It was now four hours to midnight. 20:00. The Knees final had begun, and the sunset was now entering its final stages of becoming night. Torches were now being lit across the city as many of them made their way to the arena. The Chairman was already there. Sitting in the middle of a now mercenary-filled square, Anson sat, staring at dead bodies in front of the Sovan Local Chapter. He counted at least fifteen.
Wiping his face, Anson wanted to ring Deo’s neck until his eyes popped out. The situation could have played out so much differently if there was a proper plan in place. Standing back up, he couldn’t believe that he had lost track of the bald man and those people who almost burned the shares. They are sure to crop back up. If only Deo did this, did that. Anson threw up in his arms in frustration. It doesn’t matter anymore. So many excuses, so many failures, yet here he was. With the Kadon shares, Anson now controlled a little over 120,000 shares or a little under thirty-four percent. The remaining eleven that weren’t in the Chairman’s hands sat in a vault in the stock market. Most likely crawling with city guards, waiting for the inevitable battle.
Now moving without a crowd, Cyril got off the stagecoach and made his way to Anson. “What a disaster,” he said without exchanging any greetings.
“How did you guys agree to this?” Anson asked.
“It was sort of a rush I suppose by the time we began to push people, I realized that we screwed up, but it was too late. Vasos is losing it.”
“And you?” Anson asked, turning to the man. “Are you not?” He gave out a fake laugh, first not believing he didn’t have a stronger tone in his voice, and two, trying to keep his own rage in.
Cyril didn’t respond, only staring ahead toward the local chapter. Anson looked forward too and saw a man crawling toward a woman of his age. There were only about two meters apart, but the man seemed to crawl for ages, reaching out his arms in an attempt to grab the woman’s. His limbs were obviously crushed, even from a distance, he used his shoulders to inch his way forward. Other mercenaries watched two as they grouped together in their designated squads. Many looked in horror, some amusement, but most only looked for a moment before turning away. The worst part of it all, the woman was dead, and it wasn’t even hard to tell. Here face had been smashed into the dirt, leaving only a couple centimeter thick skull.
The man who crawled, however, seemed to not care as he grabbed the dead woman’s arms and wept. Cyril looked away for a moment before turning back again and stared at the man. “How are we not monsters?” he asked. “I was even the one to suggest swarming them. It was with mercenaries only, but the principle is the same. It’ll be a miracle if less than a hundred people die at the arena. Or at least at this rate it will.” He then, slowly, but seemingly convincingly himself to do so, surely walked to the man.
Anson observed Cyril take a jacket off of another man’s body, clean it of any obvious damages and kneel down to the man as he now covered the woman with his own body, trying to hug her, but to no avail. Picking the man up, Cyril began to tear up himself as he wrapped the man in a jacket. Many mercenaries watched, including Vasos and Deo who now stood at the opposite end of the street near the local chapter’s entrance as Cyril picked the man up, all the while comforting him. He brought him back toward the fountain and laid him near on the elevated ledge, where the man was able to take a few drinks of water.
Anson now was only about a meter away as we stared at the man trying to complete the most basic of tasks. Gasping for water, his broken arms and legs were of no use, eventually resorting to, with the assistance of Cyril, being placed on his knees as he leaned forward to drink. Like an animal.
Turning back to where Deo stood, Anson took a deep breath before sternly making his way toward the man. Breathing faster, twitching his face, and clenching his fist, Anson began to yell at Deo once he came within earshot. Deo shook his head in response, seemingly tired of Anson’s range, but his mood immediately shifted when Anson pulled out his knife and pointed it at the man. “You’re not going to kill me?” Deo asked sarcastically, though still keeping his hands near his hip, ready to pull his own knife now.
All the mercenaries watched now as their two bosses clashed with each other. “I’m considering breaking my rule with you,” said Anson.
“But you’re not. For this little group we have at least.” shot back Deo. “If any of you were, Vasos, who is right next to me, would have stabbed ages ago.”
Glancing toward Vasos, Anson’s head immediately asked why the man of such uselessness was still here. “You remember where that stagecoach went?” Anson asked Vasos. Nodding, the man asked why he made such an inquiry. “Go to it and stay there until the operation is over,” explained Anson. Vasos became confused, but before he could ask any questions, Anson yelled at the man to go, to which Vasos immediately followed, running down the street running to where he last saw the stagecoach heading to the stock market.
“I killed a friend,” threatened Anson. “And you are not a friend, so if you are not out of my fucking sight within the next five seconds, I will kill you.”
“Bullshit that you killed your friend. Now I am starting to doubt you are even a real mercenary,” mocked Deo.
Anson paused for a moment as he wondered if he should reveal the truth to Deo. He shouldn’t have the privilege of knowing. This sad excuse of a man? However, I need to make him believe I am not bluffing. Pulling out the medal from his pocket, Anson showed it to Deo.
The man’s expression dropped as he leaned in closer, not believing what was in front of his eyes. “How did you get that?” Deo asked, shocked.
“Don’t ask such stupid questions. Now, are you leaving or not?” Anson stepped closer with the knife.
“Was your friend a griffin? Titus? Was Titus for friend?” Deo asked, mockingly yet confused. “Did you steal that off of your dead friend’s body.”
“What I did directly killed my friend. And no, I did not fucking steal it.”
Deo didn’t respond for a moment as he looked at the mercenaries watching. Most of were concerned and confused, some were scared of what was about to break out, while there were a few who didn’t give a second glance. “What are you doing Anson?” asked Deo. “Earlier in the day you somehow convinced Baldwyn to continue saying that he and his daughter are putting themselves at risk if they try to escape the city, but now you tell me to leave? We’re in. We can’t leave.”
“A lot less people would die if you left.”
“A lot more people would die if we failed the operation, and the Chairman goes on a purge of the population.”
Anson lowered the knife. Deo might have been right and even if he wasn’t there wasn’t much that he could do about it. He’d lost control. Approaching Anson, Deo asked, more quietly this time if he had actually killed a griffin. Anson looked him straight in the eyes and said: “No, my friend did. It was his medal,” before turning and telling everyone to make their way to the arena.
#
Anson, Deo, and Cyril arrived by foot, a couple of minutes before the rest of the mercenaries thirty minutes later. Together the three of them stood next to each other looking upon the gigantic arena that stood in front of them on the waterfront. The eighty-meter-tall walls toured over the buildings surrounding it, leading to most having little natural sunlight in the daytime.
“What the plan?” asked Cyril. “The rough outline we discussed earlier still the one?”
“More or less,” responded Anson. “However, we probably need a couple of more men with us. Maybe fifteen instead of ten.”
All agreeing, they all stood there as they waited for the rest of the mercenaries to catch up to them. It would only take a couple of minutes, but it allowed Anson to notice something was still happening. The fire back at the Kadon Headquarters was still ongoing and seemed to be spreading. It was amazing that most of the civilians didn’t bat an eye, probably making the same assumption Anson made earlier “They’ll figure it out.”
But as he stared up at the glowing fireball in the distance rising up as the smoke blended in with the sky on a partially moonlight night, Cyril said what Anson was beginning to think. “You think there is something wrong?”
“This isn’t part of the plan, is it?” asked Deo. “A fire?”
“It was supposed to be put out by now.” Anson said. Looking away, he tried to hope for the best, saying: “Even if the fire is bad and keeps spreading, it won’t affect us before midnight.”
Deo still didn’t know what was happening and asked what building was burning to which Anson informed him that it was the Kadon Headquarters and they had started it. “I thought the deal was back on with the Kadons, why’d you burn it.”
Taking a moment to think about it, Anson turned away as the mercenaries came within sight. “Telling you would jeopardize the deal,” he said as a cover. But the thought of telling Deo about the time that he killed a man in cold blood wasn’t something Anson wasn’t willing to do at the moment, or maybe, even ever.
Approaching the crowd of mercenaries, he picked fifteen group commanders to accompany him while half surrounded the outside of the arena, waiting for further instruction, while the other half, began to close in on the stock market about a twenty-minute walk north of where they were, also on the seaside.
The mercenaries now went to their positions as eighteen men, including Anson, Cyril, and Deo, huddled together near the outside of a shop discussing the plan. First, they would find where the Chairman’s private box was, then approach from different sides. One for each entrance into the box so no one could escape with the shares. But that would only happen after Zeki’s game was finished. In the meantime, they would watch and observe to see if they could bait the shares out of the box, so they wouldn’t have to tear out floorboards.
All understanding, the group remained together, but spread apart enough so not to attract any unwanted attention. They stripped down to more basic clothing so not to be recognized as mercenaries but kept their belts on with a small piece of red ribbon tied to it so they could not forget each other—one of the group commanders picked them off a dead Sovan’s body.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Avoiding the main entrance, the group went around to a custodian’s entrance away from where the bright torchers illuminated their faces. However, there were still four city guards protecting the exit, though by now they had lowered their guard and begun talking to each other. Anson went along with a group commander who had a bow and arrow as they hid behind some supply crates outside the arena labeled for emergency deliveries. The group commander pulled back on his arrow, but before he fired, Anson told him to aim for the body to avoid killing them.
The man followed the order, and the arrow flew right into one of the guard’s lungs, causing him to collapse. The other three sprang into action, pointing their spears into the darkness but it was no use, they were now surrounded by eighteen people and Deo ordered them to lower their weapons. They seemed liked men with families, so they immediately put their spears down and walked away from the entrance. Opening the surprisingly unlocked door, the men entered, half going one way, the other going the opposite.
Passing through dimly lit hallways at the base of the arena, Anson could hear the stomping of the bleachers above him as the crowd erupted in cheers and boos every twenty seconds or so. It took about five minutes of walking to finally find an entrance leading to the general stadium section as they passed by kitchens, coaching staff, triad members, and even some guards as they all seemed to recognize the group, especially Anson, Cyril, and Deo from the wanted posters, but none dared try to stop nine men marching down the stadium.
The entrance to the general area was a ramp that led to food stands right outside another entrance, but this time to the important part of the arena: where the Knees game was taking place. To enter there, the men had to march up another ramp, and as they did the volume increased. The stomping and cheering from the fans seemed more akin to a riot compared to a sporting event. Finally, the ramp opened up to the interior arena area and Anson and the rest of the men stopped in their tracks as they absorbed what was around them.
To their left stood tens of thousands of Sovans while on their right stood tens of thousands of Kadons. Each side held handcrafted banners depicting the Knees player that came from their people. Anson stood in amazement as he looked upon a fifty square meter cut out of Zeki’s face while on the other side stood a cut out of similar size for the Sovan Knees player.
This was when Anson remembered that Zeki was here and looked toward the middle to see the Knees game, but his view was spoiled by hundreds of ground level seats, which provided no use as everyone was standing. Not able to see his associate, Anson began to look for the man that they came for. Ordering everyone to spread out, Deo and Cyril were the only men to follow Anson as all of them walked up and down the steep arena walkways. Missing a step could send a man stumbling down as there were no handrails or wide enough steps to catch the tumbler.
The arena had two tiers of seats separated by a middle tier of private boxes reserved for the wealthy and stockholders. As Anson kept looking it felt like he was hearing a faint noise behind him, but whenever he slowed down to hear it, it seemed to go away, and he went back to looking for the private box with the Chairman. It wasn’t until Deo grabbed Anson by the shoulders that he realized that Deo had been trying to get his attention this entire time, but it was simply too loud to hear.
“Which box is it?!” he tried asking.
Anson simply shrugged as the scouting team never told him. Continuing up the stairs, the three of them soon found themselves at the top of the first tier, looking slightly upward, trying to spot the Chairman’s face. While looking, Anson glanced done every now and again to watch the score. Zeki was winning 35-30 with an hour left. It was only Knees game that Anson had been to and seeing everyone freak out over what looked like to be a weird dance between two men bobbing back and forth reaching for each other’s knee kept distracting Anson more than what he liked.
Though, he continued looking at the boxes, going left to right, the ring of boxes seemed to be indistinguishable as people spilled into other private boxes, climbing the railings that separated, making friends and few enemies with the people next to them. After spending five minutes looking at the boxes, Anson began to wonder if the Chairman was in one of the boxes on the opposite side—or the ones right above them—but Deo suggested waiting a little longer in case the Chairman was simply away at the moment. They kept looking at the game score kept going up. Soon it was 40-40 with fifty minutes left. Deciding enough was enough, Anson began to move to the other side, heading back down the stairs and into the outside ring of the arena, so he could circle and enter through another stairwell on the opposite half.
Deo and Cyril followed, probably figuring that the odds that the Chairman would be gone for this long too low, and it took about ten minutes to get to the other side, but as soon as they ascended the stairs and looked back to side, they were just standing, they saw him. Right above where they had been standing for minutes. The Chairman in all his arrogance sat in a leather chair with an assistant in his ear, probably giving the latest updates on the coup attempt.
Anson stared at him for a moment. Around fifty years of age, skin smoother than any poor civilian, his hair was short and curly, fingers danced up and down as his eyes darted around the arena, and stared at any man who walked passed his seat to examine who and what type of man just appeared before his eyes.
“It’s him,” Anson calmly said.
“Yeah, it’s him,” Deo responded. “So, what now, we just stare at the man?”
“We wait for him to leave, yeah.” Anson affirmed. “In the meantime, let’s find a place to look at him where he can’t see us.”
But before they could find any spot, Cyril spoke. “The shares are under the floorboards, so why don’t we just break into the floorboards through another room, and crawl to them?”
Anson and Deo paused for a moment as they thought about it. “I don’t see why not?” Anson said. “Deo?”
#
The three of them stood outside the door of a private box, three rooms away from the Chairman’s. Getting passed the security up to the private box level was pretty simple. A quick punch to the gut from Deo followed by a knockout kick from Anson was the guard fell to the ground.
Looking through the door’s window and into the box, it looked like a standard rich person’s party where everyone seemed fake and was most likely only here to make connections. “Alright, everyone have any questions before we go in,” asked Anson.
Cyril and Deo looked at him blankly like he just asked them if he was growing a tail, but there was indeed a question. “How long until we back out?” asked Cyril.
“What do you mean.” Anson asked,
“If the shares aren’t there?”
Anson fell silent for a moment before answering. “I don’t know, we’ll know if it comes to that.”
Then they entered the room with Deo pointing his sword at everyone with Anson and Cyril behind him with their knives. “Everybody listen up!” Deo announced. Everyone in the box turned around as Anson closed the door behind them and pulled down a privacy cover. “I am going to put my sword down. Everyone act as if everything is normal, and you are enjoying the game.” The rich patrons of the private box looked horrified as Deo flashed his weapon so everyone could see. “We are not here to rob you or hurt you. So, stay put where you are, and everything will be fine. And yes, that means no one is allowed to exit the room. Does that sound like a plan?”
All the patrons nervously nodded as Deo put his sword away as Anson and Cyril lifted a carpet and began to pry away at the floorboards. Deo, on his part, walked up to the front, all the up to the small balcony that the box had and looked three rooms to the right. After looking and coming back he quietly told them that the Chairman hadn’t gone anywhere. Cyril nodded while Anson had a completely unrelated question on his mind. “What’s the score?”
Deo swung his head back in confusion and repeated the score. “52-48.” He spoke. “Why?”
“Who’s winning?” followed up Anson.
“The Sovan.”
Anson shook his head as they were able to get the floorboard open. “It would be a shame if Zeki lost after everything that happened.”
Deo didn’t respond to the comment as Anson and Cyril broke open more floorboards until it was enough to squeeze down into. “Cyril, you head toward the outside of the arena, I’ll head toward the middle. Sweep as much as you can after heading down three rooms.” Anson said.
“How am I going to know if I made it three rooms down?” asked Cyril.
“I’ll know,” simply responded Anson as he pointed down. Below the normal floorboards was an extra set of floorboards for supporting the private boxes so if one of the ones broke, a person wouldn’t fall down all the way down to the first tier. “I’ll be able to judge where we are. I’ll use where we first saw the Chairman as a benchmark.”
And so, the two were now in between two sets of floorboards as they inched their way toward where the shares were supposed to be. Crawling through the floorboards almost made Anson puke a few times. It was only big enough for Anson to crawl through with no extra room. He even got stuck most of the time, only covering ground when he inhaled. A few more times, Cyril thought he was permanently stuck but with some encouragement from Anson, the man kept on crawling. There were spiders and bugs all of his body, and there was no way of avoiding them as they covered every single square millimeter of the floorboards.
Lastly, Anson couldn’t exactly crawl in a straight line as there were support beams going through the two sets of floorboards that were aligned properly. Actually, they weren’t properly at all, Moreso resemble a blind man hammering nails into a wooden board. When Anson saw this he knew that it would take a lot longer than he thought.
Twenty minutes passed and the two men were almost three rooms away if not already. Anson kept looking to his left to see between the floorboards to examine where exactly he was in relation to the rest of the arena. It seemed he had made it, now opposite of the middle staircase that he first spotted the Chairman from, but there were no shares to be found. This didn’t immediately concern Anson, however, as there was plenty of places to look.
The two men kept on looking, slowly crawling toward each other, but the shares still couldn’t be found, even worse was what a distant voice was trying to yell at them. The first couple of seconds just sounded like gibberish and Anson stopped crawling to listen. It was Deo saying: “He’s gone!” in the loudest voice he could without attracting notice from other private boxes. “The Chairman has left the game!”
Anson looked over to Cyril. He also had the same expression on his face. It made no sense. Anson thought to himself. Why would the Chairman leave the final with ten minutes left? Wouldn’t he want to be in the spotlight when the game was over?
“Heard!” Anson said back, hoping that the people above them also didn’t hear. Deo seemed to understand as he no longer yelled at them. Looking at Cyril, he told him to head back to the room. “I can’t do that,” Cyril said. “It took twenty minutes to crawl here.”
Anson sighed and realized the man was right. How were they going to get out of here? “Alright, look for five more minutes and then we leave.” But as time passed and they were about to head back he looked up and saw it. It was in the actual private box instead of the floorboards. A wave of joy passed through his body seeing the shares but sunk realizing they weren’t in the floorboard. It was a glass case full of shares, judging from the number of bundles, about 20,000 shares, just enough to get a majority, combined with the amount they were about to get at the stock market.
However, he had no idea he was going to get to it in time. There was no guarantee that the shares weren’t about to be moved to be alongside the Chairman as he had just left. So, with no other option, he decided to use the only tools he had with him and not head back. Telling Cyril what he had found, he explained the new plan and went to work. Taking his knife, he laid right under the shares were. The case was on a small, hip tall table near the side and front of the private box. Slowly, Anson poked the floorboards, quietly and carefully removing all the nails except just enough to keep the floor together.
He then looked outside. As he was now near the front of the floorboards, he could see the scoreboard. It said 65-64 in favor of the Sovan. Not wanting to spoil the final moments of Zeki’s hard earned right to play in the game, Anson waited out the remaining thirty seconds. Now, it seemed he was no longer concerned with the money, only begging for Zeki to win the game, and with fifteen seconds left the game was not tied 65-65. A rush of cheers shook the floorboards, almost causing the floor to cave in on its own. Anson moved out of the way in preparation for the table and case of shares to fall through. Looking below him, he ensured that there were no spectators below him, only a row of seats that had been abandoned as fans moved toward the front in preparation to storm it once the game was over. Deo’s voice echoed through the floorboards one again as there was no communication to him about what the new plan was. “Did you find it?” he asked. There was no response.
With five seconds left, another wave of cheering and screaming consumed the arena as someone scored another point. Anson didn’t know who it was as Deo voice fell onto Anson’s ears once again as Deo repeated his question. The cheers from the crowd weren’t helpful as well as Anson’s forgetting which side of the stadium held the Kadons and the other the Sovans. Annoyed he wouldn’t know right away, there wasn’t anything he could do as he took a deep breath as he laid on his stomach, ready to take the last nails with one swift motion of a knife, cutting them all out. Looking at Cyril once last time, who was behind him, he nodded and cut the nails.