Wil Ogden
The Nightstone
PROLOGUE: FRIENDSHIP IN TROUBLE
The young man’s gaze prowled across the rapidly filling taproom. Pantros habitually made note of the heavy purses on the crew of the Lady Marissa. In any other inn, he would wait an hour for their carousing to start taking its toll before lightening their belts. He didn't start trouble at the Inn of the Haughty Hedgehog, though. Despite having his best friend Bryan, an over-muscled brute a head and half taller than most men, sitting across the table; he knew that his sister, who owned the inn, would not appreciate the mess they would make in the rare event things went sour. He also knew the doormen, who he’d trained to look for thieves, would notice anything he did and they would toss him out as quickly as they would a stranger for stealing from the patrons.
The doorman on duty, a lame Matderi named James, hobbled over to the table, using a heavily nicked but polished battle hammer as a crutch. The Matderi knocked the edge of the table gently with the haft of his weapon. He said, coughing his words in the way his folk normally spoke, 'You boys gonna git out of here before you start trouble?'
'James, you know I don't steal here,' Pantros said with his best innocent smile.
'Yeah, I know you find your fun other places, now,' James grunted, 'But, your entertainment sometimes follows you back.'
'When have we brought more trouble than we could handle?' Bryan asked in a deep baritone that rang evenly with a calm confidence. The large young man was always sure that nothing would go wrong. Things often did go wrong, however and Bryan’s size was often the deciding factor in keeping the trouble contained. Bryan shrugged and leaned back a little in his chair. “What could go wrong?”
'Don't you be trying those looks with me. We all know Commodore Mejal’s fleet just got back from a long run down the whole east coast of Teminev. There are over a thousand sailors running around town with overfilled purses. And you’re telling me you’re not interested in acquiring some of those coins? Nah, I wouldn’t buy it. You kids got the scent of trouble all over yourselves tonight,' James said, pounding the handle of his hammer against the floor. 'Git!' he spat. 'Don't make me spank you with me hammer.'
Bryan laughed, 'With just the one good leg, you'd only get one swing before you toppled.' It was a joke they shared nearly every night.
'I keep telling you: I only need one swing,' the Matderi finished the joke. 'Go find your trouble. The farther from here the better.'
Pantros got up from his chair, tossing a copper coin to the woman behind the bar, his sister, Tara. She caught it, glaring slightly at him. Though he didn’t have to pay for his food and drink, it irked Tara when he didn’t clean his own table. Tipping his sister to do it didn’t always end in a humorous situation. As long as the taproom wasn’t crowded he could get away with it.
'If trouble means money,” Bryan said as they headed to the door. “We could use some.”
“Always work to do,” Pantros said. “So many purses and so few drinking hours to make the job easier.” Plucking coins from the purses of sailors was scarcely harder than picking stones off the ground. Sailors spent so much time in cramped quarters bumping into people, they didn’t pay heed to a passerby brushing too close. Add a little rum, and it wasn’t even slightly challenging.
As usual for the late summer, the evening had brought a gentle mist with it. The glow of the constantly active volcano to the east refracted through the droplets of water and spread its light to every corner of the street. The open areas had an almost festive red ambiance while the shadows flowed like blood.
“What kind of trouble do we want to get into tonight?” Bryan asked Pantros as they walked north, deeper into the city, away from the docks. “Wine, women or follow Mejal’s men around and catch whatever spills from their purses?”
“I’ve still no interest in wine,” Pantros said with a shrug. “It seems like I remind you every night that alcohol dulls my reflexes and dims my senses. Maybe it’s your predilection for it that makes me keep having to remind you. Picking locks and quick reactions are most of what makes me a great burglar.”
Down the street, Pantros could already see a group of Mejal’s crew staggering along the street. He could take a handful of silver from each of them and they’d just assume they’d spent it on drink, if they noticed the missing coin at all. He would never take more than half the coin in a marks purse. Less money would just leave them confused as to how they’d spent more than they thought. A suddenly empty purse would alert the victim that something was wrong and they’d start looking for a thief.
Silver wasn’t worth Pantros’s efforts or the risk, other than to create a situation for Bryan to have fun fighting his way out of. The following night would be ideal for a late night visit to Commodore Mejal’s home. Then the take would be in gold coins. Bryan didn’t like that kind of work because it left him standing outside watching for trouble but mostly being bored.
Bryan sighed. It sounded almost like a groan. “I guess drinking ourselves silly isn’t really doing anything worth bragging about.”
“Not like that box of pearls we took from the first mate of The Bleak Honor,” Pantros said. “Not that I hope you told the city we did that job.”
“That bunch of pirates deserved it,” Bryan said. “If my father were sober…”
“He’d be proud.” Pantros finished for him. “Wouldn’t seeing your father wallowing from his bed to his bottle make you not want to drink?”
“It makes me not want to drink two bottles of whiskey a day.”
It was Pantros’ turn to groan.
“Women?” Bryan asked. “Where do we find them, tonight? I hear Therl’s is having a belly dancing show.”
“If we went to Therl’s; we’d be two of two hundred men watching three or four girls,” Pantros explained, not seeing the point of just watching them dance. “Not to mention that we have yet to spend five minutes at Therl’s without you breaking something: usually someone else’s nose.”
“But you make good money lightening the spectator’s pockets,” Bryan commented, nudging Pantros. A less agile person would have been thrown across the street by the giant’s mass; Pantros had a way of rolling with anything. That skill helped keep him at his friend’s side.
Pantros shook his head, saying “Last time, I got forty copper pennies, mostly already broken into bits; not even a single silver in the crowd.”
“Oh,” Bryan said. After a breath, he blurted, “Maybe this town is too small for us.”
“What?” Pantros asked, surprised by the change of direction in the conversation.
“I’ve been thinking…”
“Bryan, you know that never goes well for us,” Pantros interjected. “Thinking is my job.”
“Seriously, Pan,” Bryan said. “I just think there might be something bigger out there than robbing a bunch of drunk sailors.
“We don’t just steal from sailors,” Pantros objected. “We steal from anyone with extra coins lying about, unused.” He picked his marks carefully, trying not to risk getting caught and hung over pennies. Not that he ever got caught. If trouble did start it was usually Bryan starting it.
“Yeah, but think about it,” argued Bryan. “If we went to Fork then we could join the Thieves’ Guild there and we wouldn’t have to find our own marks. Everton’s a port city four times as large as Ignea and I’d bet Novarra is just waiting for a pair like us to rule the nights.”
“Ignea is my town,” Pantros sighed. “This is where I’ll live until I retire and build my castle in the mountains upwind of the volcano.”
“You and I could own the world,” Bryan contended. “We could steal it piece-by-piece. Well, you could steal it, and I’d have your back.”
