Chapter 13: The Thief on the Road, Part 4

When Valerie had suggested bringing in Arden, she'd been hoping he would talk a bit of sense into List. Maybe suggest some refinements to plan and a better timetable. 

She hadn't expected him to look dead at her and ask, "What do you think?"

Then she had to think about hitting the Pavers. Really consider it, like it was a viable course of action, and not just a crazy idea spun out of the head of a revenge-hungry hellborn. Because Arden did. If he hadn't, he'd have shut them down then and there.

And that was how the three of them ended up climbing down a well at the edge of town, Valerie and Arden dressed in outfits List had "found" that would blend in with bandits and thieves that ran with the Pavers.

A quarter of the way down, Valerie, in the lead again for some gods forsaken reason, found a part of the wellshaft that was recessed from the rest. When she pushed on it, it slid away, revealing itself to be a door. She had to admit, it was a pretty good secret entrance. The facade on the door blended with the rest of the wellshaft, and it was far enough down to make spotting it difficult without being so far down that the climb would be a hassle.

Inside, they found a stone tunnel lit by the same kind of smokeless torches found in the Scaled Maiden, ending in a set of stairs. No sooner had List and Arden gotten inside than a figure appeared at the top of the stairs, and all Valerie's whole body froze.

The Paver walked down the stairs, absentmindedly chewing on a bagel. Without so much as a glance at Valerie and barely half of a nod toward List and Arden, he strode straight past them to the door, gripped the remainder of his bagel in his mouth, and began climbing up and out of the well.

Only when he was gone did Valerie remember how to breathe.

"That was too close," she said.

"We're fine," List said. "I told you. All we have to do is look the part, act like we belong here, and we'll have free roam of the place."

"It does make a degree of sense that they would only expect their own members to enter through the wel," Arden said. "Still, rather sloppy and overconfident on their part."

"I'm not complaining," List said as they all head up the stairs. "Let's find wherever they keep the loot, and clean them out before . . ."

List trailed off as they reached the top of the stairs, and ran straight into another pair of Pavers, who were both staring at them. A look of realization of what was happening slowly passed over their faces, and List muttered a curse. Arden cleared his throat, and readied his cane.

---

Two minutes later, Valerie and List were dragging an unconscious Paver down a blessedly empty hallway, with Arden close behind and carrying the other.

"What are we doing?" Valerie asked. "There's no way no one heard that."

"So hurry up before someone sees us," List snapped. She grunted, straining under the dead weight of the man. "Ugh. Why is this fucker so heavy?"

"There," Arden said, pointing to a door ahead. "There's not enough structural space for a full room behind that door, it should be a closet."

"Perfect. Hold him, I'll get the door," List said, immediately shifting all the weight of the Paver onto Valerie.

Valerie grunted, nearly losing her footing, and only now did she stop to wonder why she and List had gotten the fat one. Arden's hunch turned out to be correct about the closet, but what turned out to be the problem was getting both of the unconscious bodies they were carrying into it and getting the door shut without horrifically mangling anyone's bones.

"Just shoves his legs up, like—no, up."

"He doesn't bend that way."

"Here, move the broom."

"Be quiet!"

"If we stack them stood up—"

"They don't stand!"

"Just lean them against—no, shit. Just use the door to push him. Just use the door!"

And that was how another Paver walked down the hall to find three people halfway through frantically trying to shove two unconscious bodies into a broom closet. All three of them froze, as did the Paver.

Arden coughed.

"Hello," List began. "I'm sure this looks quite odd, but there's a perfectly ordinary explanation for this."

The Paver gave a very slow nod, then screamed at the top of her lungs, "WE'VE GOT COMPANY!"

"Oh fuck this," List grumbled.

She gave up on the unconscious man she was carrying, let him fall face first into the ground, and instead grabbed a broom out of the closet. Her tattoos ignited in a brilliant red glow, and red lightning crackled across them and down the length of the broom.

She dashed forward, taking the Paver's legs out from under her with one swing and then bringing it down on her like an axe. It was just a broom, and yet Valerie felt the thud that reverberated through the floor from the impact.

"Stay down," List snarled, and the Paver let out a groan of compliance.

"Fascinating," Arden breathed. It was the first time he had ever seen List fight, and his mind was alight in curiosity. He immediately wanted to see more of what the hellborn could do. And as luck would have it, he was about to get several more demonstrations.

Hurried footsteps were echoing through the halls, headed towards them. Valerie searched around, picking up a shortsword off one of the men they'd knocked out. List clenched her broom tight, a grin breaking out on her face.

Then the Pavers were on them.

---

Xigbar set his screwdriver aside as he finished the repairs to his newly pilfered wristbow. The craftsmanship of the weapon was impressive, even in the mangled state he'd gotten it in. A couple of the springs and joints needed replacing, but all of the major components had been intact. After only an evening and a day of working on it, it was as good as new.

Experimentally, he tried the safety a few times, letting the limbs spring into place and then folding them back up. 

Perfect.

The door of the workshop burst open, and Arthur Masters, staggered into the room. A short, bedraggled mess of a man with a mop of brown hair and a face perpetually overdue for a shave, the official leader of the Shadefall Pavers had never had the most put together look. Right now, he was looking absolutely ragged, a wild look in his eyes and tiny slashes all across the sleeve of his shirt.

"Where the fuck have you been?" Arthur asked, pointing a cudgel in accusation.

"What happened to you?" Xigbar asked.

He got his answer a moment later when a broom handle jabbed Arthur in the chest, and he tumbled into the room, knocking over a workbench full of tools on the way down. The broom's wielder followed a second later, and Xigbar's brow ridges shot up.

The hellborn girl from his robbery yesterday stood in the doorway, holding a broom like a battleaxe and crackling with red lightning all across her body.

"Who said you could run?!" the hellborn shouted, before she suddenly caught sight of Xigbar. "You."

"Hellion!" Xigbar greeted. He had about a dozen questions, but none of them were quite so urgent as the murderous look in the girl's eyes. "Think fast!"

Xigbar's armband expanded, transforming from a piece of jade jewelry into living, breathing snake, which Xigbar promptly flung straight at the hellborn. She swatted the animal away with her broom, but the move bought Xigbar time to draw his longknife.

Red sparks danced in the air as Xigbar's blade met the girl's broom, and a faint tingle ran into his palm. The exchange that followed remind Xigbar a lot of the time an old woman had chased him away from her bakery, the major difference being that when the hellborn's broom brushed over his leather armor, it left dozens of thin scratches in it, as if the bristles were made of steel.

"Arty?" Xigbar called out. "A little help?"

Arthur finally dragged himself up off the floor, and threw himself at the hellborn, forgoing the weapon in his hand and opting instead for a full bodied tackle. The hellborn braced with her broom to meet the tackle, but it took pressure off of Xigbar, and he immediately began stalking around to get an angle on the hellborn's back.

Just when he thought he had one, he felt a blade against his throat.

"Remember me?" Valerie asked.

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Xigbar stiffened, but only for a second. "Blondie! Nice to see you again. Did you need something?"

"You could say tha—hey!"

Xigbar threw himself back and into Valerie, sending them both to the floor in a heap that he nimbly rolled out of. She was on her feet just as quickly, and the two of them immediately crossed swords.

---

In the hallway outside, Arden stood alone against the remaining tide of Pavers muscle. He rested both of his hands on his cane, waiting as the enemies rushed forward in the hall. He counted at least six in this group, but the tight space limited how many of them could actually bring weapons on him at once.

With a short prayer, he tapped his cane on the ground, and a shockwave rippled out through the air, blunting the oncoming charge and knocking the two Pavers in the lead onto their backs. Golden light whipped into a frenzy around him for a moment, before, with a gesture of his cane, Arden sent the storm of divine power rushing through the hall. It washed over the thieves in the hall, slicing any weapons they carried in half. When they finally reached him, off balance and largely disarmed, he finally swung his cane itself, cracking one man in the skull before buckling a woman's knees.

For the second to last attack, Arden rested his hand on her forehead, and recited a prayer of pain. The Paver fell back to the floor, muscles spasming and foaming at the mouth.

The last remaining attacker turned and fled.

Arden smoothed out his clothes, and once again rested his cane on the ground, waiting for the next group to come.

---

Back in the workshop, Valerie and List were in a much more even fight. Xigbar's body moved like a liquid, evading her every attack as his blade harried her with counters. Arthur, by contrast, seemed to take every swing of List's broom straight to the face, but simply refused to just. Stay. Down.

With a feral shout, she swung the broom like a bat, sending Arthur crashing into toolbox that emptied its drawers onto him. He had to be concussed at this point, and yet he was already getting back to his feet, seemingly oblivious to the blood trickling down from the top of his head.

"Oh come on," List said. "This is just getting annoying."

Xigbar used the momentum from a parry to transfer his knife to his other hand, suddenly getting his weapon inside Valerie's guard and immediately holding the point under her chin, pressing just hard enough to draw a drop of blood from her skin.

He shot her a grin. “Gotcha.”

Valerie froze, and her eyes instinctively went to List. The hellborn met her gaze for a split second, then scanned their surroundings. She looked to Xigbar, to Arthur, and then finally to the wristbow resting on a table close to Valerie.

List felt the pieces of the room fit together, and a plan formed in her mind. 

"You two," Arthur growled, "are so fucking dead. No one fucks with the Pavers."

"Is that so?" List asked.

Her tail wrapped around Arthur's ankle and yanked. It wasn't enough to take him to the ground, but his footing became unstable, and List pounced. She slipped the broom handle under his chin, gripped it tight on either side of him, and then flung him over her shoulder—and straight into Xigbar.

The thief dodged his companion, but he had to back off of Valerie to do it, and List immediately swatted the wristbow off the table and over to Valerie.

To her credit, Valerie reacted in time to catch the wristbow. For a startled half second, she had to marvel at the fortune of finding the thing, and in working order again. But then, instinct took over. She slapped the weapon back onto her wrist, loaded a bolt from its built on ammo rack, and loosed it—straight into Arthur's hand, pinning him to the floor. She reloaded in a blur, leveling the weapon at a still recovering Xigbar.

“You were saying?” Valerie challenged.

Suddenly in a two on one fight and staring down a crossbow bolt, Xigbar raised his hands in surrender.

"You stole from us yesterday," Valerie declared. "If you don't mind, we'd like our things back."

"Come on,” Xigbar protested. “What kind of thieves would we be if we just gave back the shit we stole?”

“Yeah,” Arthur grunted from the floor. “You two can fuck off.”

List raised an eyebrow. With a casual stride, she crossed the room to Arthur, and jammed the butt of her broom into the small of the man’s back.

“Tell us where our shit is right now, or so help me I will shove this broom so far up your arse, you’ll have a wooden tongue,” she growled.

“Gah!” Arthur gasped. “Saints! Down the hall, to the left. That’s where we keep the loot.”

“Great backbone there, Arty,” Xigbar said. “You’re an inspiration.”

“Fuck you too, Snake,” Arthur spat. “This shit hurts!”

“Oh, he’s getting his turn, don’t you worry,” List said.

“As appealing as that sounds,” Xigbar said, “I think I’ll pass.”

Valerie blinked, and Xigbar disappeared, his clothes crumpling in a heap where he’d been standing. She stood, baffled, until a blue and silver snake darted out from the pile of clothes, streaking out and into the hall. List swore and tried to swat the snake with her broom, and Valerie tried to shoot it, but it slithered just out of the way of their attacks and into another room.

They followed it, just in time to see the snake transform back into Xigbar—now stark nude—as he opened a trash chute. He grinned back at them, and Valerie instinctively averted her eyes to avoid learning more about anima-human biology than she wanted to.

“See you around, ladies!” he shouted, and dove into the chute.

List’s broom sailed after him like a missile, only to embedded itself a foot into the door of the chute. Xigbar was gone.

“Damn it!” List said, red lightning still racing along her skin. “We had him!”

“In our defense, we didn’t know he could do that,” Valerie said.

“Next time we see him, no talking,” List stated. “Just murder.”

“Excuse me, ladies,” Arden said, poking his head in, “but are you in need of any assistance?”

“Where were you?” List asked.

“Watching our backs.”

For the first time, List noticed the corridor full of dazed, unconscious, and convulsing Pavers, and her fury died out in an instant. She’d thought she’d been cleaning house with her broom, but she hadn’t taken half as many people down as Arden had, and he didn’t seem the slightest bit ruffled by it.

“We’re fine, Dr. Siren,” Valerie said, unperturbed by Arden’s work. “And we know where our things are.”

Mentions of loot got List to stop staring at small mob of subdued enemies, and in short order, they were kicking in the door of the Pavers’ vault.

They found baskets full of clothing, some expensive, some simple. A few cases held a collection of stolen jewelry. A rack on the wall held weapons, ranging from small daggers to a halberd. And of course, there chests on chests of scales. 

Valerie immediately set to work collecting not only their own stolen supplies, but as much of everything else as she could carry, and List followed suit, especially interested in the clothing. Arden went straight for the jewelry, ignoring the other pieces in the collection until after he’d found a simple, plain black ring. He clutched it tight in his hand, breathing a sigh of relief, and stuffed it into his pocket.

When they had as much as they could carry, they made a break for the first window they could find, hurled their loot out of it, and then jumped to follow.

The last one out, List paused to look around at the inside of the Pavers’ office one last time. It still galled her that a den of thieves was just out in the open, as if they thought themselves untouchable. Robbing them felt good, but her gut told her she could do better.

She grabbed a smokeless torch off the wall, and ran a bit of her own power through it as she had the broom. The flame changed from a gentle, constant orange to a wildly crackling red, and now it was producing smoke. The walls of the office might have been stone, but there was plenty flammable material inside. She chucked the empowered torch into the curtains, and dove out the wall.

“What did you do?” Valerie asked when List landed.

List turned to look back at the smoke already trailing out of the window. “Sent the Pavers a message. No one fucks with us.”

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