Chapter 14: Chapter thirteen

If you find yourself facing a Yarrlish juggernaut, I suggest you do your best to kill them in their sleep. If that is impossible, but you can catch them out of their armour, then a squad of men with crossbows have a reasonable chance of taking them down. Failing that, manoeuvre them into a conflict with a Justice or a sparkshaper. If none of these is possible, and you find yourself facing an armed and armoured juggernaut in open combat, you have two options available: the first is to run, the second is to pray that the ground opens up and swallows them whole. Both have similar chances of success.

• Shadows of Inveritus tactical manual.

 

Sal sat at his table, idling chewing the remains of a sub-par scone. He had been waiting almost half an hour and he was getting bored of it, especially since the restaurant he was waiting at didn’t make very good food. He knew better than to go to a meet too early and not give Sarina a chance to properly scout it out though. A half-hour head start was quite a lot, but this Bracken fellow he was meant to meet with was apparently a particularly dangerous man and a particular bastard besides, so he trusted her judgement. Besides, what’s the point in hiring a bodyguard if you aren’t going to let them keep you safe?

Once Sal was satisfied that enough time had passed, he stood from his table and walked briskly towards the orchard where they had agreed to meet. The eastern outskirts of Cadersville was full of orchards, and the cover the trees provided meant that they made for good discreet meeting places when it wasn’t picking season. Sal might have called them a good place for shady dealings, except that he was better than that.

This orchard was older and smaller than most. Many of them had been planted when the mine started to slow down and those with money realized they needed a new way to keep making it. This one predated the boom and had a more personal, if less efficient, feel to it. The flipside of that was that the spacing of trees wasn’t as regular and it provided much better cover for anyone planning on sticking an arrow in Sal and taking the Dagger off his corpse.

Sal pushed those thoughts from his mind. They wouldn’t do anything to keep him alive and they certainly wouldn’t help him negotiate with a crime boss. Better to keep his mind on the plan. It was a pretty good plan, if Sal did say so himself. Selling the Dagger, even at the heavily discounted rate he was offering Bracken, would get him enough coin to live on for years to come, as well as get something he could track into Bracken’s compound and, with any luck, lead him right to the lumographs he was meant to steal for Carrus. And the timing couldn’t be better. If this opportunity hadn’t come along, he would have been forced to sell the Dagger for whatever he could get, or else throw it away. He would be loathe to get nothing for it, as it was worth a king’s ransom and change, but he couldn’t keep it on him indefinitely. He figured he probably had less than a week before the agents of the Tower found the Dagger. And that would mean Hunters. There are a lot of things Sal would do for money, but fighting Hunters was a few miles past where he drew the line.

Sal might have his flaws, but suicidal idiocy wasn’t among them.

After a long walk through the trees to get away from prying eyes, Sal reached the appointed meeting spot to find Philious Bracken, flanked by two large goons with swords and two more with crossbows, waiting for him.

“Howdy,” Sal said nonchalantly, taking a bite of an apple he had plucked on his way through the orchard. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a bag of money hidden in one of those crossbows.”

Bracken chuckled. “Don’t worry. I brought the money. These men are here to improve trust. I find people are much more honest with weapons trained on them.”

 “Fair enough,” Sal said. “I should let you know that I also brought someone—” He tossed his apple into the air. An arrow struck it through the middle and it hit the ground in two pieces. “—to build trust.”

Sal had already had one buyer decide it was cheaper to kill him than pay him for the Dagger, he didn’t want to deal with another. All the attempted backstabbing, not to mention front-shooting, was making it hard to earn a decent wage as a thief. It was enough to make him consider a career change to more honest work. Almost.

Bracken shrugged. “Only fair I suppose.” He produced a small bag from his coat and opened it to reveal large diamonds. “I assume these will do for payment. Now, show me the Dagger.”

Sal took it from his coat and unsheathed it partway. Coils of mist came off its blade and rose into the air. “Satisfied?”

Bracken’s piggy eyes revealed that he was. He looked at the Dagger like it was a ripe fruit ready to be plucked.

Jokes on you, Sal thought. This apple is poisoned.

“Mostly,” Bracken said. “Though I am a little bit suspicious at the price. An item like that it has to be worth three times this much.”

More like ten, Sal thought, though he kept that to himself. “My original buyer and I had a disagreement, and I’d rather have some money today than hope for more someday.”

“And you don’t want the Tower to find you with their Dagger,” Bracken added.

“Well, yes. I would advise that whatever you’re planning to do with it, you do so cautiously. If the monks find out you have it, they’ll come after you hard.”

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“And were you planning on telling me that if I hadn’t brought it up?” he asked, his voice dangerous.

“Yes,” Sal lied. “Right after I checked your bag of gems to make sure it wasn’t full of rocks.”

Bracken seemed to accept that.

“Okay. Here’s how this is going to work. You place the Dagger on the ground and I’ll do the same with the diamonds. We can circle each other, confirm that everything is as it should be, and then all go home without anyone sprouting feathers.”

Sal nodded and placed the Dagger on the ground with one hand, being careful to keep his eyes on the thugs in case they got any funny ideas. Bracken did the same with the diamonds and they started to circle each other.

Sal heard something heavy, like a huge animal crashing through the woods. Before he could turn around, something hit him like a runaway horse and the world turned sideways. There was a crashing sound and Sal was facedown in the dirt.

Something thunderously loud was moving towards Sal and he, belatedly, realized he should probably be moving. He started to get shakily to his feet, and then strong hands were pulling him up and away.

“Move faster,” Sarina hissed, practically dragging him along. “We need to get out of here.”

He tried to run, with mixed results. His body was responding weirdly, and everything seemed too bright. He turned back to see what had happened and almost fell over at what he saw.

Apparently, what had hit him, as well as Bracken and his thugs, was most of a modestly sized tree. It was resting atop one of the thugs with a crossbow, who was looking rather dead. The others seemed to be largely unscathed but they didn’t look like they would stay that way for long. They were being charged by an enormous man in armour that looked like it weighed more than he did. He carried a massive hammer, as long as a Sal was tall and with a head that looked like it would take two strong men just to lift.

A Yarrlish juggernaut.

Sal redoubled his efforts to escape. Sticking around with one of those nightmares incoming would be just a messy, if fairly efficient, form of suicide.

He heard a heavy thunking noise from behind him, presumably a crossbow bolt being stopped cold by the juggernaut’s inches-thick armour.

Sal heard a crunching sound from behind him and then a wet gurgling. He turned his head to look and immediately wished he hadn’t. Bracken and his two goons with swords were running for their lives, but the remaining crossbowman had either been slower or more stupid and the juggernaut had got him. The man had been struck with such a powerful blow that it had crushed his head into his neck and his neck and shoulders into his torso. He was still on his feet, but only because the force of the juggernaut’s attack had driven his feet a few inches down into the dirt.

The juggernaut himself was looking around for something.

Sal hobbled for all he was worth, leaning on Sarina as she half-dragged him along.

Sarina led him out of the immediate area and then practically hauled him up a tree where they could hide. They sat there for what felt like a really long time, Sarina’s hand firmly over Sal’s mouth in case he tried to speak. Sal hurt everywhere and something warm was dribbling down the back of his neck. He figured he must have just been clipped by that tree, since he could still move at all, but that was still a lot more getting hit by a tree than he was really comfortable with.

Eventually they came down from their hiding place and started to make their way back into town to get Sal some medical attention. It was a miserable walk. By that point the fight-or-flee rush had worn off and he was feeling thoroughly wretched. What’s worse, he hadn’t even gotten paid.

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