5 comments/ 42276 views/ 21 favorites Bounder Ch. 01 By: Stultus Synopsis: A roguish thief, noble cad (and indeed a bounder) uses his magical gift much against his inclinations to obtain justice and work for a good cause. He now finds himself upon an entirely different sort of career path than he would have preferred, one now of honor and integrity - much to his shock and dismay! Sex contents: A Little Sex Genres: Fantasy Adventure/Mind Control/Mystery Story Codes: MF, Fantasy, Humor, Magic, Mind Control, Mystery, Oral, Anal, Slow (of course) Bounder Ch. 01 Collar ruffs were becoming increasingly fashionable (and oversized) too, but that was one trend that I was trying to resist! For her own part, the Princess Imperial set her own trends for female fashion wearing bodices that displayed an alarming amount of her adequately sized breasts, up to and including revealing entirely her rouged nipples to full public display. That trend hadn't quite caught on with the nobility up here in the remote provinces, but necklines were plunging and skirt hems were rising. The Dowager Empress had never allowed even her ankles to be displayed in court, but already it was rumored that bare knees would be en vogue this summer and clergymen everywhere were already outraged! While the church wasn't technically anti-sex, it did possess a rather vigorous sense of its role in enforcing morality and the existing imperial sumptuary laws... and with about an equal lack of overall success. With my hose pulled down to my knees and my penis engulfed in the young woman's mouth, I began to remove my boots so that I could peel off the hose so that I could better enjoy myself. It had been awhile since I had partaken of this sort of delicious fun and I was able to ejaculate rather swiftly into her warm tight mouth. The thrill of keeping a victim in thrall to my will has always been extremely stimulating for me and I had little difficulty keeping my erection so that I could bend my young guest down face first across my desk and I lifted up her skirts so that I could now enter her. She tight but no virgin and her vaginal entrance smoothly accommodated my complete entrance into the depths of her private sex as I abruptly took her. Technically this was rape of course, but the fantasy I had built into her mind would tell her that she had instigated this assignation of her own will and had given herself freely to me. Her body was finding my thrusts inside of her pleasurable and I could use this growing lust to bind her to me more fully, should I desire her for a long-term plaything. Or, should she prove to be either inconvenient or troublesome, I could just as easily alter or erase these memories entirely from her mind instead, instructing her to forget our encounter had ever occurred. My victim, I still had not gotten her name (nor did I much care) only groaned with louder pleasure when I removed my rigid member from her moist dripping snatch to bury it now fully with forceful determination now inside of her slender ass. Her asshole was considerably stretched by this unexpected and significant intrusion but I quieted any thoughts of alarm or discomfort within in her mind. "You love my cock inside of your ass and you want me to fuck it harder, and as deeply as possible!" I suggested as I grasped her left breast hard in one hand and pulled back her long hair sharply and I rammed myself forcefully into her and soon her moans became ones of pleasure. "Yessss..." she hissed in ecstatic delight, even pushing herself harder onto my cock as it rammed harder and deeper into her backside until I soon exploded once more inside of her. Taking a short rest in my own comfortable desk chair, I instructed my new pet to completely undress and then to kneel in front of me to give my cock and balls some proper and extensive worship with her mouth and tongue. The hard wooden floors of my office had been polished by several sets of knees since my arrival here, but her oral talents were notable, better than most and I observed with approval that her hair coloring quite matched the wood. Other than a slight aptitude for sucking cock, her erotic skills were not exceptional but she appeared to be rather trainable, and I certainly had the spare time at the moment. With proper indoctrination, she would make a superb slut-pet, always eager to fuck and be fucked with little or no free will remaining of her own. Perhaps she might also be trained to yearn for the whip, to desire pain as sexual pleasure? So many delightful options... but this was the exact sort of unrestrained extravagance that almost got me into trouble back in the capitol more than once. There were countless women that could be easily taken from the streets that few people would miss, but this was rarely true for the pretty young ones or ladies of good family. Besides, when any women can become my abject sex slave the attraction for me wanes after just a few weeks. After a month or more of serving my every sadistic whim, it is also difficult to put my victims mental pieces back together again, to restore her mind and will as they were before... but without any inconvenient memories of her alleged abuse. There are other more permanent methods of removing an unwanted plaything that I'm bored with, but that sort of treatment is wasteful and I do hate waste. Before I took this little creature home and discovered how well her pale milky skin took to a whip, it would be best to find out more about her. Who her family was and when or if she would be missed if she just 'disappeared'. I'd cum twice already and while I was good for at least one more bout of sport, I could now think reasonably clearly and logically with my urges now somewhat restrained. A man who cannot restrain his urges, no matter how pleasant they might be, is little more than an animal and will likely meet an animal's fate. I was still learning this lesson. My decision to seize upon this young lady today had been rather overly impulsive, and perhaps unwise. I usually had more restraint. Undoubtedly it would be prudent to take a fuller measure of this woman, and discover her original reason for bothering me, before any irreversible tampering with her mind started to occur. "Pet, I want you to stop sucking my delicious cock, just for now, and sit back on your heels and relax and close your eyes. I want you to listen to me and answer each of my questions carefully, and you will always tell me the truth and not the answer that you think will most please me. Do you understand?" "Yes Sir." She calmly stated. I got up and stood behind her so that I could better caress her head. With a hand or better yet two upon her head I could sense her thoughts clearly and more easily discover any attempt at evasiveness or falsehood. Also now in this position I could better condition her mind to either place her in deeper permanent mental bondage or else more easily clear her recent memories if I needed to release her unspoiled. She told me that her name was Danelle and that her parents ran a small but fashionable dress shop on Glitter Alley, near Silk Street just off of Royal Avenue. She had no current lover or firm matrimonial plans but she thought her parents were attempting to arrange a marriage with a local lad on Weaver's Row. She was only nineteen, but her hand-work was already good enough for master's certification from the Embroiderers Guild. She was popular in her neighborhood of fellow craftsmen, and already renowned enough to have several regular wealthy clients of her own. Alas, she was clearly a woman of some means and public visibility whose absence would be quickly noted and with some alarm. Furthermore, she had been advised by one of her customers to visit me for my help and had solicited several other opinions from her family and other clients about the wisdom of such a visit to consult with me. If this toothsome creature vanished, or at least anytime soon, I would be certain to be questioned and that was an unacceptable risk to take just for dalliance. She would have made a good pet, but not an exceptional one worthy of such a risk taking. Alas, it appeared that our trifling together today would only be a singular occurrence. I would need to gently remove most of my hold over her mind and somewhat modify her memories of this afternoon, but this could be easily done. My grasp upon her will was complete but yet still a light one and no permanent mental disability would be likely to occur. The effort would tire me, but not excessively so... and it was necessary. As for her job for me, her purpose of coming, this was to obtain justice for the death of her older sister whose naked body had been pulled out of the river late last fall. Even more popular than Danelle, Rochelle had been a flower of their community and she had successfully made a love-match with a local wealthy dairy farmer just to the southeast of the city, near the marshes. Suicide seemed highly unlikely but no murder could be proven either and even after some personal attention was paid to the case by the governor himself, the mysterious death was pretty much filed away unsolved and forgotten about. Except by Danelle. She had come to offer me her entire savings, which was a moderate amount of silver (by crafter standards anyway) to consult with me, but still a rather inadequate fee by my usual standards and I had little interest in taking any charity cases. The last thing I wanted was for word to get out onto the street that I could be hired on the cheap, out of boredom, or worse... sentiment! Saying 'no' and refusing most potential paying clients just increased my allure and the demand for my services by the elite (or at least those with heavy purses). Anyway, I don't normally conduct hands-on investigations myself. There are informers aplenty down by the docks that will do that sort of work and for coppers. Her slight purse of coins was far less than sufficient to arouse in me even the slightest bit of curiosity in taking on this mundane assignment that ought to be best handled by the city vigiles. I laughed heartily at the very thought of a d'Bounderby actually being lowered to muck about in the street to discover who might or might not have killed a mundane shop girl! This was not the sort of clientele (or fees) that I was attracting these days! You might think it hard of me that having decided to ignore her pleas for justice, that I then kept her in thrall for another two full hours. I made her suck me hard once more while on her knees, and then I fucked her again in each of her other orifices, spewing forth my seed one final time into her womb. I had no idea if she was currently fertile or not, but that was a matter of no importance to me in any case. The idea that she might soon be carrying my brat was an arousing one that gave me great mirth as she sucked me again with fervor until I began to grow tired of our sport. I then gently readjusted her memories of the afternoon to remove any and all memories or recollections of our sexual coupling, and with a comforting pat on her ass I sent her back alone into the growing gloom of early evening, and without me as her hired consultant. *********************** No, I didn't have the least amount of regret at all for using and then abandoning her without helping her. My only real regret was that I couldn't have kept her as a fucktoy until I either got bored of sporting with her or she became with child. I had done this countless times previously and had never lost even a moment of sleep over the deed later. Women were just sluts - pets to be used and enjoyed for my amusement, but this time it was different... This time, about ten minutes later I walked down the single flight of stairs to the street and said good night to the receptionist of our chambers and my thoughts were now entirely focused upon what sort of fine dinner I should obtain for myself this evening. I normally dined out on Friday evenings and my cook would have the day off in any case. I'd already forgotten entirely about Danelle until I stepped out onto the wooden walkway outside of my chambers and saw the crowd gathering in the middle of the street in front of my building. Someone had been struck by a carriage, a man standing next to me stated and I would have just kept walking, unconcerned, except that for a moment the crowd in the street parted for a moment to allow our local vigiles street watchman to examine the victim of the accident, and then at once I recognized Danelle's battered body, now being pronounced as dead. This shock froze me in my tracks and I found that I could not look away, and I began to push my way through the crowd to get a better look and to hear what the witnesses were telling the vigiles watchman. It was indeed Danelle, there was no mistake about that. She had apparently been run over in the middle of the street by a carriage, a small black hack drawn by two all black horses. The two witnesses of the actual accident agreed that the driver had not only not slowed down to avoid striking her, but he had in fact been at a full gallop, giving the horses the whip for more speed even as he rode her down, according to a few witnesses who had seen the actual accident itself. The client I had refused to help was now dead, just moments after leaving my office and I couldn't believe even for a moment that this was either coincidental or accidental. ************************** Well-dressed in my yellow hose, sleeveless quilted silk jacket and doublet, complete with a fine black cape and silver tipped cane for my usual evening revels, I was obviously a person of either substance or importance and I had little difficulty extracting complete statements from each of the witnesses of the accident. Unfortunately, no one had really noticed anything before the woman's initial shriek, just as the two black horses trod over her and the right carriage wheel rode over her still screaming body, silencing her forever. The small black cab had not stopped or even slowed down in any way and continued at a gallop down Silver Avenue towards the river for at least one block and then turned east down Sword Street. From there onwards the cab slowed its pace to normal and became indistinguishable from the rest of the street traffic and undoubtedly merged with the usual busy evening traffic on either Royal or Gold Avenues, unnoticed. I questioned everyone I could find along both Silver Avenue and Sword Street as well for several blocks but no one had any further memories of the cab or its determined driver, not that the descriptions of the killer were of much usefulness. Few observers had marked him at all before the killing, and those who saw him gallop away merely noted an unexceptional figure that was wrapped in a dark colored cloak and had a dark cloth cap over much of his face so that no features were notable. Luckily, one unusually observant witness (who's memory was somewhat assisted by my gift) was certain that she had seen the hack parked down by the corner prior to the incident, apparently waiting for someone. She had been inside another factorage chambers next door to mine when the accident had occurred but she had been near the doorway when she heard the scream and came outside quickly enough to see the cab gallop away and turn down at the corner and she felt certain that it was the exact same one that had been parked nearby earlier. I risked scanning her mind deeper for just a few moments and her surface memories seemed to match her story with some accuracy. This also gave me now a slightly clear mental image of the hack, and of the hunched cloaked driver at the rear whipping his horses to their utmost as he made his escape, but unfortunately without any precise details that would aid in his identification or capture. A determined canvas of the remaining original witnesses revealed few if any other additional details. Some thought him to be a small sized man, but others considered him to be of at least normal stature instead. No two witnesses could agree on any other facts about the accident and I started to become extremely frustrated. Given time and the authority to do so, I'd have grabbed the lot of them and examined each of their minds in private, and in excruciatingly precise detail, excavating every nugget of their memory. Unfortunately, already I was attracting too much attention, enough so that the local vigile of the watch, an old imperial veteran by the name of Wergan had marked my unusual interest in the accident and was currently intently following my questioning of the street witnesses and taking notes. I'd also used my gift heavily to carefully readjust Danelle's mind, which had been an exhausting mental process, leaving me with quite a sharp headache in both mind and body. By now the coroner's cart had arrived and Wergan assisted the pair of lads in collecting Danelle's body. Like all unusual or unnatural deaths, it would be taken to Ormscraig, the great fortress on top of the hill to the south of the city where the imperial Lord Coroner would undoubtedly briefly examine the body and declare an immediate verdict of accidental death. I was certain that this was a murder... but I was much less sure why I now suddenly cared! Danelle had just been one of my pets, a slut of no importance that I'd temporarily amused myself with. She'd been a momentary dalliance rather than one of my usual occasional sex slaves so my emotional attachment ought to have been minimal. I'd possessed her, taken her will and then her body, to do with as I pleased with no care or concern whatsoever for her own feelings. They were unimportant. I had the gift, the power to compel her mind and I did so, with no regrets other than that I couldn't keep her for further nastier pleasures in the future! Now... I was feeling regret, and I couldn't understand why. I was learning with maturity to restrain (somewhat) my urges and impulses, but now I felt anger and worse... rancor at this unknown killer who had intentionally ridden down my pet in the street, as if she were nothing but a stray mongrel. I couldn't say that I treated any of my prior pets with anything resembling kindness or even consideration, but I had never disposed of them once I was bored of playing with them as one would garbage! Those that I had altered beyond repair I found alternative uses for, usually in some private brothel or as a sex slave for a private master in another city or town. The thought that something that had been mine had now been so deliberately destroyed filled me with increasing bitterness and animosity. No, I had not accepted Danelle's pleas to find the killer of her sister. Her words had been nothing but empty noise to me, but now she was murdered too, perhaps by the same man or his agents. This thought galled me. This murder could not have been a coincidence! *********************** With nothing left to learn here, I walked with haste up the hill on Silver for two blocks until I reached a favorite local drinking house, The Silver Fox, and I took up a booth in the corner for much of the next two hours. I drank my fill of good wine with increasing need, but with little or no effect upon my still tormented and racing mind. The always fine quality vintages did not offer me their usual comfort, at least not at first. There was no helping it. I was now involved, and without a client... and worse still, without a fee! She had probably been followed to my office chamber by her killer, who had then waited for me. He had stalked her and then had run her down at the first opportunity. Good wine, in moderation, can bring the imbiber some wisdom, and tonight it helped to bring me some slight clarity. My sense of panic slowly diminished and I could begin to focus my mind upon my thoughts, to sort them in the hopes of exacting some sort of exact meaning of the evening's disturbing events, but true enlightenment evaded me. There are certain herbs and potions I sometimes indulge in, suitable for calming the nerves, increasing alertness and/or improving ones mental perceptions, some of which could be easily obtained from the host from under the bar counter, but I needed to keep my wits both sharp and quick... but operating at a slower and more deliberate pace. I kept my indulgence to just more good wine and allowed my mind to ponder with some gradual increasing clarity. Bounder Ch. 01 Danelle had clearly been asking questions about the murder of her sister and she had refused to let the matter die, or remain quiet about the matter. She had talked to the wrong people or the wrong person and then had compounded her error by invoking my name into the business. I'd only been here for less than a year, about nine months since the end of last summer, but in that time I'd had enjoyed several prominent successes and my name and reputation were not unknown. Anyone with connections either up the hill towards the keep where the nobility or the rich lived would have heard of my success as a consultant. Same for the meaner folks further down the hill near the river and the squalor of the warrens to the west. I knew of or had conducted business with every significant criminal or gang lord in town, albeit quietly. The murderous hack driver couldn't know how much Danelle had told me. Logically, she could have told me everything that she knew... which I hadn't had the foresight to have asked about. In her trance, she had indeed answered my questions, but I did not delve deeply into her own investigation into Rochelle's death, as it had not interested me at the time. Now, I regretted not emptying out her thoughts and memories of this as well. Undoubtedly she had a suspect or two, knowledge that was now lost forever to me. I'd once met in Mirabelle a necromancer, a warlock of some power and ability to speak with and even control the dead. He was completely insane of course, a man too dangerous to even know let alone do business with, but once he had been useful to me when I was trying to locate a lost hidden treasure. He had made a dead man speak for me, telling me in substance where to go to find this lost item, but the experience chilled me to the very bone! The spirits of the dead when summoned must obey and speak truthfully, but their answers are evasive and while technically truthful, often very misleading. I have no knowledge of what happened to that necromancer after the night that I had hired him. Undoubtedly living in some cave wearing garments of flayed human skin and surrounded by a heap of skulls and other bones of his victims. Warlocks all become utterly deranged at some point, lost forever on dark paths to power involving countless human sacrifices, ritual torture and murder, and the like until someone hunts them down like the rabid dogs they are. I hope that our paths never cross again! The imperial policy towards the official governmental use of magic is limited at best. They might keep a few healers at the castle, maybe even a diviner or perhaps a war mage, but not even the Lord Coroner would keep a necromancer around. It would be a handy way of questioning dead witnesses, like Danelle, but if known publicly the citizens of most towns or cities would never stand for it. Not that I could wrangle myself into the castle to commune with her corpse in any case, not without an invitation or some obvious imperial related business. I work exclusively for just three people - me, myself and I. I came here to Ormsford so that I could continue to make a fortune. Revenge, especially justice, wasn't cost efficient or wise... but I was still filled with rancor for the killer and my internal fury was seriously clouding my judgment. I ordered a third bottle of wine and drank most of it, but it still didn't give me any wisdom, but it did give me some clarity. I wanted to solve this murder... and likely also the earlier murder of her sister. Not because I felt any guilt for her death, but because someone had taken something from me that had once been mine! Or at least this is what I was trying to convince myself of! It was foolishness to get myself involved in this purely civic matter. The vigiles would certainly handle this and properly investigate her death. This didn't need to concern me, I kept reminding myself! I ordered more wine... but true wisdom and peace of mind continued to elude me, so I settled for numbing my wits to a near stupor instead. ******************* I couldn't say with any honesty that by the time I left the Silver Fox a few hours later that I had firmly decided to sleep on the whole matter and that by tomorrow morning that I might have forgotten all about the entire business entirely. That would be something of an exaggeration, but I was having a great deal of second and third thoughts about the wisdom of getting involved when a small dark cab driven hard by two coal black horses came up fast behind with its wheels on the narrow cobblestone walkway. I should have allowed the tapster to call a cab for me, something that I normally would have done in any case, but I had decided that I wanted to walk home, to clear my head a bit in the cool evening air. Although I'd had a great deal to drink, much more than usual in fact, but my wits were still lucid and my senses sharp enough so when I heard the loud sound of hooves approaching fast from behind me I hurled myself without turning around to look first into the nearest doorway, and with just a bare second to spare. The dark carriage passed by close enough that its side lantern (which was unlit against city regulations) brushed roughly against my cape and tore it as it passed within inches of me. The cab disappeared quickly into the darkness and all I could see of the back of the driver was a dark cap and cape, with nothing else noticeable. With it being the middle of the evening, Silver Avenue was largely devoid of witnesses. Being one of the largest commercial streets, Silver is usually packed busy all during the day and it is equally as quiet at night, except for a few of the better and more expensive eating and drinking houses, but with the lateness of the hour most of these establishments were closed. I saw no one else around to help identify any other features of the driver or his hack, but it was obvious to me that this was our same dark clad murderous friend from earlier this evening. The killer was indeed afraid that I also now knew whatever secret Danelle might have discovered before her death. Clearly, I was now to be his next victim, preferably also resulting from a street accident. Cab and wagon accidents do occur in the street, and somewhat often, but plainly this was no coincidence. I'd been lucky this time. Another goblet of wine more would have dulled my senses and reflexes enough to have made his accident entirely quite believable, and probably entirely successful. If the killer was smart the next time, he'd probably give up on the carriage accident method and just shoot me down in the street with a pistol fired from some dark alley. In my father's time, an assassination attempt with a matchlock pistol or even a blunderbuss musket would have been a chancy thing, full of risk and uncertainty. The newest wheellock models were still uncommon, each handcrafted and expensive requiring the services of an expert gunsmith to fabricate and maintain, but the weapon was easy to use, concealable and more importantly reasonably reliable... and the expense was now within the means of a determined killer with means. I kept a matching pair myself, one in my desk at chambers and the other at home, but neither was on my personage now, unfortunately. Like it or not, I was now involved. The killer had made it personal this time! The internal mental anguish within me still felt like regret... but I ignored it. I couldn't have prevented Danelle's death, even if I had accepted her commission, but perhaps it was worth the while to find some means of avenging her with my own variety of justice. Bounder Ch. 02 I needed to do some more thinking, but it wasn't safe to do it here on the street. I believe that I think best when I'm upon my feet but this wasn't the time to prove it. I returned to the Silver Fox and paid the tapster a silver to hire a private room upstairs for the evening and be seen heading up into it. This tavern was one of my usual drinking and gaming places and I knew that I could trust (within reason) the host and owner. A few minutes later he then secretly let me down into the back alley with the quiet aid of a rope ladder. If anyone asked about me, the tapster could report that I was upstairs (behind a rather sound and sturdy door). It was unlikely there would be any actual trouble, but I wanted to see if anyone was keeping tabs on me and asking about my whereabouts. Perhaps the killer was working alone but I thought it likely that he had at least some help and that I should assume that I was now being watched at all times. With the promise of more silver in his palms tomorrow, I sped off into the night down the dark alleyway and made my way down another set of narrow pathways between the main streets until I was a good half mile away from the Silver Fox, and considerably uphill. The real estate gets more rarified the thinner the air is up the hill, and the closer near the Ormscraig you get, the better the private security of the rich becomes. The local vigiles always work in pairs up here and keep an especially sharp watch at night, usually because they've been paid a few extra coppers to do so. Can't blame a guy for wanting to make a better living! Having a noble name does set one's self from the general riff-raff and I stopped the first pair of patrollers I encountered to boldly request that they hail me a cab, which they were eager and extremely prompt to arrange. If you're a nobleman, even an unfavored fourth son exiled under terms of remittance, the lower classes expect you to bark orders at them. If I were to be polite that would be highly unusual and even rather suspicious, so I didn't bother, except to offer the pair of them a couple of coppers each in payment. One coin each would have been the usual bribe, but I wanted to keep the law under particularly friendly terms these days, especially with a calculating killer now after me. This newly arrived hack and its driver were clearly not the ones I'd encountered earlier. The carriage that the vigiles had summoned was somewhat larger and the outside body panels were of a white color with gold stripes and a gold rearing horse emblem, indicating that it belonged to a well-known private company from 'up the hill' that mostly conducted contract work rather than general street hires. The driver certainly didn't match any of the earlier eyewitness descriptions being tall and lean with long well kept hair that he kept tied down his back with a silver clasp. The obligatory top hat was of quality too, probably of beaver or muskrat fur with a simple black silk band with a brass pin of a horse. No, this wasn't the hack and driver that had tried to run me down earlier, but that didn't make him utterly innocent of being involved in other ways. I'm not prone to suspecting conspiracies behind every shadow but being of a personally rather dishonest bent myself, I do try and be a realist. It's almost like a parlour game. I try to get the measure of every opponent, putting myself directly into his shoes and calculating in what manner I could screw 'me' over the most, if I were him! Then I can do unto him, before he can get the chance to do unto me! That's also a cardinal rule of most successful battles -- get there first and with the most! Getting into the cab, I took a moment of concentration to grasp the surface thoughts of the driver and while the connection was tenuous and weak without direct eye contract, I couldn't sense any malevolence. If this was my killer, about to press a pistol to the back of my head, he had covered his emotions and thoughts exceedingly well. My driver tonight was merely hungry and somewhat annoyed that his passenger didn't have a clear destination already in mind. I grudgingly had to admit that this cabbie was extremely unlikely to be any part of the murderous conspiracy and I began to relax my will. I couldn't have done much more tonight anyway, save in but the most extreme urgency. Using my gift at all is extremely tiring and seemingly I had been indulging it for much of the day and evening. Now I had an abominable headache and I still couldn't think more than half-straight. The wine was wearing off now too, making my head pounding even worse... and not any clearer. "Just drive. I need a few minutes to think in peace and quiet, so spare the conversation tonight and keep the trip gentle and as smooth as possible and there'll be an extra silver in it for you for your time and forbearance." Really, I had no idea where to go next! I could have gone straight home, but that was back down the hill in a moderately good but busy east-central section of town near the river crossing that tended to cater to the artsy types that kept late partying hours. I own a small house right at a busy street corner with a popular café right across the street and I've made it as secure as possible from armed intrusion without being obviously so, but the neighborhood is so active at all hours that a stranger watching for me wouldn't stand out as obvious. This usually works in my favor, so that I can come and go at all hours of the day or night and not attract much attention, but now that I was the prey it was more dangerous. For now it was better that I stay away from familiar haunts, but I needed information... or at least a place to start from. I also needed to retrieve both of my pistols, but that was another problem. Reviewing all of my available options only left one alternative that I absolutely didn't immediately distrust... but that particular destination was quite nearby, just further up the hill from the route the cabbie had randomly taken. I wouldn't have come here on a bet before tonight, but it now seemed suddenly like a somewhat decent idea. I'd probably soon regret it though. "Stop at The Crown if you would, and I'll get out there!" It was just a short drive from here and the hack pulled right up to the front pillared and brightly lantern lit steps of The Crown. There a pair of liveried doormen opened my carriage door for me and accepted the cabbie's payment from my hand for delivery so that my noble fingers wouldn't have to soil themselves by touching even the gloved hand of a mere hireling. I can put on the snob act when I have a mind too, but this was silly and too 'nose up in the air' for my usual tastes, but I played along. The Crown was the elite private gentleman's club of the nobility and even I didn't have a membership here, but I was dressed adequately enough, especially with the opera cape and the silver cane, and the doormen allowed me immediate access into their sacred halls. A much more senior footman or butler inside wearing a fancy frockcoat didn't recognize me as a member however and he quickly stepped forward to challenge me, but in an excruciatingly polite manner. "May I be of some assistance to you Sir? I do not believe that you are in fact a member, so to whom may I refer you to?" He stated smoothly and with loads of smugness. I had to admire the chap... I don't think I've seen a nose stuck that high up into the air since I left home. The old family butler could pull off that act and get away with it, but then again he was an ex-Army sergeant and had a steel rod shoved up his ass all the way up to his neck. "Would Sir Adrian be in this evening for a visitor? I can assure him that the matter is of some delicacy and importance." That's the way to handle a servant with a superiority complex... namedrop a personage of importance as if he's an intimate acquaintance and then hint that they're not important enough to know any details about why. For a moment I could have sworn I saw the man's face twitch but he recovered nicely. "I will indeed check Sir, if you could wait here for but just a moment." He left and remained gone for a several long moments, really closer to ten minutes in actuality, but at length he returned and escorted me into the club proper, and with surprising deference. "Sir Adrian would indeed be available for you Sir and has in fact been anxiously expecting your arrival. He's over at the member's bar in the blue game room awaiting you." And he was. That alone was more than disturbing and already I was having more second thoughts about being here. I needed to be able to act... but to do so I first needed information that probably only Sir Adrian could provide. I needed him... and it was only now vaguely occurring to me that Sir Adrian might just need me now as well! Sir Adrian Grimthorpe looked exactly like his name. The victor of over a dozen battles great and small, he had commanded several imperial armies during his prime and even now in retirement he was a legend, and a very living force to be reckoned with. Nominally, he was a civilian now and by imperial assignment now in command of the local vigiles, the watchmen of the city who mostly patrolled the streets by both day and night. Originally responsible for fire prevention they also handled local mundane law enforcement and investigated most minor crimes. More serious crimes like murder and other felonies were the direct responsibility of the Governor (you can laugh now at that thought!) via his appointed agent for justice (another giggling snort here), the Imperial Lord Coroner. If motivated, the ILC had the authority and a company sized detachment of personal soldiers to command any official investigations of murder and other high crimes but the elite bully boys of the Blackguards didn't tend to get along well with the street toughened lads of the vigiles, and the two rival groups tended to brawl at the drop of a hat if their paths ever happened to cross. Gossip on the street was that Sir Adrian tended to support his vigiles through thick and thin and he had already crossed over the Lord Coroner's bad side more than once. In theory, the Lord Coroner was appointed and his powers kept in check by the Governor (with Imperial approval and confirmation) but the relatively new Governor had kept the old one on, as had the previous four Governors as well. This suggested that the Lord Coroner, one Lord Emwyn in title, had held the job for close to two decades and he and his personal soldiers the Blackguards were firmly entrenched in power, probably knowing every dirty secret of the city. It was no secret that the Blackguards took bribes and ran their own private protection rackets... and so did many vigiles too, but I'd heard early upon my arrival that the Blackguards had the local assassination and murder for hire rackets directly under their control as well. That's never good for a city or its citizens when the killers can officially cover their own tracks with an official document and a few palms of silver. For an old man in his early sixties, the retired general looked damn good. He held his shoulders and chin high and his grip was still strong enough to bend metal and more than a match for my own far weaker handshake. He wasn't any taller than me but his chest was big enough to resemble a barrel and little if any of it was fat. We'd never met before, but we apparently knew quite a bit about each other. "Bounder! So glad you could come!" He barked with a smile and a twinkle of amusement in his eye. The general was alone at the bar without even a tapster to provide service so it was clear that we could speak candidly here. Damn I hate that nickname and I'm pretty sure my entire face twitched! Bounder had been my nickname as early as my school days and once my moral limitations became obvious even my father and three older brothers tended to call me by that name. A bounder is of course a gentleman who is not one by behavior. A cad or blaggard even. A dishonest scoundrel not to be trusted or permitted into noble or polite society. Yeah, that's me. There are lots of noble cads and bounders in the studbooks of the imperial peerage and the highest levels of the aristocracy, and I'm undoubtedly just one of countless troublemaking young scions of the empire, albeit of a much more minor family. I didn't however think that I was that notorious or infamous, even back at the capitol! I've earned more than my share of income from scandalous means and methods but since arriving here I've done my best to be circumspect and restrain my public behavior. To the best of my knowledge, even the clients that I've helped assist with a blackmail problem have never learned that in fact I was the true master blackmailer hiding in the shadows, being now paid to resolve the problem... quietly and secretly. Or handling the return of stolen items that my own men had burgled, or 'recovered' from some thief's market at a most modest price... plus reasonable expenses. Yes, I am a bounder and a cad... but I don't like my betters reminding me of it! Being true, the words of accusation had stung deeply and quick. Still, I needed to pretend that his intentional little dig hadn't stung and drawn blood, but it had. Unwilling to confront this charge directly, I just tried to pretend that the affront had never occurred. I needed his help! "Thank you for seeing me this late Sir Adrian, but I need to ask your advice concerning a particular criminal incident that your vigiles investigated earlier this evening, which may directly concern a previous incident that occurred last fall." "Concerning the street accident of Miss Danelle na'Gwenyr, daughter of Halros the Milner, late of Glitter Alley? Very tragic that was. The local vigiles from that station said that she was much loved by everyone. A happy and popular young lady... much like her late older sister Rochelle. That 'accident' was tragic too, but how is this of any concern of yours?" The additional emphasis on 'accident', expressed with a huffing snort of a chuckle each time could hardly be ignored. The fact that Sir Adrian knew at once the victims full name and parentage was extremely significant, indicating at once that the matter was of considerable significance and formality. Unmarried women of the lower and middle classes, until their consorting, take the maternal name of their parentage, the men taking the paternal. Danelle and Rochelle did have a younger brother not of age, named accordingly Willem le'Halros, or Willem son of Halros. By identifying both parents, Sir Adrian was making a subtle point that her family was not of insignificant importance. Although from a family of trade, and barely middle class at that, they were apparently of some merit to their community, enough so that the vigiles couldn't entirely ignore her death... even if others in higher positions of authority and power apparently already had. "So the Lord Coroner has already settled this particular incident?" I enquired, not being quite as blatantly sarcastic. "Incident is a very suitable way to describe this matter, and I must remember to ensure my staff utilizes that word in any future discussions of this situation. Indeed, our wise Lord Coroner himself quite at once ruled the matter a tragic accident and her body has been already released to her family for burial." "So then there will be no further investigation of this... incident... from the local vigiles? I had hoped that I could get one of two little points of interest and concern clarified so that no such further 'accidents' would be likely to occur on our already overcrowded and dangerous city streets. I admit to being concerned about the safety of our citizens in the streets... or even while on the sidewalks." "I wasn't aware young Bounder that you had such a sense of public service! Your talents are being wasted with your trivial frauds and petty insider market dealings when you could have a long and successful career in city administration waiting for you! A man like you could go far managing our street and sewer crews. Just say the word and I'll have the governor find an office for you... unless you'd prefer to continue to frequent the Brenner market and auction in the wee hours of the morning?" Damn, he knew way more about me than was even remotely safe! By royal charter (and an enormous annual bribe from the local thieves' guild), the so-called public market on Brenner Alley was legally allowed to conduct business during the hours of darkness, when every other market in the city was closed. For shady deals that needed to be conducted in obscurity, no place was better and this was the primary location for most mundane thieves and disloyal servants to fence their stolen swag. Once a month in a nearby warehouse under heavy security, the thieves' guild conducts a very private auction for the redistribution of finer quality loot too sensitive for the sight of outside curious eyes. The rare, the dangerous or just the cream of the region's stolen loot offered 'cash and carry' to the highest bidder, a good many of which were gentlemen art collectors (or their agents). It was the place to buy or sell anything worth having and I never missed an auction... and Sir Adrian knew it. Buying or selling goods of doubtful provenance from Brenner Alley was no crime, but this suggested more knowledge of my business activities than I ever wanted any governmental official to have! Fuck... he had me already by the short hairs and I didn't even know what he wanted from me! He was acting as if he wished to be helpful, but still he was yanking my chain at every opportunity! What did he want from me? Did the retired general need my help making financial ends meet? Doubtful; he wasn't ever the sort of man that had his hands stuck out for bribes and he discharged from the vigiles anyone caught taking normal routine 'backhanders' as well. No, he didn't want my money... but he did want something from me! "Do you play Tarocchet?" he suddenly enquired. "I'm rather partial to the game and it's a favorite pastime here at the club and the hour is not yet too late to find a few willing companions. Would you care to indulge in a hand or two? I find it an excellent means of getting the full measure and gauge of a man, and ascertain how his mind thinks. Will you indulge me?" How could I say no? I needed to find out how much more he knew about my personal business habits and more importantly just how he intended to use that knowledge! ************************** The complete rules of Tarocchet fill a rulebook about the thickness of my clinched fist and every group of players has their own individual house rules and variants, so I won't bore you with the details. In short, Tarocchet is a card game allegedly derived from the tarot card fortune telling deck of the Sylvan gypsies, usually with 80 cards total. There are four suits of Minors called, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, with ten normal cards and four face cards in each suit, and then also 24 specialized but powerful cards often called the Major Trumps or Arcana. Majors tend to be very powerful cards but their real strength is that they can be withheld and kept hidden in your hand and then played at need at any time, while Minors must be placed in-game and also 'revealed' first before being effective. It's a game of expansion and often direct conquest, starting with four dealt cards kept hidden (unrevealed) but placed on your first (or Home) row, this is your starting place and your 'kingdom' can grow into additional pyramid format expansion rows of next three, then two, then one and ultimately into the center of the game table. The most successful expansion of their kingdom into the center wins, or else the game ends when the last card has been drawn and played, or the central game 'pot' of silver has been exhausted. Bounder Ch. 02 The card game is something of a religion in the upper, middle and military classes and even the poorer inns and ale houses tend to encourage play. It keeps the punters buying drinks and discourages brawling. I'm partial to the game myself and generally play one evening a week at one of my favorite clubs. While the game relies a great deal upon luck, drawing the right sorts of cards and also dice rolls to determine combat results, a smart (or devious) player has significant advantages and I tend to win steadily more than I lose. Being able (usually) to read my opponents minds to know what their hidden cards is of considerable advantage too! There are dozens, perhaps a hundred or more distinct strategies for winning, and the game favors the player with a flexible and even devious mind that is capable of abrupt strategy changes. When your original plan doesn't work, have an alternative one ready. The turn of a single friendly card can completely change the potential outcome of a game, or equally often the cards can turn cold and leave you stranded, unable to either properly defend or attack, leaving you in limbo. Naturally military expansion using the Fire (often called the Sword suit) is often a near certain winner, but if the cards don't fall right conquest can come at a heavy cost where victory is often not worth the final expense. Most players seem to depend excessively upon Fire/Sword cards for victory, creating a need to then 'conquer or die' in order to achieve victory, but since these cards comprise less than a quarter of the card deck, they are too dependent upon luck to count upon winning with any regularity... but they keep trying. Like in real life, this occurs far more often than you would expect. Personally I prefer a slow but complicated growth of my Earth (or Sheaf, sometimes called Staff) cards and trust to luck (or my gift) to find complimentary Air or Water cards or enough Majors to protect and hold what I have, with little or no intention of aggressive expansion into the game center to achieve a direct ultimate victory. Played carefully, a conservative non-winning hand can yield more silver from the player's game bank pot than nearly any win achieved via a bull rush of conquest. It's too complicated to explain due to the large number of variables depending upon card luck, but a rich kingdom full of productive peasants producing food cards and/or traders (and decent defenses) can earn more coins from the player bank pot than most armies of conquest can seize in a long drawn out table battle against multiple opponents. Military victories are flashy, but economic victories are sweeter. I've usually discovered that the first player to expand too quickly or obviously build up military units for potential conquest will incur the immediate enmity of his other three opponents, who will usually then form an alliance against the perceived aggressor. As no player can fight off everyone at once, this usually fares poorly for his chances of survival and just about guarantees a swift defeat. I love exploiting this sort of situation with my gaming 'partners', as I try to balance my perceived strengths and weaknesses, so that I do not appear to be a threat to other kingdoms but yet also don't display enough weakness to make me appear vulnerable and easy prey either. Instead, I try to encourage my competitors to weaken themselves fatally by attacking each other... not me. In fact, if I have any single one bit of game advice, it would be: 'let's you and him go fight!' In any case, I've played more than my share of matches during evenings spent at a few of my favorite drinking places like the Silver Fox, and while I'll often play for gold, even playing for small silver table stakes I've never gone home with less money in my pocket than when I started. It helps a great deal that I can read my opponents minds and know (or at least strongly guess) what hidden cards are in play or waiting for an opportunity in the player's hand. Just a few Major cards can entirely turn the luck of a kingdom, for good or ill. Sir Adrian, as I discovered quickly was an astute and knowledgeable player, unlike our two additional gaming partners. Tarocchet is best played with four players, but works well also for five or six, if either multiple decks are used or a reduced kingdom size is agreed upon. Our other two card players had suitable enough skills but neither appeared to demonstrate much of a long term game plan or showed much ability to think and prepare ahead a few moves in advance. They decided upon their game strategies early and stuck to their original goals long after switching to a different approach would have been much wiser. When you don't draw the cards that you particularly 'need', don't fight it and play stubborn! This is a common mistake for the novice and even more advanced players, sticking to a plan that just isn't working. I take the opposite approach and form no initial plans at all. I relax and wait for the first few turns and then listen to what my cards are telling me. Build defenses, farms, trade routes, spies, armies or navies? It's up to the cards and the luck of the draw... and hearing the right message. Usually, I do. For my sake this evening, the table agreed to relatively low stakes with a fifty silver mark initial buy-in, then one silver mark per each additional drawn card. I could have easily handled stakes of small gold royals, which appeared to be the usual table stakes, but Sir Adrian declined. It was all for fun, he insisted and pocket money was just a way to keep score. In most inns and taverns the play was for copper pence but I was used to playing for silver at most of my usual haunts so I was well within my comfort zone. Sir Adrian kept his thoughts his own and had a poker face of iron that I could have made a small fortune with, had I possessed similar self control. His will was strong enough that I couldn't discern more than the occasional odd overt surface thought without exerting myself and risking detection, so I had the sense to quit while I was behind... and despite the best of my playing ability I kept falling a poor second to his aggressive, but measured game play that night. I wouldn't say it was all entirely the poor luck of the cards, but when I played one of my rare Majors of the evening, 'The Balloonist', to make him reveal all of the hidden cards of one of his stacks that now threatened one of my own defenses (already revealed) he in turn played from that very stack 'The Squire of Air: The Ballista', which of course with a simple dice roll defeated my balloon. Annoyed, I at once sent over my King of Air (The Dragon) to destroy his Ballista, but the dice roll failed me. Even with my overall +3 advantage (+2 difference in card strength King over Squire +1 for attack bonus) I was defeated by rolling a '1' to his '5'. Later, I played my hidden 'Assassin' (Major Arcana) card to take out his massively powerful 'Field Marshall' card (King of Fire), and it was at once foiled by his hither-to hidden Spymaster card (Major Arcana), played immediately from his reserve hand. To rub salt into the wound, near the end of the game he defeated my last powerful military unit, my Sergeant-at-Arms (Fire VI) with a petty one, 'The Dualist' (Air II) aided by his damned Spymaster and also a clever use of 'Fog of War' (Queen of Air) to protect the two powerful but defensively very vulnerable cards as they were positioned for the final decisive attack that sealed my kingdoms fate. I earned enough in kingdom expansion and excess peasant food production points to earn a small financial profit for the game (having all four of the Earth face cards did earn a double production bonus), winning as usual much more than I had paid into the player pot, but Sir Adrian handily took the center of the table with an insurmountable military force of mixed Earth, Air and Water cards and seized the remaining players bank pot of coins. A second game was immediately agreed to and I fared a little better, managing an effective campaign of naval superiority with an abundance of Water cards, both merchant and naval fleet units to starve out with relative ease both of our other opponents, until Sir Adrian played the devastating Ace of Air (called The Whirlwind) that sunk my primary fleet with my own Ace of Water (The Man'o'War) with another unlucky (for me) die roll. His next card play was the Major trump "Zephyr" that sunk most of the rest of my fleet and grounded permanently the rest. With most of my units gone or disabled, my own kingdom soon fell prey to a weak but decisive military assault while my one hope for a successful diversionary attack failed when my Mounted Knights (Fire VIII) attacking his kingdom blindly in desperation encountered in hidden defense both a Keep (Earth V), Guardsmen (Fire III) and also the Major card 'The Engineer', who doubles any existing defenses in his stack. My attacking force was immediately annihilated and my kingdom fell in disarray a few turns later. I'd again earned a bit more than I'd paid into the player pot, but it was perturbing to be defeated twice in a row with such relative deliberate ease. Perhaps the next time I could penetrate his mind well enough to learn what his hidden cards were to avoid these sorts of surprises in the future, but for tonight I had been entirely on the losing end of the encounter. I could easily understand now why the old general was such a powerful force on the battlefield, always having the necessary men and materiel at hand where he needed it most. ************************ "You play extraordinarily well, Bounder! The cards were rather against you in both games but you played what you had cleverly. A very worthy opponent indeed, and I hope that on some future night that we'll have the opportunity to play a few more hands together. As a word of advice to you, I see that you know the cards well and how they can best work together, but your overall caution is obvious and can be exploited. You play not to lose, instead of risking everything for a total victory. It earns the coins, I can see that, but sometimes in this game... and in life, just building a strong defense against your enemies is not enough and you must leave your comfort zone to go upon the attack! You play your military cards adequately but you don't plan for the long term with them, as you do your support cards, first creating a food surplus then using the transport cards to support all of your other units within your kingdom boundary. This is quite excellent for defense, but less useful sometimes than if you placed your transports with your army instead. I agree, it doesn't create the same supply benefit or coin profits each turn, or even the dice roll bonuses they give in defense, but it makes you mobile and a constant threat then to all of your enemies. Think about this the next time." I could see his point. As a young officer he first made his reputation as a quartermaster and by the time he was a general no one in the empire understood the logistics of an army better than he did. Tell him how much hay was in the warehouses and how many horses and wagons could be mustered and he could calculate to within a yard how far his soldiers could march... and how quickly they'd get there. Sir Adrian was a worthy opponent, in more ways than one. He'd already shown that he knew much more about me than I was comfortable with, and then he clearly demonstrated that he was probably smarter as well. There was a message there to be implicitly understood and once our second game was over and we were once again talking in private at the members bar, I began to better understand the real situation behind our meeting. "You realize of course that officially my hands are completely tied. The Lord Coroner had declared the death, both deaths or her and her sister actually, to be entirely accidental. In each case quickly and with unusual haste, even for him. Normally for a mundane matter like this, an actual street accident of no particular importance he would show considerably less interest and perhaps even allow us a proper investigation of the relevant facts. Not so in this case. I've even heard a report that some Blackguards were making inquiries near Glitter Alley tonight. They're being rather thorough too, but apparently not asking very many direct questions, if you know what I mean." Now that was something that no one tended to like very much, the Lord Coroner's own enforcers banging on doors late at night. This was not an investigation but pure intimidation instead. The Blackguards were delivering a message, her death was an 'accident' and if you open your mouth out of place and create any trouble, a similar sort of accident might just happen to you as well! "That might give the very unfortunate impression and misunderstanding that the exceedingly law abiding members of the Blackguards might be personally involved in the situation in some manner, perhaps covering up for the prior indiscretions of a friend or an unfortunate companion who has blundered into error?" As I've mentioned earlier, friends within the thieves' guild had told me on more than one occasion that the elite soldiers of the Lord Coroner had a more than lucrative established foothold in several criminal occupations, including rumors of murder for hire. "One could quite understandably come to that misinformed conclusion, heaven forbid!" Sir Adrian laughed. "I see you quite understand some of the deeper political overtones that potentially might be involved, but in a purely innocent and incidental manner, of course." "Of course." "Since the Lord Coroner has decreed an accident, then an accident it must become... and must remain! I have no authority, save by a personal petition to the Emperor himself to reopen this investigation. On the other hand, I admit that I'm quite at a loss to understand the cause for this recent streak of reckless driving by certain small hack drivers, and I have in fact given instructions for my officers to locate such a wildly dangerous individual so that he might be removed from causing future perils in the street... or even the sidewalks. I'm sure that you can appreciate this yourself, as will your tailor undoubtedly agree as well!" Sir Adrian seemed to be aware of my recent near accident as well, gesturing at my torn cloak. This was another indication that he had already placed eyes upon me and my current activities. "And regarding my current entirely incidental personal interest in this matter?" "Is entirely your own, although I can see no reason why my vigiles couldn't be of some indirect and very unofficial assistance to you, assuming they are purely searching for a habitually reckless driver, and not a potential murderer. I must admit though I am intrigued by your own sudden personal interest and concern over this matter. I do not think that the unfortunate young miss was your client. The silver and relatively few gold coins in her purse were certainly inadequate for the sorts of rates that I've heard you normally charge. No, this is personal for you... I can see it in your eyes. Honestly, this both delights and concerns me greatly! No one who has ever given any sort of report on you considers that you have within you the slightest bit of natural human weakness. Until this evening I had myself regarded you to be nothing but a common sociopath without any sort of conscience or sense of guilt. A well-bred but dangerous creature of the shadows that potentially might need my direct attention someday, but now I perhaps might have to reconsider that assessment." "So, if I'm just a cad and bounder, then what need do you have of me? And why then should I help you obviously get around your enemies?" I was getting angry. He'd told me in pretty uncertain terms just what sort of variety of shit I was under his riding boots, but still he wanted and expected something from me. Perhaps he now even needed me now more than I needed information from him! "You're that, a scoundrel through and through, and perhaps worse. But you've got hidden talents and have friends or at least acquaintances in both high and very low places, and that is often useful to any curious and dutiful senior officer of the law. No, I do not like you or what you do, but I can respect the fact that you appear to have some skills for doing it, and ferreting out hidden knowledge along the way. You tend to abuse those talents in rather sordid ways, but it is not in my immediate interest to make these sorts of unfortunate character disclosures common public knowledge." "Then our cards are all revealed upon the table?" "They are! Yes, I do want something from you... your help, a way to find justice for those two slain young sisters who deserved so much better. You probably don't understand justice, or even really appreciate what it is, but I can tell that you do understand about revenge and have few if any moral qualms about how it can be arranged. I can accept this, assuming we can agree to some sort of workable arrangement and understanding with each other. I was called to the accident scene myself but I observed from a distance, and I especially observed you! I could see the outrage in your eyes and I saw that you burned with the desire... no, with the need to discover the truth. You're a dangerous but smart man and you do nothing by whim or impulse! I knew that you'd call upon me for answers nearly immediately and I've been waiting for you to visit ever since the incident on the street. Now, can we do business together?" Ah, now the point of this whole evening was clear. Sir Adrian had his hands officially tied and he was effectively being completely muzzled as well, leaving the Blackguards pretty much free and clear to act however they desired, with little or nothing the Vigiles could do to either protest or counter the growth of their power. That meant that I needed to choose sides in this political struggle, permanently, and make a decision as to which faction I was going support, with neutrality being completely and entirely out of the question. I had no personal or financial interests with the Blackguards; in fact I knew none of them by either name or direct personal experience. Still, I hardly wished to tie my wagon up to the vigiles, for them to now drive me like a meek donkey wherever they might choose in the future. That could prove to become extremely inconvenient. At least Sir Adrian had the reputation of being honest, so if Ormsford had to choose its next master exerting the real power that the governor held only by name, he would be by far the better choice. As for the Governor himself, he likely couldn't care less about anything that happened below his castle walls as long as the taxes were collected and the coins mostly ended up into his own pockets. Most imperial governors were corrupt, everyone expects that, but ours was already making a reputation for greed and an unusual level of rapacity while creating new untraditional sources of taxation! "I think we understand each other, Sir Adrian. This is a partnership of convenience, and if I get too far out on a limb finding your justice then it is likely going to get sawed off under my feet and I'll be on my own. This conversation will have never occurred and you would recall no knowledge of my name or activities. I'm expendable, and likely to be used accordingly as such, for as long as you see fit. You've got your boot on my neck and can break me at any time you wish. I need no further reminder of this." "Got it in one. You're an astute lad and perhaps in time you just might get weaned away from your thirst for sordid entertainments and your tendency towards heinous and appalling deeds of criminality. I've got your measure now. You're not quite as evil and debauched as you like to pretend, but you can keep up that act if it gives you comfort." Bounder Ch. 02 "You'd be surprised, but I'll agree to assist you in any way that I can until it is understood and completely clear that any debt I might owe to you, in respect to my continued desire for privacy, is fulfilled. I'd give my oath on this, but you'd probably consider it worthless and make more humorous remarks about my lack of proper noble character." "It probably is worthless... but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and accept it anyway. Consider it the start perhaps of some more fruitful and honest behavior habits. Who knows, being on the right side of the law might even turn out to be profitable for you! Let's keep this informal and just shake hands on the matter." That would work. We clasped hands again, first as civilians and then he grasped my lower arm again higher, on my arm above my wrist so that I could do the same. "Give me your oath now, one between warriors, if not quite exactly comrades" he stated, "I know that you deserve no such acclimation as you were never a soldier, but yet now we both seek the same prey, so we are united together in the hunt, at least for a time. Do not mistake my intentions for friendship, because we do not share that bond between us, but we can be partners and work together for a common goal." I gave him my oath. I even pretty much meant it. I didn't have any squirming room in any case. I was trapped and firmly so. Besides, I do tend to keep my oaths... mostly, unless they become too inconvenient or the reward alternative is otherwise too enticing to resist. With the personal body contact, I could sense his thoughts a bit more clearly now but I didn't exert my will against his in any way. His will was strong, perhaps even greater than mine at the moment. I'd used my gift already several times today, which is always mentally exhausting and the wine had dulled my resolve and force of spirit to some measure. Sir Adrian was a very real threat to me, but in the long term only. For now our interests coincided together acceptably and I quickly decided that forcing an attempt to control his mind at this time could be exceptionally hazardous and probably extremely unwise. This was something that could be handled later, when I was well rested and fully prepared for a confrontation and its likely outcomes. I would make sure that my secrets were kept, permanently, but for now they were under no immediate threat of disclosure. Sir Adrian had given his word... which was undoubtedly a good deal more honorable than mine. For now, I would be his good obedient blood hound, following the trail where he and his men could not go. He'd get his justice and I'd take my revenge... and our test of wills could wait for another more advantageous time, especially since he was still buying the wine. Bounder Ch. 03 I ended up spending the night in a guest room upstairs at the club, not due to any excessive wear of drink, but because I didn't feel safe going home and couldn't yet decide where else to go next. Being obsessed one might say with privacy and security, I owned several other buildings scattered around the city to be used as a safe houses during an emergency. This sort of fit the definition, but I couldn't decided which one to use. Each had certain advantages and disadvantages, and I didn't want to hole up like a cornered rat without at least one of my pistols! Upon leaving, I discovered that Sir Adrian had covered all of my expenses for my overnight stay and he had also left for me with the Club Manager a rather stout package. The parcel was all wrapped up in sturdy brown butcher paper and then extremely securely tied on all sides with the twine sealed with red wax, ensuring that the package had not been opened since wrapping. I nodded with approval as I accepted the sealed package. It's nice to see someone else taking basic security measures. The package contents consisted of three sets of folders. The pair of thinner document folders contained all of the information the vigiles possessed about each of the sister's murders, which wasn't much. The official report on Danelle's accident from yesterday was the slimmest, containing only several pieces of paper. The lengthiest document was the complete and entirely factual report on the incident by the local Silver Avenue evening watchman Wergan. His report made particular note of my interest in this incident and he commented upon my apparent obvious shock and uncharacteristic dismay at her death. Why did everyone seem to believe that I was a soulless reptile with no more human decency than a common swamp thrasher? On second thought, the question wasn't worth asking... I might get more answers that I wouldn't like. Sure I don't like people. Most people; nearly all people in fact, and I enjoy cheating, robbing them and corrupting women into mindless and obedient pets without hesitation or regret. I admit it, but I didn't realize that I wore this attitude of genuine disdain like a public mask upon my face for everyone to see. Sure, I'm an asshole and mostly unapologetic about it. I'm rich and getting richer almost every day and I'll find some way to enjoy it all - every ha'penny and clipped silver mark of it. Most importantly I have my gift, and what else is there that's worth using it for other than to corrupt, beguile and seduce? Justice alone certainly isn't! There's no profit to be had in that! Whatever justice really is... other than just a more civilized handling of revenge. Now on the other hand, just like Sir Adrian said, revenge is a concept that I can understand and allow to motive me! The second investigation folder held a few more documents and seemed to be reasonably comprehensive concerning the first reported disappearance of Rochelle, considering the Blackguards took immediate control over the investigation almost from the very moment her body was discovered in the river. Fortunately, the local vigiles had done a complete missing persons search for the young woman within a few hours of her reported disappearance several days earlier. The facts of that case were still rather speculative, but significant enough to be slightly suggestive when read under the proper context. Bounder Ch. 03 Until then... I was hooked and there was no sense struggling. I'd save my strength for handling my other problems and deal with the future tomorrow. Today, I wanted to catch a murderer! Bounder Ch. 03 To maintain some minimal pretense of fairness, just so I wouldn't have to explain to the young patrol woman why I had shot a man in the back, but this nominal act of chivalry was entirely unnecessary. I was about to call out to him a split second before I fired, but he'd either heard the doorway of my refuge opening or he'd sensed my approach behind him. I only just had time to discharge my firearm as he spun sharply about as he fired his own weapon with uncomfortable speed and accuracy. He moved with the quickness of a snake and even though I had the advantage behind him and wielded the faster (and more accurate) pistol, the two gun shots sounded close enough together for their echoes to quickly merge into a single larger sound as they reverberated down the long alleyway. His shot, taken in extraordinary wild haste after being nearly surprised, just barely missed my flesh but quite punctured my cloak, while my own lead stuck straight and true into the center of his chest. In anything resembling a fair fight, the assassin would have beat me. I'd never seen anyone, even professional duelists move and fire that quickly! I had escaped near certain death only by the aid of this young and toothsome young patrol woman! "That was an extremely precise shot, sir." The lass commented while inspecting the assassin's dead body and especially his discharged firearm. "Long hours of practice and a good quality weapon. You need both, lass... remember that. Take his pistol. He won't need it anymore, and it looks like an accurate enough weapon, rather good quality even for a matchlock. Customized, I think, and much nicer than the usual crappy cheap-ass military pistols that get flogged off to the guard these days. You can split the contents of his purse with your sergeant too; I'd be very surprised if you didn't find at least a dozen gold royals inside of it." Actually the purse held nearly fifty of the small gold coins. A very good fee for an experienced hired professional assassin, and far more than the young patrol woman and her sergeant would earn together honestly in a year. The lass gave the corpse a very thorough search for any incriminating papers but the killer was a professional and left nothing on his body that could identify him or the man or men that had hired him. Privately, I was positive that this was the work of the Blackguard too, bringing in one of their hirelings in the murder for hire business to help clean up a mess. I didn't mind losing the fifty gold royals, or even a share of it. I could earn that same amount easily in a night of card playing and I wanted to cultivate a friendship with the young lady. She seemed honest enough and she had been very stealthy while tailing me. Enough so that I might want to hire her in the future to do some tail work for me someday. I hated to admit it, but if she hadn't helped to distract the assassin, I'd be the one on the ground now with a great lead filled bleeding hole in my chest. If I were the honor bound sort of hero, instead of a dishonest scoundrel, I'd have felt some sort of lingering debt to the young lady. But since that was completely against my character, I decided to think happier and much more selfish thoughts instead... like making the young lady my newest pet sometime later, when all of this madness and confusion was over and I didn't have Sir Adrian breathing down my neck! Later! The thought of the young patrol woman naked and obedient on her knees brought quite a rise to my codpiece, but fortunately the oversize leather had some room for internal growth, but I'm sure it gave my hose a distinct twitch or two. I needed to look away in apparent thought for a few moments to get my urges back under control. This was the exact sort of intemperance that got me into all sorts of trouble back in Mirabelle! No! A missing patrol women would be searched for, possibly even by magical means and I was sure that Sir Adrian was clever enough to put his eyes back focused upon me, should the young lady make a sudden disappearance to my private cellar dungeon. The woman was quite fetching, but alas, she really could not become one of my pets! Furthermore I needed my thoughts focused upon survival now. There wouldn't be time for that sort of play until all of this was over, and the murderer(s) found. Playtime must wait! "I assume you and your sergeant can make sure that this particular fellow doesn't end up for public view or social contemplation and gossip anytime soon? I'd suggest a trip to the swamp myself, as the river tends to yield up its dead far too frequently, and promptly, for my tastes. I need to meet some associates in private, but I trust I can send a message to your captain should I desire acquiring your future services again soon?" The lass agreed and was happily counting out bright shiny golden coins when I made my departure. The coast was clear ahead of me and I was very safely away into the bowels of my home neighborhood just before the full sunlight of noon flooded into the once dark alleyways I'd taken my passage through. Bounder Ch. 04 ************************* CHAPTER FOUR With the gathering of hardboys growing just down the street from us, we really had very little time left to linger but I first need to get the items that I'd asked Mumford to collect for me from the house. "Mumford, I see you brought the package I asked for?" He nodded and handed me a small but heavy parcel wrapped in twine from inside of his large cloth covered market basket. Mumford always handled my daily shopping needs for our cook and could be regularly seen in the local markets nearly every day with his usual wicker basket. This time instead of a roast or a string of sausages he was delivering the second of my matching brace of pistols for me and I carefully made sure that it was still loaded. He'd also brought a change of clothes for me, some simpler and more common garments that I could wear anywhere without attracting particular attention. Under my new plain brown jacket I wore the custom made leather and silk holster harness that Mumford had also delivered from my home wardrobe, along with a small silk pouch of spare shot and premeasured paper tubes of powder, ready for swift reloading. With the coat buttoned, the bulge of small pistols in my underarms wasn't noticeable, especially since the current jacket and coat trend was for a heavily quilted and padded garment that considerably bulked up the normal appearance of the male chest. It was unbearably hot in summer, but they did conceal my weapons superbly. Now that my custom pair of undersized but adequately powered wheellock pistols were reunited, I paused for just a moment to inspect them both once more before tucking them carefully into my holsters. They had cost me a fortune, even by nobleman standards, but the superior workmanship was worth every gold solida that I'd paid. The ivory inlaid wood stock and the silver filigree of the metalwork identified the pistols as a proper weapon of a high nobleman, but they were each small enough to be concealed under a gentleman's waistcoat or jacket, such as now. As ever, my silver handled walking stick remained in my hand and it held secreted within a much more traditional gentleman's weapon, a slender but sharp sword cane of good watered steel. It was an antique, and an unintentional bonus from an early burglary effort from the estate of a very high nobleman. I'd never trust it against a duel with a great sword or even a heavy claymore, but in such instances I could strike much faster than these sorts of weapon wielding enemies, piercing their hearts before the downward heavy stoke of a greater weapon could even begin. My foes would have short stabbing swords today, a respectable means of arms, but still like a snake I should be able to strike faster and with more deliberation, given a fighting chance. Still, while I had adequate training with a blade when I was younger, I am not a skilled duelist and I try to avoid real sword fights if at all possible. Too many uncertainties... no matter how good you might think you are, there is always someone better. This early afternoon, I was less than inclined to desire anything resembling a fair fight with the growing collection of leather-bound roughs downstairs. Mumford was too old for such athletics and Maitlan was far too inexperienced to fight against hardened professionals, or really even with most talented amateurs. He was a promising young thief, but fancied himself as a lover and not a fighter, and spent his spare time trysting with whores rather than much time training with the sword-master of the local gym I'd purchased membership for him at. If he didn't get off of his ass and start making an occasional appearance there, I was going to deduct that not insignificant cost from his next pay purse. As ever, Koch had his long sword at his side, longer and thinner of blade than the usual long sword, but Koch was no sluggard with this weapon in hand and usually would also bring to bear in a fight a long stabbing dagger as well, to wield them together in a complicated dance of steel with effectiveness. He had some skill with this complicated dual-blade technique and he regularly visited an elite sword-master of this school to improve his skills. With both blades he could even hold off a force that might outnumber us, assuming we could avoid being surrounded and overpowered by sheer weight of numbers. If we didn't get out of here fast, he might just have to! I risked another long look out of the window towards the ale shop and noticed that the gathering of fighting men appeared to be complete and that they were starting to head towards our direction. "We've been followed here!' I sharply barked, "Make for the Red Standard in the west end, tonight after dark. Stick to dark alleys and side streets and be late if you have to be, to ensure that you're not followed... I'll wait there as long as necessary. Mumford, you and Maitlan take the back stairs first and run rather than try and fight. Koch and I will take up the rear and deal with any other swords sent to cut us off there, now get going!" Mumford didn't need the reminder to get his ass moving but Maitlan could be a little dense at times. Traveling together, they looked much like father and son and the two of them wouldn't attract much attention, even if the Blackguard had their descriptions or names, or so I hoped. Mumford was also an expert at the creative uses of both stealth and disguise and given just a few minutes of preparation, the pair of them could merge unnoticed into any crowd. Koch and I followed them right down the stairs and gave the escaping couple a good thirty seconds to get a good head start on us until I saw them disappear safely enough into a side alley a full block away without any immediate sounds of alarm or obvious direct pursuit. When my bodyguard and I attempted to repeat this same feat we met with less fortune. We'd hardly left the rear steps of the whorehouse when from the roof above us I then immediately heard a loud whistle, and with a quick glance upwards I could just make out the long greasy head of one of local street urchins. One of the resident whoresons that had just delivered one of my messages for me! He was the one who had betrayed us! With a glance before his head disappeared from view, I was able to recognize his features and put them to memory so that I could report this betrayal to the guild master. The thieves' guild could deal with the traitor later, now I needed to make my own escape before the Blackguards soldiers and hired sword mercenaries all came charging after us. Alarmed to our location, we were pressed for time as our stalkers began closing in on us, undoubtedly from different directions. My bodyguard and I trusted to speed rather than guile to make our escape down the numerous winding alleyways of the warrens, but with a slight measure of ill fortune we could not evade one group of four leather clad assailants that had nearly cut our retreat route off and followed within sight of us for the next five minutes until further misfortune placed our feet down a narrow dark alleyway with no apparent exit. Covered with trash and filth, I couldn't immediately see any other way out, save the way that we had come, and before I we could reverse our way out of this dead end, we were cornered by the four pursuing swordsmen. One of the soldiers, obviously current or former military to my experienced eyes brought forth a blunderbuss and leveled the fearsome weapon towards us, but as his firearm was matchlit it could not be prepared for firing with swiftness, unlike mine. I had the moment's necessary to draw my brace of wheellock pistols and discharge them each deliberately in turn, taking down the would-be gunman and also the man next to him in front. The mercenaries both fell with large flowing chest wounds, perhaps even instantly fatal, and this at one stroke evened out our fighting odds. The two remaining swordsmen drew their broadswords and charged us but Koch drew his own brace of sharpened steel blades and stepped forward to meet their charge. Koch is not a man of great intellect or profound thoughts, but he's brave enough to be a knight! I considered holding back to reload my pistols, but I feared that I could not then spare the thirty seconds each necessary to do so, and instead holstered them and drew my sword cane and came to Koch's immediate assistance. His foes were indeed veterans, and exceptionally trained and from the start they had my stout guardian quite upon the retreat. Individually they were about a match, but as a pair they would soon overpower my lone defender if I didn't quickly act. A quick stinging thrust of my slender blade helped to even the odds, and my strike wounded the mercenary on our right in his side. The wound was neither deep nor stuck into a vital region, but it would be lethal enough soon. I suppose it bears mention that I keep poison inside of my sword cane scabbard to coat the blade. Technically, this is a profoundly dishonorable act that also bears the imperial death penalty, if discovered, but I prefer my enemies to die as quickly as possible, to avoid the risk of them taking me along with them into death! The poison was an expensive one, odorless and colorless that would penetrate into the bloodstream of the victim quickly and not leave any distinct discoloration or by-traces in the wounded flesh. This precaution precluded the use of other more virulent and vile (and more instantly lethal) poisons that did taint the flesh, and thus might cause some embarrassing questions, if used. This poison was more subtle and safer to use, and would bring near certain death within a minute or two unless the victim had the constitution of an ox, and it also quickly caused a considerable amount of burning pain to debilitate its victim. The poison burned through his blood enough for him to drop his guard quite nearly at once, so that Koch's deliberate parry high with his main blade and a quick sudden stabbing thrust with the long dagger into the stomach of the attacker brought him down to his knees, where a second deliberate thrust of my own slender blade quite took him full in the throat and finished him by normal methods. Now facing just one assailant, Koch was much more comfortable with these odds and his opponent now finding himself alone and now outnumbered, began to lose his nerve and wits, soon making an overextended attack that my stolid defender could easily parry away hard to the side and downwards with his dagger, leaving his sword free for a final deep mortal thrust into the now unprotected chest of his foe. While I could not yet hear any sounds of incoming close pursuit, the discharge of the two pistols had been loud and would be unmistakable to the rest of the men hunting us, but I hoped that the warren of alleyways would confuse the exact location of the gunshot, and not directly lead the remainder of the attacking force to us, or at least not right away. I let Koch cut their coin purses quickly and make a hasty examination for other portable loot but there was little to be had other than their arms and leather armor, which although valuable, were much too bulky to take with us now. Their coins were not particularly plentiful, suggesting that these were not newly hired mercenaries recently assembled to deal with me, but probably Blackguard soldiers out of uniform. The matchlock was of no particular quality, just common military grade stock, but rather than leave it behind for others to use I grasped the pistol by the barrel and beat it hard enough against the cobblestone paved alleyway so that it quickly shattered into pieces and was made quite unable to be fired. In haste, I next rolled up the sleeves of the front pair of the fallen soldiers and discovered to my entire dissatisfaction that my fears had been quite realized and that most, if not all of the soldiers sent to capture me were in fact current or former members of the Blackguards. Each man's arm bore the traditional black diamond shield shaped emblem of their order tattooed on their left biceps, their traditional shield arm. This was really of no particular surprise to me, and rather than ponder the problem further here in this crap strewn alleyway it was entirely to our benefit to get our asses onward, and lost into hiding. Immediately, if not sooner. Koch didn't need any further reminder, and my pistols could wait to be reloaded later. I thought I could hear nearby sounds of running boots in the distance, heavy good quality ones at that, but I didn't see any further Blackguard soldiers and after about another half hour of winding our way through dismal alleyways, I felt secure enough to send Koch on ahead alone, to complete the rest of the trip by himself, so that we would attract less attention. Bounder Ch. 04 The furthest corner table in the back corner was available and everyone else left me the hell alone, but they did give me the cat-like odd piercing look of semi-deliberate focus but yet feigned ignorance. I was neither friend nor foe, fish or fowl. Welcomed much like an unloved that no one quite had the stomach to tell to go piss off and ruin someone else's life, or at least not interrupt their private drinking. No one had anything to say to me, but they kept an unusually wary eye upon the front door and their sword hands never seemed to wander too far away from their sword hilts. They didn't seem to be expecting trouble, but they were ready for it all the same. Mumford and his nephew arrived first, right after the gate horns blew at dusk and the patrons continued their show of insincere disinterest in our affairs. Koch arrived nearly an hour later, but stated that he thought he had been followed earlier and so he had taken extra precautions. No one should have been aware of our professional association together, unless some else within the thieves' guild had also been blabbing, but paranoia can be healthy in reasonable amounts. They probably had blabbed. Everyone else had! He'd decided to play it safe and had taken an extra tour around the city before he'd felt completely confident that he'd arrived here entirely alone. I gave the tapster a measured quizzical look of appraisal and he gave me a nonchalant nod of the head while pretending to wipe down the far end of the bar. Short of a signed decree from the Assembly of Archbishops at the cathedral of Mirabelle, I assumed that meant that things were as safe and secure as they were likely to get. To reinforce this impression, the tapster brought us over a freshly tapped pitcher of some rather good homebrewed dark ale and a fresh set of worn but clean leather blackjacks and then without further concern for our welfare, he then firmly next planted himself at the furthest end of the bar away from us and began showing unusual concern over the cleanliness of his barware. Now with low measured voices, I was reasonably sure that our discussion could not be overhead. Several dozen off-duty guardsmen arrived in the next half hour or so, but their fellows ensured that none of them encroached too closely upon our private discussions in the rear. Each of these newer arrivals was armed, and they kept their weapons close at hand, which was slightly surprising as by regulation, if not custom, vigiles were not permitted to bear arms when off duty. Obviously no one cared much about that tonight. I guess everyone was getting a bit nervous about the Blackguards being on the warpath. While waiting for my men at my back corner table, I had cleaned my pistols twice and then carefully reloaded them. I wasn't taking any chances either. Bounder Ch. 04 "Hopefully not! Indeed that suggestion is entirely laughable... but that array of soldiers now coming towards us is not. Screw dignity, let's get our asses back inside the ale house and get the doors barred! I think most of them are only mercenaries, street sweepings that the Blackguard hastily cobbled together by scattering loose silver into the gutters, but a few might know their game well enough to be dangerous, and I'd rather not discover that fact out here in the open... and some of them do have muskets!" Indeed we'd barely made it inside when the first gun shots rang out and the thud of heavy lead from pistols and a few muskets began striking the solid inn door. A pair of guardsmen barred it at once, but I held little thought that this would keep out the vastly larger attacking forces for long. Bounder Ch. 05 ************************* CHAPTER FIVE "Marc and Torvald," the old veteran tapster ordered with rather disturbing calm, "take a pair of muskets upstairs to the front loft window and keep the front approach swept clear. Target their leaders and any obvious Blackguards officers first. Make every shot count! Brody and Erin, grab another pair of guns and go with them with extra shot and powder and keep the sharpshooters reloaded! They'll charge the door first and if that fails they'll then decide to burn us out. That would be bad, so don't let that happen! Eduard and Mercer, do the same and cover the rear door! Molly and Brecka go with them to reload for them as well. You others, stand ready to guard the doorway when it is breeched. If they break through it'll get ugly and messy in here fast!" The old veteran had been in more than one tight place before and he continued to coolly issue out additional orders to the remaining guards. The guardsmen and women hastened to their assignments, with most of the rest left downstairs not given any other specific orders took this time to load and prepare for firing all of the remaining collection of assorted battered and mostly obsolete pistols. Another trio of vigiles went to assist Koch in covering the back door, which seemed to possess a sturdier frame and had an iron bar to block it as well. Upstairs, I could already hear the sounds of regular gunfire, as the best vigiles marksmen focused upon their targets while their assistants reloaded the muskets as swiftly as possible. From the early sound of things and the growing cries of pain and clouds of spent gunpowder, the guardsmen were already having the best of the contest in its early stages. Now with the sounds of a heavy pole or hunk of timber being used as a battering ram against the weaker front door, I could tell that the old doorframe was unlikely to survive this assault for very long. This problem was not unexpected and the retired vigiles tapster was making his own final preparations. "When I give the word, unloose the bar!" The old retired sergeant muttered, pounding down the barrel of the weapon with a thick ramrod to force an extra large dose of powder and shot into a rather oversized blunderbuss along with a thumb sized chunk of cotton wadding to hold everything into place. The weapon was an obvious antique, a large heavy arquebus design I'd never seen before, but the old veteran handled the old firearm with familiar skill and not a small amount of obvious affection. "Ready!" he cried out, and with a sudden tug, the guards at the door quickly withdrew the all-too slender and cracked wooden bar from its mounting bracket. The next crash of the battering ram burst the weakened door fully off of its leather hinges so that it crashed down inside the doorway, leaving the entrance fully open, but the old sergeant was ready. Stepping forward into the doorway he aimed and fired his massive weapon slowly and precisely, four separate times! It was a repeating weapon, having four distinct barrels that could each be loaded and then in turn rotated into position aligned with the fire chamber. Each thunderous blast cut a swath through the attackers, like a hand-held cannon filled with grapeshot, felling every group of our armored assailants that attempted to charge through the open doorway, each blast creating a larger cloud of lead-filled fire and smoke, and now a growing miasma of blood and flesh that had been vaporized to mist. Now in a mere matter of moments, the area around the doorway was swept clear and a full dozen of the attacking Blackguard and their hired mercenary soldiers lay fallen in the mouth of the breech, mostly with unspeakably horrible wounds. Undoubtedly this old repeating weapon was highly illegal and severely religiously proscribed... but that just made it an extra efficient weapon of death and destruction capable of single-handedly repulsing an entire assault, all on its own. Very handy! I decided that a similar sort of model, but with a modern wheellock cocking and firing mechanism would be much more efficient, and worth every piece of gold that the master gunsmith Manuel si'Orly back in Mirabelle would charge me to custom craft it! Now with the doorway freed of attackers for a moment, it was largely blade work from now on, with the crusty old sergeant taking the position of honor blocking the entrance just inside the door with an equally battered, but undoubtedly razor sharp sword. He was quickly joined on each side by a pair of older senior guardsmen and together they skillfully held the doorway against all comers for longer than anyone could either hope or pray for. The doorway was only wide enough for two attackers to engage this trio of defenders at a time, favoring the defenders. Some of the vigiles, like the tapster were completely unarmored and even the on-duty patrollers only possessed their padded vests and jackets for protection. Most of the attackers had stout leather, studded or even scaled armor to ward off sword blows, and this was indeed a distinct advantage. Some of the more obvious Blackguards soldiers were even wearing chain shirts or plate breastplates, but even with the benefit of their armored protection, the quickness and skill of the three veteran guardsmen kept the attackers from breaking through and engaging us in force. At least for a long enough time so that the rest of the defenders could complete their own final preparations. They were selling their lives dear in the hopes that the promised vigiles reinforcements might yet soon come. Sporadic but accurate musket fire from upstairs promptly cut down the opposing enemy gunners, or at least forced them to fire from a range distant enough to be of more threat to their fellows than to our defending vigiles. Closer at hand, my extremely accurate pistols proved lifesavers when a pair of overly brave and ambitious Blackguards officers charged forward to attempt to clear the doorway with the blaze of their own brandished pistols, but through the growing acrid clouds of gunpowder smoke I spotted their advance and was prepared to aim and fire first. Flerrie and several other patrollers fired their own poor quality and much less accurate pistols at need, providing us with enough point defense to keep the desperate odds manageable, and we discharged our guns in turns, give us of us the necessary time to hastily reload. I fired and reloaded hurriedly and with much concern for the continued heavy odds against us. We'd apparently killed or disabled all of their gunners and none of the remaining attackers had found the courage to provoke our direct attention by trying to retrieve and fire any of the dropped but still loaded pistols now lying in the doorway. A disciplined charge en-mass to seize and fire them at us, to clear out the ranks of our protective gunners, could have been devastating, especially now as our brave front trio of guardians each began to falter and collapse from the weight of their wounds. If the enemy had made a determined effort right then and there, they could have overwhelmed us and forced complete breech of our ranks while our own pistols were unloaded and impotent. Then their majority of numbers likely would have carried the day in a desperate mass hand-to-hand battle inside the inn, with no quarter offered or asked. Already my own pair of pistols were now too hot to be safely reloaded any further. The barrels shimmering with the heat of being repeated fired as quickly as possible, and I feared that if I poured fresh powder once more into the barrel that it would instantly ignite right into my own face! Flerrie's larger and heavier pistol was smoking hot as well, but she dared to reload the old matchlock yet one more time without respite, daring the weapon to explode prematurely in her hands, but it tolerated this one last abuse. I felt no such further bravado, and with reluctance set down my pistols upon a bar table and drew my sword and prepared myself to step forward to meet the enemy with poisoned steel, rather than accurate lead. Fresh vigiles defenders strode forward in front of me to hold the doorway fast and secure and some could not hold their guard there for long, falling quickly and adding yet more split blood to the increasingly soaked wooden floors. The press of the attackers, who still greatly outnumbered us, began to tell and we began to give ground... and more sacrifice of patroller heart's blood, but we could tell that the resolve of the mercenary soldiers was now much in question. When I thought that our thin line of defenders could not hold for much yet longer, I heard loud cries from our attacker's rear. It seemed that more vigiles guardsmen from the local watch station had now arrived and they were now setting upon our enemy's rear and flanks. They still had the numbers against us, but the advantage was now entirely ours! "Charge them guards, for I can see them waver with naked fear in their eyes!" The old sergeant cried out, trying to bring himself up from off of the floor while holding both hands against his belly to try and contain a fearsome wound that a broadsword had carved into his vitals. One of his patrollers stopped to pull him away from harm and thrust a bar towel into the gapping cut into his guts and with pressure began to suppress the great flow of blood to a trickle. The rest of us, myself included with bare naked steel still in my hands, charged forward as one to seal this final threatened breach and with cries of determination we brought this last enemy advance to a halt. We again held the door, with grit and no small amount of determination and skill of arms, which even the superior armor and numbers of our foes was inadequate against. They'd tasted our mettle (and metal) and found their own now to be wanting in the comparison, and our spirits began to soar! The remaining minutes of the battle were nothing but pure carnage, even for the survivors, but we could tell that the Blackguards no longer had the stomach for the fight. As expected, it was the remainder of their hired mercenaries whose morale broke first, and they fled from the combat in considerable disarray. They had taken the worst of the losses and their disorderly retreat caused considerable confusion to the ranks of the remaining Blackguard soldiers behind them, who were then much engaged with the fresh and well-armed guardsmen. Their will to continue this battle was broken as they remained under the slow but steady, and extremely accurate musket fire from our marksmen upstairs, and shortly afterwards they too fled from the field themselves, in rather considerable haste and dishonor. The enemy no longer had the stomach to face our lead and steel any further and they fled like raw militia recruits before our implacable advance, leaving us in peace to now tend to our handful of dead and our numerous wounded guardsmen and women. Much blood had been spilled upon my behalf, and to their lasting honor every wound was to their front as not a single man or woman had turned to flee or shrink from their near certain mortal fate! It had been a tremendous victory for the vigiles, and one that the Blackguards would not forget or forgive anytime soon! ************************** In the aftermath of the battle there was little that I could do to aid the wounded, as I have little knowledge and less practical skill with the healing arts, but Flerrie, Koch and I did our best to at least help assist and staunch, clean and bind what injuries we could. One of the youngest uninjured patrollers was sent off to summon the vigiles master-surgeon who had some magical healing talents and deft fingers with a stitching needle and gut, and he was found already in waiting at the nearest guard station, along with a pair of his assistants. From the moment of his arrival his skills were sufficient to preserve each of the remaining wounded, including the old tapster, their retired sergeant Malcome who was a very tough old bird indeed! Still, the great number of wounds both great and small, not to mention their four dead, cast something of pall over the grandness of their victory against their hated rivals. I didn't have much trouble convincing Koch to keep his fingers off of the innumerable coin purses of the fallen mercenaries and Blackguards soldiers. The back door he had been guarding had remained secure and he had drawn no blood himself during this battle. Instead it had been quietly suggested and affirmed unanimously by each of the patrollers, that all of the spoils of this battle would be gathered into a fund to be spent for the care of the families of the vigiles who had fallen. One dead watchman had a wife, now a widow with two young children, two others had young children without a provider, and each of the rest without spouses had helped to support their parents. A couple of the purses found on several of the more senior Blackguards officers looked particularly fat and likely rich with heavy gold, but I didn't begrudge the coin going to charity on this evening. One of the officer's pistols was a wheellock of new and decent quality manufacture, but not a masterwork of the gunsmith art like mine. Still, this was a weapon of very acceptable worth, and I made sure to press it into Flerrie's hands, for her to bear, to replace the inferior older matchlock pistol. I didn't want or need it, and I'd seen more than enough carnage today to caution me to make every possible preparation for the future, and to see that my young follower could better defend herself. I had noted her marksmanship earlier and it appeared that she had good eyes and very acceptable accuracy using her semi-obsolete and rather inherently inaccurate weapon. Armed with a respectable quality wheellock, and some considerable practice, her skills with a firearm could become formidable! I still felt myself much in her debt, if not just for her own actions earlier today and now again this evening, but also for the sacrifice paid by her fellows on my behalf. A lot of men and women had shed blood to assist and protect me, albeit under Sir Adrian's direct instructions, but still I felt some moral responsibility for the ghastly ruins of this battlefield, with over fifty men and women now lying dead in the street or inside this once peaceful ale house. I'd never seen so much blood spilled before... not by half! I'm a dishonest thief but not a killer and I was not accustomed to such a sight as this, and I found it greatly disturbing. We all now shared a bond of blood together, like the battlefield comradeship of warriors, were the vigiles and myself now. We had been companions together by each other's side and we had shared both fear and the joys of final victory together. This was a powerful thing; something primordially honest and true... a naked truth that even my most disreputable inner core of self-interest could not ignore. But Danelle and Rochelle's justice was already coming with a disturbingly heavy cost! ************************ I made my departure from the Red Standard just before Sir Adrian himself arrived about an hour later to inspect the scene of the battle. This regrettable affray had already been officially declared to be an unfortunate confrontation between the Blackguards and some local bandits operating near the docks. Officially, the Blackguards would be commended and receive the lion's share of the credit for slaying a near two full score of 'bandits', i.e., the unfortunate deceased mercenaries. The actual Blackguards dead were less, being a bit less than a full score in addition, and they had left none of their own wounded behind to be taken as prisoners. The injured had either been assisted away in their escape or one of their fellows had eased their passage into the afterlife with a quick slice of a dagger prior to fleeing themselves. That was the story that Sir Adrian would confirm and accordingly report to the governor, becoming 'fact'. Neither the Lord Coroner nor his Blackguards could ever admit to instigating an assault upon a group of vigiles, or worse, losing such a battle. This plausible fiction of a valiant street fight against bandits would help to maintain a polite fiction which might keep tensions between the two armed groups tolerable and the likelihood of direct and open street warfare between the Blackguards and the vigiles somewhat less likely in the days and weeks to come. Would the Lord Coroner's soldiers have some lingering hurt feelings and plan for a subtle revenge at a later suitable opportunity? Without a doubt! I didn't want to face Sir Adrian yet, not with the blood of some of his finer officers and men morally upon my hands. I needed something positive to deliver in return, and as of now I still had nothing. I needed answers, and more importantly I now wanted to deliver that promised justice more urgently than ever before. At the start, it had just been my injured pride that motivated my efforts, but now I was certain that I owed something of a genuine blood debt now as well. Sir Adrian might not see it that way... his men had merely followed orders to protect a valuable investigator who was engaged in some hazardous, but approved vigiles business. The cost of doing business, he might say. The risks of a street patroller in dangerous times, to be hurt or even be killed in the line of duty in some honorable and noble manner, I supposed. It still felt like a blood debt to me. I would have felt much more differently about this situation back in Mirabelle, but oddly now the wheel of life seemed to have shifted significantly for me, enough so that I couldn't even pretend to myself that I had been untouched by the sacrifices of blood and sweat the vigiles had made on my behalf. This was of course quite intolerable... but my odd conflicted feelings about this matter could not be ignored or denied. ************************** Flerrie took her place behind me as I left, without my bidding or requirement for her further immediate company, but I didn't protest. She bore only a very slight scratch on her left arm and her trivial wound didn't seem to hamper her desire to continue to do her duty, as she perceived it, to protect and watch over me for Sir Adrian. It was no surprise that she had already been informed of the current whereabouts of Watch-Constable Auguste, formerly of the Ormsbridge vigiles station. She'd discovered that the dutiful guardsman had been recently reassigned to the Westron Hills station. This was the guard post furthest west outside of the city that could be found. She thought that this probably wasn't a punishment demotion, but the best way to get the simple but honest guardsman far enough away from the city that none of the Blackguards could easily get to him to settle any private accounts. That made a lot of sense to me. Constable Auguste would likely make a very good sergeant or even a lieutenant of the watch someday and Sir Adrian was more than astute enough to protect his potentially valuable assets for the future. The old retired general always seemed to take the long term view of things. It would take me half of a day's travel to get there, and again back, exhausting most of the day, but I'd still have plenty of time to meet Mumford the following morning not too far outside the eastern gate of the city. I tended to think better on my feet anyway, and this would give me a day of hard thinking while walking back and forth. I wasn't counting on Auguste to give me a tidy solution to the entire problem, gifting it directly into my eager hands, but I wanted his perspective... and more knowledge about my likely enemies. Especially, the 'why' part... the motive for the crimes in the first place, and why my own death was now seen as critical and necessary to the conspirators. Bounder Ch. 05 Try as I might, I couldn't see any direct motive involved for most, if any of the parties involved. The brothers might be rapists... or not. Maybe they sported with Rochelle... or not. Maybe she tried to escape and they killed her... or not. Maybe Danelle went to them with threats and accusations... or not. Maybe the Blackguards were somehow actively involved in these initial crimes... but probably not. The Blackguards were an elite prestigious unit with above average pay for a soldier and they undoubtedly had their pick of the innumerable street slatterns that were attracted to strong men in a sharp uniform. They also tended to have more sense than to force their sport on local women, particularly ones with some measure of local protection. Besides, running women down with a carriage wasn't the usual way that the Blackguard dealt with their problems. They were laughingly predictable and direct, invariably relying upon either gold or steel (or both, like tonight) to settle their problems. Little of this made any sort of sense at all, and with the city gates both east and west closed for the night, we couldn't start our journey to visit the hills until tomorrow morning. There were secret, or at least less public ways in and out of the city at night, but many of these methods involved members or associates of the thieves' guild, and at this moment I couldn't trust any of them with my life. One hundred gold royals were just too rich of a prize for my head for even the guild leaders to resist! Assuming I survived the next couple of days, it was likely that the guild master and I were going to hash about a few of these 'misunderstandings'. My gift could be marvelously persuasive and if I needed to make thralls of the entire guild leadership to keep my head still attached to my shoulders after my back was turned, then so be it! Flerrie immediately demonstrated her usefulness once more by remarking that the widowed mother of a patroller from her station kept a small rooming house nearby, close to the west gate. By claiming vigiles business, she was certain to keep quiet about our presence there. Since we needed to spend the night somewhere in town and I was loath to reveal the existence of any of my own safe house refuges to the young watchwoman, I agreed to try her rooming house out. The grey haired widow was indeed happy to be of assistance to us, once Flerrie displayed her writ-card, but I added an extra handful of silver into her hands just to be certain. A quick scan of her surface thoughts displayed nothing but gratitude and an eagerness to assist her son's companions and she asked no significant questions of us, save to enquire for how many nights our room should be held for us and at what time would be like breakfast. At present there were no other tenants, and I leased the largest downstairs guest room for a full week and paid the landlady a bit more to guarantee that we'd have no further company. This would give us a handy bolt hole to hide out at, if needed, and a place to briefly stash clothes and equipment that we wouldn't need for the short trip to the Westron Hills and back. The room was large but had no fixed beds, just a collection of thinly stuffed mattresses lying upon a large woven reed mat covering the otherwise bare wooden floor. There were blankets enough for the three of us, but Flerrie and Koch decided to alternate keeping a watch during the night. None of us were quite ready for sleep yet, our nerves all still a bit on edge and heightened by the recent battle, so we sat in the gloom of the room lit only by a single candle and we shared a wineskin without much in the way of conversation. Without Koch being present, I admit that I might have indulged in this opportunity to use my gift upon the young armswoman. She was young and pretty, notably so as I watched her loosen and remove her clothing with some modesty for the night's rest, save for a long cotton shift she had borrowed from the landlady to sleep in. In the dim candlelight the thin garment hinted seductively at the charms of the woman's body that it was softly but firmly molded against from the humid night air. While the shift concealed enough of her charms to maintain propriety, it also overtly revealed nearly every detail of her figure like the shape of her hips and bottom, the precise curve of her small breasts and also the firmness of her nipples. I could even see a shadowy hint of her thick dark pubic hair under the nearly translucent garment. It was a wondrous sight. Koch and I had removed our codpieces and jackets for sleeping comfort as well, leaving our hose on for similar modesty, but little of our masculine features would be a mystery to her under that tight fitting knit. Aroused once more by the notions of making Flerrie someday my pet, my loins filled with excitement, and fearing to embarrass the young woman by my obvious lust for her, I decided to have a seat at the small table in the corner of the room. With the light of another pair of candles I brought forth my pistols onto the table for another careful round of cleaning and reloading. Gunpowder is like acid upon metal and when fired it etches deeply into iron barrels, and quickly so. This would decrease the accuracy of the weapons and could even lead to misfires, a common problem with relatively cheaply made military grade matchlock muskets. The vigiles rarely carried firearms but kept a few obsolete older matchlocks or blunderbusses at their regional watch stations for use in an emergency. As a rule, most vigiles patrolled without bearing firearms, carrying only truncheons, broad swords and belt knives on their rounds. At length, I feigned a desire for sleep and took the furthest mattress towards the corner and faced away from my guardians to both rest and think. One hundred gold royals for the delivery of my head, attached or not, is a lot of money for most people. A semi-skilled laborer or a young craftsman does good to earn a copper sixpence a day or at most two silver marks a week. This was more than enough ready pocket cash to entice an entire army disgruntled thieves into some poor life decisions. Their guild master might cut off their hands and send them to the beggars guild, maybe... if caught and I made a big enough fuss about the issue, but there are no shortage of idiots that think that he or she could just snag the cash fast and make it out of town before retribution could strike. They might even just get away with it too! I still couldn't put much of the puzzle together, even after turning around all of the pieces in my head over and over. I could visualize the big picture, what the result probably looked like, but I felt blocked, unable to find a clear pathway to get to a suitable conclusion. Still, I'd have another piece of the puzzle in my hands tomorrow, the guardsman Auguste and whatever information he'd withheld from his narrated written report. He'd obviously withheld something that might be helpful, perhaps major, perhaps not, but I felt sure that I could make him talk... no matter how afraid he might have been of the Weirs, or their Blackguards allies. ********************** I was just getting my mind to quiet down and was beginning to drift off to sleep when I felt a warm soft body lie down next to mine. While she did not snuggle up tightly or press her small soft breasts against my back, I could feel her presence very close nearby and her breath gently blowing against the back of my neck. For a moment I could feel the sexual tension rising, but just about the time that I felt I was losing control over my urges I could now hear her breathing change into that of restful sleep. Eventually, my desires somehow mastered or at least deterred, I fell into sleep myself. About an hour or so later, I awoke sudden to find that she had wrapped her arms around my waist in her sleep, with her nose and chin nestled up against my right shoulder. I was sure that I could now feel her breasts gently pressed against my back, and my member became aroused once more with desire, which I somehow managed to once again repress... although continued slumber eluded me for several hours. In time, with expectant patience, I was rewarded by the closer pressing of her breasts and even soon her hips up against me, as I lay there next to her quietly. I was careful not to move a muscle or disturb her, else that her warm flesh might turn and roll away to her other side, denying me this one simple delightful pleasure of her proximity. I yearned to make her my pet, to own and completely possess her. Her innocent and sexual purity was like a flame that I found irresistible, and I wanted... needed to exert my power over her, to defile and debauch her... to make her mine in every meaningful way. But I didn't dare. Sometime in the early hours of the morning, Koch gave the sleeping woman a gentle awakening to rouse her for her turn at watch, and moments later her comforting warmth was gone. I did eventually secure a final few hours of rather restless sleep, but I gained little actual respite from my continued worries and concerns. ************************** The landlady knocked upon our door and woke us just at the hint of the first light of dawn, a few minutes before the sounds of the morning gate horns sounded across the city. The city gates would be opening soon, but we did not intend to be amongst the first to leave. The Blackguards would have watchers stationed at every gate and any especially eager early morning travelers would be carefully noted. Ideally, the hour after opening would be the least noticeable time to leave the city, and this would also give us time to enjoy the hasty but hearty breakfast prepared by our hostess and then also have the time to obtain a few necessary items at a public market near the west gate. We needed to look like travelers, preferably itinerant merchants, and thus we'd require some suitable worn looking used travel cloaks and some large backpacks for porting our apparent, but non-existent trade goods. For late spring, the weather remained too hot and there were hints of a possible rain shower for later in the day. There is no 'pleasant' season in Ormsford, or so I've been told. It had been a fairly dry spring so far, but with little actual warm sunlight either. Summers here are bone dry and scorching hot enough to resemble the vast deserts surrounding the Cities of Dust, which lie within the Sea of Sand to the south of the my old family lands in the Southern Marches. Autumn weather can be unpredictable, alternating between fierce windstorms from the western hills and steppes to the remains of tropical cyclones from the Great Ocean off to the east. Heat can turn to frigid cold in a matter of hours, a dry cold that tends to make your nose bleed and swell to twice its original size and causes every inch of your skin to dry, flake off and peel off, like a dog with mange. Winters are long and unspeakably bitter with enough snow to bury a man overnight, or freeze him to his death if you're without proper shelter for more than an hour. Even the dire wolves usually have enough sense to stay under cover during a winter storm, but there are accounts of them raiding nearby farms out of hunger, able to cross the frozen river with impunity, slaying everything and everyone in their path. The late springtime weather this year had been warm and damply humid without being actually wet, and blustery with a steady utterly miserable wind that offered nothing but the sight of pallid grey skies on most days. It had drizzled for a month without letup, with little or any actual rain showers, thus keeping everyone damp and sticky. The wind also keeps you clammy enough that even a fire does little to either dry you out adequately or loosen up your creaking bones. This spring had been relatively drier than most, but that usually meant that the early summer would be even nastier and even more miserably hot and humid instead. If you don't like the weather here, just wait... in an hour or two it will turn into something worse! In the nine months I'd been here, I would be hard pressed to remember one solid week of good pleasant picnic weather, or a day suitable for enjoying oneself in a public park, and today was no exception. It was breezy today, with a strong dry and relatively cool wind that came from due west, directly into our faces, blowing sand and pollen directly into our faces as we trudged. When the warm wet clouds that we could see in the far distance from the east arrived later today to meet this dry cool air, undoubtedly right over our heads, the sky would explode with a fury. I just hoped that we'd be safely back in the city by then. I could have hired a carriage or horse to make this relatively short trip, but I didn't want to attract that sort of attention. Koch and I looked the part of petty merchants, with full appearing, but mostly empty packs upon our backs. Flerrie looked much the role of a young trader too or perhaps one of our sisters. I was pretty good at the disguise business myself, having been trained by Mumford, who in his misspent youth had tried his hand for many years as a stage actor, and with much success, until the night work of burglary proved much more profitable. Koch was always, well... Koch. You can always tell a trained armsman by their looks or the way they walk or carry themselves. Fortunately he only needed to appear to be my strong back for porting things and he could double as a merchant or even a ladies' guard easily enough. Any travelling merchant with an ounce of sense and the extra coins would indeed have a hired guard, if not two. Up here in the frontier, banditry is a very promising career profession for the poor, dispossessed and all the usual ornery greedy misanthropes capable of aiming a bow or pistol and bellowing 'Stand and deliver!' in a reasonably clear voice without stuttering. Being a highwayman is probably a safer and more profitable profession these days than being a sell-sword or mercenary. The hours, working conditions and the rewards of a plundered merchant's treasure chest are certainly better, and being a 'rogue of the road' does have certain romantic attractions. There is an entire genre of passionately dreamy female literature, not to mention endless insipid folk songs, where the heroine is robbed of her possessions (and then her virtue) by a dashingly handsome rascal wielding a pistol, and a deft confident hand at unfastening her corset! Without my gift, such a profession might have had its attractions for me, but I have little interest in meeting any highwaymen during the performance of their trade. ************************** We looked and felt miserable nearly right from the very start, making our disguises as honest travelers extremely convincing. We timed our exit to merge ourselves in with the ranks of a larger merchant caravan that had several wagons and a host of other fellow traders and guardsmen on foot. No one lurking near the west gate looked twice at us or showed us any sort of interest and we were not followed out of the city. Once well out of sight of the gate, we quickened our pace a bit to allow our group a bit of separation from the wagon caravan, and soon we were quite on our own. The Westron Hills, purely from the standpoint of geography, were a disappointing lot, even from a distance. Except for the great Ormscraig hill with its fortress on the great hill at the southern edge of the city, there isn't much high ground anywhere except north of the river for many leagues. To the east of us are mostly great forests with something of a minor mountain range between us and the Eastern Sea, but even that is at least week's travel away. To the north, there are plenty of soft rolling hills on the other side of the riber, and then yet more hills and even some mountains of significance further north once you start to near the forbidden borders of ancient Celantha. The Black Hills there are enough trouble for even the boldest adventurer and for my own part, I wouldn't even take an army up there! There might well be vast riches in the ruins of that old long dead empire, but there are undoubtedly monsters there now too, and no shortage of Hob tribes either, and they're best avoided under any circumstance. The Westron Hills, such as they are at least here west of the city, are moderate and the reasonably decent road here was laid out sensibly and quite straight. The vigiles watchtowers here are upon the half dozen tallest of the hills, making a tolerable sort of guard post for watching the approaches towards the steppes further to the west. There is a small army detachment here as well, a company of foot and a squadron of cavalry that patrol the area as well, but the vigiles have the assigned duty to man the guard towers. The local army units are not highly regarded and are considered to be undersized, underequipped, under motivated and with notoriously poor quality officers. The Ormscraig commands a regiment of imperial troops, in theory two full legions of foot with cavalry and musketeer auxiliaries, but it is common knowledge that this force has been kept considerably under its assigned allowable manpower. It is believed that the colonel commanding the regiment has been collecting the full payroll and sharing the excess monies with the governor. I believe it. That's just the sort of dodge that our greedy governor enjoys, skimming off from expenses anywhere he can, and pocketing the savings himself! Sir Adrian's imperial authority, limited to the command of the local vigiles was narrowly restricted, but I had to imagine that the honest and most order-loving retired general would certainly have a long range plan for correcting these larcenous injustices as well. Here at the watch camp, the military road ended and from here on westwards, these lands are nominally under the control of the nomadic Westron tribesmen. We tend to leave each other alone and trade with each other in relative security, but they're an excitable people and take their love of divination and omens perhaps far too seriously. Birds flying in the wrong direction in the wrong season can cause an entire horde to suddenly pack up from their grazing grounds and go on something of a religious crusade to appease their peculiar barbaric gods. Fortunately, they save most of their actual belligerence for other tribes, rather than our isolated and somewhat vulnerable city, but that's why we have the Ormscraig, not to mention good city walls. We're not enough of a thorn in their side for the tribesmen to care much about us and even our greedy governor has had the sense to leave them well enough alone, keeping our own border patrols well out of their grazing lands. Oh, and just to the south, of course, is that enormous god damned swamp! But I've mentioned that scenic tourist delight earlier. That is why nearly all of the trade in the entire region comes to us, so that we can buy and sell, shipping cargos up and down the great Orm River towards (eventually) the capitol. Without the river, Ormsford would never have been built here in the first place about three hundred years ago. It's still the northwestern armpit and border of the empire and despite the flow of gold and silver from trade, not a single additional legion would march to our defense should some foreign army of conquest show up for drinks and fingers sandwiches at our front door unexpectedly. The city is on its own; always has been and always will, but fortunately no one else really wants it either, or at least none of the neighboring petty kingdoms or baronies possesses the means to take it. These final watchtowers, protected by a single squadron of light cavalry and the company of light foot, are the last outpost of law and order to be found for a hundred leagues, at least. Once your fat merchant ass steps off that last bit of stone roadwork, it's on its own. Good luck and happy trading, because the cavalry will not be coming to save you when you fuck up! Pretty much its sole purpose for even existing is to warn of imminent danger and to deliver messages to and from the city. Fair enough. That's why I demand a 50% stake of the gross profits to invest in any trade caravans out heading this way. At least. Bounder Ch. 05 Imperials disappear frequently and for forever out in these hills and in the apparently endless grasslands and mountains further beyond and you couldn't entice me with a wagon load of gold to put my own ass at risk out here! My risk vs. reward calculations very definitely assumes the likely odds of some tribal horseman or bare-arsed bandit trying to put an arrow right through my wishbone, and there was no way in the five hells that I was going to set a single foot beyond the end of the road! Bounder Ch. 07 ********************** CHAPTER SEVEN At most roadsides there can be found a shrine to Tywusa, Goddess of Travel, Roads, Fate, the future and (indirectly) Luck. Gamblers tend to view her in a masculine aspect, Tywern, Lord of the Dice, but in either identity she, he or it has never paid much attention to me. I try to make my own luck and never depend upon it, which is probably why mine has been rather horrid as a whole for the last year or so. I've never stolen anything from any of her temples or one of her high priests (that I'm aware of) but her beady eyes have been squinting at me lately with apparent disfavor! At these major roadside shrines, travelers tend to leave small gifts, usually food or flowers, or a small coin along with a very fervent and devout prayer. I try rather hard not to believe in the gods, largely so that they'll choose in return not to believe in me, and more or less leave me entirely alone. It doesn't seem to work that way however. I appear to amuse them for some reason. That early afternoon as I was making my final preparations for our night of community improvement via the aid of a jolly good fire, I had the sudden notion that I ought to be offering my own prayers to the nearby shrine, located right at the south end of the Ormsbridge. Refusing to bullied or intimidated, I acted with my usual contrariness and willfully instead pilfered a ripe apple that had been placed into the offertory bowl. Now it was accepted for tramps of the roads without a coin in their purse to freely take such divinely blessed gifts, but my act was pure puerile rebellion, and punished accordingly. From the start, nothing seemed to go right, beginning with the problem that I soon received a report that Mumford's wagon loaded with the small pony kegs of oil suffered the improbable misfortune of breaking a wheel and then the rear axle, right in the center of the marketplace. This caused all of the barrels to roll off and shatter onto the stone, spilling the fuel into the roadway and several vendor stalls. If that was not enough of a disaster, nearly at once there was the further unlikely calamity of a suddenly dropped lantern (lit during the middle of the afternoon for no apparent reason or cause) which landed upon the stream of flowing oil, creating an instant conflagration in the marketplace that shut down the market entirely and blocked city traffic for hours! Mumford (and his borrowed cart horse sans the broken burning wagon) escaped unharmed, but he sent a messenger reporting that he was trying to get to another market before they all closed for the evening but more bad luck had ensued. Once the market road was cleared he had obtained a second wagon but at the worst possible time and place it also suffered a broken wheel. Ruefully, he reported that his successful return (and without oil) before the city gates closed for the night was exceedingly unlikely. This was going to be a problem. Still, I decided that even without our planned pagan bonfire sacrifice, the attack was still on for midnight! I was furious and once again filled with rancor, at both the Weir's and the Fates. The Goddess must have been laughing herself silly. Bounder Ch. 07 I tucked the bit of cut rope into the back of my hose, freeing my hands now completely, and I gave my obedient thrall one last set of instructions. "Now, place your knife into my hands, slowly and carefully and then step back towards the fireplace, where you had been standing. Count slowly to yourself, to at least ten, if you can, but wait for a long moment or two, then cry out as loud as you can 'Fire' and run for the door and keep crying out fire outside all the way down the road to the bridge, until help arrives." I really wanted a delay of at least ten seconds, and twenty really would have been much better, but the lad couldn't count past 'one, two, three, potato!' and he cried out nearly at once as he stepped away from me. I'd hoped to have a moment or two to risk cutting away my leg restraints with little or no notice from the others, but this hope was instantly dashed. The lad did make haste for the front door, unlatched it and ran out hollering into the street crying 'fire' as I'd ordered, so hopefully that would bring at least Koch to my immediate rescue. There was no fire yet, but I had my hopes. I figured that Koch or Maitlan would be nearby, close enough to come running. It was going to be a very short and one sided fight if someone didn't arrive to my assistance nearly at once, if not sooner. Fortune favors the bold and those attacking first by surprise, and as my foes turned to face me and scamper over towards me in alarm, I still had the necessary time to undo the three top buttons of my padded jacket, enough to reach inside to my holsters where I could with some deliberate aim level each of my pistols one by one in turn and accurately discharge them. If Koch needed any other warning to come charging to my aid, I would be much astonished and disturbed... and likely also too deceased to protest much about it otherwise. My pistol lead had fired true. The first bullet taking the older taller brother, who was standing the closest to me, dead in the center into his chest as he stepped forward. His brother delayed for a moment, stopping in sudden shock to examine Edwin's instantly fatal wound for several unwise moments, giving me ample time to withdraw my other pistol and fire it as well with precise deliberation. That pistol ball stuck the remaining brother just above his ear, penetrating his skull with enough force that it exited out the other side, showering his sister Edwina with a crimson spray of blood and brain matter across the entirety of her face. As she was preparing at that moment to light once more her matchlock musket for ready use, that momentary disruption was quite a lifesaver for me. This gave me a few additional seconds that I otherwise wouldn't have had to violently throw myself over sideways to the stone floor, hoping to break the chair or its legs sufficiently that I might dislodge my rope bonds there, but they remained firm. But with the belt knife now back in hand, I had enough time to cut free one leg and gain enough leverage to roll myself violently over yet some more, complete with the chair still attached to my other leg, as her musket was at last was discharged in my direction. Matchlock guns are inherently inaccurate and extremely slow to discharge and also not accurately sighted for use at extremely close range. Aiming with the sights, the bullet fired at pointblank range would strike much lower by at least a foot or more than the intended target. Even when the weapon is triggered for fire the lighted match often does not instantly burn the priming powder in the fire pan, to thusly discharge the weapon exactly where it had been originally aimed. Seeing the matchcord triggered, I instantly made as much of a violent evasion as was possible, and the nearly one full second delay in the gun's eventual discharge caused the lead bullet to ricochet off of the stone floor just in front of my foot and bounce to strike the back of the chair behind it, passing just over my leg by several comforting inches. By now I bought enough precious time that help was indeed now finally arriving. Koch appeared surprisingly from the now open staircase door to the cellar below instead of the open front doorway of the inn where I had been expecting him, and he immediately engaged the patriarch of the family in a furious sword duel. The retired Blackguard had some skill with a blade, that great hand-and-half sword was too large to be wielded with either speed or deftness within the now crowded taproom. Outdoors, with room to maneuver the heavier weapon, Koch might have be at the disadvantage, but here with smaller and quicker weapons, he could parry that unwieldy blade with ease. He quickly struck two clean mortal strikes with his long stabbing dagger, felling the former black-cloak officer quickly to the floor almost in time to prevent his daughter from fully completing her reload of her cumbersome weapon. Maitlan had now emerged from the downstairs cellar steps as well, along with Flerrie right behind him at the rear, and he had at once engaged the murderous young villainess just as she finished reloading. Flerrie had apparently loaned the lad her vigiles broadsword and with a wild sudden stroke I quite thought he had cut off the young witches head. Whether by accident or intent, his inexpertly executed sword blow had been struck with the flat of the blade, knocking the bitch down senseless, but alive. Maitlan stooped over his unconscious victim to finish the job, pulling out a knife to cut the young woman's throat but Flerrie stopped his hand. I wasn't sure that we even wanted a prisoner taken alive, but the evil young woman had rather pissed me off! It was also good to know that Maitlan could cut a throat, when needed. Bounder Ch. 07 Bounder Ch. 08 It took me a few days to regain enough mental strength again to properly be able to indulge my gift to any significant degree, but Edwina and I found a few other more traditional means of enjoying ourselves before I even started on her skull job. Sometimes the old-school ways work just as well as refined and intricate acts of magic, but within two days, I had already nearly lost all interest in my new captive. Right from the very start, I always kept her head covered with a thick hood at all times so that I couldn't make accidental eye contact with her. Her mind seemed to be nearly as strong as her witch grandmothers and she too possess the family talent of exerting it upon others, but I could tell that her gift was relatively weak. She was indeed a young witch in training and ambition, the crone's equal in pure evilness and even the slightest delving into her mind sickened me as if I were touching poison! If bred, as the old witch had intended, our children might have been utterly amoral killers with magical talents capable of bringing down half of the empire! If I did nothing else useful for the remainder of my life, removing Edwina from this world alone ought to purge me of a great many of my prior sins. Even before my mind first began to even tentatively delve into hers, intending to carve and shape her thoughts to suit my slightest whims, she had confessed her many crimes without the slightest remorse. She laughed while I had brutally whipped and tortured her, burned every part of her body with hot irons and probed her flesh with knives and cleverly fashioned hooks. She had always found pleasure in other people's pain and now she savored her own torment, and relished it! She was already quite insane right from the start, enough of a true sociopath that I found increasingly little erotic pleasure in crafting this new toy. After a surprisingly short time, even the meanest forms of abject brutality failed to even mildly amuse me, and her very existence began to increasingly fill me with disgust. I resisted for now the once pleasant thoughts of destroying her will and making a toy of her flesh, as I had originally intended. There was much more that her mind, enthralled to my will could tell me, but for now I didn't have to stomach to endure that course of action. Her soul would be an evil cesspit, of that I was certain. Already I was tempted to just simply cut her throat and be rid of her... I would be doing all of humanity a favor, but I needed to make one or two last inquiries first. Originally, I had at first intended to turn her into the meanest and lowest sort of pain-slut, to make her the most abject and pathetic sort of obedient pet I'd ever yet attempted with my gift. But this goal no longer gave me the slightest bit of pleasure. I could certainly alter her mind, twisting it in unpardonable and diabolical ways, perverting and corrupting her deepest remaining thoughts so that she yearned to be whipped, tortured and abused in any possible means I could find to debase and use her... and even make her beg for it. The young witch deserved such a fate... but I could not now bring myself to descend to her own moral level. Unlike her and her grandmother, I knew that I had a conscience, with distinct moral limits (albeit not extensive) that I would not pass, even now for expediency. I had looked into her eyes, briefly, before replacing the heavy leather hood over her head to stay. Within them I could see Edwina's own evil plainly enough and that was bad enough, but worse still was the fear that while staring into her soul, I would instead see the inhumanly black eyes of the old witch again boring through mine, tempting my soul once more! "We are as of a kind together!" The old evil crone had laughed as she had weighed my sins against hers. But we were not! I refused to accept that connection. While my own soul was far from unstained it was not an abyss of darkness either. She had tempted me with the fruits of what the utterly unrestrained use of my gift could gain me, endless power without the slightest moral or ethical restraint... and I had been repulsed (mostly) by this near irresistible future. Her rape of my mind had revealed some deeply hidden small moral core that she could not easily overcome, and I had defied her the best that I could... and refused this potential, perhaps even once probable, fate. No, I could not corrupt Edwina into a pet for my future enjoyment as even holding her fate, life or death in my hands failed to give me the slightest bit of pleasure. The young murderess needed to be punished though, or at least permanently disposed of in some manner. Danelle and Rochelle's justice, and my revenge, was still incomplete... but I couldn't decide now how to act, so I then decided to just keep her drugged and quiet, strung up dangling from a chain hung from a beam in the roof, like a pig awaiting processing at a slaughter house. I'd never spent any time on a farm, but I was certain that most pigs probably possessed more genuine humanity than Edwina did! Edwina was a depraved murderous bitch, but she was mostly harmless now and I could decide upon her fate later. For now, I had other potential enemies that might require the use of my gift first. Bounder Ch. 08 To rake in every possible copper of profit, Thumbs and his roaring boys would burn half of the city to do so, and with utterly no regret. Normally, I'd have preferred to have kept the devil we knew, the existing crime boss, rather than unleashing this rabid menace, but a guild civil war did have certain potential positive benefits. The guild had become overly powerful and organized and it clearly was a significant threat to order and safety in the city. A little culling of the more aggressive and violent criminals from the herd, preferably at the hands of each other, might in fact be a good thing, weakening the power (and hopefully the ambition too) of the survivors. "The king is dead, long live the king!" I muttered, slowly rising myself up from the opulent carpet that I had been kneeling upon. I would be safe from his fury, his sole one and only trusted friend from now on, but that didn't mean that I had to be proud of what I had just done. I could clip Thumb's wings a bit later on, and would almost certainly need to! With a smile on his twisted malevolent face he gathered up the late crime lord's pistol and casually used it to shoot the next gentleman that came dashing into the room, a senior captain of the guild. Another pair of guards came quickly charging in and I shot them both out of necessity. Squashing the monster I had just created, early and in its infancy, might have been to everyone's benefit, at least in the short term, but the guild officers had loaded pistols and one of them was being pointed right at me! Thumbs used these unused weapons in turn to kill another lieutenant in the hallway just as I was starting to slowly make my escape, but it hurt my head too much to move with anything other than a slow walk. Thumbs disappeared down the hallway to smite his foes and gather up his small but aggressive band of followers, and before I even quite managed to exit the downstairs restaurant a full force guild civil war with at least three different factions was already in progress. I'd like to say that I was rooting for my pawn, Thumbs, but in truth the man was far too brutal and crazed to make a good or wise leader of men. He could rule by fear, for awhile anyway, but eventually he'd get retired in the same way he took care of his predecessor. Guild wars are never pretty, and this one had every potential for being uglier and nastier than most. But during wars there is always opportunity. The guild was now significantly weakened and divided, and I rather hoped that they would remain that way for awhile. On the way out, I'd taken the dead guildmaster's petty cash box from the table, which was unusually large and heavy, stuffed with gold solida. A fortune for most people, and indeed this amount of treasure would cover adequately all of my expenses and inconveniences of the last week. I'm sure there was a nicely stocked treasure room somewhere nearby but I declined to take the opportunity to search for it. There were too many very angry people already running through this building waving pistols and swords and eager to quickly avenge old slights and grievances, now that the old boss was dead. I muttered my sincere prayers and quietly, if not at all quickly, made my shuffling painful escape. I'd be worthless, virtually bedridden for the next few days until my gift recovered, but I'd seared closed one of the remaining wounds to my pride, and completed most, if not quite yet all of my revenge, and nearly completed Danelle's justice. As for Sir John Golding? I would be paying him a visit next... in a week or perhaps less, after a great deal of rest and mental recovery. If I failed that mission like I nearly had this one, even a thrall or two gripped in my mental powers wouldn't be enough to save me! I was certain that someone, extraordinarily hidden amongst the normal chaos of the streets was still following me, but I was too tired to set any traps for my tail so I just went straight to my home. Under the cover of darkness late that night I took an oblique route back to my secret warehouse and to the best of my knowledge, my secret watcher was gone. Bounder Ch. 09 ************************* CHAPTER NINE Life started to return back to normal. Mostly... more or less anyway. I was still feeling a bit 'off' with myself and had a hard time getting back into a normal routine and returning to business as usual. But I forced myself to return daily to my chambers office and tried to get back into the routine of making money. Looking out my office window onto Silver Avenue I could see a lovely familiar face pass by each day, usually even every hour or two. Flerrie la'Clerkes, junior patroller with the Riverside Vigiles station had seemingly earned a transfer here and a promotion to Constable-Patroller. The ever familiar Sergeant Wergan was now ever by her side, teaching her the new route and the routine of the neighborhood. She caught me looking down from my window watching her several times, but she always just smiled and kept moving on. I was careful to avoid her while out in the street and if I saw her distinctive vigiles cloak I was quick to hurry in the opposite direction. I couldn't offer any reason for my reluctance to have her close by my side once more. I yearned for this in fact, the pain of seeing her so close but yet unobtainable to me burned more with each day! I still possessed the fever for her, and I burned... but not to make her my pet. No, after enduring the touches of the witches' evil thoughts I could likely never again take pleasure by using my gift in that way! That feeling of misery and foreboding that hung over me only became worse one fateful evening about two weeks later that finally cut away the last thread of my old and formerly pleasurable life. Bounder Ch. 09 The way my household income had now suddenly decreased, I was going to need that nest egg to keep my small but well-paid crew employed in the months and years ahead. One last sudden source of income also gave me a bit of trouble now as well. Edwina had told me where their family treasure was kept hidden, a fortune obtained by smuggling, highway robbery and murder, which had been buried under that copse of trees near the inn. Business with the Blackguards had been good, as had been the profits of their innumerable crimes. The strong box I dug up was quite worth the time and effort to claim. While this was more than enough wealth to compensate me for my time and considerable inconvenience, the chest of gold and silver felt black and dirty in my hands, it's very touch almost burned me and it seemed to possess a thoroughly evil aura. It was a fortune to pass up, quite nearly more hard coined wealth than my own deposited accounts and strongboxes could claim to possess, but after a long minute of running a thick stream of the coins through my fingers I decided that the blood curse across this wealth was far too potent for me to keep. I pulled up the buried chest out of the ground nevertheless and loaded it up upon a small wagon I had rented and ported it back home, into the city, but not before I placed a heavy fistful of this tainted silver into Tywusa's offering bowl by the bridge crossroads. I considered it a late repayment for the apple I had taken. The rest of the cursed money went into various church ward offertories and other private charities. Divided into dozens of fat purses that were placed into offertory boxes late at night. Very anonymously and gradually over time. I hoped the money would go to do good works, cleansing the evil taint of those coins, but I never dared to enquire to find out. I was cursed enough already and didn't keep a single one of the coins for myself. Bounder Ch. 09 Now naked, we fell into bed together and one of us, I'm not sure whom, blew most but not all of the bedside candles to leave us to our pleasures. I no longer had the slightest thought or desire, even as a regret, of making Flerrie my pet. She was instead already my lover... and that was something much more rare and precious!