Of course it wasn’t that easy. The first problem was that the city had imposed a curfew and it was difficult to move around after dark. Bethan and Nedric were able to move fairly freely in their guard’s outfits but the others didn’t possess them and the two rangers were too large for the theatrical outfitter to have anything that fitted them.
This meant that they had to wait until he had made the outfits to the size required. That meant a further three days of sitting, planning and eating. Nedric was glad that they had earnt a lot of money as entertainers as they were rapidly spending it. The cost of food in the city was rising every day as people were hoarding.
At least they had time to review their plans and polish them. They bought more food, partly to eat whilst they waited but more for if they managed to escape the city and trek through the back routes of Nothering. They’d already purchased the water bottles and bedrolls and had stored them at the inn where they had left the wagon.
Nedric really wanted some of the things that they had left at their house but he couldn’t risk returning to it. He wasn’t sure whether they would be able to get the stuff they needed as entertainers in a village and even if they could they would leave a memory that the shadow guild could track.
He wasn’t really sure that they even wanted to try to be entertainers. The wagon would slow them down and make it easier for them to be followed and caught. On the other hand, without the wagon the pass wouldn’t do them any good. It was a tricky problem and they argued the point for several hours.
The general consensus was to take the wagon, with the knowledge that they could always abandon it if they really had too. Rialto was for buying a wagon in a town far from Fusdown. He reckoned that now harvest had been and gone, there would be plenty of wagons available.
The discussion on the plans grew more animated and argumentative the longer the group stayed below ground. The two rangers and Rialto were more or less recovered and anxious to be moving around. Walking through the sewers didn’t really help, as the gloom and general decay was depressing.
Nedric knew that they needed to be doing something positive and soon or the group would start to break down. It was going to be difficult enough for them to raid the building for a second time, if they weren’t working as a team it could be disastrous.
To try and ease the tension they started to play a card game. They split their money evenly and decided on the game that Nedric had last seen played on the boat to Elseth, two years before. The beauty of the game was that it took a long while to play and therefore wasted a lot of hours.
It was no surprise to Nedric that Rialto was a good player. It was the merchant in him; he spent most of his time getting the best result from any transaction and the same skills helped at cards. Nedric himself was a reasonable player, his skill stemmed from his ability to memorise what cards had gone. It was easy compared to picturing a whole plank of wood in your head.
They were initially surprised that Daiga was also extremely good. If Nedric had been asked beforehand which of the rangers would have played the best he would have said Scabad. The quieter, thoughtful ranger was an adequate player but he never took a risk and that meant he could be beaten by those who did.
The worst player was Bethan. The ex-soldier admitted at the start that he had no luck at cards and managed to lose a lot of money very quickly. After a while he stuck to only small bets and slowed down his rate of losing, without actually showing any more ability to win.
Eventually the wait for the uniforms was over and they could get on with the raid. Nedric felt his stomach churn with tension as the starting hour approached. He wasn’t sure if he could cope with the wait he would have to endure before it was his turn to be part of the action.
* * *
The first part of the plan was to get the rangers into the guild building. As the place was slightly detached from the other buildings and was regularly patrolled, this was not that simple but they had thought of a solution that might work. The group left the sewers and dressed as guards marched through the night time streets.
It was Nedric who walked in the middle of the group carrying the ladder. Although it was unlikely that anyone would notice a transparent ladder in the poor light, the way Nedric was walking would have attracted attention from anyone who cared to look closely. They avoided this by having the taller rangers ahead and behind him, whilst his smaller colleagues walked fairly close to his side.
Because the city authorities had imposed a curfew on its citizens, there were very few people on the streets and those that were disappeared as soon as they saw the guard uniform. It had made shopping difficult over the last day or two but they had bought everything they actually needed before the curfew had been imposed. Nedric was of the thought that all the curfew did was to make the population uneasy. It gave more credence to the rumours that the Setherland raids were having a bigger impact than they probably were.
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The walk through the streets went smoothly and they arrived at their destination without a problem. The rangers had previously determined that this was the best site from which to start their rooftop excursion. Nedric leaned the ladder against the wall with some relief.
They had all been carrying bags and these were passed to the two rangers who took them up the ladder and onto the roof. They came down long enough to shake hands and receive good luck wishes from the others. When the ladder was hauled out of sight, the three returned to the sewer to wait for dawn.
The rangers clambered across the rooftops, carrying the bags and ladder. There was little movement in the city and nothing to disturb their journey. Most of the buildings they travelled over were administrative so there was nobody likely to hear their footsteps. Nevertheless the rangers moved as quietly as they could.
Eventually they arrived at a rooftop separated from the roof of the guild building by a ten-foot gap. This was the most dangerous part of their manoeuvring. The ladder was about twenty foot long, so would span the gap comfortably. The roof they were on was flat but that of the guild building was sloped. They were aiming to rest the ladder on the very apex of the roof and have one ranger support the ladder whilst the other crossed.
To make matters worse, they could see and hear the guards patrolling beneath them. If they could see everything then the guards could do the same, especially if they were to look up at the wrong time. It was essential that they were silent.
They timed the guard patrols. Although they were somewhat erratic, there was always at least a two-minute gap. They waited for one to go past, allowed a minute and then manoeuvred the ladder into position. Trying to position a heavy ladder, that was virtually invisible, without making a sound, was an extremely difficult task and they could hear the guard approaching as they finally managed it.
They ducked down into the darkness, as the guard passed. Waiting for him to retreat they discussed the next part.
“Carry the bags or rope them across after you’ve crossed?” asked Scabad.
“Rope them, do you fancy having them hanging off you as you cross?”
“Not really.” Scabad grinned wryly.
Scabad secured the end of the ladder and Daiga crawled across to the other roof as quickly as he could safely manage. There were a few wobbles as he got closer to the other end and he slowed down. He had no intention of falling the fifty feet or so to the ground.
Once across, he secured the end of the ladder by rope to one of the chimneybreasts. Waiting for the next patrol to pass, he signalled by pulling on the rope that connected him to Scabad that the bags were to be sent across. This was done by attaching them to the rope in twos and letting them slide along the rope. Once they were across he attached them to the rope that was holding the ladder and signalled for Scabad to bring himself over.
Daiga did his best to prevent the ladder from wobbling as his friend crawled along it. Perhaps it was because the roof was slightly damp or perhaps it was Scabad putting his weight unevenly on the ladder but there was a sudden jolt and the ladder tipped sideways sending Scabad into space. Daiga did his best to brace himself holding the ladder and trying to clasp the roof with his legs.
When the jolt came, he felt like the rope would be pulled through his spine. He held on and the ladder didn’t move more than a few inches. He was about to call out when he heard a guard turning the corner and walking towards them.
For Scabad the fall had come with no warning and no time to grasp the ladder. He knew a moment of panic as he fell straight down and then the rope caught him and he had to move his legs quickly to stop from being crushed against the wall. As he hung there, the rope digging in to his armpits he heard the guard and froze.
It seemed to take forever for the man to make the short walk along the side of the building. Scabad couldn’t even turn his head to follow his progress as any movement might attract attention. As he waited he heard the sounds of another guard coming from the opposite direction. The two met and talked somewhere beneath his feet. He realised he had been holding his breath and had to force himself to let the air out slowly.
“Seen anything?” The voice drifted upwards.
“Not a thing. No one is going to attack now anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Because they know we are ready for them. Anyway they got their people out so why would they want to come back.”
“I heard they were meant to be after the girl on level two.”
“If they wanted her they could have got her on that raid, there were only five guards left standing at the end and they had already killed more than that. They could have done whatever they wanted in the building.”
“So why are we out here patrolling?”
“Senior officers and barn doors. Got anything to drink?”
“Just a little brandy, want some?”
“Thanks friend, catch you later on.”
Scabad heaved a sigh of relief as he heard the guards move off. He reached up to grab the rope and hauled himself up the wall, inch by painful inch. When he reached the roof Daiga helped him to pull himself onto it before yet another patrol passed underneath.
Once the guard had moved on, they quickly brought the ladder across and rested it between two chimneys. They had hoped that there would be an access to the roof but they couldn’t see one in the dark and so took the alternative route of removing enough tiles to provide entry. They were careful to remove ones that could not be easily seen from the ground and did their best to replace them after they entered the loft space. All this was done with minimum lighting and in as near as possible complete silence.
The loft was obviously not used often. Within two steps Daiga was brushing away cobwebs and when he lit his black lamp he could see his and Scabad’s footprints clearly marked on the floor. They were prepared for this and Scabad pulled a cloth along behind him that obscured the betraying marks although it did clean the area somewhat and it was possible that someone might notice this. They doubted that anyone would be up in the loft during the time they planned to use it.
They reached the loft access and carefully prised it up. They had been prepared to deal with bolts holding it in place but this piece of preparation was unneeded. They had maybe two hours to distribute the contents of their bags before retreating back to the loft and waiting for the others.
In the bags were several boxes. Daiga and Scabad took care to hide most of these boxes in hard to reach places on the top three floors. With each box they lit a slow fuse that would burn for five hours before doing its job. There were three special boxes that they made sure were placed in the least disturbed areas of on each floor. These had longer fuses and hopefully would have their effect at roughly the same time as Nedric’s other distraction. They had acquired a second watch to ensure that the timing of the two surprises was within a few minutes of each other, with the special boxes reacting first.
With all their preparations in place and having avoided the attention of every guard in the top half of the building they returned to the loft to wait for things to happen. They replaced the hatch, found a comfortable place to rest and went to sleep.