The assailants who had surrounded Anker were nine in number. Seven of them had positioned themselves around him with knives in their hands, while two others, with revolvers loaded with Black Powder, held him at gunpoint from the rear.
The man with the fox-like face, from his vantage point on the landing, shouted at Anker: «We have no intention of harming you: hand us your Symbjorms and you can leave here without a scratch.»
«That was my goal from the start: what price do you offer?»
«Perhaps we have misunderstood each other, friend. Yours will be a generous donation to our cause.»
«Oh no, I'm afraid that won't work. I'm almost broke and my escape to the League of Free Communes in the north can't get off to a good start if I don't have some cash in my pocket.»
«You heard him boys. Let the dancing begin!» the man with the fox-like face shouted theatrically.
One of the seven, short and with a mustache, lunged at Anker with a thrust. Anker responded by summoning a compression and decompression sphere in front of him. This spell, not being associated with a steel projectile as the knight often used, did not have the power to injure the opponent, but it made an enormous bang that stunned everyone present, including the thug with the mustache, who, unable to restrain his momentum, lunged sideways to avoid the unknown attack.
Anker took advantage of his bewilderment to deliver a spinning kick straight to his temple. That was enough to knock him unconscious. Anker lowered his leg back to its resting position, crouched down to pick up the thug's fallen knife, enchanted it with a guidance spell, and hurled it at the dominant shoulder of one of the six remaining enemies who was in a clear trajectory; the latter, due to the excruciating pain, dropped his weapon and started to back away screaming.
Perhaps it was because they were caught off guard by Anker's ability to use magic, or perhaps because they didn't expect him to manage to take down two of their own so easily, the fact is that the faces of the enemies turned into masks of terror. Even the fox-faced man turned grim and perched himself on the railing of the landing he was on to study the fight more closely.
Anker exploited the moments of terror he had instilled in the assailants to infuse his staff with a corrosion enchantment and to cast a smoke bomb at his feet, as well as a reptilian vision spell.
The five remaining attackers had to react, and tried to take advantage of the narrow space of the alley to hit Anker all together. However, they were slashing the air blindly, and Anker began to beat them one after the other, effortlessly avoiding their slashes.
Thanks to the power of corrosion, a single blow, delivered without any particular energy, was enough to render them harmless. As if coated with digestive enzymes, the small cudgel melted clothes and ate away at the skin and subcutaneous tissue of the enemies, exposing the hypodermic fat or even the muscles.
He took one on the flank, one on the hand, another on the forehead. All three fell to the ground with excruciating screams, especially the one hit in the forehead, whose skin stretched due to the tension to which the skin covering the skull is subjected and whose eyes injected blood due to the reflex hyperemia of the irritation.
Hearing those inhuman screams, the two men with the revolvers, outside the smoke screen, lost their composure and started firing repeatedly into the pile, hoping to stop Anker's relentless advance. Seven or eight explosions were heard, but none of the bullets hit Anker, not even a scratch. Instead, one of the two remaining uninjured enemies and the one who had already been shot in the shoulder were hit, collapsing to the ground in a pool of blood.
Anker didn't want to inflict further pain on the last remaining assailant, who had lowered his knife and was backing away. He simply delivered a kick to his chest, knocking him breathless to the ground. As the last of the seven flew to the ground, Anker shoved his cudgel back into his belt and pulled out his grappling hook attached to the elastic rope, before firing it straight at the arm of one of the two gunmen, the one whose hand was not holding the grip of the pistol. The tip of the harpoon sank into his flesh, and Anker pulled him into the smoke cloud. He snatched the revolver from the eighth helpless enemy and grabbed him from behind by the throat, as if he were going to use him as a human shield.
There was no need for that because the second gunman had no idea where to shoot and hesitated. Anker, on the other hand, who had a clear view, shot the last enemy's dominant shoulder and then the fox-faced man's right leg. The first bullet hit its target without a problem, while the second deflected, as if it had encountered a force shield along its path. Anker tried to fire a second bullet at the enemy's head, but the magazine was empty, so he simply threw the gun to the ground and strangled his hostage until he passed out.
The place had been cleared, and Anker emerged swaggeringly from the dissipating cloud amidst the groans of the suffering enemies.
«Perhaps we would have done better to listen to you and pay right away,» said the fox-faced man, his arms dangling from the railing of the third floor.
Anker continued to advance towards him, without saying a word.
«You've proven your worth, fugitive, so stop now. You'll have your money, but first I want to hear your story.»
Anker stopped his march and asked, «What do you care about my story?», expressionless.
«I want to know who I'm dealing with, for starters. And then, well, if I like your answer, I might have more to offer you than just money. For now, I can only intuit that you're not a bad person. You haven't fatally injured any of my men, you haven't taken advantage of Nika, and I even saw you save that brat from the lockup at the market. But you're also capable of using magic, and that's not a power given to many.»
«I don't have much to say. I'm one of this year's Rejected. You know, it's not very pleasant to know that you'll be excluded from the Adoubement after ten years of study, training, and suffering. That's why I chose to have the last word on the farewell of those pieces of shit. I stole four "worms" and ran away. If this cesspool of filth and corruption doesn't need me, I'd rather go into hiding somewhere where my qualities will be more appreciated.»
«And what led them to reject you?» the man asked, with avid curiosity.
«I'd say that's none of your damn business.»
«I understand the frustration, I won’t pry on you any further,» the man agreed. «So, what is your name?»
«Artolt of Fontebruna.»
«What if I told you that I can offer you an interesting alternative to running away? What if I told you that we can fight to tear our homeland from the foreign yoke? Take back our home, clean up the 'filth and corruption' that plagues it, Artolt?»
Anker let out a hearty laugh, put his grappling hook away, and searched in a pocket of his trousers without seemingly finding anything. Finally, after tidying himself up, he said: «It's not very polite to ask someone's name without revealing your own.»
«You're not wrong, Artolt. My name is Frankleon of Corlona, but call me Frank,» said the fox-faced man. Then he pulled out a crumpled manifesto from under his padded coat and showed it to Anker. On it, apart from a banal insurrectionist motto that read: "The mountains belong to the wolves and the Ferlonians. Our fangs will be at your throat, invaders," a symbol was clearly visible in the center representing a stylized mountain and a rising sun, a fist was raised towards the top of the mountain with a V underneath.
«Me and Nika are members of the Sanchirian Wolves, an anarchist group. We handle the procurement of resources and materials here in Corlona. Even the ones you brutally beat up are our low-ranking affiliates, but we hold no grudge against you for the treatment you gave them. You were just defending yourself, and with honor.»
«Come on! Brutally beaten up is an exaggeration. That’s nothing that a gauze soaked in Venemesta Lily infuse and Velubrum Carnosum gel can't fix. As for the ones who shot each other, well, that wasn't my fault.»
Frank smiled and asked Anker, «So, what do you think of my proposal to join us?»
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Anker shrugged and said, looking up at him, «To be honest, Frank, I'm not that convinced. Look, the knights of the Order of Ferlonia are strong, let me tell you that from someone who's met them up close. A few Symbjorms aren't enough to defeat them. I can give you the benefit of the doubt, but I reserve the right to run away if I realize you're just looking for trouble.»
«Oh, trust me, we have a lot more than a few tricks up our sleeves. Let me introduce you to the others, you won't regret it.»
*****
Anker, Frank, and Nika reached the Sanchirian Wolves' hideout in an anonymous black carriage, riding for an hour along the paths north of Corlona.
Frank used the journey to continue his indoctrination of Anker, while Nika occasionally let herself go with some much more mundane comments. The conversation had been sparked by the passage through a shantytown just outside the center, just beyond the station. Shacks of rotten wood and sheets of metal perforated by rust, without running water. Dirty women with infants clinging to their breasts went to fetch a jug of water from the public fountain in the square. Scabbed and emaciated dogs fought over a rabbit skin. Eight or nine year old boys helped their father or uncle straighten out bent irons collected from who knows what landfill to build who knows what devilry. Crippled old men without teeth sat in the cold mud of the streets.
«These men deserve a much more dignified life than this. All men deserve a more dignified life than this. We have the technology, we have the magic. It is outrageous that so few benefit from a well-being that could be within everyone's reach,» Frank said with anger and contempt.
Since the Kingdom of Ferlonia had been founded and the feudal fracture had been healed, nothing bound the serfs to their noble master anymore, except for disadvantageous but consensual sharecropping contracts. Many then broke them and came to the city, in search of work, wealth and fortune. Not everyone found what they had left for. Anker said, «At least they are free now.»
«Free from one tyrant, slaves to another. A distant, hidden, foreign king, who demands taxes and levies drawn at random without guaranteeing any rights for the citizens.»
«Things weren't much different before the Avuelite rule.»
«They weren't. In fact, it can be said that after the disaster of the fall of the empire and the subsequent cataclysms, things have only improved. But they are slow, delayed improvements. We are always the ones left behind. The Kingdom of Gregheria has a constitution, the Free Communes of the League democratically elect their representatives, some independent islands are secular. Here there are no laws that apply to everyone, there are no inviolable rights. The only law is the power of the knights, the ministers of the Zephyrian faith and the old barons who have the money and the lands. If it's just a game of power, we just need to have more of it than them to rewrite the rules.»
«I don't know Frank, I told you already, I think differently. Not that yours is not a noble aspiration, but those who possess the power you speak of, as much as they love to play war with each other, are very good at maintaining the status quo. If they feel a threat is looming, they take a second to smooth out their differences and unite against the common enemy. And then, after all, things are not going that badly. Somehow, with subterfuge and theft, everyone manages. There are better places, certainly, but no authority really has the power to stop us from reaching them. If one has the acumen, the skills, the enterprise, there are no roads closed.»
«And what if one doesn't have the acumen, the skills, the enterprise, Artolt? Is it fair that he lives like a worm? We want a world where everyone has the opportunity to study, to improve themselves, to be healed when sick, to work for a fair wage. A world where everyone can speak freely and feel represented.»
«Seems like you've found your match, brother. You're two old fools making pompous and useless speeches,» said Nika, annoyed, looking out the window of the carriage, where the buildings were becoming increasingly sparse and the countryside took over the landscape.
«Are you his sister, Nika?» asked Anker, with exaggerated animosity.
«Yes, so what? Can't you see how much we look alike?»
In fact, they both had wavy black hair and irises between brown and reddish. Both of their skin was olive-colored. Both had the same sly expression on their face.
«And would you have been okay, Frank, with her having sex with me to steal my Symbjorms? Would you have let her go all the way?» Anker asked with concern. He couldn't help but think of his little sister Verunia. The last time he saw her was when he was still in the ninth year of the academy, during his thirteen days of leave for the Silifico month festivities. It would soon be two years. The following summer she had entered the convent to begin her religious studies, and they had not had the opportunity to meet again at their parents' house. Nicaria must have been about the same age as her.
Frank said, with extreme crudeness: «We haven't had an easy life, Artolt. We've had to swallow much worse things.»
«Would you think I'm rude if I asked you to tell me a little about yourselves, Frank?»
Frank replied that no, there was no problem.
Theirs was a bourgeois family from a town in Hither Sanchiria, more or less of the same social class as Anker's, who was the son of a royal bureaucrat. Nika was born when he was seven years old. At that time Frank wanted to enter the Golden Fox Academy in Tarterno, exactly as Anker did when they were the same age.
But their mother died giving birth to Nika, and their father started to drink and neglect himself and his business. Every now and then his father would get angry and beat him, and he had to learn quickly how to take care of his little sister. When he was nine years old, and in retrospect all hope for the future was already ruined, his father killed himself. Until then, Frank had tried to hold on, but at that point everything was destined to crumble despite all of his efforts.
Their father had left no debts, but not a large inheritance either. Among other things, some profiteering relatives had come out of the woodwork to grab the little he had left and throw them into an orphanage.
They had managed to free themselves five years later, when Frank had found a job. He helped out in a construction company. He was given all the most unwelcome and dangerous tasks on the scaffolding. Since he was thin, he also had to finish the work in the most claustrophobic spaces, such as chimneys and storage rooms. They paid him eight grains a day and they lived in a hut with a straw mattress and a fireplace. The older workers said he had to pay his dues. He endured that hard life until he was twenty-four, and he had made some progress in the company: he was reliable, respectful, tireless.
One day, two masons fell ill and did not show up for work. After a particularly grueling day, as he had to do the work of three, Frank returned home to find something strange about Nika. Initially he wanted to brush it off: the day had been terrible and he just wanted to sleep. But the atmosphere was heavy, not a word was being spoken, and Nika looked disheveled and dreadful. Then Frank noticed bruises on Nika's arms, neck and one cheekbone, and he began to reconsider the past few months. Certain things had imperceptibly changed.
Nika was often preparing sandwiches with ham and cheese instead of the usual bread and tomato in the summer and bread and cheese or bread and omelet in the winter. Occasionally, they had chicken, and there were a few sausages around the house. New sheets and a quilt without holes had appeared. A couple of extra lamps hung on the walls, and the oil to light them was always available. Even the firewood for the fireplace seemed more abundant than in previous winters, making the cabin's temperature more pleasant. He had seen her in at least three new dresses in the last month, clean and of good quality.
Frank asked directly what had happened, but Nika responded evasively. However, her brother wasn't willing to let it go. He apologized for not noticing certain details earlier, absorbed as he had been in work over the past few months, but the signs of bruises on her body were too evident to ignore. Nika started crying and slowly revealed her secret.
During the previous summer, tired of the meager life she led with her brother, she started stealing. At first, it was petty thefts. A few almost rotten peaches from the fruit stand. Then some rags and a couple of household items. As she gained skill and learned to empty the purses of shoppers crowding the local market with the delicacy of a shadow, her vanity and audacity also grew. Her escapades were no longer aimed solely at survival but also at satisfying her vanity.
However, that day she made the mistake of rummaging through the wrong pockets. She had spotted Frank's two colleagues who had skipped work while getting drunk in a tavern along the main street. Since she knew them a bit and they were in such a state that they probably wouldn't notice being lightened of a few coins, she distracted them with some trivial chatting and stole a good haul.
However, she had underestimated their sobriety. After a few hours, they showed up at the door of their cabin and forced their way in. She returned the stolen money, but they still punched her in the face until she fell to the ground.
Perhaps Nika hadn't told the whole truth, perhaps the matter needed to be analyzed more dispassionately, but the evidence of those bruises on the beloved sister's face made Frank lose his mind. He couldn't process his sister's story beyond the last sentence she had uttered. He grabbed a kitchen knife from the table and broke into the two masons' houses that same night. He proceded to slaughter them in their sleep, and no one was alerted as they lived alone. After that, he stole one of their horses and fled with his sister to Corlona before dawn.
In an attempt to find someone to cover their tracks, they met a certain Clesbius. It was Clesbius who found Frank a new job and a new identity and brought him closer to the Sanchirian Wolves. Clesbius was one of the three heads of the organization. To Frank, that man was a friend and a savior. The clarity of his moral compass and his determination gave him the idea that he was the only hope for the wrongs of Ferlonia to be one day righted. Two years had passed since then, and everything finally seemed to be going well. The organization had finally obtained a lot of funding and support, and Clesbius had asked him to start working for him full-time with his sister.
Nika said something stupid and funny to lighten the mood after the harrowing story of her life.
Despite Nika's attempt, she could not shake off Anker’s uneasiness. He felt a spark of sympathy and compassion ignite for the two anarchists. He and Frank weren't so different after all. In a just world, Anker could have met Frank at the academy, maybe they could have slept in the same dorm or both could have joined the automation club. Frank could have had something to teach him when he was still a freshman. It wasn't a matter of acumen, skills, and enterprise. It's just that everything had gone smoothly for him, and not for Frank.