Dalthan had been little more than a child the first time he’d killed a man.

He’d been Jack’s age, maybe a bit younger. It happened one winter in Wavecrest, two or three months after old Aunt Ima had thrown him out on his ear for dipping into her jewelry box one too many times. Smiling Sam, Low Town’s most reputable fence, had warned him that borrowing trouble for the sake of the hard candy at Denise Deladio’s general store was a fool’s game. Dalthan had ignored the old codger, choosing instead to escape his sorrows in a sugar-fueled rush that tasted of juicy oranges and crisp apples.

Less than a week after the old man’s prophetic warning, Dalthan returned home to find the door barred and a leather satchel sitting outside with one change of clothes in his size. He hadn’t bothered to knock at the door or tried to plead his case through the stout oak portal. He’d just picked up the bag and made another trip to Sam’s shop to trade the sack and the outfit for a handful of copper.

He’d never blamed the old spinster for giving up on him. Not really. His mother’s sister would have been poorly equipped to raise a normal child. Raising a kid who’d only had Brenton Sol’Magor to look up to was a war she’d been doomed to lose from the start. She wasn’t to blame for being overwhelmed any more than she was to blame for him falling in with Two-Teeth’s gang after he ended up on the streets.

Two-Teeth was a street rat, the same as him, but old enough to have the height and weight of a grown man. The older boy had managed to bully a large group of kids into joining his outfit. Not all of the bullying went his way, hence his only having two teeth left in his head, but enough did that he was able to try his hand at a clumsy brand of organized crime.

That’d worked out fine until that rat bastard had gotten a little too successful at sending his little minions out to nick purses and filch food. Stealing too much from the wrong people managed to attract the attention of the Yola cartel. When the Yola enforcers burst through the door of the rundown warehouse the gang had been using for a hideout, all the kids had scattered like cockroaches skittering away from a lit torch. With his cronies fleeing the scene, Two-Teeth had pushed his way forward in an attempt to make amends. It was an unfortunate choice to make because the cartel didn’t negotiate with upstarts. Not that their reputation kept Two-Teeth from making an attempt.

He’d still been trying to talk his way out of the noose when one of the Yola enforcers had ended the discussion by driving his short sword into the young crook’s stomach.

The kneecapper had been so busy twisting his blade in Two-Teeth’s gut that he never noticed Dalthan silently slipping behind him with a filet knife. Until that moment, he’d just been a kid following the path of least resistance. A lost orphan playing at being a grown mobster. All that came to an end when he left the warehouse that day, not as a child, but as a rogue.

~~~~~~

Dalthan was jerked from his thoughts by a sudden tug at his arm. He banished the memory of that frosty winter day from his mind, though no mental command could make him forget the wisps of steam that had reluctantly risen from his bloody hands like lazy smoke. That memory always seemed to haunt him on the days when there was killing to be done.

Days like today.

That task would come in time. For now, he blinked the visions of the past from his emerald eyes and focused his gaze on the present. That meant turning to regard the young boy who’d so insistently tugged at his arm.

“You should be careful, Prince Dalthan.” Jack worried at his lip, giving a peek of crooked teeth.

“What?” Dalthan glanced around and lowered himself to a half-crouch. It took him several heartbeats to realize what Jack had been trying to warn him about.

“Shit. So. Much. Shit.” Dalthan grumbled as he skirted around the newest pile of cow dung that they’d come across. He’d become increasingly vexed by his outdoor adventure. All the stories talked about wide open spaces, clean air, and delicious food. Rather convenient how they all left out the parts concerning bugs the size of his hand and ankle-high piles of manure.

“How do you all even walk through the fields?” Dalthan muttered sourly. “At least in Wavecrest you could see the piles of horseshit on the cobblestone.” The thief fully intended to strangle the next bard he heard singing some nonsense about the beauty of nature.

“What’s a cobblestone?” The boy ignored the rogue’s question, choosing instead to sate his own curiosity.

“It’s something peasants walk on while they’re carrying my palanquin,” Dalthan offered demurely as he scanned the clover for any shitty surprises that might be laying in wait.

“What’s a palan-”

“Is Pattycake nearby?” Dalthan quickly interrupted the boy before they could drift to some other inane topic. He’d already had to explain racketeering and syphilis.

The latter had been extremely awkward.

“Oh! She should be over the next rise.” The boy shot forward across the field of clover, drawing a muffled curse from the [Rogue]. Dalthan had been shadowing the kid’s steps to augment his less-than-impressive forestry skills. Now, with his guide racing up the hill, the thief was left to pick his way through the pasture on his own.

To add another level of difficulty to his cow pie hopping, the setting sun had finally kissed the eastern horizon. The vibrant reds and oranges that had colored the sky like spilled paint pots had grown increasingly pale as night swept the world into its eager embrace. Two moons were now visible, one the color of seafoam and the other white as new-fallen snow.

Having only ever seen one moon in the sky, the novel sight served as a firm reminder of just how far from home he truly was.

Dalthan had always found his attention drawn to the sky. There was something about the sun, the clouds, and the infinite stars that called to him the way the sea called to a salt-crusted sailor. Unfortunately, he had a schedule to keep, so he reluctantly turned his attention away from the heavens and began moving back up the slope sooner than he’d have liked.

He needn’t have hurried, because a half dozen steps later he met a grinning Jack leading the most pitiful-looking cow he’d ever seen.

“Here she is!” Jack said triumphantly, as he waved eagerly at the advancing rogue.

Pattycake was a sorry excuse for a bovine. Her black and white hide clung to her emaciated frame so tightly that Dalthan could count her ribs. Even in the waning light, he could see the vacant stare in the beast’s wet, rheumy eyes.

“How fucking old is she?” Dalthan asked, his emerald eyes warily watching the cow’s knees shake, half expecting her to collapse at any second.

“Ma said she’ll be thirty-two in the fall.” There was an unmistakable note of pride in the boy’s voice as he reached back to affectionately pat the cow on the tip of its leaky nose.

“Who did you think was going to buy a geriatric cow?” Dalthan’s mind was boggled by the business sense at play here. The kid could be forgiven, but what had the mother been thinking? “I bet when you squeeze her tits cheese pours out instead of milk.”

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“Don’t make fun of Pattycake!” Jack defensively stepped between the poor animal and the uncouth [Rogue]. In a rare moment of disagreement with his idol, the boy looked up with a challenging gleam in his eyes. “She’s a good girl!”

Dalthan took a deep breath and forced himself to remember the plan. Deft fingers unlaced the pouch from his belt as he dropped smoothly into a crouch in front of the aggravated child. “You’re right,” Dal said diplomatically. “I can see that she’s a very good girl. It’s a shame that you need to sell her, but at least you can get something that’ll make your mother happy.”

The thief smoothly opened the seed pouch and withdrew the three walnut-sized beans. “These are magic beans, Jack. I’ll let you trade Pattycake for them. How does that sound?”

The boy took several seconds to consider. When he finally spoke, the child looked back at the cow behind him. “Will Pattycake be happy, Prince Dalthan?”

“She’ll be as comfortable as she’s ever been,” the thief replied, without a single note of falsehood tainting his tone.

“Okay!” Jack almost dropped the seeds that Dalthan immediately poured out into his hand.

Ba Ba Ba Babababa baba! Ba ba baba baba!

“What the fuck is that?!” Dalthan’s stolen knife appeared in his hand as his startled eyes swept across the empty pasture. Music, like the horns and flutes of the marching band he’d once seen in the Financial District, rang in his ears as if the musicians had him surrounded.

“What’s wrong, Prince Dalthan?” Jack was stuffing the beans into his pockets with a stricken expression on his face as he worriedly searched for the sign of the royal scion’s distress.

With no sign of the music’s source, Dalthan did the only thing he could think of. He brought out his Quest scroll. The moment the message popped up, the music abruptly stopped.

Quest The Archdemon Balerik has tasked you with selling three magic beans. By hook or by crook, you must find a buyer within five days. Asking price to be negotiated by quest bearer. Milestone 1/1 Bonus Achieved: +1 Milestone Portal Timer: 59:51

A sigh slid from the thief’s lips as he watched the timer tick down by the second. An hour was an awfully long time when the acrid tang of murder lay so heavily in the air. He did give the other evildoers the benefit of the doubt, going so far as to wait three minutes with Jack to see if the glow of a blazing barn lit the night sky.

After several minutes with the darkness only growing more complete, Dalthan shook his head. “Have it your way,” he murmured.

“Alright, Jack.” The [Rogue] turned back to the anxiously waiting child, a severe expression marring his handsome features. “It’s too late for you to go home. I need you to take Pattycake to Mr. Vaan’s barn and stay there till morning. I’m sure he won’t mind. When you wake up, go straight home. Do you understand?”

The boy fidgeted and seemed to be on the verge of disagreeing before his shoulders slumped. “Okay.”

“Good,” Dalthan said decisively. He reached out to ruffle the kid’s hair before he turned to start his long trip toward the manor house. “Don’t forget the rules I taught you. The Handbook could save your life.”

The boy seemed torn, looking from the departing thief to the cow, and then back again. “Will you come back, Prince Dalthan?”

“No, Jack,” Dalthan said, calling over his shoulder without looking back. “I don’t believe so.”

~~~~~

It took him almost twenty minutes to reach the manor. Darkness had settled its full weight across the land, making the glow of candlelight blooming from the house’s windows visible for hundreds of yards. There was no sound as he approached, nor any movement. Silent as a grave, the flickering light filtering through the home’s heavy windows seemed to be holding a silent vigil in remembrance of the fallen.

For there were fallen to be remembered. As Dalthan approached the front of the house, he could see two corpses, both men, lying beside the door. One had an arrow the size of a javelin piercing his chest and the other had a messy chunk of meat where his head used to reside.

The architect behind one of those assaults stood, unmoving, beside the open doorway that led into the Vaan family’s tomb. The leaping shadows cast by dancing candlelight gave the golem an eerie impression of malleability as if his stone were constantly shifting like wet clay. Growing closer still, the thief could see where Shale’s right side was painted in the rusty red hue of drying blood.

“They inside?” Dalthan asked curtly.

Amazingly, the golem’s featureless stone head tipped forward in a ponderous nod.

Dalthan returned the gesture, surprised to see Shale so communicative. It made him wonder if the golem had been purposefully reticent.

“It didn’t have to go this way,” Dalthan said, peering past the golem to try and get a better idea of what lay inside the house.

To this, the golem’s long arms shifted, its shoulders, if they could be called that, rising in what could only be a noncommittal shrug.

“Yeah,” the thief murmured as he walked past the golem, dagger in hand. “I guess it was always going to end like this.”

Dalthan had seen scenes like this before. In the back alleys of the Dockyards. In the basements of seedy bars. Even in the houses owned by members of Wavecrest’s Senatoria. It wasn't the first time he'd seen people who’d just been going about their lives when, without rhyme or reason, their world came to a violent, gruesome end.

Furniture lay scattered across the wide room in splintered chunks that rose from red pools still possessed of a wet, slick sheen. Every candle in the place must have been lit, leaving nowhere for the details of the grisly scene to hide. Of the bodies, Dalthan simply looked past them. He wasn’t here for their sake, anyway.

He was here for the woman sitting at the long table set against the far side of the room. Jack’s earlier observation about the field hands being busy with dinner must have been true for an entire feast had been laid out for the family and their hired help to enjoy. Earthenware platters of potatoes and bowls of squash occupied one end of the table. The other held several dishes that included pots of beans and heavy gravy. In the center of the spread were three plump birds that’d been roasted to a golden brown.

And there, seated at the head of the table, was Keysha. Her huge bow was leaning against the wall behind her with one of her massive arrows right beside it. The [Sharpshooter] was so busy noisily devouring what Dalthan assumed to be a turkey leg that she barely spared him a glance.

“Pull up a chair,” she finally said after gulping down a mouthful of poultry. “There’s plenty for all of us.”

“I thought we were sticking to the plan.” Slow steps brought him across the room while he spoke in a tone that was smooth as satin.

“We did stick to the plan,” Keysha corrected gently. An idle flick of her wrist tossed the turkey bone over her shoulder to free her hand up so she could reach for another. “We just didn’t share the plan with you.”

“I see,” Dalthan replied with an air of indifference. “Where is Zaplixel?”

Keysha’s gray eyes flickered toward the rogue. Giving up on the turkey, the woman leaned back in her chair, one hand drifting idly toward the bow at her side. “He’s upstairs somewhere.” The archer punctuated her words with a flip of her wrist. “You know how he is. He runs off to search for a damn jewelry box every chance he gets.”

“So, it’s just me and you?” Dal murmured, absently twirling his dagger in a thoughtless display of anticipation.

“Just me and you,” Keysha agreed, her hand drifting closer to the waiting bow.

“It’s a shame, Key.” The rogue said apologetically. “I kind of liked you.”

“I kind of liked you too, Dalthan.” There was a hint of steel in her tone, cold and unyielding. “But that’s the game, ain’t it? Life’s a bitch. Then you die.”

The two regarded one another for a long moment.

“Why didn’t you just walk away?” For the first time since he’d arrived at the manor house, Keysha’s voice gained an edge of frustration. “If you’d just waited out the hour with your little friend then everybody could have gone home.”

Dalthan cocked his head in consideration, his emerald eyes never moving away from the tall, lean woman. “If I had, would you have turned over my share of all this?”

A vulpine smile curled one corner of Keysha’s thin lips. “Would you believe me if I said yes?”

Her words were still tumbling through the air when the room erupted into a storm of violence.