch is simple, but it requires a lot of people. For the first part of this we needed to move the kids out of the orphanage in a way that wouldn't be seen, and by not seen I mean in a way people might see and wouldn't care. To do that we managed to get a wagon that we made up to look like one of the drunk wagons the guard use. They are covered and a sight people see all the time but ignore. This wagon was a little different, however. Its 'drunk box' was detachable.

On the underside of the box were wheels so the box could be slid off the back while still loaded with the goods, or in this case kids, while a second empty box was placed back on the bare wagon frame. This type of set up can be used any time you have too much to move to fit on just one wagon, and two hundred kids definitely qualified. We picked an old abandoned farm to make that switch. It was close enough to the orphanage to give us a fast turnaround, which meant we could do this as quickly as possible.

Getting the kids to the barn was only the set up for the game. Once the kids were at the farm, the sleeping children would be loaded into wheelbarrows, each with a person to wheel them along. A second set of wheelbarrows with people dressed the exact same way would also be there, but that one would have barley in it. The two similar sets of people would then go into the city carrying the goods to their ship, but the ones with the children would stop along the way and a new person with a wheelbarrow set up full of something else normal would go off. The goods, children in this case, are referred to as the pebble. The second set of non-illegal goods is called the skip. Each time the pebble lands in a spot a new skip leaves the spot when the pebble does.

By the time all was said and done, we would have four skips for every pebble making the chances of the guard catching the right group fairly slim. Skips could be anything that wouldn't get the guards attention when searched. The carriers of the skips would deliberately act out is small ways to call attention to themselves, all while the pebble merrily goes on their way as if carrying on a boring but normal menial task. Since all of this looks like what everyone expects, and the skip people are acting out in small ways; whistling, way too happy, going too fast, going too slow or whatever, this means the chance of the pebble being discovered is reduced even more. It works well with normal contraband or stolen goods, I had my doubts about it working well with children.

We had the farm lined up for that outside the city, a couple of warehouses ready inside of it, and now we had the players as well. We had built the wagon over the week before this last meetup, got a Guard uniform for Piper, and finalized the plans with Anthol. Piper was big enough to pass for a grown man in this light as long as she kept the hood up.

As for the rest of the players, we had an entire ship of Dwarves to help us. Fifty in all to carry both pebbles and skips. It might not have been comfortable, but small children will fit in barley sacks and those will stack fairly nicely in wheelbarrows. I got to be the tosser, the one that started the whole game.

I walked up to the gate as if I belonged, and with the robes I wore I looked like I did. A skin of oil from inside the robes was quickly poured into the hinges to make sure things stayed quiet. Once past the door, which was mercifully unbarred, I hurried down the short hall to the back of the orphans' privy. The hallway started as a kindness from years gone by to make fetching water for the baths easier. The privy opened onto a room that should have held a mere fifty children.

In light of some of the resent arrests the church had no choice but to take even more children in. Everything happening on the other side of this door was perfectly legal. Hells, most people thought what the church did here was wonderful. They had no idea what was really happening just outside their city. The problem being most of them didn't want to know any more than they already did. As long as the children weren't underfoot it could only be good for everyone.

The vapor I had was an alchemical concoction. It was meant for surgeries, or so I'd been told. Problem was it held dangers big enough that most healers wouldn't use it. Something about it being like drink, something a man could wind up seeking out, but for tonight it would work well enough. All I had to do was open the door, open the container, and slide it into the room. I would then shut the door and wait the fifteen minutes for it to do its work. Again, not the best plan, but it was all we had. I cracked the door open and got ready.

There is an old story about a kind of twisted saint named Murphy. He lived long ago, and is said to have been a great hero. He became the patron saint for crap like this. Nothing in Murphy's plans ever went right, and yet he always came out on top. Tonight he apparently decided to be with me.

A girl in a ragged shift stood waiting impatiently on the other side of the door. With the voice of a mouse she spoke. "What took you so long? I been standing here since last bell. Are you here to save us or not?"

I blinked. No one should have known. If the kids had overheard, then the Clergy may have. This is what I get for working with amateurs. "Where did you hear that?"

"The girl told us. She said that a hero was coming to save the Priest by saving us."

"Saving the priests?" Now I that confused me. The people doing this were in no danger that I knew of.

"She said that if the hero didn't comes soon that this place would run with blood, someone needed to put the world right again. That it starts with us."

One of the Sisters had a serious delusions. "Uh-huh, and which of the Sisters told you this?"

She stomped her foot defiantly, and yet somehow there was barely a sound as she squeaked, "No, silly, not one of the Sisters, a girl!" Under normal circumstances the insistent glare, the foot stomp, and the pout would have been cute... OK, even here it was cute, but I really didn't have time for this. Before I could say anything she continued, "Only we can see her because she is a kid like us. The adults don't bother to look at her, even if she doesn't live here."

Right. No telling who the woman was then. I would have to find out, but not right now. Right now I had to get back on schedule, "Ok, love, whatever. You got to go to sleep now."

"NO!" She insisted, still quiet, "We are all awake and waiting. The lady said you were coming. We are ready to go."

Great! I couldn't afford a fight with the kid, the kids really, as more were awake and looking at me. Do that and risk causing enough noise to wake the House Guard, or change plans. "All right, but you got to leave everything here and do exactly what you're told. No questions, no sounds." I hoped my new idea would work. She nodded and ran off telling the other kids. A few of them were obviously not believers like this little mouse, though all of them were as quiet as only abused children could be.

This might work out better than my plan. If, that is, the kids did what they were supposed to do. Dead weight, even as little of it as these kids were, is difficult to carry. The problem with this much live cargo is that it also has a mind and its own fear. For now at least, I was the only inside man. A Dwarf would join me, but only after the kids fell asleep and that would no longer be happening.

What I witnessed next hurt me in ways I can never describe, and yet it made me proud of these kids. I knew I had made the right call. Two hundred kids all got together and left every last stitch of clothing not being worn, girls left their ragged dolls behind and boys abandoned what few things they had too. Pallets and beds were stuffed with anything that made them child shaped. There was not a whimper, not a word, no sound from them but the faintest whisper of bare feet on cold stone.

With a dance that had the look of practice, two hundred kids moved like the ghosts that a hard life rather than their death, had made them. I did notice two other children helping all the others. One was the girl I now thought of as The Mouse, the other appeared to be a young woman closer to my own age. She obviously could have gotten out anytime, but had stayed to take care of the kids. Given what was happening to these children, she must have suffered greatly, but each child trusted and obeyed her simple orders.

Right on time I emerged from the gate. Piper knew instantly that there had been a change of plans, asking quietly, "What's up?"

"They were ready for us."

"What? The guards?" The panic in her voice was almost funny.

"No, the children." With that, the first one came out of the gate. "Change of plan, we're going with a Snipe Hunt. Have the skip guys run the barley as planned. Each of the pebble guys will lead the kids down to the boats by the same route as before. The difference is, they are all street kids that are bugging them, which of course they should look a little put out by. When the Guard comes to intervene they should brush it off with something like 'got little's at home, no big deal, they aren't doing no harm,' that kind of thing. Once they and the kids get down to the docks, we can run them in the tunnels and get them the rest of the way to the river. It might be higher stakes, but it will go faster this way. Tell them to stroll, and we don't want them taking direct routes or moving too quickly." Piper nodded and grinned at this new plan, she hadn't liked the old plan any more than I had.

A Snipe hunt is a big game of misdirection. The kind of thing to have people chasing their own tails going after things that don't exist. In this case we were going to turn the orphans into beggars. I turned towards the kids, "We want you to do something that will be very hard for you now. You have to forget the pain and play. When we assign you a Dwarf to go with I want you to sing songs, dance, and ask for food as if you are asking it of a Great Lord. You have to be tiny little jesters hamming it up for the adults you are begging from, in this case the Dwarves."

I took a deep breath. I was relying on the good will, hope and humor of children who hadn't seen these things in so long I didn't know if they still knew them. The only thing going for us is the fact that kids tend to be invisible. If they even acted half way decent this would work, just because the Guard didn't want to deal with them.

I looked them each in the eye, this was their chance for freedom and I wasn't going to screw it up for them by being either overly complicated or too vague. "This is the style of begging most often used by those as small as you. Adults are much more likely to give money to you if you're funny. If you're seen as pathetic, you're more likely to get out of trouble when the Guard catch you. The adults will ignore you if you're pathetic and the Guard will run you in if you're happy. Got it?" The rules for a group like this were simple, and sadly heart wrenching.

One of the littlest piped up with, "Why they run you in if you happy?"

"Because if a poor kid is happy it means they are up to something. What's more, if you're happy when the Guard stop you, it means to them that you don't respect them enough to be scared of them. So, even if you aren't doing anything wrong they want to put the fear of the gods into you."

"That's not right," she pouted.

"Welcome to the world, kid." I reached over and rubbed her head gently. How she still had faith in a right and just world I couldn't understand. If this worked and we lived to see tomorrow she would learn. Then again, maybe not. This was supposed to get them a better life after all.

"What happened to you in there wasn't right. Now come on," I turned and nodded to my partner, "Pip, run the wagon by and let the House Guard see that someone is getting into trouble."

She smiled and got the wagon moving.

***

That night two hundred new homeless kids bugged a group of Dwarves that were in town to trade. The Guard logged it, but other than that no one noticed anything odd going on. Dawn saw the ship already on the waters and headed out. Good thing too.

An alarm bell split the morning air. It seems some villains had stolen all the children out of the orphanage in the night. By the end of it no one made the connection to us. If the dwarves had stolen kids why not take the homeless children that were bugging them? The Guard said that all the regular kids were on their corners being just as annoying as ever. Why go to all the trouble of steeling kids from a mile out of town when so many of the rats ran the streets?

The Sisters all got lashes for losing the children, as they were the ones blamed for the disappearance. This despite the House Guard confirming that all the Sisters were where they were supposed to be and that they had done their jobs.

Nobody ever talked about the two women alone in a seedy tavern enjoying each other. Nobody even thought to think that one of them was me.

It wasn't the perfect crime, it involved too much luck for that. If anyone ever figured out I had a hand in it I may wind up paying for it, yet if I had to do it all over again I would. I may not believe in the gods, or the hells, but if I went to the gallows tomorrow for this I would go with my head held high.

I didn't need to believe in a hell, this world was hell enough. It was up to me, and others, to stop things like this whenever possible. It also meant that I had yet another excuse to never deal with any of those Sisters again. Win, win in my book.
8

Raided

Blodeuo 3rd 394 AFU

As Piper came in I gave her the look she deserved. I mean, how could she? I stood on the far side of the room, a shirt clutched in my hand. It was something to keep my hands busy.

She stopped, worry etched on her face as she looked at me, "What?"

She seemed genuinely confused, but I knew it was an act, it had to be. I mean how could she not know? "How was church?" I asked her oh so sweetly.

"It was church," she shrugged, giving me a puzzled frown, "What's going on?"

I stepped away from her, wrapping my arms tightly around my chest. We had both worked so long and so hard to get this. We'd come so close. The sting of betrayal ran deep inside me. Her faith and the guilt they taught her to have obviously meant more to her than all we had worked on.

I moved around the shabby little room we rented at the boarding house, fidgeting with the clothing I'd been folding. It's a good place to hang your hat if you have somewhere else to call your own, and the more central location made it easier to get to things done. Things like making deals or setting up a job, not to mention arranging to sell goods, all without exposing the kids to harm or letting people know where our stuff was. We worked hard to keep the warehouse a secret, even sleeping here most of the time. We kept this place because we needed to, not because we wanted to. This way no one could even begin to accuse us of forcing the kids to stay at the warehouse. It wasn't the best of situations, but it wasn't the worst. It worked, and this place made for a good hub.

Now it's all we have left, and all because Piper couldn't keep her damn mouth shut. She'd been compelled to share every dirty deed, or the fires of damnation awaited her. Fires as much a lie as her imaginary gods.

"Damn it Chloe, what?" she demanded, worry sounding thick in her voice.

I turned my back to her, keeping my voice as calm and neutral as possible, "It's gone. The warehouse." The lump in my throat kept me from going on with what I had been about to say, so I changed strategies. Let's see if she could put two and two together for herself and get an answer that hadn't been spoon fed to her by her Priest. "The Bishop came today, walked right in and took everything."

"Gods, no. The kids?" she squeaked.

I relaxed a bit. The concern in her voice was genuine, so at least one of her priorities was right. That was today's only real good news. "Out in time, I got warning of the raid." I felt anger overwhelm the calm that thinking of the kids being safe had momentarily brought up in me. The rapid transition of emotions got the better of me. "Fuck, Pip! How do you suppose he found out? Every trinket, every ounce of goods, nearly a year and a half of work. All 'donated' to the church, your church."

She took a step back, "You don't think I told them, do you?"

"You go into that box and pour out your heart. Your priest told him." OK, so my voice defiantly went higher with the last of my words. Yelling? I'm not sure I would call it yelling, but I was definitely angry.

Piper stood her ground. "Michael would never do that, never. He hates what the old goat is doing to the church." I noticed she didn't deny spilling all of our secrets to him, though.

"It's gone, Pip. All our work!" I threw the shirt I'd been twisting in my hands at her, the one that I'd been trying to fold when she came in. Folding the clothing was to give me something to do to calm down.

That didn't work out particularly well, so I walked out instead.

***

She found me at the bar. We had little money left, but I had enough to buy a bottle of rotgut. Well, most of one. Despite the taste, most of the noxious liquid already found my guts to its liking. The smoke in the place wasn't bad. We always found ourselves at this bar... it's probably how she found me so quickly. I had hoped to be good and plowed by the time she showed up. Maybe then I could forgive her and move on. Then again, maybe not.

She sat down next to me and let out a long sigh. "Wasn't me. Remember that brat Valail? He works for the Bishop." She took the bottle from me and took a long pull before handing it back. "Took me a little while to find out what happened. Not that hard, really. Rather than wait on evidence, something you swear by, you thought Michael sold us out."

She was still defending the Priest and the fact that she was telling him everything. I mean how could she? I felt tears well up in my eyes, but then her words hit me and my anger popped like a soap bubble in a breeze.

I felt low. No, not just low. A groan escaped me as I slumped forward to the table.

Piper continued twisting the screw, "I asked our Hanna. Valail had never seen her, so that's good. She is in trouble with her Captain for this being on her route." Through sheer familiarity with Piper I knew she had leaned back and was shrugging. She'd made her point, she wouldn't rub it in further. "Neither of us thinks this is as bad as it could have been and she still wants to help us." I picked my head up off the table to look at her; to make sure I was right.

I saw her pick up the bottle again and make a face after she swallowed, "And they didn't get everything. They didn't know about the stacks. Our 'Lord Shamus' is still on the books, so we didn't lose it all. It's only a setback." She leaned forward and put her arm around me. The stacks were tomes and books we had saved from various places we hit. Most were worth at least some money, and some were worth a lot. They were damned hard to move, as books are too rare and too noticeable. Jax was helping, for thirty percent, but it still took weeks to move even one book. We weren't dead in the water, not yet.

I learned that day there were at least two sides to any story. Never assume.
9

Dreams

Cryfder 21st 395 AFU

The world of dreams is a funny place. There are hundreds of different things that can happen there.

Tonight, I was standing on an unfamiliar battement in armor fine and gleaming, the steel reflecting the light of a setting sun. Beside me was a woman, plain and unassuming, and she was stretching her hand out as if to say all of this was mine. She was my mother, but I knew that she wasn't as my mother had been like me, her head a mass of copper curls. As soon as I thought that this woman's hair was as well.

"War, it is inevitable." This not-my-mother looked at me, "You are my knight."

I looked at her. Her features shifted as I watched. "I'm dreaming." Dreams, I have always believed, are you own mind making a play in your head. They don't tell you anything you don't already know, but they do tell you things you don't want to know. See, I am at war. Every day of my life is a battle, for food, enough money for me, and enough to do some good in the world, enough to feed a few more hungry mouths than just mine. "What does this mean?" I already knew, it was my past, and my present.

Not-my-mother turned towards me, as I knew she would. Time to see what I wanted.

"The enemy is here." That's not helpful. "Never let it be said."

Did I mention I hate my dreams? They are always like this, someone telling me something, or I'm running from some unseen thing, sometimes I can even fly. After a repeated dream about a job, however, I started actually trying to listen to them. You see, Piper and I had planned out a hit on one of the larger homes, and I kept dreaming about it in the days leading up to the job. In the dream we got caught by the Guard. On the night of the heist I held back a bit and had everyone watch. Turned out a guard that I had seen while scoping out the place was actually one on patrol. I had obviously noticed they guy before and my mind had worked it out. We went with the second entrance we had planned out. Since then I always paid attention to any dream I have more than once. No, it isn't a power. It's just the way the mind works. Unless, of course, the guard would have eaten my entire crew with a mouth wide enough to swallow the river.

Dreams can be useful, but mostly they are crap like this. That doesn't mean there isn't something here. Sure, most are nonsense, but I had had this woman show up before.

Hanna smiled at me - great now she's Hanna – and stated, "Two noodles one pot, and more cookware than you know."

This was getting nowhere. I had made myself a promise that if I put this woman back in my dreams I would find out why.

The scent of burning wood hung in the air.

"Why are you here, what am I missing?" The world shifted. I was standing in woods, no I don't know where, it was just me in the trees. No, not just me. Piper was standing there with a crusader's shield and a sword strapped to her hip, and we were with others. We were adventurers! Piper and I had talked of this, getting a group together and striking out. Mercenary work was good work, and if you made it big it came with titles. Suddenly, the shining armor and the parapets and war and the knight thing made sense. I relaxed, this was about the plan.

Not-my-mother turned to me both faraway and close at hand as she stood in the wood, "Get out!"

Not a bad idea, all things considered. We took a hit, a bad one, when the Bishop raided the warehouse. So bad that now either me or Piper always stayed there at night. It was my turn tonight. We needed to watch our stuff, make sure the kids got out, save anything we could; just in case something happened again.

The sun blazed hot upon me, high overhead, and I could smell the campfire.

"Pip and I are going to leave as soon as we can. We've got to find a few more people first, get some equipment, stuff like that." I could feel myself shrug even though I stood stark still.

One of the others in our little band, one with no face, screamed and ran.

"Passion burns, will you be passion?" Her hair went back to the flame of my mothers, only it was a literal fire now.

I did/didn't shrug again. "I do what I can, feed who I can. I help. I'm not a monster."

"I am!" Wreathed in flame and flowering vines not-my-mother erupted into a demon. The screams of the damned echoed of the walls in the office, the screams of children. "Fear not, soon you will suffer." The room shook, the burning got louder, and the smell engulfed me. "You will die, but it is only the beginning."

***

I jolted awake. I hate my upbringing. The echo, screams, and the smell followed me into the waking world. I could make out someone screaming my name. My mind reeled from the images of damnation fed to me as a child. I hate that that fear was still so much a part of my dreamscape, it meant I wasn't yet free of the lie of the gods.

***

As my mind cleared, I realized that someone was screaming my name. I blinked, trying to free myself of the haze of the dream. My vison didn't clear, and the heat of the sun was still on my skin. I couldn't understand what was going on... until I started coughing.

The room was awash in reds and oranges, the light was dulled by gray and black smoke, and the screams of the damned were real, they were the screams of the children, trapped like me inside of an inferno!

"Chloe, everything is burning! All the doors are blocked!" The girl beside me had come to me and saved my life, all because I was the only adult. Her voice was high, screaming both to be heard over the roaring of the flames and with the panic of her impending death.

Fear does a lot of things to a person, paralyzing you as you think what to do is one of them. Yet this girl had fought that panic.

I pushed the chair I had been sitting in backward as I stood. It clattered to the floor and illustrated my mistake. The smoke was everywhere. Choking on the fumes, blinded by the light, and feeling my own panic as the heat told the story of how bad it was I hit my knees, taking the girl with me.

I plan. It's what I do. "The water barrels, go to the water barrels." She didn't argue, she simply fled. Keeping low, trying to escape the smoke, I made my own way out of the little office and glanced around to see how bad things were.

Smoke was pouring up from the walls, but the fire hadn't eaten its way down as of yet. Light was coming from the places in the roof that had caught and were burning through; places that were thin and had let rain in now let in fire. In the center of it all was huddled a crush of human lambs – over a hundred street children, all of them staring at the fire licking its way through the cracks in the wall, the cracks in the doors, the cracks all around us. Full circle, we were engulfed in flame.

The girl I sent to the water barrels was screaming at me. "I'm here, now what?"

I shook myself. We would not die here, not like this, not now. My paranoia, the tunnels Piper and I had dug so the children could run in case of a raid, they were our way out.

"Listen to me, all of you! You will die if you stand. Take your shirts off and dunk them in the water, do it now!" Not a one of them moved. "Move, you bastards!" All of them jumped, but they got moving.

While they did as I had told them, I ran over and opened the largest of the tunnels... only to have smoke billow up from it. That let me know, more than anything else, this was deliberate. Someone wanted to cook us all.

I screamed and went for another tunnel. The same thing greeted me.

On to the next, then the next. All of them did the same.

I felt the tears run down my face, it wasn't from the smoke.

It left me with only one way out, just one. Piper and I always considered that if a raid came we might be inside. As such, we had a tunnel dug for us from the office to the outside. We had tried to dig it ourselves but it kept flooding, and while all of them might have been damp, about halfway down to the river this one just filled up with water. We had to get the dwarves to finish it for us, something Anthol was more than happy to do.

It was safe; no smoke, no flames, I could get out. I could swim.

The kids could not.

I felt my face screw up. Looking around, I saw all of the kids had broken out of it and did as I instructed. All of them looked at me for what to do next.

Screw it.

With the flames from the tunnels starting to show up as an orange light coming out of the openings, I smiled at them all. "Alright, everyone. We are all going to go into my office," I looked back over my shoulder to see that the far wall of said office was showing the burden of the flames as they forced their way inside. "And we are going to go out my special escape tunnel. It's safe because the last of it has got water in it. The fire can't get thought the water, now can it?"

I watched, cringing inside as all of them shook their heads. One of the spoke up. "I can't swim."

I smiled at him sweetly. "That's ok hun. It lets out in the river, but its right up next to the shore. You won't have to swim. The tunnel is small, so all you have to do is hold your breath and push yourself along on the sides. Got it? I'll be easy." And it would be, there wasn't enough room to swim the tunnel, that wasn't what I was worried about. The fifty feet of water was, as well as the panic that would hit when their lungs burned for air.

"Everyone grab a small, we are going now." With that, I led them into the office, having them keep low as I turned my desk over. I pulled up the hidden trap door and was mercifully greeted with cool air. "Alright two by twos go down, until you get to the water, breathe deep until you feel your lungs fill up and start to get a little light headed, go in, and pull yourself along the floor and the walls."

"Where's it come out?" a small voice asked.

"Under the docks, now go." I practically pushed the first kid down into the hole. The ladder wasn't that high, only about seven feet. Only.

I stood there, well, squatted there as I listened to the cracking of the timbers and the growing roar of the fire, watching as the smoke filled the room. I waited for the kids to go before me.

To their credit the line never slowed down, so none of them balked at the water's edge. I briefly thought about just staying in the tunnel, but it wouldn't work. Piper and I may have been able to fit, but not all these kids. With the last of them down I fled, pulling the door closed behind me. The last sound was the crumbling of all our years of work.

The tunnel was pitch black, the only light what we were fleeing from and as I moved on my belly I could hear ahead of me the rapid breathing of the few children still in the space with me. I felt the wall on either side of me brushing my shoulders. I knew this place was big enough to handle Piper crawling through it, but somehow it seemed as if I banged the sides and top with ever shuffle, I made along the way. The breathing and coughing of children ahead of me was the only sound that echoed through the space. The cold gripped me. I imagined I could make out the sound of each child sliding into the cold water, I knew I could hear it lapping against the stone of this place.

My world narrowed down to just these few feet, and my final worry kept working its claws into my brain. If any of the children didn't make it through, if they passed out, they would block the tunnel and the rest of us would die down here. The tomblike feel of the place hit me hard. Moments ago I would have given anything to be cooled down, now I would do almost anything to be warm again... anything but turn around.

My hands started to feel the damp on the stone before I reached the water's edge. By the time I got to it, I knew I was alone. Blind panic or courage had kept them moving. All of them were in the water. The dwarves had insisted on small air shafts down here, now I was glad for it. I had argued so hard that it was unnecessary seeing as the tunnel was so short and less than a few body lengths back was the opening to my office. I gave in out of respect, now I was glad I did. The cool night air held a hint of the heat of the fire in it but, much more important, it meant that the smoke wasn't sucking all the good air out of here. If the children were anything like me, they had greedily sucked in the fresh air on the crawl through. Hopefully it gave them the breath needed to finish the trip.

I sucked my lungs so full they hurt and plunged into the water. The cold tore at me as I pulled myself deeper and deeper into the tube. I felt myself panic as I pulled my bulk along the bottom and felt my back scrape the upper stones. There was no one in front of me. Had they all been so quick?

I made it halfway before my mind registered what had happened. I was being pulled along. The closer I got to the other end, the faster the water around me pulled me along its course. Just as my lungs started to truly burn, I found I was no longer able to keep up as the water pulled me out and into the river proper.

I broke surface to the sounds of the nearby fire as well as the sounds of children crying and the sight of them clinging to the support struts of the docks. I tried to swim over to them, only to have my hands encounter the sand of the bottom. The current that had grabbed us kept the sand from filling up the whole of our escape route, good old Dwarven ingenuity, but it had swept some of the small children off their feet. I watched as the older, taller kids helped the younger and smaller ones out of the water.

I let the water move me to my feet and stood up to help. All of us were shivering from the cold of the water combined with the early spring breezes. "Go, run, find a place to hide. Don't go back to the fire. Be thankful you're alive, hide, and don't tell anyone you were in there when the fire started." My voice was horse, but I gave the message to every kid I saw.

I promptly refused to follow my own advice.

Hiding in shadows, I worked my way back towards the inferno. I watched as the Guard and any local that could heft bucket upon bucket of water onto what had once been my seat of power. I watched people try to contain the blaze from spreading to the next building, all of them dangerously dry. Ours wasn't the only building on fire, not by a long shot, but people were doing their best. For once it didn't matter - rich poor, human or not - everyone was working to keep this from spreading.

As I looked around, I noticed someone besides me who wasn't working to stop the blaze. I knew why I wasn't, but why weren't they?

I stuck around behind them, staying to the darkness. As I got close the roof of my home collapsed fanning the flames monetarily higher and illuminating his face, a face I knew!

Varian stood, a bucket beside him with the tang of fish oil still wafting from him, momentarily overpowering the scent of smoke. No one would think twice about the stink of fish oil, not this close to the docks. The grin painted across his face showed him caught up in the mad joy of his handiwork.

Rage gripped me completely, and I grabbed a discarded board.

He never saw me coming; never saw me swing.

I like to think that to him it was just a bolt of pain, as if the wrath of the gods themselves suddenly overtook him. With that first blow he crumbled to the ground, "Deal's off you sack of shit!" I wish I could say I spoke with all of the white-hot rage I felt, but instead it was uttered with the same icy cold I felt in my core. I lifted the board again, getting a better handhold on it as I raised it over my head to finish this.

I would never, never know if all of them made it out. I would never know if any of them washed away never to be seen again, to either drown or to wash up in the wilderness downstream. I would never know how many died tonight, or if any did. And now? Neither would he. He wouldn't live to see his handiwork, to see his payday.

I swung down with all the force I could muster. My swing went wide as the ground beneath my feet suddenly fell away. Something around my waist was lifting me off the ground and screwing up the justice due to this murderer. I screamed my frustrated rage. To be so close and be denied!

A voice, one I knew, cut through the red that had become my world. "Not like this girl. Not like this." Hanna spun me around in her arms, taking up the last of the momentum of that should have been fatal swing. "You're no killer." The board fell from my grasp as she pulled me in and hugged me close.

She petted my head and rocked me as I tried to explain who he was and what he did and why he needed to die. None of it would come out of my mouth right, but she got it anyway. "Calm, girl. I got him. You got him. Red handed. He's got fish oil all over him. He's got buckets of the stuff. Let me handle it. Did ya get everyone out?"

"I think so," I could feel the tears pour down my face. "They're better at minding Pip than me. I yelled, some of them hide from me when I yell." Her arms crushed me against the hard exterior of her armor. She rocked me and made noises. "All the tunnels were burning too. Varian was out before the tunnels, he didn't know about them."

She put me at arm's length and looked at me, "How did he find out about them?"

"The same way we got hit before. All of the kids know about the tunnels." I took a deep breath, composing myself. "He knew about the tunnels. He hired this animal."

I sigh escaped her, "Now Chloe you don't know that. You got no proof."

Only I did. "The kids know about all the tunnels but one, mine and Pip's. That's how we got out. My tunnel. No one knew about it but us, and it wasn't hit, or guarded. It's him, it has to be."

I watched as Hanna's face paled in the light of the fire. "Then you got to get proof."

***

Varian stood trail. Through the whole thing he kept talking about how no one could touch him. He kept saying someone would stop what was going on, right up until his legs danced a jig several feet above the ground.

Two days later the Bishop announced that a cousin of the local Duke had left him a large section of land. Between the squatters and the fire this Lord felt the land would be better off in the hands of the Church; that he, the Lord, believed he would find greener pastures in another town. That Lord's name was Shamus. He had the paperwork, the deeds and titles, everything.

Some of the holdings turned over to the church included lands and farms I had never heard of. I don't remember ever owning a farm, nor do I remember turning everything over to the Church.

The message was clear, he won...

... for now.
10

The Day After

Gwynt 18th 397 AFU

I woke with a start. The last thing I remembered was Piper pushing me out of the way. I saw her fall, Guards crawling on top of her, then one of them threw something at me and then... nothing.

We'd been inside a house, the Bishops place, but I seemed to just know every room, and where every door would open. The place was so familiar that I got distracted. The Watch showed up and cornered us.

I got distracted, what had I done?

We broke for the side door and made it to the courtyard. Piper pushed me past as Guardsmen sprang out and on her. They would've been on me, should've been on me. I ran, looking back as I got to the wall and climbed to the top. Just as I got my feet under me to run, one of the Guard turned and threw something in my direction.

Whatever it was made my feet lose their grip on the wall, and I fell.

As I sat up, the pain nearly overwhelmed me. When I examined myself I found a small set of stitches right below my collar bone, not nearly enough for the amount of pain I was in or the stiffness in my shoulder. It took me a moment to take stock of my surroundings. I discovered I was in a simple, hard bed in a small, sparse room. A cell, but like at a church, not like a jail cell as there were no bars.

My movement must have alerted someone, because the door opened and flooded the room with light. In the door was Michael, a Priest from the Bishop's church. Pip's church, Pip's priest. I'd been caught after all.

"Don't make a sound and don't move. No one knows I brought you here after you fell from the wall. I was going to warn you and Piper that someone tipped them off. The Bishop's got a spy in your ranks."

I kept quiet, since it was much more likely he'd tipped them off. But? But I'd had such thoughts before. If he was the one who told, then why bring me here? Why hide me and stitch me up? I let go of my suspicions for the moment. "Got any idea who it is?"

"No," he shook his head, "but it has got to be someone who knew you were hitting his Holiness today. Did you find the papers?"

Piper had insisted that if we were going to be robbing the Bishop anyway, we should find his ledgers as well. Now I understood why. "No, the Guard were on us shortly after we got in. I guess the old bastard didn't want us getting caught with anything from that house."

"Probably not, but at least they aren't going to execute Piper." He sighed, "Not that the Bishop didn't try."

"How long have I been out?" I asked as panic seized me.

He grimaced, "Only two days, but they rushed the trial. Piper's been caught before." His voice turned cold as he quietly continued, rubbing his right wrist, "So the sentencing was pretty standard."

A lump I couldn't swallow formed in my throat. Piper had been caught before, but with this high profile a target there could only be one punishment. "Can you help?"

His frown deepened, "No, I am not allowed, nor is anyone else in the Church. You will have to go to the other temple, and even then they won't take it as a charity case. Not this." He stood suddenly, "Damn. With those papers we would've proven his Lordship of all of it; broken the back of his blackmail." He looked at me again, "I am so sorry. I wish I could do more. It's my fault you were there."

I looked at him for a moment. "Yeah, you're right. I had a few houses picked out, but she said she wanted the Bishop. I agreed because I hate the motherless son of a festering boil, I just wasn't going to push for his place because of all my own baggage."

He flinched, whether from me and my venom or from the cussing I didn't know, nor did I care. If he was looking for false sympathy he wouldn't find it here. The words 'it's not your fault' weren't going to be leaving my lips. It was his fault as much as it was mine. My hate and his cause, between us both we cost Piper her hand.

As the burden wasn't his alone, I gave him what I could, "Look, I am as much to blame here as you are. I will take care of her, I vow it. For as long as she lets me." I'd do it anyway, but if Piper was right about him he was already suffering as much as I was. I wasn't going to add to it.

"I'll do what I can as well. I may not be able to heal her myself, but I will see if I can find someone who can."

***

It took hours more of waiting before we could get me out of the very Church that wanted my head, but we did it. I left that place dressed as a Church page being let go to return home. So what if I am a little old to be doing the job; hide my hair and suddenly I was a young boy, my size helping me look the part.

Two days after I woke up, Piper was released. When I picked her up she was still mostly delirious with pain. Her right hand was gone. They know thieves will be collected by their families, their friends, maybe even by partners. They don't check to see. They want us well aware of what happens if you get caught too many times.

It's a warning, meant to deter further unlawfulness - some former Lord's idea of the best way to make sure thieves recognize that once the hand is off the crown will no longer foot your bill. Prisons are expensive, after all. Some people think it is a kindness to let the thief go back to their family to be taken care of rather than letting them rot away in a cell. Others think it's better to keep them locked up and out of the way of good and decent people. Neither group really gets that most people that lose their hands are stealing bread to feed hungry bellies. It doesn't matter to the Guard if it's a hand in a purse or a hand in the bread stall. Most real thieves don't get caught unless they are unlucky or betrayed like me and Piper.

I took her home, to all we had left after the fire. I thought about all of it on the way. This score we hadn't been stealing for riches, but for food and apparently evidence against the Bishop. All of our supplies, as well as our stash, went up with the blaze at the warehouse. At least all the kids had gotten out. That was good, or so I kept telling myself.

In the end, Piper got caught so we would be able to pay the rent that is due here in a few days. This place charged far too much for the hovel it was, but here we were left in peace; our comings and goings weren't watched, and we could do our own cooking rather than relying on an Inn's kitchen.

I had to, I didn't have a choice. I would have to flip a trick to get the money we needed. It took time to plan a job, time we didn't have, so - rent first, then job.

I would start the planning now, do the flip and pay our rent, then do the job. Flipping might be a little gross, but I had no other option. Besides, the act itself is perfectly normal. As long as the rent was paid, we'd be fine. Sure. We'd be fine.
11

To Trip a Trick

Blodeuo 4th 397 AFU

As I left his room my opinion on working girls both went way up and way down. How could they do this, day after day? Didn't they like themselves? I hurt, tears stained my cheeks, and all the bastard had to say on the fact was that it was nice to see me cry. Hell, he even gave me an extra silver for it. The son of a bitch paid me extra for crying during it.

Still, I had the rent taken care of and enough extra to get some red willow for Piper. Last night she woke screaming from a nightmare, something about the city surrounded by water and the Bishop killing me with a pike. Demons were with me as we tried to kill the Bishop, while Knights of the Order stood protecting us all. It says something that in Piper's mind this man is so evil that Holy Knights would fight side by side with demons to save me from him.

I made it almost home before I couldn't stand it anymore. I had to wash. I had to wash now.

I ducked into an alley, and me and a rain barrel started what promised to be a long talk. I could feel the tears streak my face once more as I washed.

I could do this, it wasn't that bad.

I scrubbed.

I scrubbed it again.

Gods help me, it was still coming out.

A hand grabbed my wrist. Someone had gotten that close and I hadn't heard them. I was dead.

It was obviously not a breaker, a Guard, a thief or a bully-boy. No real thief would keep that accent and, as I was still breathing and not being yelled at or dragged off to jail, it wasn't one of the others.

"Yer a little wild one ain'cha?" A woman whose hair was like flames escaping a hearth was looking at me with a warm smile on her face. One of her hands was vice like on my wrist, pulling it firmly away from myself, in her other hand was a basket of vegetables fresh from market.

She looked at me, and then looked down, then up into my eyes. "First time huh? And by the looks of it the bastard was none too gentle." She sighed and somehow looked both amused and reassuring, "Well, that ain't gonna do it, luv. Come on in, ye be splashin' the contents of me barrel, and while I don't be minding too much ye ain't gonna accomplish crap doin' it like that."

With that, I let her lead me inside her home. She was firm but gentle in her guidance of me, as if she were afraid I would bolt or hurt myself. She made sounds like you would make to a drunk on a wall's edge as she led me over and sat me down in an actual chair.

The kitchen I found myself in was large for a house this size, yet still small. It wasn't cramped, it was just... cozy.

This woman was one of the uppers, in spite of her Outland accent. These were the people you tend to leave alone. They were low enough to know that you have to fight to keep what's yours, but high enough for the Guard to believe what they said. They were not nobles, not merchants, so probably tradesmen. I looked around nervously. Things could still go bad for me in a place like this.

She smiled at me. "O' relax yer head, child. I was once yer age, and no, I didn't make it to me weddin' bed 'fore my skirt first hit me back. I ain't gonna lecture ye on how it's sacred. If it was sacred every time would result in a crotch-droppin'. I'm a woman, luv, not a Priest." She looked me over more thoroughly, "Be ye even a woman yet?"

All I could do was nod. My voices seemed to have wondered off all on its lonesome. It took me a few tries to find it. "A-about two winters ago."

She raised an eyebrow at me. "Really now, whole winters?" She patted my arm as I cringed. "Now don't be like that girl, I only made it two moons 'fore some boy talked mine up. Nice enough bloke, I guess. Almost in his twenties."

I made a face, and she snorted as she turned to get something from a chest, "Don't you be like that, neither. T'wernt nothing wrong with him and he was a damn site nicer than my husband's first turn at it, I'll tell ye that."

She turned back to me with a wine skin in her hands, "Now this, girl, is how ye clean. Didn't yer mam teach you this?"

First with the calling on gods I knew didn't exist like I was still a small child, now not being able to school my eyes, let alone my face? This was a bad day.

"Ah, dear heart I am so sorry, but ye gotta understand ye speak much too well to be mistaken for one of the streets."

"I worked hard to talk properly. Better chance of not getting hit." Forget schooling my face, my mouth had run away too. What the hell was wrong with me? Did sex leave me stupid?

A soft chuckle came from her lips. "Girl, yer face says more than ye intend. Tell me, is he cute?"

I felt myself blossom crimson. "Just some guy," I mumbled. Instinctively, I clutched at the coins still in the pouch. She looked at me, then to the purse. Who the hell was this woman that she could read me so easily? I braced myself as recognition dawned on her face. So much for getting clean, I would be out in a moment, ducking and dodging blows. To the hells with that. I started to move and was turning towards the door before my butt left the chair.

Her hand caught me before I could do more than stand. "Calm down girl, I ain't gonna fuss at ye. Only the gods knows what ye been through that made that option look good, but I got two things I will say on it for ye."

I stopped and looked at her with suspicion. She sat me on her kitchen table and arranged my legs with each foot on a different chair, legs agape much as they had been earlier, with him.

"First off, life makes all women whores." Of all the things she could have said, this is not what I was prepared for. "We all spread for men because of money. Be it because they love us, or our fathers sold us to them," she looked me in the face, "What ye be thinkin' a dowry is, girl? We all want to be taken care of, for some man to change our life, and for that we spread our legs. Only difference is a street girl does it for many men, where a wife does it for only one. And you know why we get told it's better that way?"

I shook my head. I had never had anyone talk to me this way before in my entire life. No one I knew had ever dared say such things, let alone say them so bluntly. It was kind of chilling.

"So that when something mewling drops out of our bellies some man can claim a boy for his heir, or a girl as a commodity to marry off. Can't do that if ye don't be knowing who put the little leech inside of ye."

I don't know what the look on my face was, but I do know if felt kind of scrunched up. "You don't like kids?"

"Oh, I love children! I love my own mightily. Hells, my sister had a girl who I guess would have been about your age, and I would have loved her just as much if I had ever met her."

"What happened to her?"

A soft smile spread across her face. "They died in the plague a few years back. More'n a few years at this point. My dad sold me off to my husband 'fore my sister was of age. She met a man of the church and fell in love. They moved to this city, so I got my husband to move here so I could be seeing her and my little niece. But, by the time I got my boys wrangled and my husband got his business moved, she'd passed on. The girl was dead too. I been to both their graves." She chuckled then. "Hells, even her husband had died a hero off in some war or other the year before, so no family here for me after all."

I nodded. A lot of the orphans at the home when I was there were in for the same reason. If her niece had lived, she probably would have been in the orphanage with me. That turned me sour. "Be glad she died. Orphans aren't treated well around here."

To my surprise she didn't yell at me for my attitude. "Ain't that just the truth, now? Don't get me wrong, I'd have taken her in, but that would have been months after they had already shuffled the poor girl off." She looked me in the eye. "There be no way to warn you of this proper. It will burn." With that said, she put the opening of the skin up to me, slipping it in. Then she released all the demons of hell on my insides.

"Bloody shit! What in the hells are you doin'?" It took everything I had to stay as still as I did. Even then, my ass was off the wood. My feet were still on the chairs and my arms were braced on the table, but the pain had me tensed and arched backwards.

As the vile fire filled me, I could hear the splash of the liquid hitting the floor. I didn't care. Tears welled in my eyes while whimpers escaped my lips. This hurt more than what that beast of a man had done to me. Was she punishing me for my impurity?

No that didn't feel right.

"It be kitchen vinegar with a little mulled wine, cut about half with water. It be stronger than it needs, but this way we can be sure the bastard gave you nothing. Neither crotch-spawn, nor crotch-rot." With that I felt the last of it run out of me. The fire died, but not all the way. I sat there and whimpered. "Now, when ye do this again, and don't be doing it with the vinegar more than about once a moon, usually after you stop the bleedin', make it four waters to only the one vinegar."

I nodded. I wasn't going to be taking her treacherous advice, but hey, I could at least pretend I was. "Thank you." It was the only thing I could think to say. The burning was still there, more like a dull ache now, and sadly this latest violation didn't leave me feeling dirty. Not like the first had.

"Now, to the other thing I was gonna be telling ye," She began as she bent down with cloth and bucket to clean the mess off the floor. "What ye did today is the start of a hard road, girl. Some can do it, some even like it, if ye believe the words they say, but it be hard. My husband's a tailor, an' some of his stuff be on the backs of women walking for their meals. We help 'em when we can, but it is hard on a girl. Takes a toll. Your first year of it you'll age ten." The water sloshed in the bucket as she rinsed the cloth for another go at the floor, "If you make it. After that it kinda peters out to about two years for every year on your back or knees, but by thirty summers ye'll be old. Old in body and old in heart. If yer lucky some man will want to make you honest before that, but as soon as ye drop no man will be takin' ye. Oh, they'll still buy an hour of yer time, but not buy ye for life. If ye be doin' this, then so be it. If ye got other options, I say do that. Though, if ye be doin' this, find a house not an alley. Houses at least have a Mum to looks after ye. Ye don't keep all the coin, but tis safer."

She stood up. "Now ye welcome to stay for a meal, I even got some basic work for ye if'n ye up to it."

"I wish I could." I was surprised to find I meant it. "But I gotta be getting back to my friend. She be needin' the coin to the healer so they can work on her." Damn, my accent was coming back listening to this woman.

She noticed my dismay. "Now there be a rat after my own heart, and a fine thing it is, too. Go on an' take care of your friend."

As I slid of the table she moved fast and surprised me, grabbing hold of my shoulders and kissing me on my forehead. "I'd a been blessed if'n my nieces had half such a heart. May the Gods bless you and may the one that can call your heart find you soon." It was a blessing the likes of which I had never heard before, and for once being blessed didn't irritate me. This mad old bird could keep her imaginary friends. From me, today, she had earned the right to be delusional. As I headed through the door I heard her call out to me once more, "If you be needing help again my house will be here for you."

On the way back to my side of town I thought about it. Let's face it, she had sons older than me. She might try to marry me off to one, to make me an honest whore instead of a dishonest one, and if today's events had taught me anything it was that I was a much better thief than I was a whore.

I was going to have to find and trust a new crew. It could be done.
12

Jax

Blodeuo 9th 397 AFU

Things were bad, really bad. Piper wasn't doing well and spent most of her time babbling at me about things I had no clue what they were. Her hand, or rather, the stump was fevered hotter than she was. She tried to hide it from me, hide the red lines and swelling creeping up her arm, because we didn't really have the money to get her to a proper healer. The barber had already come and gone, doing his worst. It just wasn't enough. Given that she was an Orc, she still had a decent chance of survival on her own. They were hardy bunch and bounced back from sickness that put humans in the dirt, but decent was not good enough.

She'd pushed me out of the way, shoved me and let herself be caught by the Guard. I got her caught. In other words, she saved my life, possibly at the cost of her own.

So, I hooked up with a group of young-bloods. I was the senior, so it was my plan, my call, my hit. I had a Slight for the window and a Second-Story Man for the rope work, but the traps and alarms were my problem. The house was one of the only three-story ones with the jewel stand on the top floor. I had cased the place many times as a maid when they needed extra help for parties. There were lots of locks and lots of traps, and all of them were hidden well. A third-floor entrance had the least problems. It was a set of maid quarters that was largely unused for anything but extra storage for her 'Ladyship's' outrageous dress collection. Honestly, if I thought I could move the crap she called fashion I would. It might be worth more than the jewels, but clothing like that would never fence - it was too recognizable.

This was one of the other houses I had planned to hit, before everything happened... before Piper sacrificed herself for me. Now I was going to make good on it. Piper was supposed to be the strong man on this, and I couldn't stand the thought of replacing her. On top of that, who the hell did I trust who qualified as a strong man?

This was good crew, and we were looking at forty small crowns for the pickup. My cut would cover rent and fixing Piper up, no problem. Our Slight was eleven winters old and called Re'll. The Second Story kid was a guy about my age called Bear, whose family fell on hard time later in life than most of us.

His dad had been a sweep and taught him harness and climbing work for when he took over the job. Unfortunately, his dad ran afoul of some high ranking Noble, someone that all the rumors just called 'Grace'. They had bought their way into the Houses, and nobody on the streets was sure if they were a Lord, Lady, or just rumor. They were a kind of boglin to blame misfortune on. I had worked with Bear before, and he was a nice guy. Piper and I had both considered asking him to join up with us.

The job itself went extremely well. Bear got us up to the right window, and I cut the wire and jimmied the lock slide as well as the bar. Re'll slipped in and out just as fast as you could want. Nothing went wrong. We were in and out in less than a quarter mark.

The problem didn't hit until we got almost to the way point to split up, so we could meet back at the fence. I stopped just beforehand, sensing something amiss. I had the bag and let the others go in before me.

Two Brass, the lowest level of guard, jumped them as they rounded the corner. I watch Bear take a sap to the head, and the other just picked up Re'll. Re'll didn't fight, he just let himself be pulled out of the way. I could have waded in, it might have bought enough time for Bear to get out.

Instead, I booked.

I had found our snitch. Someone had to tell the others, the locals, and the Guild about Re'll. I didn't owe Bear anything. He was a good kid, and I hated seeing him pinched, but it was a first roll. He would be bumped and bruised, but nothing more. Tomorrow would see him on a wash gang or street sweep.

I ran as fast as I could, but Re'll must have finally got through to them that there was another one of us as I soon heard feet pounding behind me.

As I hit a proper street, the bricks underfoot gave my custom shoes more to grip than mud, letting me put a little more ass behind my sprint. I didn't look back, and these guys didn't use the whistle. That was odd, since it meant no back up. This stunk. Something was going on, and that something was bad.

I did a couple of loops through back allies and got far enough ahead to duck. I sat and watch them look for me, as I pretended to be just another beggar boy. Short hair has its benefits. A quick donning of an old dirty cap, sit down, control your breathing, take the corner boys spot and his cart and no one even looks at you. Why look at a cripple, even if it is a kid?

When they moved on to look elsewhere, I slipped away. Jax's place had changed since the day he shorted us so long ago. He had moved to a more respectable part of town and was head of the Guild. He looked up as I slipped in.

See, Jax always does his own receiving. Much less theft that way, he says. He smiled at me as I closed the door. "Chloe my girl, on time as always. You keep this up you'll be sitting where I am one day," the cheer in his voice said more than the smile, but then his face fell. "How's Piper?" His concern was not for her health, not really, but a concern for one of his kids, his many hands. Being one handed might end her lift and lay days, but she was still good as a tough if she survived.

I had shut the door behind me and put the bar back down as he spoke. Jax raised an eyebrow at me but waited. As a gentleman, you covered the niceties first. I smiled at him, "Still fevered," then I looked him in the eye to add, "Fire the last guy you had bleed her. He said he didn't work on filthy Orcs. I had to persuade him."

Jax frowned at that. "Can't have racism in this Guild, it's bad for business. Poor doesn't know blood, nor does it know talent. I will see to him."

"That's not all," I took a deep breath, "Re'll is a snitch, Bear got the club. They were waiting on us at the split up."

Jax frowned turned to a dangerous scowl. He had, after all, been the one to recommend Re'll. "Careful love, for all you know he is my nephew, and did you go back for Bear?"

"No, and I don't care if he is your son, he's playing you." I was furious! Jax may be an ass, but he was a fair ass, and this wasn't fair.

"Good girl," he grinned at me, leaning back into his leather chair, "That is what I like to see. You did well, and Bear can handle a pinch. You also did right to stand up to me. If you ain't still keeping with that plan of letting out and hitting the roads for gold and adventure, I want you by my side. If you are, then when you get tired, you come see me. You've always got a job anywhere I am. As for Re'll, I'll handle him." With that he took the bag and handed me a sack of coin.

I was getting ready to leave when the door flung itself open without the permission of the occupants, the hinges, or the bar I'd put across it. I heard a mailed foot hit the floor.

Jax had long ago set up the door so if it was kicked in, doing so would give cover, at least for a second or two. A cloud of chalk dust obscured all vision in the room. I had been about to leave, so I was close enough to the door that it glanced off my shoulder, saving me from being completely coated in chalk, flour, or whatever it was. It also spun me to the bolt hole, though the shock of it numbed my hand enough to set the coin purse loose from my hand.

The dust was already settling. The guards had simply come through with crossbows ready and pointed at Jax' desk. I had a choice, money or freedom. Then Jax did something I would never have guessed of him. He drew all attention to himself so I could get away.

With his hands held high he said in a loud voice "Oy, you sodden wankers! That door was bloody hard to make! Do you have any idea who all, in this tired, podunk town, owes me?" He was stabbing his finger into his chest and kicking his desk to make even more noise to cover my escape.

It was the last I saw of him, or the forty small.

I had escaped with my neck, but it was clear that 'house work' was too hot. When I got home I was getting Piper and getting the Hells out of here. I was careful all the way home. Even then, it took me doing my best not to jump at every sound. At one point I hopped into a rain barrel to get the last of the dust off me.

As I entered the single roomed, I had shared with my friend for over a year, my friend who I had been with since I was little, I found it empty.

In her normal place was a note. It simply said 'God wants me to move on, wants you to move on too. Got plans for you, he does. You be a good girl, and know you are loved. But me, my hand hurts, even though it isn't there. Goodbye Chloe Thunderhammer. Yes, I know, and have always known. Be safe.'

I broke down crying. I had never managed to convince her, to show her that Church was like any other con; like any long game she and I had pulled ourselves. Now, an imaginary man in the sky had come and taken away the last good thing I had. Rent was due in another two days, it would take the very last of my money. My last hope was the Fair. If I could make it to Fair, I would be fine.
13

The Death of Reason

Aros 26th 397 AFU

I learned a great many things on the streets. I learned everyone is out for themselves and everyone uses everyone else. The man who gave you food and walked off? He was trying to make himself feel better or buy his way into Heaven. The Noble making a fuss about crime? More often than not, it's because he owns something down here and is trying to get heat off of himself.

People praying to a god? They're trying to curry favor.

Everyone has a price, and everyone wants to get paid. The greatest among us, our great and good leaders? I have seen nearly every one of them down by the docks, all of them doing what they condemn others for and worse. Oh, good people do exist, but they are good because it makes them feel good. That's what a conscience is after all, your internal accuser.

I do good when I can. Mostly so I know I am not like them; like the ones that walk by starving children on the street and ask why the Guard doesn't lock them up where they will at least get fed. I lived my life like that. Trying desperately to not to be one of those people.

Too late, I realized the truth.

If I had spent more time looking after me, I would still have money. Still have a home. My stomach hurts. No, actually, that is a lie. I think it should hurt. It doesn't, not really. It just feels hollow. My chest is what hurts; my ribs, my muscles, hell even the skin feels cracked. The cold is both torture and relief.

The cold and wind beat at me. The snow and ice don't even crunch under my feet, since I don't weigh enough to break the surface. I can't remember the last time I ate anything, and the only sound I hear over the wind is the clicking-popping-rattle thing that happens when I breathe. I am glad that my nose doesn't work anymore, though I can still kind of smell the filth of the street. Of course, maybe that's just me I smell.

No one cares. The sick houses have turned me away so many times that they said if they saw me again they would call the Guard. I am stumbling around asking for farthings, anything. Anything at all. Maybe if I had money they would let me in. I've been at it for hours now.

It's no use. They won, I lost.

They understood that if you aren't the user, then you are the used. Now I guess I am used up.

It's over. If I live through this I will stop giving a shit about others and take care of me, and only me.

No, that's another lie. I can't do it. I would rather die than become like them. Even if no one but me ever honestly tries to help, at least I will know I did, and I don't care who knows and who doesn't.

I will know.

I see an alley, and it looks to be out of the wind. It's kind of dark, but maybe if I'm quiet I can get some rest next to one of the chimneys. A little warmth is better than none.

As I huddle next to the warmest spot of brick something occurs to me. How many are like that because they gave up? How many hungry nights until they became something they once reviled? How many good deeds turned against them before they started giving up? How many times did the world slap them before they figured out that the world wasn't fair and joined the ranks of the people that did this to them? I could remember being younger, thinking that the world should be fair.

I knew what the problem was. It was money. If everyone got rid of money then we could all live in good houses. People didn't need big fancy houses. That was just greedy. Everyone should be made to do what was right.

The more I thought of it, the more I wondered... who's right? Maybe we could all agree on what was right. I chased the thought around for a long time, thinking how people could be made to be good and exactly what good meant. That was when I ran into the ultimate problem, and with that thought I understood why religion was invented and how truly wrong it was.

Religion was exactly what I thought it was. A system of making people behave by giving them rules to live by, all of it enacted thought fear, obligation, and guilt. People were punished when they worked against religion.

The fever was obviously worse than I thought. In my mind, I had almost endorsed the thing used to crush us all.

Maybe instead we could all just look after each other? Give away the food until all had enough to eat. Tear down all the fancy houses and give proper homes to all. Make sure everyone was treated with the basic dignity everyone is owed.

Of course, the problem with that became almost immediately apparent. Someone would have to be in control of it, and if they were in control then sooner or later they would stop being fair. As far as the thought of keeping people armed to prevent that, how is armed better? As soon as someone wanted what someone weaker than them had, they would take it because they would be armed too.

No, sad as it was to say, we had the best system I could think of. The Lords may be greedy, but sooner or later you could shame them into doing the right thing. Hells, if you could complain loud enough and get people on your side you might even affect real change.

Coughing, I decided that was what I was going to do as soon as I could. Complain until I got enough people to give weight to my voice and change something.

The cold had other ideas. Slowly my aching limbs stopped aching. Cold became comfort and slowly I began to feel sort of warm. That was when I knew I was never going to get up again. I had heard this story too many times. I was dead.

Well, one thing was for sure. Now I'd find out if I was right. Soon I would indeed know the answer, were there really gods, or not? If there were, I was so going to give him or them a piece of my mind.

Then I heard the wings, and I knew I was wrong. I looked up, sad to have been wrong, strange as that sounds. I was going to ask for an accounting of all the suffering I had to endure, mine and everyone else. I guess they knew that, since it wasn't an angel that came for me...
The following is an Excerpt from Chloe's Collar
Prologue

Aros 26th 397 AFU

My name isn't important. There is no one left to mourn me, let alone carve it on a stone to set above my head. It's amazing how quickly things can go from "on the right path" to "complete shit". Less than a year ago I was a master thief, at least in my own little mind. Now? I was huddled up against the back brick wall of a fireplace in an alley with a demon standing over me, realizing too late that I had frozen to death. It was over.

Back then I, no, we had plans. Big plans. The fire that cost us everything also convinced us it was time to move on. To do that, my best friend Piper and I had been trying to put things together. We were going to be rich and famous. We were going to be adventurers. Those were simpler times, and oh how I wished things were still that easy.

The reality of it was that by summer a war had broken out. War meant that the beautiful people were more aware of their surroundings. That wasn't good for someone used to making money by being ignored. Piper got caught saving my life on a job gone bad, and the Count's men took her hand instead of mine. She was gone now, and I was alone.

By fall, I barely had enough money to keep up with what that pig of a landlord was charging me. He had offered other methods of payment and I...declined. I had once tripped a trick, and while I found no shame in the work, it wasn't for me.

I kept thinking, Everything will be better. At the Harvest Festival people with too much beer in them and bellies full of free food will be celebrating their boys coming home from war after a victory. They will be easy targets; fat, drunk, and slow.

Only, there was no victory. The Count said that the battles had not gone well and that the men would not be coming back yet. It was up to the women to do the harvesting as well as keep up with the daily running of their homes. So the Festival was somewhat...lacking.

What should have been a seven day Festival with so much food even the poorest of people could eat their fill never came. Instead it turned into two days of slim pickings and somber faces that almost no one attended. Worse, there was no food left over to be begged or stolen.

Our once proud town of South Point, with its rich homes and buildings boasting as many as three stories, began to feel run down. The cobblestone streets and alleyways started being dirtier than I had ever remembered them being. Sickness spread through town, even up to the merchants' districts. All three town squares saw their market stalls first lose their colorful banners and decorations as such frippery was sold off to pay for the rights to even set up. Then, the merchants lost the stalls themselves as the cost of doing business became too much. The tax collectors did not care what you sold, only that they got paid. New regulations and taxes on the poor, new ways for the rich to avoid those taxes, meant that a lot of people soon joined the ranks of the destitute. Only the wealthiest merchants could afford to do business anymore.

Soon winter's cold had set its teeth in hard; it was a bitter time to be out on the streets. I had been turned out of every church and boarding house in the county in favor of those that needed it more: wounded soldiers, children, the sick, and the elderly. I was "a woman who was into her third year of adulthood who was perfectly healthy". It was a health that would not last thanks to the cold and starvation.

When I heard the beating of wings in my alley, I thought for a moment that Ca'talls had sent an angel for me. Instead, I opened my eyes to a white skinned, winged, horned devil staring down at me.

It was tall. Taller than a man, I think, but I was laying down. The look on its face was feral. I would like to say unreadable, but I understood it all too well: hunger, loathing, anger, and lust. Its opened mouth showed fangs that dripped with spit. Its hands were clawed, and as it reached for me I tried to fight, but I could barely raise my head, let alone defend myself against this monster from myth. I knew that I, Chloe, small time pickpocket and one-time whore would be dragged to the Hells where a thief like me belonged. I didn't believe in such things, never really had, but when you are that cold and sick rational thought doesn't really enter your mind. I knew that there was no fairytale being coming to comfort or damn me in death...yet here one was in front of my eyes.

Awakening in this world again never entered into my mind. 
Chapter 1

Gwledd 11th 397 AFU

My first thoughts after my death didn't sit well with me. The world around me was wrong. In death, I had been cold and alone, and then a devil had come for me. Why, then, was I now warm and comfortable? More than that, I was being held and something savory was on my tongue.

That could not be right. I was obviously still fever drunk. Yet...

The warm broth held a taste I could not place, but it soothed my throat as it rolled down. My stomach was the part that wasn't having any of this and rejected it immediately. When my body was done convulsing with the rejection and I had gotten the slimy yuck everywhere, or at least all over myself, a cool hand cleaned me up.

Something, no, someone with kind and gentle hands, who was much stronger than I, held me close. They helped me and made soothing sounds to calm me. Between the weakness that came from hunger, as well as the fever I had had for weeks now, I was trapped drifting between the world of reality and the landscape of dream.

In some of those fevered dreams, I was held by an angel. She was holding me, helping me. Her touch was soft and warm, yet cooled my fevered skin. Her words were in a language I did not know, and though I didn't - couldn't - understand, the tone soothed me. I felt at peace.

In others I saw a devil waiting just out of reach, but always when the angel was gone. He was achingly beautiful, each time I saw him my pulse quickened with fear, fear and something else. His skin was the color of fine porcelain, his hair was like pure snow, and his eyes were of deepest lavender. All these things he had kept from me when he was serving as an angel of the All Father, and the horns on his face were the marks of his betrayal and his fall. So were the bat-like wings on his back, his clawed fingers, and his legs like those of a dog. No, not a dog. Dogs do not have feet that look as if they could grasp things to fly off with them, taking some poor soul to the fires of damnation.

Yet even there the skin was still so perfect, so flawless.

The horns did not mar his face as I thought they would, three small things just above each eye ridge, and three down the middle of his forehead, nine in all. He wore a loin cloth with a metal ring belt, and his tunic of black fur set off the paleness of his skin. A flat tail that came down to his knees twitched and curled as the creature watched me.

I had thought the devil was a woman, but the thing in front of me looked like a man. One of her Dukes perhaps? That tail looked like it had ribs and the underside was like the hood of the monk snake. When it relaxed its tail, the result was as vulgar as what you expected from a fiend such as this. If this was the form of a devil, no wonder sex was so poorly looked upon.

In my fevered state I begged the angel when she was with me not to let that devil take my soul. I pleaded and confessed every sin. I asked what penitence I should do to avoid that fate.

These thoughts wore heavy on me when I woke in the furs after the fever finally broke. I had long given up believing in the gods or the soul. It was nothing more than a fairytale to keep people in line and not something that was real. Fever madness was apparently very real. The fact that these thoughts had created such a vivid hallucination in my mind let me know how much they had screwed up my world with their lies.

The first thing I did was take stock of me and my surroundings. It took a moment to rebuild myself and get my bearings. I was Chloe Blackthorn. I was a girl who had run away from an orphanage of Ca'talls and turned to a life of crime in desperation. I have awakened to find myself in a body aching and weary from long bed rest due to sickness. I hurt far too much and in too many places to be in Heaven, but the pain was not severe enough for me to be in even the nicest of the Hells that I was taught about as a child. Once again, reality trumps pretty lies.

Every muscle in my body was sore, a dull ache that comes from being in one position for too long. I was warm, a glorious condition I had not known for... I had no idea how long. I felt and smelled animal fur. A deep brown coat of cured fur lay before my eyes when I opened them, one below me and another above with the smoothness of a properly tanned hide against my skin. That and the lack of the smell of urine and refuse was further proof I was not in the alley that I had tried to find shelter from the cold in. Obviously, I had left that far behind.

My lungs no longer burned with each and every breath, and there was no wet rattle on my exhale nor popping sound on the intake. Though I could feel that my strength had yet to return, I knew I was no longer starving. My insides did not feel cold like they once did, and the burning and emptiness were gone.

I turned my head and looked around to be greeted with more unfamiliar sights. I expected to be inside a house, or a church, as someone had obviously taken me in from that alley. Instead, I was inside a womb of hides, which was comforting in a slightly disturbing way. It was a dome made of sticks and poles with tight stretched hide keeping the outside out and the inside in.

The dome was tall enough that an Orc could reach up and brush his fingertips along the ceiling and could lay down with its feet at the center and brush the round sides, yet somehow it felt cozy; not small or confining, just kind of homey and close.

To one side was a strange collection of stick frame work and rope to make a sort of hammock, but one with three points of contact at the top making for two V-like cuts in it, and one point at the bottom. The entire thing, frame and all, had the look of something that could be taken apart easily and put back up with little fuss.

There was also a tree trunk near the center pole with its limbs cut off but the bark still on to make it easier to move. Looking around, it seemed it was used as an anchor point for racks, odds and ends, and various other things. In addition to the iron pots and other cookware that hung from it, there was a backpack of strange design, a staff, and a silver medallion with a leather lanyard. At the top, suspended on a wrought iron rod to keep it well away from the trunk, hung the lantern that was the only source of light in my new world.

The floor was covered all around with furs of various colors and thicknesses; bits and pieces of different lengths and from different animals, from the close short hair of a deer, to the shaggy pelt of a sheep with the fleece still on it. Though the pelts were thrown around, there was definitely the suggestion of harmony, almost like the owner of the furs was worried about them clashing with the decor. I had seen high society people in town worry about such things, but to find it here in a barbarian's hut was strange indeed.

That thought brought me back to the here and now. Someone who was obviously a barbarian, a wild-man of some sort, had found me and had brought me here. They often came in to town to trade, mostly bringing goods up from the south.

Up that way were wild lands with no government...well, not any as we knew it. Those southern barbarians claimed that further up in the cold reaches of the Deep South, was something called "The Empire of the Five". They said this in such a way as if it was a fearsome force and something not to be taken lightly. To hear them talk, it was a land ruled not by men or law, but by monsters, and breaking what few laws they had was always a death sentence. Yet, they claimed to be treated better there than in most towns they visited down in the North.

The priests often pointed to these men and their strange ways as a bad example, talking about their lack of civilized behavior, but the visitors treated me well enough. They just didn't seem to care about ranks like Lord and Lady. I had to admit that their ideas on fun, sex, and how men and women should interact were distressing, and the way they dressed and their mannerisms were sometimes frightening.

Armed women were nothing new to me, but their women often acted and dressed no different than their men, and the men drank, fought, and bled more than even I was used to. Life seemed cheap to them. They were always looking for the next wenching, even if they had their wives along with them. The stories I had heard of how the women of these people like to lay with dogs or stallions for the sport of it always disturbed me.

Now I found myself in a place that looked like one of their tents, owing my life to them. If half of what I heard was true, one of the Hells may have been a better option. At least I would deserve what I got there. Again, small comfort in a fairytale.

The flap that acted as a door way opened then. As soon as I heard it I dived and grabbed one of the black iron pans off the post. Sitting there clutching the weight of it, I knew it had been a very long time since anything this heavy had been in my hands.

A dark outline entered from the brightness of outside and light flooded the near dark interior, blinding me. I lost sight of whoever it was. How long had it been since I had seen natural light?

A gentle hand took my new weapon out of my grasp before I even realized anyone had moved. Not that I could have really done anything with it, but it had felt good to have the illusion I could protect myself and not be at this stranger's mercy. Maybe I could have dropped it on their foot and crawled away quickly, or maybe they would have been so stunned I could have gotten outside the tent still naked and crawled away into the darkness of this obviously bright day... Yes, and maybe I could sprout wings and ascend to the Heavens. Both were just as likely to happen.

As my eyes adjusted to the light and my mind grasped what was in front of me, I went numb in terror. Before me stood the devil that I had dreamed of, his skin still like porcelain, and his eyes still as beautiful.

Maybe this was a Hell after all? Then he opened his mouth to speak and my world came crashing down around me. His voice was that of the angel that had held me and nursed me back to health. All I could do was shake as the shock ran through me.

"Vanti Dawn," he said softly, then again in TradeSpeak "Calm, peace. No harm do I mean to you." His smile was warm but his words warmer. I could smell him, smell his breath and a scent of lilies was coming off of him. This was no dream, and my mind could not come up with a nightmare like this. I realized how much trouble I was in, how terrible things were about to get for me, and how truly screwed I was.

This wasn't a devil. It would be better for me in the long run if it were.

I was alive. If it had been a devil it would just kill me. Maybe not fast, and it would probably do horrible things to me first, but it would kill me. I knew that for certain. This, though, this was going to be worse than anything I could imagine. This creature in front of me may not be a devil or The Devil, but it was one of her mortal southern followers. One of the monsters of the so called Empire of the Five.

"I know you not know my tongue, but might I know yours. Speak and let us see if my tiring studying has paid me off." His words were soft and he had a voice meant to sing songs to loved ones on cold nights.

This could not be happening; this could not possibly be real.

The word softly escaped my throat unbidden. It was both a muttered curse and a prayer of salvation from the path before me. A prayer I did not know if even Ca'talls could have answered if he existed.

"LeatherWing..."
About the Author

A Migraine suffer, A Trans Woman, a Dyslexic. A lot of things stand between me and my books, but that doesn't matter. I am A writer because I write, and author because I write my own story. If you want something go for it and know that I and a million others, support you.

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Blackthorn:

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Black Thorn: Once a Thief

Novelette

Piper

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On Leather Wings: Chloe's Collar

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