“One crime lord falls, yet things stay the same. Allegedly, Thorne’s death was ruled as a suicide, yet many people believe a different song. If there was indeed foul play, then the Sheriff of the City Watch allowed Adrian Thorne to be murdered in his own barracks, some suspect, by the very assassin he is meant to be pursuing. ‘It’s all nonsense!’ Complained Borico, a bartender who resides in Dorfchester. “Ninjas running around the city, a Thieves Guild operating in the shadows. It’s all fairy tales mothers tell their babes for bedtime stories.’
When asked about Thorne’s death, City Watch Deputy Athena Marion declined to comment but did say, ‘If there was foul play, then we will work hard to find the perpetrator. Thorne was guilty of many things, but he deserved a trial like everybody else.’ Is the city in a better place now it is free of one of its most infamous criminals? Or should we be more afraid of the cause of his death?”
Jacklyn Jacobs – The Jade Herald.
As he stood at attention with the smell of piss and shit violating his nostrils, Jannik began to loathe her more than ever. The unpleasant aromas were mixed with the disdain everyone at this summit had for one another. This was the last place he wished to be and, at the most inconvenient of times. He was still grieving for Nissaro.
They had cremated him deep underground in the city sewers, not just because it was in a tradition of the Inferno Clan, but to eliminate any evidence of their presence. Although the latter reasoning felt pointless, considering their presence had already been made clear to the Royals after Nissaro’s first abysmal attempt at assassinating the Duke. They had found his body in the garden next to Lord Fostmoore’s manor. He had been impaled by a steel bolt and a shard of wood. Jannik could not surmise how that had occurred, but he knew the culprit all the same. Nissaro had failed, twice, that was true, but he was forever loyal to the clan and did not deserve to be slain by some little kitten.
They had laid him on a large pyre, still in his armour and mask, for he died a warrior and would be burned as one. When Nissaro’s body started crackling, Jannik noticed the edge of the metallic mask’s nose melting like a steel icicle. Jannik had not cried since he was seven after being bitten by a raptor in the Southern Jungles, but as he witnessed his deceased brother melt away like an ice sculpture in summer, wept silently. None of his fellow brothers that stood beside him noticed. That, or they did not dare point it out. Nissaro was a fool and Jannik trained him to be better. He had failed him as a mentor, just as Nissaro had failed him as a student.
The body was still burning when she ordered him to accompany her further into the city’s sewers. He felt ashamed of his anger, but he did not show it and fortunately could not show it. He wore his bronze kabuto and his silver, spiked mask so that the rats of the city could not see his face. It would hide his shame just as it hid his tears at the cremation.
The thought that he would soon be forming alliances with such degenerates made him shudder, but he trusted her judgement. There was a time when the Inferno Clan did not work alongside criminals and he longed for those days, but this was a new dawn for the Inferno. They were in New Jade City, where things worked differently.
“I’m beginning to think they shan’t be coming tonight,” smirked the slimy Haytham Cutter. He, like the late Adriane Thorne, was a crime lord, although a far more arrogant and pompous one at that. He was clearly as miserable to be here as Jannik was. The smug Lord liked to show off his wealth, wearing a long brown peruke over his blatantly bald head and a maroon doublet with a golden broach attached to an overly extravagant maroon cloak.
He looked ridiculous standing in the middle of a sewer, appearing as to be dressed for some grand ball.
Next to him stood Captain Baraz Hackett, a seafarer, or that’s what he told people. “Pirate” is what Jannik thought him more appropriately to be. He did not seem distraught about being here. It wouldn’t have surprised Jannik if the Pirate were used to the stench of his own shit. Baraz Hackett stood proudly, his hand with many skull rings stroking the rapier sword hanging from his belt. “Does it matter?” When the Pirate opened his dirty ginger-bearded mouth to speak, his silver tooth glinted in the dark. “Let us just begin without them.”
“The only reason we are waiting in this shithole is because of them,” Haytham drawled. He turned to look at Jannik. “You better have a bloody good reason to bring us all down here, Arkovian.”
Jannik did not answer. He knew she would answer for him.
“Come now, Lord Cutter,” her voice came from the opposing darkness. She emerged in her red and black streaked jacket to match her scarlet hair that draped down to her hips. She would have been radiant beauty if Jannik hadn’t already known what was under her ruby red eye patch. He resisted the urge to shudder. He was Inferno, not a weak man. How could he feel so devoted, yet so frightened of someone at the same time? “There is no need to use your impatience as an excuse to chastise one of my finest warriors,” she remarked with a glowing smile. “They’ll come.”
They continued to wait; the dripping sounds of running sewage water below preventing the silence from becoming as cold as a grave. Jannik had lost track of their whereabouts under the city. It was too dark, and they had walked through the never-ending maze of damp and rat-infested tunnels for too long. Now they waited with only one sconce to light up the wet tomb they stood in.
“Are you sure you won’t accept my offer?” the red-eyed woman asked Haytham Cutter with cold courtesy.
The Crime Lord was too busy admiring his finely trimmed fingernails to make eye contact with her. “Why would I want a dying animal?” he asked rhetorically and with a smug giggle. “Let the rats have it.”
“Then why be here?” Jannik heard himself ask in frustration. He immediately regretted it and didn’t need to look at the red-eyed woman to know that she was glaring at him. He remained silent, retreating within his armour, ashamed of his brazenness.
Lord Haytham gave him a gleeful grin. “Because, my metal giant, I am interested in seeing how this goes.”
The sudden clicking of a stick repeatedly hitting stone interrupted them. They emerged from the distant shadows ahead like the hooded rats that they were. The King and Queen of Thieves adorned russet leather armour and canes, their hoods shrouding the upper half of their faces, and the draft accompanying them through the tunnels made their dark cloaks waver.
The Queen of Thieves rested her back against the stone wall, her arms folded, sullen and silent. The King of Thieves brashly strode up to the three of them with a whistle. Jannik noticed that under the hood the King of Thieves wore a black headband that shrouded the upper half of his head, the face of a bronze racoon with black rings around the eyes symbolised on the forehead. Under that was a mocking, shit-eating grin that could have made Haytham Cutter look modest.
“What a delightful place for a meeting,” the King of Thieves commented, his eyes gleaming through his mask and hood. “I’m presuming that smell is coming from Captain Hackett?”
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The Pirate let out a sarcastic chuckle. “Smells much like your sense of humour, rat.”
The King of Thieves just smirked mischievously, enjoying the insult trade, continuously twirling his cane like some foolish street performer. Jannik noticed the top of the cane had the bronze head of a raccoon wearing a crown, the pointed edges appearing sharp enough to impale.
Baraz Hackett spat on the floor, tightening the grip on his rapier. He stared indignantly at the Master Thief. The Pirate then looked at the red-eyed woman and then back to Haytham with a piercing grimace. “The last time I was in this pompous city, this one stole a load of cargo from my ship.” He pointed at the Thief King with the back of his blackened thumb. “I vowed bloody murder upon him and now he stands here in front of me.”
“Oh, come now, you were hardly using any of it,” the King of Thieves said with a widening smirk.
“No, I was intending to sell it,” the Pirate grunted with vindictive eyes that were close to popping out of his head. “They were priceless artefacts from the Southern Jungles.”
“And whom did you steal them from, may I ask?” the King of Thieves said with feigned curiosity. “Stealthily drag a treasure chest away from a slumbering Tyrant Lizard? I suspect you didn’t even travel there, merely looted them from a passing ship that you plundered. My code is that if you steal something, then it’s fair game for someone else to steal said something from you.” The King of Thieves turned his gaze towards Jannik. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
Jannik did not answer. He hated them both.
The King of Thieves then turned his attention to the red-eyed woman that brought them here. “My Lady,” he bowed. Jannik could tell that he was doing it mockingly. The Samurai wanted to hit him but remained a statue.
The red-eyed woman bowed more earnestly in return. “Your King and Queenliness.” She greeted courteously.
The King of Thieves seemed taken aback by her etiquette, but his grin remained. “So why invite us down into the bowels of the city, Lady…”
“Greyheart,” she answered for him with a warm smile. “Sonya Greyheart. I’ve brought you both down here for a proposition.” She began to address everyone present in the cold tunnel. “As you all have probably heard, the Gargoyle met an untimely passing the other night-”
“Ah yes, it really is a shame about what happened to old Thorny,” the King of Thieves interrupted, strolling closer to her and twirling his crowned raccoon cane. “Isn’t it such a rather amusing coincidence how he died so shortly after your clan arrived in the city?” He stopped and pointed his cane at her so that the racoon’s pointed crown was mere inches away from her round luminous face. “I don’t suppose you know much about how he died, do you?”
“I hear he burnt himself alive,” Lady Greyheart suggested with feigned sympathy. “Or perhaps he was killed by the Night Fang that was pursuing him?”
“Really now?” The King of Thieves appeared askance.
“Dudley, let her say her piece so we can leave.” The agitated voice came from the corner. The Queen of Thieves raised her head and glowered through her black and gold domino mask. That was enough to make her King reluctantly lower his cane.
Sonya Greyheart approached Captain Hackett. Jannik noticed how uncomfortable the Sea Farer appeared as she approached him. Hackett shifted and scratched his arm. Suddenly, he was no longer a fearsome pirate, but an anxious child. “Before we start; Baraz, when can I expect the next shipment of my herbs?” Sonya Greyheart asked with professional etiquette.
“Next week,” Baraz Hackett grunted, avoiding eye contact with her.
“And the narcotics?”
“Will be a part of the same shipment, My Lady,” he declared apprehensively.
“Excellent.” Her fluorescent teeth glowed in the dark as she smiled. “And you needn’t worry about the Thieves Guild this time, for the narcotics will now be going to them, anyway.”
“Excuse me?” the Queen of Thieves questioned bitterly. The eyes behind her domino mask flamed with contempt. “Do we look like some petty pushers to you?”
Sonya Greyheart gave a half-hearted smirk to the more stoic thief. “For you two, now that Adrian Thorne is no longer with us, we need someone else to take over the Shards and the narcotics operations that he was previously supervising. Thorne and our organisation-”
“You mean the Inferno Clan,” the Queen of Thieves interrupted again, continuing to glare with a fiery contempt as if no one in this sewerage tunnel was worth her sight.
Jannik felt goose bumps and a cold chill under his armour as he sensed that Lady Greyheart was becoming vexed. “Very well,” she said reluctantly, “very well. Thorne and the Inferno Clan had a good alliance, and we benefited from each other.”
The King of Thieves chuckled to himself and glanced over at Haytham Cutter. “And why aren’t you taking it?” he asked.
“You can bloody-well have it,” scoffed Haytham. “I earn my gold by more honourable means.”
“Ah yes, prostitution,” the Queen of Thieves interjected. “The bards will write ballads about you.”
The wall around Haytham broke and his face went beet red. This was why Jannik always wore his mask. “I didn’t come here to be mocked!” the Crime Lord yelled childishly, swiftly turning his attention to Lady Greyheart. “I knew you were one of those damned ninja clans, but Inferno… I have heard the most unsavoury things about your kind. Where is your… master? Is he here?”
Sonya Greyheart feigned a warm smile, laced with venom. “Only a small portion of us are present in this city. We’re answering to someone else whilst in New Jade. If everything goes well, you will have no reason to meet him.”
“He sounds craven to me,” judged Haytham Cutter. “This substitute leader of yours is too afraid to meet us in person. It’s almost as if he must hide behind you and your bodyguard’s skirts.”
Jannik observed how uncomfortable the Pirate became with Lord Cutter’s slight. He fears her like I do. He knows.
Sonya Greyheart raised an eyebrow above her blood-red eye patch. “Lord Cutter, I’d advise everyone in this room to be careful with what you wish for.”
She let that hang in the air until the King of Thieves turned back to Sonya Greyheart and raised his crowned racoon cane. “So why do you need us at the Shards? Why do you even care about controlling the city’s poorest borough? I thought all ninjas cared about was killing people.”
Sonya gave a faint, and perhaps feigned chuckle. “It’s best that the Royalist’s and the City Watch’s attention is diverted from what will be happening behind the shadows. And besides, you both have things me and my clan want. If you accept our offer, your thieves can steal whatever they want from the Shards. It may be a poor borough, but noblemen still live there in gem-infested houses. It’s a whole new chunk of the city, now available for your plucking. All the watchmen that worked for Thorne will now work for you. Your eyes will now go beyond beggars and pickpockets. And of course, you get the Gargoyle’s tower. In return, you keep Thorne’s drug operations running and give us a cut of the profits to help fund our ventures. You’ll make your antics loud and known so that you keep the watch busy. You’ll also, and most important of all, give our assassins access to your fences. I imagine you have a lot of stolen merchandise we can make use of. And finally, there are so few of my people in the city that we would be appreciative of… extra muscle, at times.”
The King of Thieves grinned an unpleasant grin, the bronze raccoon on his forehead mirroring it. He turned to his Queen, awaiting an answer. After a long, thinking silence, the Queen of Thieves stepped away from her resting spot and smiled under her hood. “We accept.”
The King of Thieves was ebullient as he turned and shook Lady Greyheart’s hand. “Assassins and thieves, working together at last.” He glanced at Jannik and tapped the side of his armour with his cane, causing a light ringing sound to echo down the tunnel. “Please, control your excitement, Sir. I know you must be as overjoyed as I am.” He strutted back to Haytham. “Feel free to visit. Of course, you’ll have to empty your pockets for us first. It’s going to be quite a hefty sum for other criminals to cross into our new territory.”
Haytham Cutter, the supposed dignified and noble lord, scowled and spat on the floor. The King of Thieves then turned to face the visibly irked pirate. “Well, drop us a bird when you’re ready and my thieves will take those hefty boxes from you.”
“And if I see any of your thieves take anything they’re not supposed to,” Captain Baraz Hackett snarled with a voice of flaming coal, “I’ll cut off his hands, have him flogged and flayed until death, then stuffed and placed as an ornament in my cabin.”
“I don’t blame you for the last part. It must get terribly lonely out at sea.” The King of Thieves was immediately pulled away by his Queen before Baraz could have a chance to hit him and they both headed back into the shadows from whence they came.
Before they completely vanished into the submerging darkness, Sonya Greyheart called out, “Oh, and Your King and Queenliness. The Night Fang that attacked Thorne might come after you too if he makes out our connection. If he does, do feel free to kill him for us.”
The King of Thieves turned back and bowed. “Why, Lady Greyheart, a Night Fang blade is worth a dreadful amount on the black market. We appear to be helping each other already.”