KGWrites

Spring District, Kingdom of Aldiron

It was a warm, almost tropical night. A perfect night for a thief.

The gold glinted in the moonlight, so close and yet still a difficult catch. The couple lay still in the bed, the man, at least the figure hoped it was the man, snored loudly. The candlestick was balanced on the top of a tall wardrobe, directly in a beam of moonlight that streamed in through the open window. There were uncountable variables that could go wrong, the candlestick could scrape and make a noise, a heavier than intended footfall, even any single one of the floorboards could creak and cause disaster, but the reward; a week, or even two, with food. That was worth the risk. The hooded figure ducked silently through the window and crept across the room, crouching low and carefully testing each floorboard before taking a step.

Then the man grunted and rolled over in his bed and the figure froze. Unwilling to risk movement until the man had settled back to sleep. Then carefully, ever so carefully, the figure began to move once more. They reached the wardrobe without any further incident and slowly, carefully, reached their hand up to grasp the candlestick. Gently, they brought it down to their chest and tested the weight, the stick was heavy, too heavy to simply be gold leaf. Beneath the cowl, the figure grinned and tucked the candlestick beneath a belt.

Job done. Or at least, it should be done.

The temptation was that if the family who owned the house was able to afford a candlestick that was nearly solid gold, then there would likely be other valuables scattered through the house. But the figure knew better than that, they knew nothing about the rest of the house, there could be dogs, a restless child, even a paid mercenary as a guard. And besides, they could always wait until the family felt safe enough to risk leaving the window open again. The figure turned and crept back to the window. Cautiously they reached up and grasped the frame, stepping out onto the window mounted planter that held a beautifully maintained bed of purple flowers. The figure was almost tempted to kick the display into the streets below, purely out of spite for anyone who had the time, and money, to dedicate to such a pointless task as maintaining a flower bed.

Quelling those thoughts, the figure pulled themselves up onto the building’s sloping roof. From the roof, the wall that separated the Spring and Summer districts from the Autumn and Winter ones was only a short jump away. From there the wall gently curved off into the darkness of the night. The jump itself was easy, the problem was avoiding the guard patrols. The torch patrols were easy to spot, small moving islands of light in the ocean of darkness. Yet the figure knew that between every pair of torch patrols were two dark patrols, three guards marching without a light source. The figure couldn’t predict where they were and didn’t have the luxury of waiting lest they be spotted by a torch patrol.

They went for it.

Hurling themselves forward the figure leapt the gap between the house and the wall. They landed deftly and rolled, coming to a stop just centimetres from the deadly drop to the streets of the Autumn district below. The figure released a long, slow breath and straightened back up. They looked down over the wall, searching for… There! The ladder they had used to reach the wall from the lower down district, some ten metres along the wall to their left. Deftly, the figure moved along the wall towards it. They reached the top and crouched down, grasping the top rung.

“Hey! Stop right there!”

Shit.

Barely stopping to think, the figure swung themselves around onto the ladder and loosened their hold on it. The air whooshed past at phenomenal speeds as the figure slid down the ladder to the dark, smog like air of the poorer Autumn district. The figure’s drop was halted abruptly as their boots hit the stone roof of one of the Autumn district’s low, squat buildings. Above them, they could hear the clinking of chain mail as the guards started down the ladder after them. For a brief moment, the figure considered kicking the ladder, sending the guards tumbling down to the streets, but then thought better of it.

A thief was nothing special, there were likely hundreds in the lower districts alone, if not thousands. But a guard killer, they held a special hated place amongst the guards. A guard killer would spark a manhunt.

So, they ran.

The figure dropped from the roof to the street, rolling to absorb the impact, before sprinting away down the hill towards the dark, dirty labyrinth that was the Winter district. The clank of heavy boots behind told them that the guard were not far behind, but the Winter district was a maze of dark, muddy alleys. In those streets, someone as deft and lightly clothed as the thief would easily be able to shed their tail.

That was if the guards even risked following them into the Winter district at night. The same fear that grips small children when they look at a dark forest gripped guards assigned to night patrol in the Winter district, if they were smart at least.

Beneath the thief’s boots the cobbles slowly became steadily slicker, changing from the cleaner stone into the churned muddy sludge found universally in every slum of a city. Indeed, the figure felt their foot slide away from them and they tumbled into the mud, landing with a wet thud sound. Rather than trying to regain control however, the figure embraced the fall, rolling with their landing until they could get their feet beneath themselves again, before taking off in a new direction, turning North towards the looming shadow of the city outer wall.

This sudden change of direction foiled any attempt by the guards to gain ground after the thief’s fall. With the weight of their armour, lack of knowledge of the district’s streets and their quarry’s dexterity, the front two guards slid in the grime and clattered to the street, leaving their comrades following to have to pick their way around them, by which time the thief had regained their formidable lead on them.

The robed figure rounded a corner, knowing full well where they were, sprinted straight for a few metres, then flung themselves to the right. They crashed down onto the mud in a thin alleyway, barely wide enough to fit them. From there they crawled, belly down through the sludge, then they spun in the dirt and stared out at the road behind, completely motionless.

Heavy footfalls signalled the approach of the guards and the figure, praying to any god willing to listen, flattened their face against the ground. Hopefully their dark outfit would blend with the blackness of the alley. For a few tense moments, marching boots thudded along the road, and then they faded, and the figure picked themselves up. Their clothes stuck to them, slick with wet mud and even in the warmth of the night, that brought a chill that felt like it reached the bones.

The thief then slipped cautiously through the Winter district, avoiding all guard patrols. Not because the guards would know them as the criminal that had just been chased through the Autumn district, and certainly not because they were out at night, it was no crime to wander the streets of the Winter district at night, although it was inadvisable. No, they simply avoided the patrols as it also meant they were avoiding the rather awkward question of why they were coated head to toe in mud.

Eventually they reached a small, secluded square, walled in at all sides by squat shanty buildings and accessible only through a small gate in one corner. The figure slipped in through the gate, closing it quickly behind them. Then they speedily stalked across the small square to a house on the far corner.

If it could be called a house anyway, more accurately it was simply four walls and a rickety roof that couldn’t block the rain on a cloudless summer day. Or so the thief had been told by the people who lived there. The thief’s home was actually the basement of this building, or rather, the hole nestled amongst the house’s foundations, widened and deepened to make it, while not a house in its own right but still a workable dwelling.

The figure pushed the thin, crudely made door set into a lower section of the home and stepped inside. The only light inside was provided by the moon as it filtered through cracks into walls of the home, causing the figure to squint until their eyes adjusted to the darkness.

A small cookpot was held over a fire beneath the one window the home had, looking out onto the street. A rope was strung across the centre of the chamber, a curtain hanging from it at the far end, keeping the two sleeping areas separate from one another. The sleeping spaces weren’t exactly beds either, rather few hard wooden pallets stacked onto each other, enough to lift the sleeper out of the mud. An old, ragged blanket lay across the one visible bed, the other already hidden in privacy behind the curtains.

“Please by all the Gods tell me that you’re covered in dirt and not anything else.” A male voice said from the darkness on the far side of the home. The rag used as a curtain to separate of the room was pulled aside to reveal a thin man stood behind it.

Though the darkness hid it, the thief knew his skin was a light tanned colour. His hair was short and messy and even though the darkness turned it deep black the figure knew well the dark brown colour of it. His hazel brown eyes gently traced the figure from head to toe as he tilted his head and waited for a response. The figure sighed and unclasped the ragged black cloak from their shoulder and pulled down their cowl to reveal a young woman. She sat down on the hard bed next to her and grinned at the man as she began to shrug off her mud-covered boots and trappings.

“I think so, but then it is the Winter district, it could be mud, could be shit, could even be a rotted old corpse.” She laughed. The man shuddered slightly and shook his head.

“If only you were even half as funny as you think you are Alyx, you could make us coin as a Jokester instead of a thief. Speaking of, bring back anything good this time?”

Alyx nodded and reached down to her belt, grasping the reassuring weight of the candlestick before pulling it out and tossing it to him. He caught it deftly in his right hand, bringing it into the light, which revealed that on this hand, he only possessed his thumb, forefinger and middle finger, the ring finger and little finger were missing, a bloody and permanent reminder of the pair’s tumultuous past. For his part the man was unfazed having to use his injured hand and brought the candlestick to his face to inspect it.

“Too heavy to be simple leaf.” He observed as he spun it gently, examining the ornate design. “It looks very expensive, to be honest I’m surprised anyone in Autumn could afford it, you’re sure it’s not a fake?” It was as much an accusation as it was a question.

“It’s not a fake, James.” Alyx said firmly, knowing full well the direction the conversation was going. The same direction it went every time.

“How can you be so sure?” James asked pointedly. He already knew the answer, Alyx realised, he just wanted her to say it herself.

“Because it’s from the Spring district.” She sighed. She lay down across the bed, placing her hands behind her head, closing her eyes and awaiting the inevitable admonishment and disappointment from James.

Once it never came, Alyx opened one eye and looked over at him, he had collapsed on his own bed and was still inspecting the candlestick. Alyx cocked an eyebrow and sat up, watching him like he was a snake waiting to strike. She eventually decided that she’d have to test the water.

“What? No snide remark? No lecture about what might have happened? No reminder of the rules? We agreed never to cross the inner wall unless we were together remember? So’s we could back each other up if something went wrong.” James chuckled and simply looked at her, nothing but amusement in his eyes.

“I remember it just fine and I see you do too, so you clearly don’t need reminded of it. Besides, it clearly wouldn’t matter as you seem to have decided you know better than the rules anyway. Which is fair I suppose, you’re a grown woman now, I’m hardly going to be able to shelter you forever. As for what might have happened, as there’s no legion of guards beating the door down and you seem to still be intact, I’m going to assume that nothing went truly wrong and that you got away fine.” James tossed the candlestick through the air and Alyx caught it, barely looking at it. Thirteen years of thievery experience guiding her hand. Reaching down, her hand followed a well-practiced route through the lattice of wooden pallets that made up her bed and into the little hollow beneath the bed where she set the candlestick down. Then she grabbed her blanket and rolled under them, shuffling herself into as comfortable a position as she could and trying to ignore the itching and the cold from where the mud had soaked through her cloak.

“We’ll take it to The Oasis tomorrow, hopefully Sigmund will pay well for it.” James said, lying back in his bed, hands behind his head. He rolled slightly to look Alyx in the eye.

“Not bad for a night’s work Alyx, not bad at all.”