Powder

The Heroes of Fannen-Dar, Chapter 6

Chester pulled his head back behind the crate. “Promises do not speak quite as loudly as gold...if you see my meaning?” the captain said.

Darrik silently caught Chester's attention. Is that Ignatius? he mouthed. Chester nodded. Darrik mouthed a vulgarity and crouched lower.

“I have your gold right here,” the voice identified as Kelvin said. “And, if this pans out, you'll get paid the same amount again after we're done. Twice as much as last time.”

“Excellent,” Ignatius replied. “And what do you have planned?...You do have a plan, yes?”

“You can see the map can't you?” Chester tried to tilt his head to take a look, but quickly darted back into hiding. A man with shaggy orange hair and a red and yellow vest, not part of the conversation, had walked around the table and had been looking towards the crates he was hiding behind. He held his breath, but nobody approached, and Kelvin continued talking. “We've got enough fire powder to send the whole block sky high. That'll get people talking about us.”

“Hm...Interesting choice.” Someone tapped their fingers on the table. “I'm assuming...this...was not an accident...correct?”

A wicked snicker. “It just adds to the fun.”

We have to get out of here, Darrik mouthed. Chester agreed, but the door they came in was in clear view of the table, and he could see no other way out. Crates blocked his view in every direction. Darrik pointed towards an opening between two stacks of crates, and began to sneak towards it.

Ignatius's boots were clicking around the table. “Yes, well, while you're having fun, I'm going to have the entire Council stamping on my head for allowing such a thing to happen. Of course, I will devise a way to work things out, but not without undue stress upon my own mind...understand?”

Kelvin grumbled. “You're already getting more than you deserve.”

“Then,” Ignatius said with a sigh, “I suppose I won't have the incentive to make sure, say, one of the guards doesn't wander by on his route just as some thugs are sneaking around with crates of explosives...”

“A'right, a'right, you get triple, but only after this goes down.”

Darrik stuck his head around the crate. Chester's heart was a panicked mouse inside the cage of his ribs, trying to find a way to escape. Darrik waved him forward. Chester rounded the corner to find a narrow passage between rows of crates. There were no more arrows indicating which way was out.

Behind the crates, the voices grew muffled. If he had focused, Chester would be able to make out what was being said, but his attention was on making sure each footfall made no more noise than necessary. He felt sorry for Darrik, who was still wearing his metal guard's boots and armor. He would probably get an earful for dragging him into this when they got out. He hoped.

The two guards paused as they looked around for any sign of an exit. They had turned a corner and arrived at the back of the room, compared to the door through which they had entered. However, there did not seem to be an opening in the crates to the back wall, if there was even a way out there. For all they knew, the way in was the only way in, and as such, the only way out.

“Just look!” Kelvin said suddenly. The boxes Chester was leaning against suddenly shifted, and a lid from above came shuddering down to the stone floor. Darrik quickly slid his hand away so that the wood didn't clatter against his metal gauntlet, but he scratched it along the floor. The guards exchanged a horrified glance, and then looked up at the crate which had been opened above them. It was only three feet off the ground.

“That's...actually a lot of fire powder,” Captain Ignatius said.

“And this is just one crate. Go on, open any other one.” Silence, until there was more wooden splintering close by. “This entire room is brimming with it. This is our main storage.” He chuckled, presumably at Ignatius's face. “I'm not kidding around.”

“I can...see that.”

Kelvin laughed again. “You're not my only contact in the Guard. You watch yourself and stick to the plan, or some of this stuff might find its way into your barracks along with a lit torch.”

Chester's breath was struggling to come out of his ears, so he let it out slowly and silently. A hand waved in front of his face, and he looked back over to see Darrik pointing at the ceiling. Chester looked up. One corner of the room, visible over the piles of highly explosive fire powder, was glowing with yellow light.

The footsteps moved back towards the center of the room, and the guards continued crawling, now to find a way through the maze of crates towards that corner.

The light was coming from a hallway without a door. The arch was unadorned, and there were no signs indicating what direction to do in. Chester and Darrik stood up when they left the room, but continued moving slowly. When he was sure they were out of earshot from the Firemen and the captain, Chester put his hand on Darrik's shoulder.

“Hold on,” he said. “What are we going to do?”

“We?” Darrik hissed. “I am going to keep doing my job, and keep my nose out of this. The Captain of the Guard is cavorting with criminals and I'm sneaking around under his nose. That's not justice, that's a death wish! You can risk your neck if you want, but leave me out of it!”

“These Firemen are going to blow something up,” Chester said. “We can't just let that happen.”

“Just stop thinking like that, or you'll end up tied to a chair with that powder all around you, and a fuse fizzling down towards it.”

He kept walking, and Chester followed. He began biting his lip while he thought.

Darrik tried to find a tunnel that led back to the main network, but the farther they walked, the more the architecture changed. The hallways were no longer wide, geometric passages, but looked more like straightened cave tunnels. The cold-torches were scarcer, making their walk lead from light to dark and back, over and over.

“I didn't know these tunnels were here,” Darrik said.

“I don't think much of anyone else does either,” Chester said.

Darrik scouted ahead down a tunnel, then retraced a few of his steps to check another hallway that he had skipped. “I've been trying to lead us in a general southeast direction,” he said, “but I think I've hit a corner. That room might be a bottleneck into this section of the tunnels.”

“It doesn't really look like an infirmary anymore,” Chester said.

“Maybe if we-” Darrik began, but suddenly flinched. Chester stiffened purely as a reaction, but then heard what Darrik had noticed. Soft footsteps were approaching them yet again, coming around the closest corner. Chester's eyes darted down to Darrik's waist, where his sword still hung at his side.

A voice greeted them before the body was in sight. “You mates coming back from a job?” he said. “I've got a...” A half-dwarf wearing tattered clothing put a face to the footsteps. He was carrying a cold-torch. He stopped when he saw the glisten it made off of Darrik's chest plate. “Hey, you're a...!”

Chester grabbed the hilt of Darrik's sword, lunged towards the half-dwarf, and stuck the blade through his chest. The cold-torch clattered to the ground, and the two guards broke into a run. Nobody was chasing them, but that wasn't a good enough reason to slow down.

Chester felt a breeze and followed it until the tunnels led outside to a grassy hill. The sun had just set behind the Shadir Forest, casting violet and orange rays against the scattered clouds. A few stars poked out curiously to watch the two panting guardsmen.

“You did...he was...” Darrik gasped.

“If I had just knocked him out, he'd tell the others that he saw a guard in their base.”

“We don't even know if he was working with the Firemen.”

“I didn't want to find out.”

Darrik collapsed into a sitting position on the hill. Chester looked back, realizing that they were outside the town wall. The Firemen must have used that entrance instead of the main doors into North Hill. It was easier to enter and leave the entire town than it was to break into a military base. The guards didn't even know the tunnels went back that far. Well, Chester realized, the captain knew, but he was keeping it to himself while he took the Firemen's donations under the table.

Darrik took a deep heave, gazing at the few stars. “I'm going back,” he concluded, standing up. “I need to convince Gulstein to not tell anyone that I left duty. Ignatius will notice.”

“You'll be fine. Just...wash your sword first.”

Chester held out the sword, red with the half-dwarf's blood, to Darrik, who grimaced and took it. He wiped it along the grass.

“We'd better go before any of the Firemen come through this way,” Chester pointed out. “We'll talk more about it tomorrow.”

Darrik furrowed his brow. “I don't know why I put up with you.”

“You're a pal, Darrik.”

<< Prologue, Heroes
<< Chapter 5, Plinth
Chapter 7, Quiet >>

Plinth

The Heroes of Fannen-Dar, Chapter 5

The population of Fannen-Dar was booming. Despite the wide diversity the town could boast (if anyone were to listen), more and more children were being born each month. Of course, this was mostly happening to the commoners, as the nobility could hardly be bothered to listen to the town crier, much less reproduce. And since the nobility took up a whole quarter of the town, with another half being used for places of business or worship, the living quarters for this exponentially expanding population were somewhat cramped.

It showed the most in the South-East quarter, commonly known as the Columns. Due to the need for more living space, but because of the limits of the town wall, the peasants built upwards. Houses were stacked on other houses, held up by support beams interconnecting the stacks like string cheese. The tips of chimneys protruded from the tops of the Columns, one for each house in the stack, creating a tableau that, if viewed from above, was reminiscent of a bed of needles. Most of the old Columns had access to the upper buildings by stairways inside, and these were often inhabited by extended families who liked to stay in touch. As people became more mistrustful of one another, it showed in the architecture; the newer additions had to be reached from the outside by rickety spiraling staircases or, for the really poor, ladders.

As Robin followed Gwynt through the streets of the Columns, she felt the gaze of a hundred unseen urchins giving them the once over to see if they were friend or foe, or possibly rich. Since nobody jumped out to mug them, Robin figured they struck an appropriately misfortunate impression. Gwynt seemed oblivious to the watching eyes and chatted with Robin over his shoulder.

“I can't wait to introduce to you everyone!” he said. “You're going to love it, Anzo is the best leader we could ask for...” A window several stories above on one of the Columns opened, and a harsh voice called down.

“What's all this ruckus?” The wrinkled man looked down at Robin and Gwynt and snarled. “Robin, I thought we told you not to come back here!”

“Hello, Old Man Scruthers,” Robin muttered.

“Speak up!” he yelled back. “Don't be gossiping about me when I'm right up here!” He spat, and the glob of saliva took a few seconds before it finally splashed on the ground several feet away from Robin.

Robin looked up at Scruthers. The man was so poor he could only afford a room high in one of the Columns. He couldn't handle the ladder, and the rumor was that he hadn't been out of his house in thirty years. His neighbors delivered food and other bare necessities to him in exchange for his predictions of the weather, based on the feelings he got in his old bones.

“We don't want none of your bad luck rubbing off on us!” Old Man Scruthers continued. Robin looked down at her feet. She knew it was a sentiment shared by most who knew her in the Columns. She had tried to move in after being rejected by every gang she volunteered for, but she couldn't pay with money, and no one wanted to hire her due to her suspicious background. Even the most misfortunate in the town thought she would bring them down further.

Robin moved towards Gwynt, who had stopped and was watching the conversation with a look of mild fascination. “Come on,” she said while Scruthers snapped another retort and slammed his window shut. “What were you saying about your boss?”

Gwynt smiled and continued. “He's got the whole gang running like cogwork. Almost every task we could ever need is assigned to at least one member, but we're missing just one. We still need a thief.” They took a few more corners through the narrow streets of the Columns. “I'm the assassin, of course, since I know the most about poisons and potions.” Gwynt suddenly stopped walking, and since his stride was more like a spasmodic sneak, Robin stumbled into him. He caught her in his arms, and Robin felt the tips of pins press against her. She quickly put five feet between them. Gwynt smiled to see that she was standing on her own, as if it were a great accomplishment.

He then raised his arms towards the heavens. Robin realized that he wasn't praying, but indicating the building they had come to. It was the tallest in the Columns, stretching into the sky for almost a dozen stories. Sunlight bathed the top floor, where the wood was just a bit less splintered, the windows a bit less dusty, and the chimney smoke a bit less smoggy.

“We have arrived,” Gwynt said formally.

“You live all the way up there?” Robin asked in awe.

Gwynt laughed. “There?” he said. “No! This way.” He stepped around the side of the building, away from the foot of the staircase that wound around the stack. He bent over and opened a trapdoor jutting out from the wall of the Column. He began climbing down a ladder.

Robin realized that she was about to enter a dark cellar with a stranger whom she had only just met less than an hour ago, and who had already attempted to kill her. She was very well aware of the advice often given to young women about young men, and especially young alfar (the alfar live for more than three times the length of humans, so alfar in their thirties are mentally only just reaching that special age when their bodies start to change).

However, Robin also knew a lot of gangs in Fannen-Dar. She had tried to join most of them, after all. She couldn't name every leader or remember exactly where their territorial boundaries were, but she had come to recognize all their names. Never in all her life living in this town had she heard of a gang called Bedlam. The idea of a new, or better yet secret gang made her incredibly curious.

Also, never in all her life had she been invited to join any sort of organization. She wasn't about to pass up this opportunity just because it might get her killed. She followed Gwynt through the cellar door, down the ladder shaft.

The room she found herself in was no more than ten feet on a single side. Wooden beams held back the soil that formed the walls, which were stained with rainwater and pockmarked with rabbit holes. One corner of the room was taken up by a small cauldron and alchemical supplies, including brass vials and a dusty alembic. Something green was dripping out of the alembic's spout, leaving a sizzling puddle on the ground. Gwynt took off his cloak and hung it up on a splinter of wood next to a looking glass in that corner.

The back of the room was dominated by a long table, strewn with tattered scrolls and parchments. A single quill sat in an iron ink well with streaks of dried ink crusted down its sides. A chair draped in a large fur pelt sat behind the table, facing away from the entrance. Gwynt stepped up to the table and waved Robin to join him.

“Anzo,” he said, “I've really done it this time. I've found us a new member.”

The chair slid back slowly, and a hulking figure stood up from it. The first thing Robin saw was his hair. It was matted and brown, almost like fur, coming out of his head like knots came off the sails of a ship. There was no mistaking that the man had ogre blood. He turned around, and the second thing Robin saw was his smile.

It was somehow larger than his face, and lopsided. It let out an enormous laugh. Not one of mockery like Robin was used to, though, but one that came from somewhere deep in the half-ogre's belly.

“Welcome to the Plinth!” he boomed. “Top-secret headquarters of Bedlam!”

“Bottom-secret, really,” Gwynt added. Anzo nodded solemnly.

“A new member, at last! This is just what we needed,” Anzo said to Robin. He tried to sit back down, but the chair was still facing the wall. After bumping into its back, he muscled it to face front. Robin noticed a small footstool behind it before Anzo finished adjusting and sat back down. “I see you've already met Gwyntmarwolaeth. My name is Anzo, and I am the founder and leader of Bedlam.”

Robin cleared her throat. “I'm Robin, and it's very great to meet you. I didn't expect such a warm welcome from a group who're named after the legendary city where people were supposedly slaughtered by the thousands in a single night.”

Anzo laughed again. “Very true,” he said. “We're nothing if not good to our members. Even prospective members.”

“Prospective?” Gwynt said. “I thought you said I could recruit anyone I could get my hands on?”

“I did say that, Gwyntmarwolaeth, and now you will shut up!” Anzo turned back to Robin and smiled. “However, everyone must go through a test before becoming a fully fledged member.”

Gwynt gasped. “Not the Sewers Course?”

“The very same.”

“But Anzo! Not even Hudtan could make it through without...you know...”

“Yes, yes, but the test is necessary.” Anzo looked back at Robin. “If you are willing to take the risk?”

Robin gulped, but wasn't about to back out. She wasn't about to be able to hide her nervousness either. “Yugh.”

“Good! Now, you should probably meet the rest of the gang...”

“Hold on,” Robin said after shaking off her shivers. “You want me to meet the whole gang? You don't just have some secret pass phrase to help identify each other?”

Anzo stared back at her blankly. “That...” he said, “...would be so cool!” He clapped and stood up laughing. “What a brilliant idea! Secret pass phrases! We'd be even more mysterious than we already are. What do you think of that, Hudtan?”

A person suddenly emerged from a shadowy corner, causing Robin to let out a short shout and take a step backwards. She was a dark elf, sporting the same pointed ears and thin frame as elves generally had, but with dark gray, almost black skin, solid white eyes, and streaked violet and azure hair. She had a scowl where her mouth should be.

“I think many things, boss man,” she said out of the corner of her mouth. The room seemed to grow quiet save her voice, even though no one but her spoke. “More goes on in my head than you could possibly comprehend. And each thought is as distinct as a full moon on a haunting night. My mind is as sharp as the blades with which I cut down my foes.”

“Yes, but what do you specifically think about Robin's idea?”

Hudtan's jaw slid sideways. “What idea?”

Anzo waved his hand. “We'll do an official briefing later, when I've had time to come up with some ideas.” He then smiled back and forth between Robin and Hudtan. “Robin, meet Hudtan, the brains behind our best schemes. Hudtan,” he said as she was licking her lips in Robin's direction, “if you hadn't been listening, I'm thinking of allowing Robin here to join up.”

“Hm,” Hudtan said. “That leaves many more things to think about.” She raised a finger, which after wandering around the room, found its way onto her cheek as she slunk back into her corner. The room was quiet for another few moments as Hudtan continued to stare at Robin.

“Yes!” Anzo said, breaking Robin out of a daydream that involved her running like hell. “That's that! I'm sure you'd like to know more about the history of our great order...”

“Uh,” Robin said, “sorry to interrupt before you get, um, all into that, but, didn't you want me to meet the rest of the gang?”

Anzo nodded. “I did! That is what I wanted, and I always get what I want. I wanted that for you, and you got it. So, moving on...”

“Bedlam is three people?”

“Three and a half,” Gwynt chirped. “Anzo always counts for extra in case of ties in voting.”

“But there's three of you. There would never be any ties.”

“Well. Just in case we ever had an even number.”

“And he said he always gets his way.”

“Yes, he does. Voting is pretty much just a formality.”

“We're very keen on formalities here,” Anzo said. “It helps keep things running efficiently, smoothly, and with much butter. Ah, Gwynt, remind me to go to the market for that tomorrow.”

“Absolutely, Anzo.”

Anzo took the quill from its place in the ink well and reached for a piece of parchment. He started talking to Robin while he wrote. “Make yourself comfortable, young lady. You've got a big day tomorrow with the Sewer Course and all.”

“It's okay if I sleep here?” Robin asked. “Before I become a member?”

“Yes,” Anzo said, and Robin noticed that he was only scribbling random lines across the page in front of him. “We like to keep things informal around here.”

Robin chose not to remind him of his previous comment on formality. “You're not even worried that I might steal something and just leave in the middle of the night?”

“I would just promote you right then and there, Robin!” Anzo said, with his big, sideways grin.

Robin nodded. She was surrounded by insanity. But craziness was better than pneumonia.

“Where should I sleep?” she asked.

Anzo pointed up. Robin looked and saw three cloth hammocks hanging from the ceiling. She looked back down at Anzo. “There's only three,” she said.

Anzo's smile wavered slightly. “I don't think Hudtan would mind sharing. Isn't that right, Hudtan?”

Robin turned around towards Hudtan's corner to see her licking the flat of a dagger and staring back. Robin blinked. Hudtan didn't. Nor did she stop licking the dagger. Robin turned back to Anzo.

“I'll just take the floor.”

After the others had climbed into their hammocks, which involved Anzo gently lifting them there and then jumping into his, Robin laid out Gwynt's cloak that he had offered her and made herself as comfortable as she could on the lumpy wooden floorboards. She tried to ignore the large gaps between each board and the worms which were surely wriggling beneath them. She kept her thoughts away also from the poisons, knives, and heavy bodies all posed to easily fall over and end her. She couldn't think about her old home, which was now a pile of rubble, or the complete insanity that her day had included, or the debt she owed to the most powerful man within fifty miles.

All she could think about was that she had her first chance at belonging to a criminal organization. She would finally be able to call herself a thief. She went to sleep with a smile plastered to her face. If Bedlam was insane, it was right where she belonged.

<< Prologue, Heroes

<< Chapter 4, Clues
Chapter 6, Powder >>

Clues

The Heroes of Fannen-Dar, Chapter 4

Chester sat with his back against the massive stone wall, looking away from the town.  The view outside the walls of Fannen-Dar has inspired some mediocre poetry in the past.  A verse floated to the front of Chester's mind.

Though light doth break through cloudy sky,
The shadows are set free.
The forest dark, the mountains high,
Make it really hard to see.

He was looking towards the Shadir Forest as he sat on the spot where they found the dead boy.  While artistic talent may not be one of Fannen-Dar's primary exports, the stanza certainly spoke true about the lighting.  Murky clouds drifted in from the Thundertop Hills to the northwest, where the peculiar terrain caused miniature storms to form almost constantly atop the jutting cliffs.  Even when the clouds cleared for one brief moment, the sun was usually either behind one of the mountains to the east or the Shadir Forest to the west seemingly absorbed all the light.  And yet it somehow managed to always be stiflingly hot during the summer.

Chester had ignored the captain's advice to rest.  He visited the barracks to put away his armor, but then returned to the scene of the latest crime.  He scoured the area, but found nothing except dirt, rocks, and a rough patch of grass where the body had been dumped.  There was no single footprint pointing the way toward a villain's hideout, nor a torn piece of fabric from a fleeing killer.  If there were a less obvious clue, Chester didn't have the expertise to find it.  Investigation was not something guards were taught, it was something they learned after decades of experience.  They weren't hired for their skills; they were signed on for the fact that they have bodies that can swing swords and block arrows.

Maybe there really wasn't a connection, Chester began to think.  After all, the similarities between the cases are already barely existent.  It could just be in his head.  There are too many differences, too.  The victims each coming from different parts of the town, being different ages, dying in different places.  This boy was even brutally bludgeoned, while the others only had stab wounds.  Why would a killer need to beat up one victim, but not the others?

The hairs on Chester's neck stood up, brushing against the stones of the wall.  He turned and looked up.  The top of the thick wall looked back down at him, and winked.

Chester scrambled to his feet.  Maybe the bruises weren't the result of a beating.  Maybe the kid obtained them after his death.

There was a tower nearby that connected two segments of the wall, and where a staircase could be found that led to the top.  The wall was six feet thick, with a traditional battlement lining the outside through which arrows could be fired at attackers.  Fannen-Dar hadn't seen a battle since the Savage War decades ago, so security along the top of the wall was thin.  The small number of sentries ordered to walk the perimeter of the wall meant that any particular area would be unguarded for fifteen minutes at a time.  Plenty of time for someone to sneak up and commit murder.

In the bards' stories, whenever the hero was faced with a mystery, all would seem hopeless until he stumbled across the one piece of evidence needed to solve the entire thing.  A lesson that Chester had learned the hard way was that life wasn't like those stories.  There weren't magic arrows that could point you the way, there wasn't always someone strong seeking justice, and you could never really be sure about, well, anything.  Most of all, he learned that you would never be able to solve all the world's problems.  But Chester wouldn't be able to forgive himself if he didn't try.

Maybe life just wasn't like that in Fannen-Dar.  In the other parts of the world, they had heroes whose adventures actually resulted in major changes.  In Fannen-Dar, you had people and their problems, but not a hero in sight.

Chester reached the top of the wall.  The stones stretched out in front of him like a snakeskin turning to dust.  He walked over to the edge and peered out through a crenel.  He looked down and could see the spot where the boy's body had been found.  The dirt around that spot perhaps looked a little darker, but it could also just have been a trick of the light.

He looked around, but this section of the wall looked the same as the rest.  He knew he was on the right path, but there was just not enough information, too few clues.

The gray clouds parted momentarily, and the sun shone through.

Chester looked down to avert his eyes from the glare.  There, scorched into the stone as if with fire, was the shape of a dagger.

Chester resisted the urge to shout in triumph.  Instead, he rushed down the stairs and sprinted back into the town.

He recalled that the merchant's wife had been killed not too far from there, only a few minutes' walk into an alley right on the edge of the marketplace.  It was all too true that most murders happen close to the victim's home.  This was because either the killer had been waiting for them to come out, or had been following them and then struck before they could get inside to safety.  Several more happened inside the victim's house, if they lived alone.

Chester found the spot, which had been given a quick sweeping up since the body was taken away.  There was no blood to be found, but if Chester was right, there wouldn't have been any in the first place.  All he could see were puddles of mud, wooden crates, and a bucket placed strategically under a second-story window.  He heaved a pile of crates aside.

A mark identical to the one on top of the wall graced the side of the building.

Maybe there was more to the bards' stories after all.  Chester took off again, his mind set on only one thing.  He didn't need to find the place where the elderly noble was killed; there was no doubt in his mind of what he'd find there.  He needed to find Darrik.

***

"You can take your findings and shove them in the sewers," Darrik said.  Chester had found him on duty outside the Coopers Guild hall.  Every official guild in Fannen-Dar received protection from the town, except for the Fighters Guild, who claimed that it would be insulting to insinuate that they could not protect themselves.  In actuality, it was because they gambled on illegal fights during the day, and because nobody wanted to mess with the Fighters Guild.

"But this is proof!" Chester hissed.  The other guard, a stocky dwarf woman, was trying her best to tune out their conversation.  It wasn't her concern whether or not there was crime going on in the town until her superiors made it her concern.  Chester was trying to keep his voice to a whisper, but the excitement was proving too much for him to handle.

Chester continued, "I knew the deaths were connected.  The same weapon was used for each of them, a heated blade."  He had one hand on Darrik's shoulder, using his other to emphasize every other word with a jabbing finger towards Darrik's chest.  The loyal guard stood tall and only allowed his face to show his disdain.  "The thing is," Chester said, "there was no source of heat near the murder scenes, but they were clearly killed there without being moved."

Darrik bit his lower lip.  "And you can't figure out why?"

Chester shook his head.  "I know you've been doing this for longer than I have," he said, "and that your father was a guard before you.  You probably know tons about the way these things work, way more than I do!  I need your help."  He smiled, and added, "Buddy?"

Darrik sighed.  "Okay, I'll bite.  I've heard of something like that before.  A fire-branded weapon.  They could be using magic to make the dagger hot."

"Why didn't I think of that!"

"Because it's really hard to come by illegally," Darrik said.  "The Enchanters Guild has never had more than four members at a time, and those kinds of runes are pretty complicated."  Chester blinked at Darrik, who sighed again.  "My mother had some arcanist friends that she invited over for tea a lot.  I picked up a bunch of random, useless knowledge."

"Not useless," Chester pointed out.  He put his hand to his head.  "We need to figure out who would be able to get their hands on that sort of thing.  I'd say Dominaurus, everyone knows they own over half the town, but they'd never flub up like this..."

The other guard coughed.  "I, uh," she said.  "I might have an idea."

Chester and Darrik looked at her expectantly.

"Sorry," she said.  "I couldn't help overhearing..."

"No, it's fine," Chester said.

"I didn't mean to intrude..."

"Please.  Do go on."

She spun her warhammer around in her hand.  "Well, I just thought, it sounds like something the Firemen would do."  Chester and Darrik looked at each other, realized that neither knew what she was talking about, and looked back at her.  "They're a gang that got noticed for their tendency to, well, set things on fire."  She started scratching at a notch on the head of her weapon.  "They've been known to use magical fire, so they must have access to that kind of enchantment.  There's a rumor that their base is in North Hill, but there's apparently not enough proof for the captain to give the order for a raid."

Chester put his hands on Darrik's shoulders.  "We've got to check it out," he said.  His eyes had the sparkle that Darrik had only seen on children the night before gift-giving on the Winter Solstice.

"But...I'm on duty!" Darrik said.  "You've already distracted me enough."  The dwarf looked around at the empty street and shrugged.

"This is your duty!" Chester said.  "Your town is being threatened from within.  Yes, we have murders here all the time.  Yes, the gangs are far too powerful for two fellows like us to stop.  Yes, your orders are to stay here and be useless."  Darrik tried to interrupt, but Chester plowed forward.  It was something he was starting to like.  "But I say there's more to it!  The status quo is simply not okay.  Gangs, murders, uselessness...We signed up as guards because we wanted to make a difference."  Again, Darrik began to argue, and Chester cut him off.  "We vowed to protect the town.  Even if that vow was just a formality, that's what being a guard means.  And when people are dying, it's our duty to try to put a stop to it.  Now, the only way we can do that is by investigating these Firemen.  Are you going to fulfill your promise to Fannen-Dar?  Or are you going to just play it safe?"

Darrik shifted his weight onto a barrel outside the guild house door.  "Safe sounds really nice," he said.

"Then I'll go myself!"

"That's dumb," Darrik said, "and you know it."

"It's my job," Chester replied.

Darrik blinked.  "You're being honest."

"Honest to gods."  Chester puffed up his chest.  "Honest to Just, even."

"Glory to her," the dwarf added.

Darrik groaned.  "You'll die if you go alone."  Chester shrugged but nodded.  "We'll both probably die if I go with you."  Chester tossed his head back and forth, but nodded in the end.  Darrik sighed, sounding as though his lungs were getting worn out from constant overuse.  He put his head in his hand.  "All right.  I'll go."

Chester smiled.  "I know.  Come on, we're wasting time!"

The two humans scurried off.  The other guard stood wringing her hands on her warhammer before shifting to the other side of the Coopers Guild door.  She looked up and down the street, seeing burglars and thugs where before there had been commoners.

"They could have at least invited me along," she whimpered.

***

A part of the northern district of Fannen-Dar was built onto one of the low hills of the Thundertops.  It was short enough that it wasn't always stormy, but a dampness usually clung to the air.  Dwarves had dug tunnels throughout the hill before the town had been founded, to use as a fortress in a time when war raged across all of Calemor.  Now, the tunnels were mostly used for food and material storage for the town, but there were a few forges and armories scattered throughout as well.  It had been uncreatively renamed North Hill.

Gaining access to the tunnels was no problem for two guards.  Chester was off-duty, but he kept his copper badge in his pouch should he ever need to, say, heroically step into a fight and threaten the villains with his authority.  It wasn't as impressive as the silver badges of higher-ranking officers, but it made its point clear.

The tunnels certainly looked dwarf-made, with great blocky pillars holding up the roof, and plenty of extra space.  Dwarves weren't much shorter on average than humans, but for some reason they adored building massive rooms underground.  Being only a hill, North Hill's tunnels couldn't compare to the great halls of Bjergstning, but they were still fifteen feet from wall to wall, and at least as high.

They were also as confusing to navigate as a maze.

"We don't need to check everywhere," Chester said as they turned another square corner.  "We've passed the light armory, the dining hall, and the soldier's quarters.  A whole gang couldn't make their hideout in those places."

"Could we stop walking in circles, then?" Darrik grumbled.

"What do you mean?  We haven't been this way."

Darrik pointed to words carved into the wall.  The top sign had an arrow pointing in the direction they were walking.  It read Dining Hall.

Chester licked his lips.  "Maybe they have two," he suggested.  Darrik slowly shook his head, which was starting to glisten with sweat.  The torches that lit the tunnels also kept the temperature nice and comfortable, if you were a dwarf who was used to being next to a furnace the entire day.  For humans, even those used to the humid heat of Fannen-Dar, the dry air of the tunnels was like an armored knight to a stumpy mule.

"We can't search the whole place ourselves," Darrik said.

"Well we can't ask for help either, can we?" Chester snapped back.  He wiped his face and took a deep breath.  "Maybe we can just peek in a few more rooms."  He glanced down the long list of arrows.  Training Hall, Buttery, Dungeon Cells...

"And what about the rooms behind those rooms?" Darrik said.  "This place is organized like a cobweb.  It made sense long ago, but it's a tangled mess now!"

...Washroom, Undercroft, Temple, Infirmary...

"Not to mention how ridiculous the idea that a gang would set up here is in the first place.  We had to show our badges to enter, for Hope's sake!"

...Infirmary?

"Why would they need an infirmary?" Chester muttered.

"For treating the injured," Darrik said.  "As they are usually intended."

"Exactly."  Chester knelt down next to the wall.  The sign pointing towards the Infirmary was low to the ground, faded from age.  "Back when this was a dwarven fortress, sure, but now anyone sick or injured goes to Holy Row.  And look."  He pointed up to a sign at eye level.  It had been carved into a separate stone and slotted into the wall, whereas the low signs were etched directly into the tunnel.  This one read Hospice.

"In case there's an emergency, they go there," Chester said.  "The old infirmary would be up for grabs to anyone who finds another way in."

Darrik wrinkled his nose.  "It's a long shot."

"I'm a terrible archer, but I think that means we should check, just in case."

The two followed the signs towards the Infirmary for a half an hour, winding their way through the passages. They passed fewer and fewer of the other soldiers, until all they could hear were their own footsteps and the flickering of the torchlight. Dust was collecting in the cracks of the stone. The heat was becoming less oppressive as fewer bodies were around to radiate it.

“I feel like a fly in a Spiders Guild,” Darrik whispered. His voice barely rose above his footsteps.

Chester raised a hand to Darrik's chest to stop him. “Wait,” he said. He tilted his head back and forth. They were at a turn in the tunnel, their vision cut to no more than ten feet in any direction before all they could see was a stone wall. “Do you hear that?”

Darrik held his breath for a few seconds, then let it out slowly through his nose. “It's completely silent, goblin breath.”

Chester nodded. “Right. What's missing?”

“Our footsteps. Anybody else's footsteps. And...”

They looked at the walls. In the sconces were cold-torches, lighting the hallway with their signature heat-less, yellow energy.

“If nobody uses these tunnels,” Chester whispered. “Why use expensive cold-torches?”

Darrik thought for a moment. He was sweating despite the cooler air. “They're used by arcanists all the time,” he said. “To light their libraries. So that nothing flammable gets set on...fire.”

Chester broke out in a joyless grin just as a door slammed and heavy footsteps started moving towards them.

Chester scrambled forwards, hopping down the hallway on his toes. The footsteps were clattering quickly towards them from the direction they arrived, meaning the only escape was deeper into the Infirmary. Darrik fell behind him, moving slower, for he still wore his armor. Any quick movement would be heard throughout the whole area. Like the tremblings of a trapped insect in a silky web.

Chester pressed his ear against the first door he found. Hearing nothing on the other side, he opened it. A long room stretched out before him. Where once dwarf-sized beds for the injured warriors after whatever battle they had waged that week would have been, now wooden crates were piled high and haphazardly. A table and chairs were set up in the center of the room, lit by more cold-torches. Chester waved back at Darrik to hurry up. Darrik waved back, with his fingers in a slightly more rude gesture.

Chester grabbed the front of Darrik's armor as soon as he got close and pulled him in. Just as he saw a boot coming around the corner, he shut the door without letting it bang against the frame.

Darrik was breathing heavily, but managed to maintain a whisper. “This is not how I imagined my day.”

“They must not guard that entrance, since nobody ever uses it,” Chester said. “We just wandered into their turf without noticing.”

“As long as they also went without noticing,” Darrik gasped, “I'm happy.”

Voices sounded through the door, coming closer. Chester nodded his head and the two guards moved behind a pile of boxes, where they were out of view from the door and the center of the room. The door opened.

“You see, we can work something out, as we always do,” a man said. The footsteps moved to the table, there was the sound of chairs scraping against the stone floor, and a sheet of parchment being laid out flat.

“This is our plan, see?” the same voice said. He spoke through his nose, but with such vim and verve that Chester could only imagine his nostrils were the size of cats. “The Firemen have had a hard time lately with our work, and we need this to get our name recognized again. I'm telling you out of trust that you'll hold together with our agreement.”

Someone else laughed a humorless laugh, one bristling with sharp edges that were sheathed but clearly displayed. The laugh turned into a voice. “Trust is not something typically associated with success in your line of work...is it, Kelvin?”

Chester felt the blood drain from his face and rush back to his brain, where it had some serious work to do. He leaned ever so slightly out from behind the box, so that just one eye could see the center of the long room. He saw the back of the head of the man who had just spoken, but there was no mistaking who he saw.

Captain Ignatius of the town watch was making a deal with the Firemen.

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