'The Glove of Shadows' Chapter Seven- First Blood

“Lady luck, why do you hate me,” Anna whispered as Stockholm tended to Styge. The old Illusionist had survived the crash of the autocart with a few cuts and scrapes. But here, maybe a little less than an hour later, he had tripped over a rock and apparently sprained his ankle.

The big Chief wrapped Styge’s foot in medical bandaging he’d brought along, just in case such an emergency arose. While he and Flint could regenerate, the other three weren’t quite so lucky.

Add to this aggravation the fact that Norman had wandered off down to a nearby stream to refill his canteen, and she found herself looking at a serious delay in the schedule. The sun was going down, and her timepiece showed her it was a little after two o’clock in the afternoon.

“Stockholm, are you almost done there,” she spat a little testily.

Her Chief shot her a poisonous look, and she flinched at the sight of it.

“We’ll be ready soon. I don’t want to rush this, he is old after all, and just a little more fragile than yourself, William.” Stockholm helped the old Illusionist up, and let him climb on his back, carrying him piggyback. “I’ll have to carry him for a while. The salve I administered will heal the sprain, but it needs a few hours to work. Meantime, I think everyone should take a minute to get themselves something to eat.”

Anna took out a few pieces of dried cheese, eating slowly, watching for Norman’s return. He should be back by now, she thought.

“Flint, go fetch Norm,” she said around a mouthful of food. “We need to get going again soon. Lee says we’ll make the village of Prek in another two hours,” she said, looking over at the Pickpocket. “I thought you said this village was only a few hours away.”

“Well, yeah, it is.” Lee tried not to look her in the eyes. “By horse,” he added in a whisper.

“What?” Anna dropped her small piece of cheese and grabbed Lee by the front of his tan tunic as Flint nipped off to find the other Gnome of the company. “You never said that before.” She shook him back and forth.

Lee threw his hands up, his eyes filled with panic.

“Sorry, sorry! I would’ve said somefing before, but you seemed to be so pleased wiv our progress. Will, you’re gonna break my neck.” She stopped shaking the Pickpocket, dumped him to the ground, and approached Stockholm and Styge.

“Sorry Chief, looks like you’ll be carrying Styge for the whole trip at this rate,” she said. He gave her a questioning look, to which she replied, “Lee just told me he made his trip by horse.”

Stocky grumbled low in his throat.

“I’ve told you time and again not to trust anything he says, William,” he growled. “But you never listen to me. Still, it could be worse.” He set Styge down gently. “As long as we’ve got the extra travel time tacked on, we may as well have a proper meal.” He pulled his cookware out of his rucksack.

Anna was surprised once again. Nobody else had thought to bring cooking gear, and as far as she knew, she was the only one who could cook a decent meal. Perhaps there’s even more to ol’ Stocky than I thought, she mused.

“What’s going on?” Flint came up behind Anna, Norman held aloft by the back of his shirt. He set the Engineer down, and looked curiously at Stockholm as he struck up a fire.

“Lee miscalculated,” Anna said, sparing Lee from another interrogation. “He forgot that when he made the trip to the city from Prek, he was riding a horse. No big deal, Flint,” she said, glad that at least the Wererat didn’t seem perturbed by the delay in the schedule. “We’re going to have a meal, and then head out again. Norman, you get your canteen filled?”

The Engineer nodded with a wry smile, and sat down with his notepad of calculations.

The company settled in for a decent meal, unaware that they wouldn’t get to finish it.

* * * *

One-thirty, Fly thought, looking again at his timepiece. The wreckage near a sturdy oak gave him a little heart, as it meant that Deus and his company would have been delayed. Smoke still billowed from the machine, and Trent used the small flames to fry a squirrel he’d hit with a shuriken.

Lain concentrated her energy nearby, calling up a strangely clad warrior from an era long since past. The zombie had a mecha weapon clutched tightly in its rotting arms. Fly didn’t like the look either the creature, or its strange weapon, but he knew that Lain would make the most of it.

“How long since they passed through here, Akimaru,” Fly asked as he tore his gaze away from Lain’s undead servant.

The white clad Ninja was crouched low, peering intensely at the tracks.

“Perhaps a little less than a half of an hour,” he said. “At least, since they left. The incident appears to have taken them twenty minutes or so to deal with. The damage done to that machine,” he said, pointing to the autocart. “Someone of immense physical strength did that, and quite easily if I’m any judge.”

Fly looked over at the ruined mecha. Ignatious Stockholm. William Deus’s little trump card, he thought. Well, maybe not so little. “Shall I investigate further?”

“No, that’ll be all.” Fly turned from Akimaru and approached Lain and Rage. “Thoughts?”

“Just a few.” Lain didn’t look away from her new servant. “They’re making good time, but this was one hell of a delay for them. We’re still about five hours from Prek, on foot. If they have another delay, stop for food or something, we’ll catch up to them.”

“Yeah, but we gots to leave now,” Rage added.

“Indeed.” Fly said. “Everybody, let’s go! Trent, on point!”

The Human Ninja did as he was told without complaint, much to Fly’s satisfaction. He’s getting into his groove, Fly thought with a grin. Good.

Thaddeus Fly and his group moved north, following the tracks left behind by William Deus and his Hoods.

“Smoke,” Akimaru said after another twenty minutes. Fly looked up from his thoughts, seeing the small plumes of smoke hanging in the air a little more than fifteen minutes away.

“Excellent,” he said. “Everyone, double time! Eight minutes.” The company got into a jogging stride.

When he called them to a halt, they were just out of earshot of Deus and his company. Fly couldn’t clearly see them, but knew they were only a few minutes away.

He didn’t want to risk being spotted or smelled by the Red Tribe Werewolf or the Wererat, so he kept the company at the foot of a hill that would lead them to Deus and his men.

“Everybody, gather in,” he said softly.

When everyone was huddled around him, he looked them each in the eyes. “All right, here’s how we’re going to play this. Lain, take your servant and Rage right at them, harry them for a few minutes. Trent, Akimaru and I will head east and then north, bypass them,” he said, drawing a small slip of paper out of his belt. “This is a locator sutra, Lain,” he said, handing her the small paper. “When the three of you have harassed them long enough, use this sutra. It’ll bring you all back to me,” he said.

“It won’t work on him,” she said, indicating the silent zombie. She had left the creature over where she’d summoned it.

The zombie groaned, a low, dry rumble from deep in the decayed and rotted stomach.

“Then again, none of them are meant to be permanent. How does it work?” She took the small scroll.

“It’s magic in a way,” Fly said. “Ninjas, Monks, and Samurai can imbue small scrolls with Chi magic, to be used whenever they’re needed. I never learned a lot of them, but the sutra of returning has come in handy for me a number of times.”

Lain graced him a small smile as she tucked the sutra into the front of her dress. “Remember, only engage them for a few minutes, while we make our way around their party. You have to injure at least one of them, a little,” Fly said, looking seriously at Rage. “Sorry big guy, but I’m not sending you to try to kill any of them. There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”

Fly led Akimaru and Trent east about a mile, then turned north and stopped. He turned back in Lain, Rage and the undead creature’s direction, taking another sutra from his pocket. He threw it into the air, where it turned into a sparkling flare.

The signal was given, and Lain led the way toward William Deus and his group.

Fly smiled despite this early run-in. He would be in the lead after this, and he relished the idea of setting a trap for Deus and his men as the Rogue had done to him.

“Do you know what the best thing is about payback, gentlemen?” he asked the other two Ninjas. He looked each in the eyes for but a moment before striding off north once again. “It’s one of the only things you can savor without paying a tab.”

* * * *

Stockholm sniffed hard at the air, wrinkling his snout as he finished making the grilled cheese sandwiches.

“Something wrong, big fellah?” Flint asked. “Burn the bread did ya?”

“We’re not going to get to finish our meal.” The big man stood and cracked his knuckles.

Anna looked up from her simple stew. In the distance three small figures quickly became larger.

“Who is it?” She gained her feet and drew throwing knives.

One of the figures towered over the other two, all green and menacing. At least she knew who that was, though the knowledge was not exactly comforting. Rage, the Orc Berserker whom Thaddeus Fly kept around as a countermeasure to Anna’s larger agents. The other two figures were still too far away, too small for her to make them out.

“Lain McNealy and one of her servants,” Flint said, pulling out three huge hunting knives from his brace of daggers. They were almost the size of short swords, perfectly balanced for the Wererat’s short to medium range throwing attacks. “I can’t make out what the thing is carrying, but it looks like a weapon.”

Anna’s company, their lunches forgotten and their travel equipment gathered into a central pile, prepared themselves for battle. Lee made tracks, leaving a cloud of white smoke behind him as he tore off into the hills as fast as his stout legs would carry him.

“Fucking coward,” Stockholm shouted after the retreating Pickpocket.

Styge retreated a short distance behind the group, sitting cross-legged on the ground. He pulled out a pipe, tapped some tobacco into it from his hip pouch, and started smoking it casually, like nothing at all was wrong.

Norman, rummaging through his tool bag, finally drew out a small power tool that buzzed and whirred. He pulled out a circular, serrated disk, and mounted it to the end of the gadget, giving the deadly blade another spin.

“Nobody take the first move.” Anna crouched in a fighting stance. “Let them come at us. When we turn them aside, we’ll have something to hold over Fly’s head,”

Rage closed to within fifty yards, and drew his left hand back, grabbing a small throwing hammer and whipping it in Stockholm’s direction.

Despite the blinding speed with which it flew, its accuracy left something to be desired. The bulky Red Tribe Werewolf reached out to his left, and plucked the weapon from the air.

Flint hurled his hunting knives at the approaching Orc, only to watch them sink a few centimeters into his blocking forearms and be ignored. Anna’s smaller weapons didn’t even penetrate Rage’s thick green skin. Instead, they bounced harmlessly to the ground.

“Stockholm,” she shouted.

The big Red Tribesman started forward—but a short beam of energy lanced into his huge chest, blasting him several yards back.

Anna’s shocked gaze found the undead creature standing in a shooter’s stance, the end of his mecha weapon smoking.

“Thrice-damned Necromancer,” she growled, spotting Lain McNealy a few yards behind the zombie.

Flint, who had just witnessed the biggest bruiser he knew being thrown back like a rag doll, darted toward Rage, closing the thirty-yard gap as the Orc slowed his own pace. Hunting knife in hand, he lunged at Rage, screaming bloody murder.

The Berserker deflected him handily by punching him right in the face, his longer arms reaching farther than Flint could with his hunting knife.

Teeth flew from the Wererat’s snout as he twisted and fell bleeding to the grass, his vision blurred with pain.

For a moment, Rage’s mind blared to finish the job. However, he had orders, and his orders were to harass, not kill. Besides, he thought, poor little guy looks like he’s in a lot of pain.

This, of course, was a huge understatement. Though Rage didn’t know it, as he stepped over the fallen Wererat, he’d broken part of Flint’s faceplate.

“Stocky, get up.” Anna crouched next to the Red Tribesman.

He’d gotten himself into a half-seated position, his fur and flesh singed slightly. Thankfully, she saw, his chain shirt had absorbed the majority of the blast, but it wouldn’t survive another hit. On top of that, she realized, nobody else in the company was wearing armor. She turned and watched Rage come slowly toward her. Flint screamed on the ground behind the Orc, and her heart dropped.

A blur of crimson shot forward from her side. Stockholm took advantage of Rage’s slowed movements. He launched a roundhouse kick to Rage’s head, sending the Berserker reeling to the left, clutching his head.

Stockholm brought his hands up, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. “Come on then, green one.”

Rage punched at him, and Stockholm shifted his weight, grappling the arm and thrusting his own hips into the Orc as he hauled.

Rage, heavy even for a member of his Race, flew through the air as easily as one of Anna’s knives, landing hard on the ground a few yards away.

“Fire,” Lain shouted at her undead minion.

Another pulse of energy erupted from the end of the mecha weapon, scorching the ground next to Anna as she tucked her head into her chest and rolled away. How in the Seven Hells was she being bested by two of Fly’s agents and a shuffling zombie?

Styge, she saw, hadn’t moved from his position on the hill, smoking away at his pipe. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he would be the most obvious choice of targets for the mecha weapon blasts. Was McNealy holding it back?

Before Anna could find out if that were the case, she was happily surprised by the return of Lee Toren. The Gnome Pickpocket stealthily ran to the zombie’s side, reaching up and plucking the mecha weapon from its hands as he stuck his tongue out at an infuriated Lain.

The Necromancer woman hadn’t even seen him, or heard him coming. In fact, she hadn’t she seen him abandon William Deus and his men? Apparently, Deus’s company had a few tricks up their sleeves.

Still sprinting full out, Lee sped past Norman, who had taken cover behind the party’s belongings. He dropped the weapon into the Engineer’s hands, and smiled like a devil at him.

“What’s this?” Norm looked down at the heavy metal weapon.

“Wot’s it look loik, mate?” The Pickpocket set a boot on Norm’s shoulder and pushed. Lee replaced Norm in the cover spot, and motioned toward the ongoing battle with his head. “S’a weapon! You’ll be able to take out that dead thing at least.”

Norman looked down at the bulky metal weapon, figuring out its operation relatively quickly.

“Nice and easy, at least.” The Engineer crouched low and ducked out of hiding. He opened his eyes wide, taking in the scene in front of him. Flint was just now getting up off of the ground, his lips and snout fur covered in blood, spitting teeth. He looked groggy, and swayed drunkenly from side to side. Stockholm had Rage in check, the two of them trading blows, Stockholm landing the majority of the strikes.

The Chief can handle himself, Norm thought. As for the undead creature, it was reaching for another mecha weapon at its hip, one Norman recognized immediately. It was called a hand cannon, due to the enormous punch it packed, and could easily kill someone.

Stockholm wondered how even Rage could largely ignore his blows. The Orc Berserker hadn’t gone into Berserker Fury, a point that Stockholm took some small comfort in. However, without that lack of control, the Orc managed to block and dodge some of his attacks, frustrating the Chief.

Rage’s own attacks, however, were powerful, though Stockholm wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing it. He only took a few hits, but the Orc made them count.

Behind him, Stockholm heard another discharge from the zombie’s mecha weapon, and once more he prayed he didn’t get hit. When the sound passed, shock registered in Rage’s eyes. He used the hesitation to land a vicious uppercut on the Orc’s jaw.

Rage stumbled backward, falling flat on his back after a few stuttered steps.

The Chief turned, and saw a triumphant smile on Norman Adwar’s face. The Engineer had the mecha weapon, and had blasted the head of the zombie clean off of its shoulders. The ancient body slumped to the ground, truly done in.

“Rage! We’re out of here,” Lain shouted as she avoided getting shot herself. The Necromancer sprinted past Stockholm, weaving to the side as he grabbed at her, and laid a hand on the Orc.

A moment later, she drew out a piece of paper, and the two Midnight Suns disappeared in a flash.

First blood has been drawn, Anna thought as her Hoods gathered in around her. And from the look of us, we were the ones drawn from.

* * * *

Half an hour later, Flint and Stockholm had regenerated their wounds.

Anna led the way again with Lee Toren next to her.

Nobody said much of anything, choosing to remain quiet and alert as they made their way north again, at a much slower pace than before.

The hours wiled away, and as the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, they realized that they would have to camp out for a few hours at least before making their way to Prek.

Stockholm cooked the meal again, while Styge and Flint laid out everyone’s sleeping bags.

Anna, lost deep in her own thoughts, looked over at Norman, who had taken apart the mecha weapon he’d received earlier.

He was inspecting the device intently, trying to see if it was marked with a date of creation. Of course it isn’t, he thought bitterly. I could only be so lucky.

How far behind Fly are we now? Anna wondered. Two hours, three? It didn’t matter, she decided. If he got himself and his men around Anna’s group, as she suspected he had, they could already be in the village of Prek. However, if Reynaldi and his posse holed up in an Order of Oun fort, it wouldn’t matter what kind of a lead Fly got on them. The Black Draconus was a Ninja, as were two of his companions. Lain McNealy probably couldn’t come within five miles of a Paladin or Knight without her presence and nature being felt.

Anna smiled to herself a little. Her own troop wouldn’t have any trouble getting into a fort, so long as Lee made himself scarce. After all, he was a well-known criminal across Tamalaria, especially among the Paladin forts. Only one ranking member of the Order, Byron Aixler, had ever pardoned the Gnome. Even then, the Paladin had only done so to recruit Lee for his own purposes.

“How’s the jaw holding up now, Flint,” she asked the Wererat as he took a seat next to her on a fallen tree they had gathered near to set camp.

“Just fine, boss.” He shook his head dismally. “Never expected to get hit so hard, you know.”

Anna looked into the Wererat’s eyes, and saw there that he was reliving the blow. “I can’t remember the last time someone that strong just, you know, out and wailed me one.”

“You should have known better, lunging in like that.” Stockholm didn’t move his eyes from the meal. He started serving portions into bowls and handing them around to the members of the company. “You may be quick, Flint, but you weren’t a match for Rage head-on.”

“I didn’t exactly have the element of surprise or any sort of urban sprawl to use to my advantage,” the Wererat said testily. “I’m not some freakish, moody bruiser like you are, my red friend,” he spat.

Now he had Stockholm’s attention, as the Werewolf was done handing out the food except for his own. Flint had his bowl in hand, but kept his left hand empty, available for action.

“Boys, there’s no need to squabble,” Lee Toren said around a mouthful of food. “Each of us brings somefin’ different to the table. Styge,” he said.

The old Illusionist looked up from his bowl, which already sat half-empty in his hands.

“You’re good at what you do, and what you do is distraction, misdirection and deception of the senses.” Lee looked over to Norman, who had reassembled the mecha weapon before starting his meal. “Norm, you’ve got a knack fer technology, me bucko. Big advantage over Fly and ‘is lot. Flint,” he continued, though the Wererat was still glaring at Stockholm. “You’ve got some quick wits in that head of yours, and you’re very personable. You can get without much effort what a bloke loik meself ‘as to bust his arse for. Stockholm, well, you’re pretty obvious, ain’t yeh.” Lee chuckled but he saw that the big red menace wasn’t amused. Instead, the Red Tribe Werewolf simply lowered his eyes and started eating. “And then, of course, there’s William, who keeps us all wrapped togever and on the same page.”

“Well said, Lee,” Styge said between mouthfuls. “William, are we camping for the night?”

“Just for a few hours,” Anna handed her emptied bowl to Flint, who set it aside to be washed when everyone was finished. “I’ll keep watch with another volunteer.”

Stockholm raised one paw halfway to the air, and they all finished their meals and headed to their sleeping bags. Styge rolled up Anna’s and Stockholm’s before nipping off for some sleep himself, leaving only the Red Tribe Werewolf and the woman they all called William Deus to keep watch.

Fifteen minutes into the watch, Anna still felt unsettled by the tension between her Guild Prime and Chief. She would normally have kept an eye to the north and west of the camp, while Ignatious kept an eye on the south and east. Instead, she sauntered over to the stoic Werewolf.

His arms were crossed over his chest, and he scowled off to the east as she approached. Before she could open her mouth to speak, he whispered to her, “I’m sorry about before, Will. I should not have been so foul with Flint.”

His back was still to her, and for a moment, she thought she might leave it at that. But no, she thought, there’s something else there, something weighing on his mind. He never opens up to anybody, and that’s got to change.

“It’s all right, Ignatious.” She put a hand on his elbow to catch his attention.

He turned only his eyes toward her—a disquieting look. When a man stands a good foot and a half over you, and has the head and some torso elements of a huge, red timber wolf, you only see one big eye swivel down at you. She felt him looking not at her, but into her, searching out the secret she held.

“To tell you the truth, he frustrates me sometimes too. Now come on,” she said, giving him a friendly punch in the arm. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

     At first, he remained silent, glaring down at her with that one visible eye.

Her nerves stood on end. Something primal, far down in the core of her body, told her to run as far and as fast away from this beast as she could. Yet her feet remained planted, unmoving.

Finally, he let out a huge sigh, and half turned to face her better, his hands still folded over his battered chain shirt. “There’s a lot on my mind, sir. Like how you crept into my room yesterday morning and tried to set my picture back without my noticing.”

Anna’s heart jumped up into her throat—he’d been asleep. She had been absolutely certain that he’d been dead to the world asleep when she picked up the portrait. Didn’t he ever just lie there and rest?

He waved one hand to dismiss her worries. “Don’t worry about that, Will. Everyone gets curious now and again—can’t help themselves.”

“Anything else, big guy? And I’m really sorry about that.” She patted him on the shoulder. Quite a reach to do that, she thought.

“Some other things.” He started to walk the perimeter of their camp. “This trip, for instance. I haven’t wandered outside of the city in years, and I’m afraid I might not want to go back right away when we’re done. I like the wilds.” His deep, rumbling voice carried easily on the night air.

She followed a few paces behind him as he walked along, checking the surroundings every minute or so. They appeared to be in the clear, but in the plains, forests and hills of Tamalaria, one didn’t take chances. Monsters and hostile highwaymen roamed everywhere, leaving no one unmolested.

“Plus Lee,” she offered.

He grunted. “Yeah, plus him. Do you know why I dislike him so much?”

She shook her head, because she honestly didn’t. She had suspicions, but nothing confirmed.

“Because he knows something about me that none of the rest of you do, and he shouldn’t,” Stockholm said. “He knows a secret I’ve been keeping from all of you, and it’s not something small.”

“Is he blackmailing you with it?” She was truly worried for both Stockholm and Lee, for different reasons.

Stocky shook his head and let his chin drop toward his chest for a minute.

“No, though I’m surprised he hasn’t. And he never reminds me that he knows, but he couldn’t possibly have forgotten what he saw,” he growled.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve got a few secrets of my own.” Anna felt the wraps pressed down over her breasts. Her whole existence as William Deus was a cover-up, and she knew if her cover were blown, she’d be pretty steamed too.

Stockholm nodded, suddenly wheeling on her, leaning down close, the tip of his snout almost touching her nose.

“I know,” he said, but there was no hostility in his eyes, or his tone. “And I know that whatever your secret is, you think you’ve got good reason to keep it from me. But Will, I get the distinct impression that Flint knows your secret, and that eats at me. I’m your Chief, William—have been the Guild Chief for over twenty years. I’ve never sought promotion, because I’m not a real thief. I’m a fighter, a brute, William. A bruiser, as Flint puts it so liberally.”

Anna could have been mistaken, but she thought she heard a pang of guilt, or sadness, in his voice.

“A fighter, yes,” she offered. “A bruiser, maybe. But not a brute.” She stood directly next to him. “And certainly I know how intelligent you are. You’re very well read. Even though some of that’s because of your age, which I don’t know precisely, a lot of it is your own willingness to learn. Stocky,” she said, looking up into his deep, crimson cast eyes.

She feared asking him the question, but all this talk about secrets was starting to make her feel guilty as sin that she had only shared her own with Flint. Stockholm was loyal, efficient, trustworthy, even if he was a tad enigmatic. She decided that she would tell him her secret. That she was really Annabelle Deus. “Stocky, what is it that Lee saw? What do you guard so closely?”

And so he told her.