B3 Chapter 23

The three ruffians turned towards them with apparent confusion, and the boy, terror on his face, looked at them with some hope.

“Be on your way, strangers,” one of the men said, eying them threateningly. “You don’t want to get in the way of the Green Scars.”

Lucan rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, hoping he wouldn’t have to draw the goldsteel out in the open.

Ryder then spoke his thoughts. “We will be giving you more than scars if you don’t go on your way.”

The ruffians turned fully towards him, their weapons borne with purpose. Lucan held back on drawing his sword, even as his two men-at-arms drew their weapons and stepped forward.

“Do you really wish to fight someone who truly knows how to wield a blade?” Lucan tilted his head as he asked.

He saw one of the three men fumble with a small, sealed clay pot, but then the biggest of the three, perhaps their leader, waved him down. “Stop. We are leaving.” He eyed Lucan with sharp eyes. “You'd better know who you cross, stranger. You are in our city.”

“I would say you are the ones crossing me,” Lucan said. “And I would say that I am quite merciful for letting you leave after threatening my small friend.”

The man snorted and led the other two around them before they disappeared down an alleyway.

Lucan turned to the boy, who looked like he’d escaped the hangman’s axe. “So you do have ties to the gangs after all.”

The boy only gave him a jerky nod.

Impatiently, Ryder stepped forward, glaring down at him. “Speak, boy, what did they want with you?”

The boy shook his head, seemingly refusing to answer the man-at-arms’ question. Ryder made to step closer, but Lucan stopped him and stepped forward himself.

“Your name?”

“Venn,” the boy answered.

Lucan stepped closer, bending his knee to lower himself to the boy’s level. “Is it true then, what you said yesterday, that you know of a treasure the gangs are after?”

With wide eyes, the boy nodded again, hard and fast.

“And what is it?”

The boy hesitated, hemming and hawing for a moment before Ryder stepped up beside them. Then he swallowed and said, “Orb.”

Lucan cocked his head. “God’s Orb?”

Bobbing his head, the boy answered, “Aye.”

“Do you know where it is?”

With some more hesitation, the boy said, “I know some things.”

Before Lucan could question Venn further, Tomis stepped up and whispered in his ear, “Master Orin had a guest when he told me to invite you to the Emporium. He said to make haste if we would.”

Lucan nodded to his man-at-arms, then he heard the telltale noise of armed men approaching. He stood up and, along with his men, turned towards the head of the alley. There, three city guards soon appeared, grim looks on their faces. Thankfully, Lucan’s men had sheathed their weapons, but still, the guards had tight grips on their short spears as they approached.

“You three, over there,” the leading one among them said. He didn’t seem old, though he had a slight stubble covering his jaw, unlike his two companions, who looked younger than Lucan. “Drop those weapons.”

Lucan raised a brow, and before he could respond, Ryder quibbed, “We aren’t holding any weapons.”

“The ones on your belts. Drop them, I said.”

Lucan frowned. It was all but suspicious that three guards would find their way to this alley at this very moment to question them about their weapons. “We have leave to carry weapons in the city.”

“By whose authority?”

Stumped, Lucan looked at his men, who gave him incredulous looks of their own. Then Ryder spoke again. “Guards at the gate said adventurers may be armed in town.”

“And you lot are adventurers, are you?”

“Aye.”

“Where is your writ then?”

“Writ?” Ryder gaped, and Lucan pressed his lips.

“The writ for the right to bear those weapons as adventurers.”

Lucan cleared his throat and said, “Where would one get such a writ?”

The guardsman, now seemingly more at ease, shrugged. “Low Council, one of the guilds, or the guardhouse.”

Lucan closed his eyes and sighed. It seemed that they’d been swindled at the gates. They’d parted with coin for the privilege of walking into the city with their weapons, but it had only been the privilege of passing the guard to whom they’d given the coin.

“If you lot don’t carry a writ, then you will come with us.”

Lucan put his hand in his pouch and approached the guards. They responded by pointing their weapons at him. He raised an assuaging hand. “Peace, good men.” He jingled the coins in his pouch. Then he took out a silver to glitter in the sunlight and continued his approach.

The guards seemed to ease their posture somewhat until he was close enough to extend his hand with the silver. The lead guard stepped forward with an open hand to take it, but Lucan pulled it back at the last moment. “You good men wouldn’t happen to know how a man may procure a writ without so much needless trouble, would you?”

The lead man, still staring at the silver, said, “It’s difficult to split a silver in three.”

Lucan shrugged. “I am certain you have some coppers in your pouch for your men.”

The guardsman rested his spear against his shoulder for a moment and fumbled through a back pouch, pulling out a ragged piece of washed parchment, and carefully unfurled it. “The stamp can still be seen.” He squinted at it. “But no less than three silvers. And should anyone give you trouble, you may say that the writ comes from Big Red.”

Lucan pulled out two more silvers from his pouch but refused to hand them to the man until he could take the writ. Once the guardsman surrendered it, Lucan could see that it entitled a man to carry arms in the city, so long as they didn’t use such arms for any purpose but training and beast hunting. There was an old, faded stamp at the bottom of the parchment and a name he couldn’t read.

Nodding, Lucan extended a hand with three silvers. “A silver for each of you.”

The lead guard hastily snatched all three coins, throwing glances in the direction of his eager men. “I will handle it.”

Lucan gave him a knowing nod. He doubted the two subordinates would get anything more than a few coppers, but they looked young enough to be content with that.

After the guards left, Lucan and his men had to turn back to the boy. Venn stood there, as though struck by lightning, but also itching to bolt at a moment’s notice.

Lucan approached the boy and sighed. “You are a lot of trouble.” The boy winced. “About this Orb. How do you know it is what they’re pursuing?”

The boy gulped and spoke solemnly. “Because I saw it.”

Lucan took a breath and nodded, turning to his men. “We need to keep the boy at hand.”

Both of his men shook their heads at the same time. Ryder answered, “Those cutthroats could trail us to The–” he paused, perhaps remembering that even the boy ought not to hear of the Emporium, and then he continued, “–to where we are meant to be, and then all those matters of secrecy would be for nothing.”

Lucan pressed his lips. “Then one of you stays here and watches over him.”

Tomis frowned. “Our enemies grow in number every day. One guard is not enough, not in this city, master.”

Lucan huffed and threw a glance at the other end of the alley, hoping the ruffians wouldn’t show their faces again soon. “I can survive a short walk. Ryder will stay with the boy.” He turned towards him. “Bring him inside the inn.”

With some reluctance, Ryder nodded and dragged the boy towards the back door of the inn.

Lucan and Tomis then commenced their walk to the market, looking over their shoulders the whole way. They ended their cautious march in the crowded city square, merging into the press of people and slipping into the Emporium.

They were led discreetly, and perhaps hastily, into the same door they’d taken last time and up the stairs to the same chamber. There, the same warden stood at the door, opening it smoothly once they arrived.

Tomis waited outside with the warden as Lucan stepped into the chamber. Master Orin’s face was the first to greet him upon his entry, sitting at the end of the table closest to the door. Lucan gave him a nod, and the old man pretended to try and fail to get on his feet, giving him an apologetic smile. Lucan didn’t trouble himself with returning the smile, choosing instead to pan his eyes over the two sitting beside the old man.

Two women–no, a woman and a girl sat beside each other, both in spotless dresses of resplendent make. Lucan stared at them for a moment, then gave Master Orin his most incredulous look.