Spire's Spite Chapter 1

Waking up with a black bag over your head and a foot in your gut has to be one of the worst ways to be woken up, maybe not the worst way but it's up there. He struggled at first but it turns out fighting while blind and outnumbered were still no strengths of his. Not that fighting ever was a particular talent he possessed, well,not unless his foes were looking the other way.

He struck out at the blackness, hearing a couple of grunts and curses as he wildly swung his limbs and connected with rough skin over tough flesh. While he flailed he knocked over the stack of books and other knickknacks he had “liberated” from their previous owners. They scattered away from his makeshift bed of rags or bounced over the loft’s edge and splashed into the lightly flooded room below.

He struggled against his attackers, twisting and swinging violently until they pinned him irresistibly, roughly binding his feet and fists with coarse rope. He was lifted from both ends by his hands and feet. He heard several distinctly different thuds and counted the sets of footsteps creaking on the rotting wood. Three, four, maybe five? No, definitely three. Why so many? Why the rope? Only one answer really, he’d worn out Kind Ron’s patience and he’d sicced some toughs on him. His thoughts raced, puzzling out his plight.

“Right, He’s bound up nice and tight? Kev you lead the way down, let’s get out of this waterlogged dump,” one of the thugs ordered casually in a rough voice.

He struggled again, uselessly thrashing against his bonds as they carried him down and away from his current refuge;a disused loft over an abandoned herbalist's shop.

“Let me free, Kind Ron will get his quota, you don't have to do this, just give me another chance, I’ll have it by the end of the day I swear, by the spires I swear” he sputtered out of newly bruised lips.

His attackers guffawed as he struggled until one of them spoke up in a malicious croak “Aint nothin’ to do with your quota Fritz, and don’t go swearin’ by the spires if you haven’t even survived the first floor, you don’t know what you’re swearing on.”

“Can’t be that tough if you fishwits managed it, bet it's as easy as tying your shoelaces, though you lot would have trouble with that wouldn’t you?” The bound boy retorted, trying to give them an infuriating smirk through the bag. His smirk was unsuccessful but it seemed his words were not.

His comment earned him a thump in the ribs and a slap in his still-bagged face, aggravating a cut on his lip, intensifying the familiar taste of blood on his tongue.

Fritzthought, as he usually did, a little provocation might help his predicament. Maybe getting this lot of thugs angry would get them to make a mistake, give him a chance to slip away or fight back?

“Easy as tying shoelaces ‘ey, I’m sure you’ll find out. Still, best you be quiet, I don’t much like the sound of crying and it’ll save you a lot of pain in the long run” croaked the man matter-of-factly as if Fritz was a particularly dumb student in need of some hard truths.

“Best be quiet,” Fritz scoffed as well as he could while being carried like a log. “Do you also say that to your sister after you bed her, or is it before?”

The world rang as his head slammed against something hard. Distantly he felt like he was falling.

The were a few seconds of disorientation, of spinning, then he crashed into the stone floor and painful awareness came kicking back, much like the repeated blows he was now receiving.

After a couple more spiteful kicks landed he was hauled up again, the world felt fuzzy and there was a decided ringing in his ears.

“You’re..all..a..load..of..stinkin’...coward...skulg-spawn...sucking…eel-licking..sister...” He panted out through painful breaths.

Over the high-pitched whine of his own rasping insults and wheezing breath, he heard the malicious voice grumble “Gag him, it’s true what they say of him, real mouthy bugger he is. I’d rather not have him cursin’ us and our esteemed sisters through this whole thing.”

There were murmurs of agreement and then the bag came off, the light was all too bright for his eyes, a blurry figure with lank dark hair bent over him forced a chord of the coarse rope between his bloodied teeth, cutting off his tirade of vulgarities. The bag slipped roughly over his head, again,mercifully plunging him back into the dark.

With one parting thump to the head, they carried him into the incessant rain, out into the winding cobblestone streets of the Sunken Ring and onward to who knows where.

Looks like the first part of my plan worked, Fritz thought to himself though the haze of pain, the rain starting to wet his clothes, cooling the heat of his bruised skin and ego. I got them plenty angry. What was the next stage of the plan again?

-

Fritz awoke in a cellar, this also was not a great way to wake up he reflected. The cellar was damp, though dampness was to be expected in the city of Rain, he was just relieved the cellar wasn’t half full of water. Around him, he could hear whispering low voices, young like himself unless he misjudged, which was entirely possible as he was a little dizzy and his ears still rang softly.

He was lying prone his bonds and bag removed so he shuffled into a forward crawl until he made it to a cold stone wall away from the whispering. His hands met slick stone, cut bricks he noticed absently as he touched the cool wet surface and turned slowly to put his aching back to it. Seated up against the stone Fritz tried to take stock of his predicament while he shivered in the gloom. However, even without the bag over his head, his eyes couldn’t pierce the darkness. He rubbed at his raw wrists and poked prodded at his many bruises making sure they weren’t too serious.

Nothing broken it seemed but it was all fairly painful, still, it's not the worst shape I’ve been in, he mused silently in the dark.

Not long after the ringing and dizziness were starting to fade Fritz thought he saw a light, hoping it was no new symptom of his head injury he called to where he thought he heard the whispers.

“Do you see that light or is it just my brain turning to mush?”

The whispering stopped then someone answered him, a familiar sad voice but he couldn’t quite place it.

“Fritz, is that you under all them bruises?”

“Yeah, it's me,” Fritz grunted in response, hope and dread starting to fill his chest in equal measure, that sullen voice was most certainly familiar.

“Tobias, is that you whispering over there, didn’t know you could go so long without carving up a piece of the furniture.”

“It's Toby, and you know it. And they took my knife when they grabbed me, got one of them with it though. Right down his arm. Bloody eel-lickers,” Toby groused.

“Anyone else from the gang with you over there or am I interrupting your attempt at a whispered courting in this admittedly romantic, dank cellar,” Fritz called across the room.

Toby let out a wearied sigh and a high-pitched voice burst out in anger, “Oh shut up Fritz I swear to the spires I don’t know why you’re in the crew, I bet this is all your fault, I bet a full silver triad you’ve put us in this mess.”

“Oh Jane you’re here too, I’m glad to take that bet, I have it on fair authority that it's not actually my fault this time,” Fritz replied in false bravado.

“This time,” Toby deadpanned.

“Anyway,” Fritz went on ignoring Toby. “That all, just you and Jane or are there more of us in here?”

“Shut up, lights approaching, and I mean shut up Fritz, I don’t wanna get beat if you make a scene.”

Janet hissed at Fritz.

Fritz decided to do just that, well that was until the light shone through a small bar window in a heavy wooden door and illuminated the large rectangular stone bricked cellar, with each water-slick wall at least 20 feet on a side. The light's brightness continued to increase, revealing the other prone or sitting people in the room, most of them thin and hurt. They cradled injured limbs and stared away, shielding their sensitive eyes from the sudden light.

He saw Jane and Toby sitting together and the deeply breathing, unconscious form of Greg. Another of Fritz's crew, lying in front of them.

He scanned the round, plain face of Jane, her shoulder-length frazzled mousy brown hair and met her fish-scale grey eyes. She was in a serviceable green and cream dress, one a server in a tavern might wear, though it was looking worse for wear as it was streaked with mud and had holes torn in the sleeves.

Toby looked worse for wear, with old sticky blood running along his cheek and jaw. But his usual stern, dark gaze was pointed solidly at the floor, his black hair hanging over his pale long-faced, angular, features and his lips were stuck in a cruel grimace. His signature dark used-to-be-blackcloak was draped over himself and Jane like a blanket, trying to keep away the cold and the damp.

Greg however, looked terribly hurt but he was still breathing, which was a relief, but his shaved head had three large lumps the size of eggs. His face, an ugly affair at the best of times, was a puffy mess of bruises and cuts. It really did nothing to help his already brutish appearance, though he assumed Greg wouldn’t mind a couple more scars as he seemed to collect them and show them off with glee.

That's if he survives, Fritz supposed darkly. He’s likely too, that Greg could always take a beating then just shrug it off, He’s Like an ogre both bodily and spiritually, Fritz derided silently.

Fritz’s injuries must have looked similar to Greg’s, considering the wince that crossed Jane’s face when his hurts were finally made visible by the rays of light falling upon him. He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but he could feel blood drip out the corner of his mouth so he promptly stopped. He didn’t want to scare the poor girl any further.

They could hear multiple sets of footsteps coming down the hall, hard leather slapping against the slick cobblestone floor, there was a shuffling and a rattling of metal keys as one was picked out and thrust into a lock. With the clank of the simple lock disengaging and the thunk of a wooden bar being hefted up, the door swung open with a dirge-like creek.

Standing in the centre of three men wearing long brown oil coats beaded with water, and holding a lantern was a middle-aged man who looked as if he were carved of wood, gnarled, with notches and scars littering his face and bald head. That same face stared grimly back at the curious and hateful glances. He spoke in a voice like recently tarred gravel.

“Away from the door if you know what's good for you.”

He then motioned a short wave towards the door, at his gang in oil-coats.

“Chuck the next lot in,” He rumbled.

They hurried to obey and they corralled a line of raggedly dressed figures, the bags being torn off their heads as they were forcefully pushed into the room to join the others in this makeshift prison.

Fritz recognised many of them in passing, other thieves, thugs and ne’er-do-wells. As well as a couple of the girls he’d seen working in the “affiliated” Inns and taverns as waitresses and maids. They were still clothed in blouses that showed a little too much neckline, hand-me-downs from the actual working girls. Though the girls looked disheveled none of them sported bruises or other injuries. Fritz was glad of that fact.

As he looked into their faces he could see none of them were as injured as himself or Greg nor likely to have reached their sixth Tolling either. They were all too thin and pale as if not eating well enough and not seeing enough sun. But who did in the Sunken Ring?

A portrait of why they were here was starting to coalesce in Fritz’s pain-addled head, but a little more information wouldn’t hurt. Well, actually he supposed it would, but he was willing to pay the price if it gave him an edge.

So Fritz spoke up just as two more men he hadn’t seen heft one last boy, this one bound much like Fritz was, into the room laying him in the centre before untying and de-bagging him.

Fritz hardly glanced at the now unbound boy, dreading that he would recognise the limp, bloody form. Right height same hair-, no, plan, don’t get distracted talk, that’s what you’re good for. Talk and get something solid from these guys, Fritz thought desperately. So he called out to the man with the lantern in challenge.

“Kind Ron won't let this stand you know, he takes poorly to those who lay a hand on his gangs, you’re all dead men, drowned men. I’ll tie the weights to your legs myself when I get out of here.”

This accusation was met with a guttural chuckle. “We’ll be fine, we’re not the ones who hafta worry about drowning and as for Kind Ron, who do ya think gave ya to us, ya dredge?”

Denial welled up in in his gut until the cold knowledge of reality swept down from his brain and quenched the burn of the betrayal, he knew it was gonna come eventually, but this soon? The fact they weren’t afraid of a Pather's wrath means that Fritz and his crew were all up a night gutter without a paddle.

“Yeah that tracks, who are you? Why are we here? Where is here?” A deluge of questions spilled from Fritz’s aching throat. Trying to pry something from the man that could save him and his gang, and if he could manage it, the rest of the prisoners.

“Worry not, young lad, you’ll find out soon enough, don’t want to spoil the surprise if ya haven’t worked it out already,” The voice beyond the door replied.

“And don’t be gettin’ any funny ideas about escape or a surprise will be the least of your worries.” The man didn't wait for a response he turned as the last of the men left the room shutting and barring the heavy door behind them with an ominous thud.

The lantern light dimmed and started to fad as footsteps scraped on stone, away and into silence, save the soft constant sound of dripping water.

“That was Jagged Nic, he works for the Nightshark,” a boy hissed.

“Who doesn’t?” Someone answered from a corner, Steve, if Fritz didn’t guess wrongly.

“No. He works for him directly,”the other boy replied gravely.

That plunged them all into silence as they contemplated their fate.

Fritz decided to use what little time they had with the light to check on the unconscious boy in the centre of the room. His stomach fell. He had been right.

That pale, rugged but handsome face was beat up and broken. Bruises lined his square jaw and his eyes were closed shut hiding those wild amber-gold irises. His unruly mop of golden hair was caked in mud and blood. Of course, he recognised him. His right-hand man, his salvation, and his best bloody friend.

“Bert, are you awake, tell me you're alright?” Fritz whispered to him as he crawled towards him, achingly on his battered hands and knees. Cool slippery stones dug at him as he crawled, but he persisted, Bert could be in trouble.

Bert’s stocky body lay quiet, only tiny whistling breaths escaping his broken nose.

“Come on. You’re alright, cut the act,” he pleaded.

Fritz eventually reached him, eyes burning, hoping against hope that Bert wasn’t dead or dying. He shook him gently by the shoulder, then a little harder when he didn’t respond at all. His lolling head bumped against the hard wet floor.

“Spire’s spite, he’s not waking up,” Fritz whispered fearfully.

“Come on Albert, tell me you’re just faking it.” A terrible dread was seeping into his gut as Bert lay still.

He heard Jane begin to sob.

“No, no not poor Albert,” she began to quietly wail.

Bert groaned softly in dismay and opened one mischievous but abashed eye.

“Damn it, I was faking it!” He burst out in frustration. He aimed his next words at the sobbing in a quiet sombre tone.

“I didn’t know you were here, Jane. Sorry I was just trying to guilt Fritz here as this is clearly his fault and he needed to be taught a lesson. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Fritz remained frozen, squeezing Bert’s shoulder with no small amount of force, torn between immense joy that Bert was fine and a deep teeth-gritting annoyance that he’d play dead just to mess with him. Not that Fritz would have done any differently if the situation was reversed, still it was the principle of the thing.

“But you!” Bert rounded on Fritz. “You Skulg-gum squid-bedder, what did you do this time!?”

“Me!? You just let me think you were dead! Honestly, how dare you? You’re meant to be the sensible one! No, no don’t try to deny it, it is truth and law, and as sure as the rain,” Fritz intoned as if giving a sermon.

“One of you is meant to be sensible? I thought you two were just two utterly insane peas in the same mad pod,” Toby interjected with a pout on his lips.

That made both Fritz and Bert grin at each other in the waning light. Bert’s grin was quickly replaced by a wince as the movement stung his face and reminded him of his broken nose. With a resigned grimace Bert clutched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and set it straight with a sickening crunch. Bert let out a grunt, it probably still ached terribly, but at least now his breath was no longer whistling.

Fritz mimicked the wince in sympathy but then went on talking.

“Anyway, I think this is more than one of my stuff ups. I think I know why we’re here but I’m not sure, need to ask a few questions of our fellow captives first,” Fritz replied trying to affect a sense of control over the situation that he did not feel.

Bert harrumphed “Fine.”

“Also stop calling him Bert, Albert prefers Al,” Jane piped in between sobs.

“Same goes for Toby,” She added belatedly as Toby rustled in discontent.

“Fine, fine Janey,” Fritz assuaged. Before she could protest her Fritz granted alias. He ploughed on ahead, speaking into the darkness.

“How old is everyone, anyone hear their sixth Toll?”

No one answered.

“Oi Steve, you’re the oldest here, aren’t you? What are you five tolls two years and a season old?” Fritz questioned.

“Three seasons and two months, loudmouth,” Steve contradicted.

“Damn, you’re on the upper end of the age for the Tolling at twenty years, must have come out just after the Tolling. But that seems to track, I think it’s got to be something to do with the Spires and our first clear then, as once were hear our Sixth Toll we can enter the Spires,” He thought aloud.

“Are we really that close to the season's end, has it already almost been three years since the last Toll, I haven’t been keeping track but why take us?” asked one of the girls confused, a redhead Fritz vaguely knew.

“We are that close, I’ve been counting, heard rumours of this before, street kids abducted before their Sixth Toll, never to be seen again.”

“S’pose that’s not really surprising, a couple of us go missing every season whats a dozen or more every Toll?” A gruff voice spoke out, a shrug in their tone.

Was that Sid? How’d they get him? He’s a wily one and a vicious scrapper to boot. But I guess they got me and Bert too and we're nothing if not hard to catch, Fritz thought to himself in the clammy gloom.

“Maybe they mean to prepare us for surviving the first level or even getting a path on the third,” Fritz said speculatively.

“They couldn’t afford the Spire levy, even for one of the minor towers,” Toby spat.

“Even if they could, prepare us? Prepare us for what? Our certain deaths? We ain’t got nothing, no training, no equipment, no weapons, no nothing,” Toby continued, his words becoming more sour the longer he spoke.

“Now, now. We’re not completely unprepared, we have skills,” Fritz said trying to inject confidence into his hollow words. Knowing that only himself had befitted from training and tutoring however short lived it might have been.

“Easy for a guide’s son to say, Daddy probably taught you all his Guide secrets. But us, we don’t have the benefits of such a lucky life,” Steve groused into the murk.

Bert turned to glare in the direction of the comment, but Fritz lay a hand on him and spoke through gritted teeth.

“Shut up, Steve, you third-rate mugger and first-rate prick. My father died three Tolls ago. I’ve been without him or help for almost half my life. Been out on the streets just like you lot.”

“Us lot,” Toby said in that deadpan manner again but added nothing more so Fritz ignored him.

“The Guides Guild never lets anything slip about their exclusive paths or abilities nor how to acquire them in the Spires. It's not even allowed to be shared with family. If they thought I knew anything I’d be stone dead, drowned and dismembered and that's a truth you all should know,” anger was seeping into his voice and he was almost spitting his words by the end until Bert spoke up breaking the tense silence that followed Fritz’s rant.

“Need a member to be dismembered. So you’re not at risk for that, Fritz.”

Fritz chuckled as did many of the others trapped in here with him, releasing the hatred that had snuck up on him. Now was not the time for readdressing that old wound. The Guild and its ‘policy’ were not his concern right now.

“But I wasn’t talking about Guide skills,” Fritz continued, glad for Bert’s support in cutting the tension of the situation.

“I was talking about the skills you learn on the street. The skills we’re forced to learn just to survive. Cunning, grit, wiles and will, we got that in spades. Think on that. We might have a better chance than you’d expect,” Fritz ended optimistically, trying to reassure the cold dark room, and himself.

A silence followed. Broken only by the dripping of water and the dull sloshing echoing out from the dark. Fritz resolved to do anything to survive, to get through this with Bert and to get out of what ever mess he was in so he could protect what was left of his family. He sat there in the gloom hoping against hope he’d live to see his brother and sister again.

“Spires save me.”