Anduron got up and followed Faeler up the stairs. The upper floor held a lounge, a small gambling room, and Faeler’s office. It wasn’t a large space, but an impressive effort had been put into filling the walls with a large amount of decorations. Old dwarven metalwork, human paintings, and elven woodwork, along with more recent things created by this age of industry, such as an impressive pair of talls lamps, one in each back corner.
Faeler got into his fine leather chair, while Anduron made do with the humbler option in front of the desk. As usual, his eyes wandered to the largest painting in the room, above Faeler’s head: The Last Evil, was the title etched into the frame, and it depicted the final defeat of the last man who’d taken the title of Dread Lord. It had, according to Anduron’s grandfather, been no idle boast. That villain had mastered many of the truly evil magics. But the world had already been changing, and he found that his horde of monsters and orcs and slaves could not prevail against grapeshot and massed musket formations.
It was a very evocative image; cannon fire, smoke, magics, bayonet battles and people on white steeds striking dramatic poses. But what a silly thing, to act as if that day had marked the defeat of evil.
“Every time,” Faeler said, as he lit a fat cigar. “Every time you focus on that.”
“It is beauty, in a way.”
“Yes yes, you like beauty. In a way. I heard your cute little poem.”
“Not my finest work, I’ll concede. But it was off the cuff.”
“Sure. Why are all you gangly bastards so fond of rhyme and song and beauty?”
“Because we think that way.”
“And why do you think that way?”
“I think it may relate to our senses.”
“Your senses, yes.”
He blew a big puff up into the air, adding to the already tobacco-heavy scent of the place. As always, the foul stuff stung Anduron’s eyes and nose, promising him a headache if he stayed too long. He’d never mentioned that to Faeler, but the dwarf’s enjoyment told him he knew.
Faeler grinned, much as he had at Simon.
“So, why are you here? Worried I’m lonely? Or are you just using my policy on troublemaking as a shield against trouble you’ve made for yourself?”
“My problems are my own. No, I have a job, and I’d like to ask you about a hit squad.”
“Oh, ask away, precious.”
Faeler kept sucking on his cigar and blowing out its foulness.
“There are three of them. Two humans, one dwarf. Steady nerves, experienced. One of the humans is nicknamed Slim, and lives up to the name. He has a strong North Shore accent. The dwarf has light brown eyes, and is on the younger side, with that Jota accent. The other human is tall for his people, quite pale, and has calluses on his knuckles, the sort gained by boxers who spend a lot of time at the bag. If they were freelance, they aren’t anymore: They answer to someone, and can reach him directly via a phone call. And at least tonight they were driving a real beater: An old blue Maddow that hasn’t been maintained.”
“I see, I see,” Faeler said as he took this in, and Anduron was a bit relieved to see actual contemplation, in place of further subtle theatrics.
Still, they weren’t friends. In fact, every time they met Anduron had to be mindful of the fact that it wouldn’t take an unlikely roll of the dice to make them enemies. So the teasing, calculating light in the dwarf’s eyes came as no surprise.
“But tell me, Anduron: Why do you expect me to help you? Favours are my favourite currency, and you steadfastly refuse to find yourself in debt.”
“I am as certain as I can be that they do not answer to you, Faeler. Nor to anyone who answers directly to you. They may be capable, but they are far from subtle. And I know you like things quiet and orderly.”
Faeler threw up his hands, and grinned in that wicked way of his.
“Hey now. I am but a simple bar owner.”
Anduron sometimes wondered if that particular brand of obvious lies was the result of deeply buried guilt. If Faeler, on at least some basement level of his soul, felt the disgrace he was to his father’s legacy.
“My point stands,” he settled for saying out loud. “They are not yours. And men like that who are not yours are liabilities, and potential problems in the future. And there is the matter of their master. I do not need to pay you, Faeler, because you can help yourself by merely giving me some names and a direction, and then sitting back in comfort.”
Faeler’s face did a fast, subtle journey from irritation, to acceptance, and back to that friendly mask.
“No, they are not mine. That is true.”
He sucked on his cigar some more before continuing.
“It sounds to me like you are describing a small squad that came together a little while ago. The tall human is Jo Murnau, the dwarf is Obnar of Torrin, and as far as anyone can tell, Slim is simply Slim. Murnau boxed in his teens, yes, trying to fight his way out of poverty, and he maintains the habit. They actually came together abroad, at the end of the war, and only moved back here about a year ago. They’ve been linked to some rub-outs, and they have a supposed habit of buying junker cars, the sort people are willing to part with for a bit of cash and without bothering with paperwork, in order to have a car they can just dump after a job without it ever being connected to them.”
This was a lot of detailed information for Faeler to simply have on hand, even by his usual standards. It was a mark of him already having taken a personal interest.
“They were freelance at first, but word has it they’ve found permanent employment. The hand behind them tries to be subtle, but I hear them being linked with the docks. Specifically, the South Yards. And IF true, that means Frank Becker. Do you know the name?”
“I do. Slightly.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Well, that is all you need to get started then, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Anduron said and got up, recognising the dismissal.
“Do stay alive, elf,” Faeler said at his back, with a grin in his voice. “I am certain one day you will need to do proper business with me.”
“You are a very well informed barman, Faeler.”
“Hah.
After closing the door behind him, Anduron slowed his steps. He was eager to get out of the foul-smelling bar, but his mind insisted on absorbing what he’d just heard. He had identities now, but still no idea why Marcus had been targeted. Becker, from what little Anduron knew of him, was one of many like him; small-timers fighting over the gaps left in the city’s underworld by Kenton’s downfall. The killing hadn’t been a matter of Marcus wronging the man somehow; he had known something, which was why Anduron himself was now next in line. And that knowledge was probably the key to ending this situation.
He needed more information on Marcus’s recent life, and he knew where to get it.
Anduron sped his steps at the halfway point down the stairs. He heard some commotion outside; the front door guards challenging someone. That meant the back door for him. He didn’t need to risk getting caught up in someone else’s drama. Not when, if his memory served, the train he needed was leaving in mere minutes.
He was almost down to the floor when the challenging voices became angry yells, followed by quick sounds of pain, loud enough for even the humans to hear over the murmur of the patrons and the awful, tinny music.
The two guards by the stairs reacted, striding forward a few steps ahead of Anduron. In that moment the front door was flung open, and in strode a man in a brown coat and a black hat. An equally black scarf covered everything save his eyes. He moved with a determined, somewhat jerky gait, and ignored the guard coming up behind him until the man grabbed him.
“You punk!” growled the brick-jawed guard, now sporting a bleeding cut across his cheek. The new arrival didn’t have a blade in hand, and as he twisted and retaliated Anduron saw the raw strength that had done the job.
The larger man crumbled up under a vicious hammer-blow to the midsection, and a push then sent him into the men gathered by the bar. The two stair-guards broke into a run, as their comrade slid to the ground at the feet of the drunk and confused patrons.
The stranger continued on, as if heedless of the toughs coming at him. Anduron vaulted over the balustrade, and the man shifted his direction just enough to stay on target, and broke into a near-run.
The men smashed into the stranger, and however strong he might have been, their combined weight and force bore him off his feet and to the floor.
“Fight, fight!” one drunken yahoo yelled, as the scene drew ever more attention.
Anduron hesitated where he was. This was a potential break in the case, if Faeler’s toughs had things in hand. But they didn’t. Each one had grabbed an arm, and one sent a quick pair of blows into the stranger’s hidden face. The stranger reacted by tearing an arm free enough to grab the tough by the hair and pull him aside.
Anduron heard the sound of the man’s scalp partly coming loose, as well as the awful shriek the pain caused. The stranger then clamped the hand around the other man’s throat, and the guard’s shift in priorities actually freed the other hand to do the same.
It was dawning on the closest patrons that this was no mere entertaining brawl, as one guard bled and screamed over his damaged scalp, and the other one’s eyes now bugged out as that strength was applied to his windpipe. The man had the strength to pull both himself and the stranger up, but could not dislodge the death-grip.
Anduron was bumped hard, as a man ran by to get involved. It was a patron, a regular Anduron had seen almost every time he’d visited The Mineshaft, and the man swung a bottle down at the stranger’s head as he throttled the guard.
The first blow dislodged the stranger’s hat a little. The second one shattered the bottle. The stranger swung the guard around, into the new assailant, and then let the poor bastard go. Anduron was just upright and recovered when the man lunged at him. He came at Anduron with a grab, which he evaded. He grabbed at him again, and again Anduron had the agility to hop away. But now he was up against a table, crowded by five men.
He rolled backwards as his would-be killer continued, rolling over the cheap wood and spilling the drinks. He landed on his feet on the other side. The stranger took the simpler option of just grabbing the table and flinging it up in a way, dealing with the drinks that Anduron had missed.
The drinkers were upset, but the stranger had established his credentials fast and hard, and everyone hurried away from him. The scattering bodies continued to make it hard for Anduron to make a full getaway, and the stranger pressed him without a moment’s pause.
Anduron threw himself backwards again, and now rolled over the bar table itself. The stranger caught hold of the trailing coat. He started pulling, but Anduron drew his switchknife and slashed at that part of the hem.
With it being illegal to carry large knives, and with Captain Migg’s desire to nail Anduron for something, he’d settled for sharpening a small one to a razor edge. The cotton in the coat gave way in an instant, and the stranger rocked back from the sudden loss of a weight to pull against.
Anduron rose, and his foe recovered his balance a second later. He dropped the handful of coat, and Anduron saw a lunge across the bar table coming.
The gunshot hit his ears like a hammer, as they always did. The enclosed space only made it worse, and his whole body flinched. The half-throttled guard was alive and conscious enough to have drawn a revolver and put a bullet in the stranger’s back. The stranger simply swiped at Anduron, who ducked.
The guard shifted his aim and fired again, and hit the stranger in the back of the head. Again, the stranger simply ignored it. To be expected, of someone with no heartbeat.
Anduron evaded yet another swipe, and continued the movement sideways. The stranger came over the bar, clumsy but fast. Anduron went under the flip-up counter at the bar’s side, rose back up, and went for the back door as behind him the stranger broke the counter off its hinges.
The back door guards had now rushed inside, drawn either by the gunshots or the preceding chaos. They moved to block Anduron, possibly thinking him the cause of all this, but a quick feint in one direction and an even quicker dart in the other got him past them.
He had a straight path towards the open door and took it. He heard the two new arrivals try and fail to stop the stranger, and charged out into the night.
The Mineshaft had its back to a steep slope on which weak, sickly grass eked out a sun-poor existence, and Anduron now ran the length of it with his pursuer on his tail. Anduron was faster, that much was clear. But his stamina had limits. That of his foe did not. He was indeed marked for death.
At the end of the row he hurried through a narrow side-alley and emerged back out onto the street. The fates did not miraculously provide him with a passing taxi, and so he kept on running, across the street and on, as the footsteps behind him echoed off the surrounding walls. At the end of the block he turned right and arrived at an above ground train station.
Going at his top speed for an extended run like this was taxing, and Anduron felt his reserves gradually dry up, even as the distance between him and the stranger widened. But he made it. He slammed coins down on the ticket booth desk, and the bleary-eyed woman behind the glass slid him a ticket by trained reflex.
“The fellow behind me… I wouldn’t try to argue with him,” he said as he continued on.
The train was about to take off. All passengers had already entered or exited, and the porter was about to close the last door.
Anduron held his ticket up to the porter in passing and got inside. He gripped the slide-door, slammed it in place, and turned the handle. He didn’t duck out of sight; his pursuer wouldn’t be stymied by something so plain. Instead he simply stood where he was, recovering his stamina and listening to the train, and the stranger’s distinctive footsteps, coming at an unstoppable pace.
It seemed like a race for a little while, one where he truly couldn’t tell which would win out. But the train engine got going, like a lumbering giant that needed a few steps to pick up momentum, and began sliding along the platform.
Only then did the stranger come into view, still making a straight line for Anduron. He nearly made it, running along the platform, arm stretched out for the window that shielded Anduron. But he ran out of platform, and stumbled into the gravel beneath it. The train picked up ever more speed, and he watched the still-pursuing figure vanish into the darkness.
Anduron breathed a soft sigh of relief, and sat down.
“I owe him money,” he said to the other passengers.