4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

The hallway was wider than a man but one of Lester’s many enforcers would have trouble making the gap. Creatures from the north tended to be large, but Lester picked out the biggest of each brood and that’s why his enemies feared him. They feared his power and his money but not the actual man. Harold Leseter Maud was a most unassuming man, only slightly above five feet tall and not more than a hundred pounds. He might have been an accountant if a different course was set for him, but it was too late for that now. Thirty years too late.

Leseter moved at a fast walk down the hall to the cell he remembered from a visit three nights prior. His cloak, black like the rest of his ensemble, billowed behind him as he motioned for the guard to get out of the way. The key clinked into it’s chamber and demanded the tumblers move. They complied, and the door opened into the cell of Roger Joshua Jones.

“Jones,” Leseter said with a false jubilation, “How good it is to see you my friend!”

Jones was lying on the floor of the chamber, clothed only in dirty brown rags. His emaciated and beaten frame was facing a corner away from Lester. Lester moved into the room, his boots avoiding the dung and specs of sick that were in piles on the floor. He walked very slowly, with a certain exuberant pride and a smile on his face, to the center of the small chamber where the only window shined a bright yellow light onto his face.

“Mmmhbhl...” Jones mumbled, still not facing Leseter.

“Oh so you can talk!” Leseter said, kneeling down near Jones, “My guards here were beginning to think you a mute, what with the simple demand they’ve been issuing.”

Jones grew silent again.

Leseter stood up, regaining his rigid, nobleman’s posture and took a few steps toward the wall opposite Jones and sighed.

“Jones, Jones, Jones...tsk, tsk, tsk...What am I to do with you?” He said, enunciating each syllable with a careful purpose.

Leseter turned around, the smile gone from his face, his features more cold. A killer’s look.

“Hrm?” He said coolly moving down to Jones’ position again, “What was that? You want more punishment? Well Jones, I didn’t know you were this dedicated!” Leseter stood up and brushed the hay from his pant legs before beginning to kick Jones mercilessly.

One blow, a muffled scream.

Ten blows, blood was beginning to fall.

“I’ll talk!” the screams came at this point. Leseter kept going.

Twenty blows and Leseter was panting.

Jones was silent once more, and for all time to come. The guard came into the room with a expression of horror mixed with surprise. A new guy, obviously. A replacement. Someone who had worked with Leseter before wouldn’t have been as startled as this guy. This kid. Leseter didn’t even look at him before speaking without a tinge of remorse, “Clean up the body.”

“D-did you at least get what you wanted out of him?” The guard replied.

Today was the day of rest, however, and most men stayed on land bartering the goods they had acquired during the weeks travels. A large congregation of single story shacks and buildings lay on main street in Darton. Most of them were made of wood and were about as old as the town proper but today it seemed every shop keep in the country had come by and set up their own ram shackled booths. Screams of prices and goods echoed throughout the fjord, goods moved to and fro from buyer to seller as the guards kept a watchful eye out for thieves.

Antonio Garratt was not an ordinary thief. Tony had been born and raised in the rough highlands of the continental colonies where the arm of the law was not as strong or long as the one on the island, and in seventeen years had become quite talented at the art of thievery. So good, in fact, that the local thieves guild of Armath had taken quite the interesting view of the lad. It was only a bit of silver, Tony had protested, but the guild had made up it’s mind and Tony had to flee to an uncle he had never met in a land that seemed strange and foreign to him.

Old habits die hard they say, and Tony’s were no exception. He eyed the growing crowd of consumers like a lion on the hunt waiting for some poor fool or tourist to make a mistake. Spying one, he moved quickly and quietly toward the prey, his small frame gliding lithely through the tide of human cattle. The guards hadn’t seen him yet, good, his hand made a thousand time practiced motion towards the mans pocket.

The man was old, hunched and crippled leaning on a cane but as the gale began to subside he turned toward Tony. Slowly at first but growing in speed he turned as Tony realized with horror that he hadn’t pocketed the man’s wallet. The mans’ voice rang like a judge reading a bill of execution.

“Thief!”

Tony burst into a sprint as the guards ran from the barracks looking post. Tony hadn’t ran like that since the great botched tram robbery of ‘87, as he and the guild used to refer to it as. Tony and some of his less well known compatriots had raided a police barricade north of Armath and stolen some pistols and rifles from them, and working under the adrenaline and morale boost from that they went out to the tram station looking for a fight. They got one, and Tony had been put in the hospital for more than a month, but he was the lucky one.

His lungs burned like a white hot dragons fire. His legs ached, his muscles burned, but he had to press on. No more being caught, no more losing to someone less than him, no more-Tony’s thoughts were cut off as he rounded into an alley. Two story buildings on each side and a brick wall at the end, Tony was cut off. Things are never easy.

“Stop, in the name of the law!” Tony looked back to see the guards shouting behind him. He took three steps forward before turning around, his cloak rippling out behind him as the wind began to howl once more.

“It’s over thief, come with us and the punishment is only a day in the pillory. If you resist, you’ll get a beating and three months penal service. Come now.” The lead guard wasn’t quite fat, but he wasn’t quite thin either. A shorter fellow with a large brown mustache the armor on his body seemed two sizes two small but there was a strength in his body that wasn’t seen with the average man.

Tony moved back slowly a few paces as the guards drew their swords from scabbards bearing the insignia of the town watch.

“I don’t want to have to do this son, just come on and we’ll all be on our way with no harm done.” The lead guards double chin dribbled like a giblet when he spoke and his cheeks were a rosy red from the cold. Tony did not stop moving backwards but he slowed, the guards in turn lowered their weapons. Tony’s eyes darted from each crevice in the alleyway looking for a way out, but he couldn’t find one. It looked like it might be the end for Antonio Garratts’ promising career as a thief.

Suddenly a crash was heard from the main street and for a quick moment the guards heads turned. Tony used that to his advantage, kicking up a nearby drainage bucket into his fist and throwing it into the rabble. It disorganized the guards for only a second but that was enough time for Tony to get a foothold on the wall. Tony thanked the court of the nine that it wasn’t in as good repair as he had first thought.

The guards moved with an efficient and cold indifference toward the wall as Tony got to the tip. As they began to climb Tony looked to the opposite side. The drop was longer on that side since a tavern seemed to have made a stairwell to a basement there. Jumping was out of the question, the only way now was up.

The jump was long to the roof a nearby building was long but the guards were getting up the wall quicker than Tony had and time was of the essence. The muscles in Tony’s legs contracted almost subconsciously and without thinking he jumped into the air. A split second later and he would’ve felt the hand of a guard on his leg, pulling him down to the courts, but for now Tony was free. Tony was flying, the only true freedom there was. But all good things must come to an end, and the thief had underestimated the distance to the building.

He began to fall at an alarming rate as he groped fruitlessly at the air around him, like a overburdened bird. By pure luck the tips of his left hand met a storm drain. The metal creaked in agony as his body was quickly supported. Tony stiffened as he heard the nails begin to come loose from the worn wooden frame.

“Please...gods...help...” Tony mumbled as he began to swing his legs up over the roof.

“Get moving! He’s getting away! Go!!” The lead guard was screaming at the ones climbing the wall. Obviously someone as dignified as he couldn’t be seen actually giving chase to the criminals, no his job was just to take credit for it.

“Builder, why do you like to build?”

“What do you mean?” The ancients voice was strong and metallic, as was his body. Built before recorded history with a magic long since forgotten, the ancients were a race of metal men. Builder was unique among them though, his face was more serene, more human-like. It was one of the first things that drew Tony to him.

“Well your a builder right? You like to build things right?”

“Correct.”

“Why do you like to do them?”

“I do not understand the question.” Builder’s eyes were made of crystal and glowed green in the darkness, like a cats’ looking into the torchlight of a weary traveler.

“Do you enjoy your job?”

“It is my function.”

“But you still do it every day...well, until I met you, right?”

“Correct.”

“Why?”

Builder gazed out into the darkness for a while. If he would have been born a human his eyes might have had a glazed look in them at this point. After a long time, what seemed like hours to Tony, Builder spoke again with a cool and quiet voice.

“There is no greater satisfaction in this world to me than to create. It is my means of propagating. Look at you humans, you may breed at any time to make more of your kin and you may continue on for forever. I do not possess that ability. I build, because there is nothing greater than to do what someone else cannot. To go where someone else cannot, and do what someone else cannot, and when all is said and done I can say that I was there. That I did that. Even if my building is destroyed something will survive, there will have been scraps of wood left or someone who saw the building and I can still say that I did that even when the world is crumbling to dust. I am a creator, as I have been created, and that gives me pleasure. It makes me special, unique. What better thing is there than to be unique in a world of conformity?”

His pursuers were making progress of their own down below him. The captain, whom Tony was beginning to refer in his mind as Big Joe, was yelling at the obstinate gaggle of companions around him who were making the arduous trip up the walls and fire escapes to the buildings roof. One of the guards, who Tony thought of as Slim due to his height and his look of being only skin and bones, had finally gotten a grasp on the edge of the ledge where Tony had dangled for his life only moments before.

“Catch that thief! Get moving ya stupid bunch o’ bastards!” Big Joe was screaming at the top of his lungs, his face turning red with a shade of purple on his nose. Spit flung from his mouth as he screamed but the harsh words had a positive effect on the speed of the guards, now Slim had his footing on the roof.

But Tony was much quicker than the guard drabbed in a blue and white tabbard. The ill-fortuned rapscallion moved with cat-like lithe across the roof of the building to it’s edge and with a sarcastic salute to his assailants he jumped to the next rooftop. The move was landed with perfect grace and Tony’s footfalls were heard all across the market as it had grown deathly silent, all eyes were on the thief and the guards and every mouth was silent waiting for the inevitable capture of the law-breaker and the just deserts of justice. They rooted for the thief in their minds with a vicious brutality.

The dance then began. Slim and his buddies had finally made it to the second rooftop, with the exception of Big Joe who ran towards a small building Tony presumed was the Guard House of Darton.

“Give up law breaker, it’s the end of the line for you!” Slim yelled, the repetitive irony of all policemen’s shouts struck Tony as slightly funny and he couldn’t help but grin as he stood solemnly straight on the edge of the building once more. “What’s so funny?!” Slim yelled at Tony as his guard underlings moved forward, “Huh?! What’s so funny?! Your going to have your hands chopped off you know that right?!”

Tony spoke with no more than a whisper, “No, you are the ones who will suffer when his time is come.”

“What was that?!” Slim yelled. The guards were within tackling distance of Tony but none dared to attack lest they fall from the building they had so valiantly climbed up.

Tony’s grin grew into a smile, and that smile grew into laughter so malicious and hideous it made the crowd viewing the spectacle quiver in dread. “Suffer!!” was the only word Tony yelled before falling aimlessly off the edge of the building. The guards lurched forward but were too late, they only saw the edges of Tony’s cape as he descended into an open second floor window.

The chase was renewed.

His small frame collided with the windows shutters, causing a somewhat sickening cracking sound in his ribs and the splintering of wood across the room. It was sparsely furnished, with a table near the door which was made of wood with a simple lock on it and not much else on the wood floor except the bathtub lying underneath the window. A candle on the table revealed the expression of utter shock and surprise on the young woman’s face who was bathing at the time of Antonio Garratt’s untimely arrival. Tony’s grin faded as he went head first into the water but returned as he saw her modest body lathered in foam. She screamed, undoubtedly alerting the guards and Tony jumped out of the tub.

The woman screamed more as Tony reached for the door and made his way deeper into the building and he could still hear her screams as he reached a stairwell and began heading down. The unmistakable sound of iron footfalls alerted Tony that the chase was about to be renewed in full force. He groped the railing of the stairs and braced himself with his arms on the rail and his feet propped on the walls making a sort of barrier on the stairs.

The first guard, Slim as usual, appeared above him and Tony used all the force he could muster to jump down the stairs to the ground floor. Feeling the cool air ripple around him and the sound of his wet cloak flourishing about the air Tony didn’t notice the arrow let loose by the annoyed guards.

Splurtch! The arrow made contact with Tony’s calf, driving it’s vicious iron head deeper and deeper into the thief’s leg as he made contact with the cold hard ground. Pain rocketed up his side as his hands groped at the shaft protruding from under his knee. The pain made everything a blur, he was no longer Antonio Garratt master failure from Armath, he was no longer being chased by the guards of Darton for attempted thievery, he was just in the gray haze of pain trying to make it all end. The muscles in his arms contracted almost subconsciously as he ripped the arrow out of his leg. The pain didn’t recede, but flooded back in a wave of agony.

Blood flowed from the wound as he limped to the door. His hands met the handle and slowly, ever slowly, they turned as he expected freedom. In reality, Tony met the staring cold hearted face of a crossbow bolt aimed at his head.

“Hello thief,” the voice of Big Joe said callously, “Meet Bertha.”