“Yeah, it’s magic,” Kelsey said, staring at the sky.

“Why?” Anton asked. “Why just make it rain?”

They were in sight of the city walls now. The rain had started abruptly as they approached the city as if they had passed through a curtain. Anton could see a faint glimmer of magic in the clouds, but it was Kelsey who knew what they were looking at.

“I guess… they don’t want the spell to be noticed? If a sudden storm sprang up, people might wonder. But rain… who cares about a little rain?”

“Why do it at all, then?”

“To hide?” Kelsey speculated. “It reduces visibility, people don’t want to go out… It won’t keep them from being found out, but it should give them more time before the alarm is raised.”

Anton didn’t have time to respond, as Zaphar called out another submerged hazard from the front of the boat. Anton grunted with frustration as he veered the boat out of its way.

“The main thing is, this tells us who we’re dealing with,” Kelsey said thoughtfully. “They might have a wizard with them that we need to look out for.”

Anton grunted again, his eyes peering through the darkness. Finally, he saw it. Dark shapes of ships loomed ahead of him. They had reached the docks.

“Take the wheel,” he told Kelsey. “Tie her up… there.” He pointed to where a small hut stood on the jetty.

“That’s gotta be where the harbourmaster is?” Kelsey said questioningly. “Do we have time to go through customs and all that?”

“No,” Anton said. He slowed the engine to something more reasonable and let her take the wheel.

They were passing ships now. Darkened hulks were flaring up with light as the night watchmen realised that something was bearing down on them. Curses started flowing as people saw them barreling past at unsafe speeds.

It helped. Kelsey, Anton and Zaphar all had night vision, but the further away a ship could be seen, the more easily it was avoided.

Anton joined Zaphar at the prow of the ship. He drew his sword.

“Hey, hey,” Zaphar stammered. “I did good, right? We didn’t hit anything on the way here.”

“It’s not for you,” Anton chuckled. “Help Kelsey tie up once we’ve stopped.”

A lantern had been lit in the hut that Kelsey was aiming for, as someone came out to see what all the noise was about. Anton didn’t think it was the Harbourmaster. Someone with such a significant title wasn’t going to be stuck on a jetty at night in the rain. The man emerging to peer about in the darkness was probably just a guard.

Regardless, he was probably the one in charge here. Anton had to time it just right. He could have left it to later, but he didn’t want to wait for Kelsey to carefully nudge the Whiskerwind up to the dock. Not that she was being particularly careful. The dock was coming up quite fast.

“Slow down, you maniac!” Zaphar called back to the helm. Anton ignored him. It was time.

Leaping Attack.

The hapless guard screamed and dropped to the ground. He needn’t have bothered. Leaping Attack required an attack, but it didn’t have to be on anything living.

Anton’s sword chopped deeply into the door frame, some little distance above where the guard’s head had been. Anton landed on the wall of the hut, which shook with the impact, but didn’t collapse. Anton was grateful for that. It would have been embarrassing to have the whole structure collapse around him.

The guard squealed so loudly that he might have been stabbed, instead of frightened. Anton looked down at him and leapt down off the wall. He picked the man up by his collar and drew him to his feet.

“I am Baron Nos of Kirido,” Anton said.

“Mercy, my Lord!” the man cried.

Anton shook him. “Are you paying attention?” he asked.

The man nodded fearfully.

Anton growled under his breath. He didn’t have time for this.

“I am here at the orders of the King,” he said, which was technically true. “Right now, I am on my way to rescue my wife from criminals who are assaulting my mansion.”

Something of the man’s regular routine seemed to assert itself. “But—but, you can’t tie up at night, my Lord. There are fees and customs—”

Anton shook him again. “We’ll take care of that later. Right now, I’m going to find my wife and you are going to fetch the guard.”

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“The guard, y—yes, my Lord.”

“Bring as many as you can find, understand?” Anton demanded. “Take this as high as you possibly can. Either because you believe me when I say that there is a mercenary company assaulting my mansion, or because I need to answer for the damage and the injuries that I’ve done here.”

“In—Injuries, my Lord?” the man asked, trying to sound ingratiating. “You haven’t done any injuries here.”

“I believe that’s my cue!” Kelsey said, jumping from the now tied-up Whiskerwind to the dock. “You want his legs broken, or just his arms?”

“Mercy, my Lord!” the man cried, attempting to flinch away from Kelsey.

“That was a joke,” Anton said, glaring at Kelsey. “No one is going to hurt you. Do you understand what to do?”

“Y—yes, my lord.”

“Take this as high as you can,” Anton warned him. “It might be expecting too much to have the King woken tonight, but I want him to be aware. This is his peace, that these mercenaries are breaking, and I want them to answer for it. I’m going to be at the townhouse that used to belong to Baron Anat. Bring them there.”

“Yes, my Lord. I’ll—I’ll try.”

Anton let go of the man. He stumbled, almost falling, and then bowed hastily.

“Well? What are you waiting for? Get moving!”

“Y—yes, my Lord!” the man said, and dashed off.

“Kelsey, Aris, you’re with me,” Anton said. “Zaphar and Soraya, you need to stay on the boat. Let’s not have foreigners running around tonight.”

“Aye aye, sir!” Zaphar said quickly. He gave Anton something that might be a salute.

“I’m not a foreigner!” Cheia said brightly. “I can come!”

“You’re the ship’s gunner,” Anton replied. “You need to stay with the ship.”

“What!” Cheia gasped. “You’re using my job to keep me out of danger? That’s not fair!”

“Fair or not, get used to taking orders,” Anton said. He looked at Aris who gave him a grateful smile. “Let’s go, everyone. Kelsey, which way do we go?”

Kelsey looked at him quizzically. “Why are you asking me?”

It turned out that Kelsey didn’t know the streets, because Suliel didn’t know the streets.

“She takes a carriage everywhere!” Kelsey said. “Sometimes she looks outside, but it’s a very disjointed experience of the outside, let me tell you!”

That didn’t exactly matter, because they knew that the townhouse was in the Noble’s Quarter, which was in the upper half of the city. All they had to do was head uphill.

“We should find ourselves a carriage, though,” Kelsey said. “Not only will it be faster, but it’s their job to know where everything is and the fastest way to get there.

Anton agreed, if only because it would mean getting out of the rain. He didn’t know how he was supposed to tell a carriage for hire from one owned by a rich family, but the point was moot. There weren’t any carriages about.

They’d moved well out of the dockyards before Anton saw a carriage. It wasn’t just one, there were four of them parked outside of what looked like a pub. He quickly headed for the entrance.

There was a boy outside, sitting under an overhang, just barely out of the rain.

“Are those carriages for hire?” Anton asked. The boy looked at him and blinked slowly.

“Normally, yeah,” he said. “But no one wants to drive in this weather. The drivers are all inside, they paid me to watch the horses.”

For the briefest of moments, Anton wondered if it was okay to leave the horses out in the rain while the drivers stayed inside to get dry and drunk. Then he remembered that he had more important things on his mind. He pushed his way inside the building.

It was warm and dry inside, a sharp contrast to the cold and damp he’d come in from. Anton pushed further in, allowing the girls room enough to share the warmth. The smell was less welcome, though it wasn’t all that unpleasant. Anton knew the smell of stale beer from the pub back home.

There was a small stir when he entered. People looked his way and then turned back to their conversation and drinks. Anton thought there might have been more of an effect if he hadn’t been blocking their view of Kelsey and Aris.

“Is anyone here a carriage driver? We need to get to the Noble’s Quarter!” he called out. That got attention, but not much of it seemed positive. Some people turned to see what would happen next, but none of the drivers that Anton knew must be here chose to speak up.

“Ain’t no one wants to drive in this weather, boy,” someone called out, “They’d rather—”

“We’ll pay one gold for the trip,” Kelsey announced. She stepped around Anton and held up a single coin.

Anton wasn’t sure that the men in here could tell it was really gold. In the dim light of the lanterns, even a silver piece would glint yellow. But the promise of it motivated an immediate response.

“That’s a lot of money to be flashing around, girl,” a seedy-looking man, said, jumping out of his chair and approaching. His eyes fixed on the coin, he didn’t seem to notice Anton until Anton stepped in front of him. He tried to push Anton out of the way and seemed surprised when Anton didn’t move.

“What of it?” Anton asked. He gently grabbed the man’s wrist and removed the man’s hand from his shoulder. He moved it slowly, giving the man every chance to resist, but Anton’s Strength was much greater. The man stumbled back, the naked greed in his eyes replaced by fear.

“Ah, nothing, nothing. Must be nice being rich and all,” the man spluttered, backing away.

Four men, at three different tables, stood up. Two of them were at the same table, and it was the closest of the three. They made it a race to get in front of Anton, while the other two cursed and gave up.

“I need to get to Baron Anat’s townhouse,” Anton said.

“Aye, I know where it is,” one of them said, just ahead of the other. Anton looked at Kelsey.

“He seems a little less drunk than the other one,” she said.

“Good enough. Let’s go.”

Things went much faster by carriage. Even the gates of the inner city are swung open wide for a fast-moving vehicle. Anton had told the man to hurry, and if the rattling and swaying as they went around corners was any indication, he had obeyed.

Then, the carriage shuddered to a halt, the driver pulling back on the horses and leaning on the brake. They stopped so suddenly, that Anton had to catch Aris to stop her from being flung forward.

“Are we there?” Anton asked, poking his head out the window.

“Nope,” Kelsey answered.

“Reckon this is as far as we go,” the driver said, pointing ahead. Two hundred yards down the street, four soldiers with pikes were standing in front of a gate.

“That’s the gate to the Baron’s estate,” the driver said. “But that ain’t any noble’s livery that they're wearing.”

Anton looked up. The sky was still covered and dark, and the man had spotted the mercenaries from this distance.

“Good eyes,” he commented.

“Wouldn’t be driving at night, if I didn’t have a Trait for it,” the man said.

“Fair enough. We’ll get out here.”

Stepping out of the carriage, Anton felt the rain start to drench him again, negating the efforts of the warmed towels that Kelsey had provided in the carriage. He ignored it, focussing his attention on the soldiers.

“Pay him,” he said to Kelsey, leaving one scrap of awareness for the man who had got him here.

“Should I shoot them from range?” Aris asked.

“No,” Anton replied. “Let’s see how close we can get before they raise the alarm.”