The night had cleared, the waxing moon watching over the Night Fang as he found the River and Tide Inn. He observed it from the rooftops, noticing no candlelight lit from within the lonely tavern. The desolate street was dimly illuminated by two nearby sconces hanging from closed shops. The wafts of waste and darkness escalated from a tunnel next to the inn, and he could hear drunkards yelling boorishly a few streets away. He watched the inn for some time before he was drawn to the sudden pleas of a begging woman. “Any coin for a blind beggar, sir?” her meek voice would repeat from time to time.
The Night Fang looked further down the street below. The woman was in dirty rags and sat cross-legged against a stone wall. The stranger, a nobleman she begged to, walked away into the night. The Night Fang gracefully climbed down the architecture he stood upon and landed on the ground silently. As he drew closer to the beggar, he saw that she was indeed blind. She did not cover her eyes, which were empty and grey. Hideo felt instant sorrow. A ginger cat meowed as it peered around a corner and cushioned itself into the shaggy-haired woman’s lap. The Night Fang stood above her. The woman twitched her head towards him with eyes that, although lifeless, were somehow desperate. “Coin for a poor old blind woman?” she asked huskily.
“I need information,” the Night Fang stated, his voice echoing, but more softly than usual. “I was told that you report to the King and Queen of Thieves.”
“I know not of what you say, sir, please, I know nothing of anything. I just want some food...” Her pleas were plaintive and desperate.
“We have a mutual friend,” the Night Fang echoed coyly. “The priestess that took you in some months back. Afraid I’m her return favour. I need to know where they are currently residing.”
The blind woman looked up at him. Her face began to morph into something completely different. Now her countenance was angry and hateful. “Bloody priestess,” she said in a jarringly unique voice. “Altruism truly is dead. To hell with her and that stupid four fuck-faced deity. And what does a Ninja want with the King and Queen of Thieves?”
“How did you know I was-”
“Because if you weren’t, I would have heard you coming.” Her grey empty eyes were filled with derision. “Answer the question, Ninja; what do you want with my king and queen who takes such good care of me?”
The Night Fang raised an eyebrow under his mask. “Yes, I can see that. With all due respect, it isn’t of your concern. I just want to know where they are.”
The blind beggar scowled at him. “Fine. Be sarcastic. Be stubborn. I’m not meant to fight their enemies for them and what is a blind woman to do when up against a shadowy Ninja?” The cat meowed again as it adjusted itself to be more comfortable in the lap of rags, indifferent to the blue wraith that stood over them. “They’ve taken up residence in the Gargoyle’s tower,” the blind woman finally said. “Be warned Ninja, many rats swarm around their king and queen wherever they may go.”
“Thorne’s body isn’t even cold and they’re already hoarding his home,” he commented contemptuously. He was no friend of Thorne’s, but where was the courtesy?
“It was gifted to them by someone,” she said, jiggling her cup full of coins.
“Gifted by whom?” the Ninja asked suspiciously in his ghostly voice. His mind went back to that night. To Thorne’s seemingly crazed ranting. You don’t know what kind of fire you’re playing with.
“I know not whom,” she said, her grey eyes squinting in irritation. “Go and bother them about it. And tell that lady-monk my supposed ‘debt’ that I didn’t know I owed has been paid.”
“I intend to do both,” the Night Fang said as he dropped a sack of silver coins into her cup.
“Bless you, sir,” she said with venomous undertones as she heard the satisfying clank of Gold Bear coins crashing together. “Now piss off.”
The Night Fang once again found himself returning to that nightmare tower. He was growing increasingly weary of jumping and climbing the same rooftops yet again. Hideo did not know how many thieves would be residing there. He thought the best strategy would be to climb up the side of it without being seen; a ninja’s way, as opposed to his previous, less thoughtful technique of kicking the door down and disregarding all sense of stealth and strategy. Everyone at Darkfall would have laughed at me.
As the Night Fang climbed higher up the gothic tower, the wind protested with its biting gales. Hideo was nearly halfway up when he overheard voices. He pulled himself on top of one of the tower’s many stone gargoyles and peaked into the open arched window.
A group of thieves in similar russet leather armour to the one that attacked Evalina were moving crates in and out of the large chamber. One hooded thief donning a cloak behind his back strode in, leading them. Hideo eyed the staff with a bronze-crowned raccoon with dark rings around the eyes on the handle that he was cheerily holding and twirling. Hideo observed this more eccentric thief as he admired a window that overlooked the Shards. The whole borough lit up in the distance with flashing green and gold lights.
“What a delightful view,” the Thief said to himself. He turned back towards the other thieves moving crates. Hideo noticed from afar that this thief also donned a black bandana over the upper half of his face, with the smirking face of a bronze racoon gleaming in the dark on the forehead. The same bronze racoon on the back of his black cloak dangled from the side of his shoulder and wavered every time a draft flew in through the high windows. He must be the king, the Night Fang concluded to himself. He is too flamboyant not to be.
“All of you, go downstairs and see if my darling queen needs assistance,” the King of Thieves commanded. All the underlying thieves scattered away like rats, leaving the Master Thief alone in the hall. I was meant to be protecting a king, not fighting one, Hideo thought to himself bitterly before slinking through the window and landing right behind the Thief King who was still too busy admiring the borough he now claimed to own.
The Night Fang began to walk towards him in silent footsteps. The Thief King somehow knew he was there. He turned around and looked right into the Ninja’s eyes with a knowing grin. “Ah, you must be the Night Fang they warned us about,” the King of Thieves said gleefully, bowing at him. “Persistent little wretch, aren’t you? Why do you want this tower so badly? Granted, the view isn’t too bad, but it’s so… dirty.” He started sniffing the surrounding air. “It also reeks of piss. You must have given his men quite the fright.”
“I don’t want the tower,” the Night Fang echoed, ignoring his smug japes. “I just want you out of it. I had ridden one crime lord from it already. I wasn’t expecting to rid it of another so soon.”
The King of Thieves chuckled and twirled his cane. With the movement, the crowned raccoon on top of it seemed to be smirking just as the user was. “You aren’t seriously associating me with the likes of old Thorney, are you? The Thieves Guild has more honour than him.”
“One of your ‘honourable’ thieves attempted to stab a priestess whilst trying to rob her in the name of your guild.” The Night Fang echoed the words in condemnation.
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“Oh, he did, did he?” the King of Thieves questioned dubiously as he reached into his boot. “I shall have to have words with him. In the meantime, I shall be taking that fancy-looking dagger on your belt.”
The King of Thieves pulled out a small blade from the back of his boot and threw it. The Night Fang barely dodged the flying dagger and when he looked back, he was met with the end of the Thief King’s staff. The black and bronze-crowned raccoon hit the Ninja on the side of his head. The Night Fang jumped back, holding a defensive stance. The King of Thieves twirled his sharp, crowned cane and jabbed it towards the Ninja, constantly clashing the edge of his staff against the Night Fang’s sapphire gauntlets. The Night Fang deflected each hit as the two of them edged across the chamber. The King of Thieves spun and kicked the Night Fang in the centre of his breastplate.
The Night Fang landed on his back in shock, partially winded. How does a pickpocket fight this well? He thought in frantic confusion. He leapt back to his feet and grabbed the handle of the Thief King’s cane. He felt his hands as they began to pulsate. Small blue bolts flickered around his fingertips. The cane started vibrating. The King of Thieves shrieked. The Night Fang pulled the raccoon cane from his shaking hands and threw it out the window. He slammed the king against the stone wall, pinning him with his gauntleted arm and felt sweet relief from the pain as the pulsating faded away. “You mentioned a ‘they’,” the Night Fang began questioning. “Did you mean the Inferno Clan?”
The King of Thieves did not answer, retaining his smug grin. A grin that was meant to burrow into his foes and fester. The Night Fang could feel himself losing his temper despite himself. “Answer me,” he echoed. “Do you even know what they have done in the past? What they came here to do?”
“They offered us a slice of the city, mate,” the King of Thieves finally answered, shrugging indifferently. “How could we say no? We give them our fences and they leave us the whole borough to make a profit. We’ve made more Gold Bears in the past week than we’ve made in months. With all due respect, we don’t give a shit about your little feud.”
“Your alliance will be short-lived. The Inferno Clan don’t care for anyone but themselves.”
The King of Thieves raised a finger. “Ah, but I do care about Denarii. And frankly, right now I can see why they find you Night Fangs so bothersome.” His smirk widened.
“You know, for a master thief, you’re very gullible,” the Night Fang echoed bluntly.
“And for a ninja assassin, you don’t have much of an astute sense of awareness.”
Before Hideo could register what that meant, he felt cold metal slamming against the side of his neck. The Night Fang fell to his hands, struggling to breathe. He looked up to see a woman wearing a black and bronze domino mask looking down on him, locks of chestnut hair dangling from the darkness under her hood.
The Ninja got to his feet, wobbling. Pain was throbbing through the veins of his neck and through his shoulder. He noticed the cane and cloak the hooded woman was brandishing. The Queen of Thieves had the bronze head of a crowned magpie on the handle of her staff and the glaring face of a bronze magpie frowning on the back of her cloak, reflecting the Queen’s own contemptuous gaze. She looked down on Hideo with far more malice than her significant other. “Did you get his blade?” the Queen asked her King, not taking her daggered eyes off the Night Fang.
“Afraid not,” the King of Thieves replied coolly, wiping the blood from his lip and massaging his hands. Despite being mildly shocked by the Night Fang’s charge, the King of Thieves managed to retain his composure and dignity. “He threw my cane out the window. Such an uncouth fellow.”
“Listen to me,” the Night Fang implored in his demonic voice. “The Inferno Clan are demons. Nothing good can come from your alliance.”
“Forgive me if I’m mistaken, but is your clan offering us the chance to earn thousands of Denarii?” the Queen of Thieves asked sharply, raising her cane.
“No, but-” She hit him with it.
The Night Fang jumped back, grabbing his throbbing hand. The Queen of Thieves started swinging her cane with even more precision and swiftness than the Thief King did. The Night Fang kept dodging and flipping away, deflecting every other hit with his sapphire gauntlets, yet he still caught the odd piercing jab that felt like a lash from a steel serpent’s tail. There was no opportunity or chance to fight back. She moved with such graceful speed it overwhelmed him. The Night Fang lunged with a kick, but the swifter Queen of Thieves spun around the attack and whacked her crowned magpie cane into his knee. Hideo winced in pain behind his mask. It was at this point the Night Fang realised how close he was to the open arched window and, much to his chagrin, the Queen of Thieves noticed too. She kicked him directly in the chest, in the centre of the Night Fang’s tiger insignia. The fall felt like an eternity…
He landed on an unattended merchant’s tent, the cloth roof cushioning him before hitting the blunt wooden crates underneath. Hideo cursed in pain and, despite his scepticism, thanked Evalina’s Goddess for not letting it be the top floor of the tower that he fell from. He rolled from the wreckage, his arms bruised and battered, his suit torn around the upper arms. As he tried standing to his feet, he felt a tightening pain around his ribs. Hideo started walking, but it swiftly turned into a limp. His left leg was covered in splinters.
He turned to look up at the tower. The King and Queen of Thieves stood watching over him from the open window high above. “Now clear off,” the King of Thieves yelled from high above. “Or we’ll send every thief in the borough on you… and there is quite an awful lot of them now.”
Although they were too far away to see clearly, Hideo could have sworn he even saw the Queen of Thieves smirking mockingly at him from up high. He limped away into the night. The defeat hurt worse than the stinging pain in his leg.
He limped to a tunnel under one of the city’s bridges when he saw a blue hooded woman hovering her scarred hands over a campfire. She pulled back her hood and noticed Hideo sliding down against a wall, grabbing his arm, and grunting in frustration. Amaya just smiled. “How was your chat with the Thieves Guild?” she asked in amusement.
Hideo grumbled in pain. “How did you know?”
“Because I saw you fall from the tower,” she said rather frankly. “Again, did the Empress bid you to do this too? Picking a fight with thieves?”
“No, but did she bid you to help the Sisterhood of Bows?” He pulled off his mask. The tunnel was hallowed and empty, and he needed more air in his lungs after the long limp. “They’re in the Shards because the Inferno Clan offered them a deal. They could lead me to the Thane.”
Amaya chuckled to herself. “Was that why you went there initially, though?”
“Didn’t I order you to leave the city?” he barked back in annoyance, “along with your arrow-eyed friend?”
“Neoma left New Jade shortly after I tended to her wounds, as you so gracefully commanded. She wasn’t happy with me either after last night, despite rescuing her from that pompous ogre.” She was quiet for a moment, allowing the wood under the fire to crackle without interruption.
Her cornflower-blue eyes were focused on the flames, yet appeared to be somewhere else. “She didn’t know I had left the sisterhood to join the Fraternity of Fangs. She called me a turncoat, a traitor, and a snake. I suppose she isn’t wrong. It is what Xerxes has always told me.”
Hideo could feel his leg throbbing as he limped closer to the fire to sit. “Then why aren’t you already heading back to Darkfall? I can provide Denarii for a horse.”
“I’m not looking for your charity, Hideo. Despite your reluctance, you did me a great service the other night, and it appears that I have wronged you greatly. I’m in your debt.”
“You can repay me by going back to Darkfall. Tell the Empress how dire the circumstances are, about the Thane’s own presence in the City…”
“You can’t stop the Inferno Clan alone. Even the Thieves Guild just made a fool of you. If you had been wise enough to seek my help, I would have told you that the King and Queen of Thieves earned their self-proclaimed title for a reason.” Amaya threw another log into the crackling flames. “They are both excellent fighters and stealers. The Queen of Thieves herself was from the sisterhood before my time there. You probably went in expecting to fight some petty crooks, didn’t you?”
“You’re lucky I’m too hurt to simply get up and walk away from your mockery,” Hideo said bitterly.
“I am merely educating you,” she replied. “You don’t seem to be learning from your foolish mistakes.” She stood from the fire and offered her hand to the wounded Night Fang. “Darkfall is far away, Hideo. Another world away.” She withdrew a curved dagger with sapphire markings from her belt. With a quick slash, the side of her hand dripped dark red liquid. “By the time I return to this city with Xerxes and all the power of the Night Fangs, the Inferno Clan would have already followed through with whatever plan they are concocting.”
Hideo grunted at the pain in his leg. It throbbed something fierce. She pulled the fingerless glove from his scarred hand and quickly slashed the side of it. It stung, but not as much as his leg did. He accepted Amaya’s scarred and bloody hand. As she pulled him up, the wood in the fire snapped so loud that it echoed under the tunnel. Amaya, the one they called Arrowcat, patted Hideo on the shoulder as their blood bonded. “It’s just you, me, the Inferno Clan, and their ruthless Thane in a dammed city.”