The salty air of Raider’s Bay never got old. There was something in it that stirred Farek up inside, made him feel like the namesake invader with his hands on the prow of a ship. Of course, there had never been a battle at sea here. The water was red because of its mineral content.
Farek stood on the wharf and finished eating a particularly juicy apple. He had finished his shift at the warehouse, but delayed returning home. He hadn’t followed up on Lord Thrane’s supposedly approaching assassination. The man, according to all sources, was as corrupt as most of the city’s leadership. Neither had he seen Gravagan again, nor a golden dog in a house he ought to burn.
He tossed the apple core into the red harbour and slid his hands into his pockets. It was a warm, dry day, but Farek didn’t mind. Often, when he was walking through the streets of Soros, the rain soaked him to the bone before he even reached Coin Hill.
The street market leading out of the harbour was just as busy as usual, but the smell of sweat seemed particularly strong that day. A few peddlers tried to sell Farek clothes they had sewn, but it appeared to mostly be items combined from other garments. He ignored them—his wardrobe was full and vibrant. Today he wore a dark blue shirt with a white sash. His sword, forged from the finest copper in Copper Cove, hung at his waist. It had been his father’s, and his father’s too. The design hailed from antiquity, a proper cross-guard hilt still wielded in the Reborn Forests of the Great Isle. In the Old Empire of Noress, swords like this—with no other function than combat and display—had been held by only the Chosen Paladins. The hilt made it impossible to hew through the dense foliage of the rainforest, and proper hilts had faded with the fall of that civilization.
As if by cue, Farek heard the sounds of combat. Or crime. A few shouts, a cry—across a small plaza from him, thugs had grabbed hold of a merchant and dragged him toward a nearby alleyway. The market guards made no move. Apparently, the merchant had not paid the security tax.
Farek kept walking. It was not his place to intervene. The system worked; though crime persisted and always would, the security tax kept a constant hierarchy of economic competition that had made Soros what it was. He heard the merchant cry out when he was struck and paused. Gravagan would put me in a little box and tell me how to act, Farek thought, to keep me alive and out of harm’s way. Farek had long followed a similar motto, just doing what was expected of him.
But he wouldn’t let fear or prophesy bind his hands and blindfold him. He’d make his own decisions. He smiled and put his palm on his hilt. Not my style to charge in, he thought. He started across the plaza. From a clothing stall, he snatched a small woolen cap and pulled it over his black hair. He ruffled his moustache so it wasn’t damned perfect, and stole a cloak while the clothier spoke with an elderly couple nearby.
A beer sampling stand capped the next street entrance. He tossed a Gallendris coin on the wooden counter and lifted a small cup to his mouth. Just to give the overbearing stench of poor alcohol. Gods, it is poor, he thought. He’d had better brew off a foreign ship in the harbour, let alone every Soros tavern.
His whole crossing of the plaza had only taken two moments, but the seven or eight thugs had already knocked their victim to the mossy cobblestones of the alleyway they’d chosen. One stood guard near the entrance. Farek stumbled right past him, dizzy on his feet. He had kept the cup from the beer stand, and waved it toward the second goon.
The others all paused when they spotted him. The merchant cowered, gripping his bloody nose while three of the grunts loomed over him. Another two leaned against the nearby wall, though one stood up to look at Farek’s flushed face. “Hey, you can’t be here,” said one of the others standing nearby.
“Sorry, sorry,” Farek said, and started to turn around again. He tripped, intentionally, on his left foot and knocked the second thug against the wall with his shoulder. “By the gods, I am so—”
“Drunk,” said one of the others, chuckling. The man who had hit the wall groaned, and relaxed on his rump, winded. He seemed mad but also humoured.
The criminal who had spoken laughed, and Farek held out his cup in that man’s direction to offer him a drink, but in doing so, smashed one of the men against the wall in the face. The man also sunk to the ground, this time knocked clean out. Finally, they started to react, one man reached for his knife, saying “Hey!”
“Sorry,” Farek said, backing up. He held his palms out. Then he turned and tried to run out of the alleyway. The first man, at the opening between buildings, tried to block his way, so Farek lowered his shoulder and rammed into him. The two of them careened into the plaza and smashed through a flimsy wooden market stall. Tin cups and brass plates showered the cobblestones in a din, and all the guards in the market looked their way.
The dish merchant raised his arms in the air as his wares came to a settle and the two men stood up amidst the mess. “Guards!” the salesman bellowed. He had paid for security, apparently, because the market master waved the guards in their direction. Just as Farek had hoped.
With all his might, Farek struck the man he had tackled, knocking him and his teeth to the stones where they stayed. Five out of the six remaining conscious thugs came marching out to the mouth of the alleyway, brandishing clubs and daggers.
Farek kept his hat on. He wasn’t keen on either the criminals or the law seeing a Gallendris face involved in all this. He pulled out his sword—that, at least, could safely be used without ruining his cover. The first attacker that charged him was the man he had first shoved against the wall. He swung a large knife at the wealthy lord, who merely sidestepped and tossed the man’s weight further into the market. It was caught by a guard.
The second attacker wielded a quarterstaff. Farek ducked the first thing and spun round a jab. He smashed the flat of his sword off the man’s lower back, arching it. Before the gangster could react, Farek let one hand off his sword and grabbed the end of the staff. He yanked upward, though the thug still had both hands on the weapon—the shaft smashed off the man’s face, and he lost his footing.
Two others were already attacking Farek, but a thrust spear from a guard hamstrung one of them. The man screamed and fell to one knee, clutching his bloodied limb with knotted fingers.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” called out the gang’s leader. Farek didn’t bother giving chase—the guards saw to that. They’d arrest all of them, if they could. Farek marched back into the alleyway and lifted the battered merchant to his knees.
“Thank you… so much,” the man gasped. He spat blood to the side. The criminal Farek had first knocked out stirred groggily, alarming the merchant. Farek gave the man another punch, and he slumped over onto the cobblestones.
To the merchant, Farek tossed one of his gold coins. “For the damages done. And take this.” He handed the man one of the pins that lined his belt—they were springy tin coils used to link coins through the hole in the centre of each, as well as to bind scrolls and the like. Farek’s were a dark blue, like the tunic he wore today. “Bring it to the Gallendris warehouse on the waterfront for a safer job.”
“I can’t,” the man said, astounded. “This is too much.”
Clearly the fellow owed someone a lot of money, and no amount of mercantile work would get him further out of the books of someone corrupt. Farek shrugged and didn’t accept the pin back. “Do or don’t,” he said. “You’ll figure out soon enough what your best option is.”
“Thank you,” the middle-aged man mumbled, climbing to his feet.
With a shout, the man whose leg had been rendered useless was lifted up by two guards and dragged away. Soon the law would investigate the alleyway, so Farek started walking the other way, toward whatever street lay behind these buildings. He hadn’t spent much time in alleyways before—rather, the wide streets of Coin Hill. As he walked away from the small skirmish, he smiled. That was fun, he thought, as he sheathed his sword and tossed away the plain grey cap with a laugh.