Stepping Wild, CH 02 (Patreon)

Tibs paid attention to the people in the inn’s dining room as he crossed it. With a pair of adventurers on the Night Runner’s trail, there was no telling what they had unearthed he’d worked at keeping hidden. The usual crowd was there, dock workers, two guards more interested in the cheap ale the place offered than keeping the peace, and one of the king’s tax collector, talking with the inn owner.

The arrangement, as far as Tibs understood it, was bed time in exchange for the tax woman finding some of the coins owed elsewhere.

There were many unknown people; sailors stopped by for food and drinks before heading to their ships. Travelers waiting for their ship to put the gangplank down. They had the feel of being out of place, and other than those who’d drank too much, were keeping to themselves. No one looked around surreptitiously while Tibs crossed it to reach the stairs and head two floors up. Being near the docks, this inn was more a rooming house than a place to get food and drinks, with a few beds available.

Sensing through the door told him no more than the two people he expected were there. He still gave the appropriate light knock, three, two, four, and one, and waited.

The woman who pulled the door open looked him up and down. “Well,” she said, smirking, “if it isn’t our lord and master, Tiberon. What happened, Ty? Got lost on the way here?”

Tibs pushed her out of his way with a smirk of his own. “Did you want me to bring the guards and adventurers to this meeting?”

“You were noticed?” she exclaimed, closing the door. “Whatever happened to the all mighty—”

“Leave it be, Lev,” the man seated at the table cut her off. “Him being noticed was part of the plan.”

They were as contrasting a pair as Tibs had come across in a long time. She was thin and wiry, her skin a darker shade than Tibs’s, with a sharp mind and sharper tongue, while Cuixtli was solidly built, a bulk that was more muscle than the appearance led one to believe, and a mind that while, couldn’t be call sharp, was also not dull. His skin was the tan the dock workers ended with working all day in the sun.

“But Ty likes the banter, don’t you?” she asked, dropping onto her man’s lap. She kissed his cheek, and he wrapped an arm around her waist.

“Let’s say I’ve grown to enjoy you cutting me with your wit,” he replied with a chuckle. He appreciated their understated expression of affection. Before continuing, he set an etching within the walls that would keep would be eavesdroppers from hearing more than the mumble of lowered voices. “How did it go?”

“Pretty much as you said it would.” Cuixtli reached pulled a bag out of the chest by his chair and lobbed it at Tibs. “While the guards were off chasing the Night Runner, we basically walked in, made our way to the safe in the basement and left with that with barely anyone noticing.”

“Barely?” Tibs asked, opening the bag to look at the gold and silver coins.

“Well,” Levtival said, stretching the word. “There was this guard by the safe that didn’t have the common sense to chase after the Night Runner, too. Cuixi had to deal with him before I could open the safe.” The words glowed slightly, but Tibs didn’t press on the lie. 

“What did you do with the body?” He took five gold coins from the bag before tying it and lobbing it back to them. He’d been tempted to tell them to keep it all. He didn’t need these coins. This had just been a cover for the real job.

“I put it in the safe,” Cuixtli said. The ‘it’ spiking in brightness. “With the guards keeping the Night Runner from even getting inside, it’s going to be awhile before they look in.”

“They’ll be in for quite the surprise,” Levtival added with a chuckle.

So they were downplaying how many guards. It wasn’t the first time. Cuixtli liked to fight, and he fought to win. It was why Tibs had picked them, even before he knew they were together. She was clever enough to pick any lock that wasn’t protected by magic, while he could take down anyone who got in their way. The only issue had been his predilection for ending those fights in a drastic and permanent way.

Tibs understood what he did came with risks, to himself and others, and he accepted that at times, he and his team had to inflict death. But he didn’t like it. Guards were only doing their job, maids and servants were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Adventurers and nobles? Well, not that he’d go out of his way to kill one of them, but he wouldn’t feel all that bad about how far he needed to go to survive.

“Is everything okay?” Levtival asked, worried. With a sharp mind came sharp perception, and Tibs had taken too long working out how he felt about more unneeded deaths at Cuixtli’s hand. At least, he had a response ready.

“I’m leaving.”

“What?” Cuixtly exclaimed. “Why? Don’t we have it good?”

“Adventurers are getting involved. I had two of them chasing me, along with the guards.”

“And you survived?” she asked, suspicion in her voice.

Tibs laughed. “Don’t listen to the bards. It’s not because they have magic that adventurers can’t be outsmarted.” He sobered. “But with two now, more will come. The Night Runner ran his last roof today.”

“But that doesn’t mean you have to leave,” she said. “We can lie low for a while with all the money we have. You can craft so other identity, and then we—”

Tibs shook his head. “That isn’t how I work. My time here is done.” He was certain some of the scribes were paying more attention to the scholar Tibs pretended to be than they needed to. He had a hard time sticking to the subject he told them he was there to study.

“We can go with you,” Cuixtli said. “We make a good team.”

He shook his head again. “I travel on my own.”

“I can keep you safe out there.”

“I have no doubt,” Tibs said, his smile genuine. “But you have your woman to look after, and the wilds aren’t really for her, are they?”

“Where are you going to go?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I have a horse stabled by the Sunrise Gate, I’ll follow that road until the next city and….” His smile turned cunning. “I’ll see what’s there to do.” He pushed from the wall.

“You can’t just go,” Cuixtli said, hint of panic in his voice. “What are we going to do? We never had someone be this smart before. I don’t want to go back to bashing in heads for coppers.”

“Then don’t.” Tibs looked at Levtival. “You’re smart; I explained how I work. Make your own team and keep reminding the nobles they have reasons to worry about those ‘weaker than them’.”

“I won’t—” Cuixtli had taken a step in Tibs’s direction, determined expression on his face, but Levtival held his arm.

“Don’t, Cuixi. Ty’s as free as any of us. We don’t have a right to force him to stay.” The cunning in her eyes said she already had a plan, but Tibs wasn’t bothered. He had his, and he was confident it was better, and also simpler. Levtival’s flaw, as a planner, was that she thought complicated meant better.

“Be careful,” Tibs said, hand on the door’s handle. “While the Night Runner’s done, the guard will be on alert for some time. Take your advice and lie low.” He undid the etching as he opened the door and left them.

He paid for the room for another week, letting the owner know he expected to be gone for a day or two, then exited the inn, taking in the late day sun, and salty damp smell of the ocean, before heading along the road and deeper into the city.

He was immediately aware of his stalker without having to sense around him. He kept too close, bumped into others in his attempt at getting closer to Tibs, who let him.

At least, the young thief had the brains to wait until there was a lull in the traffic before clumsily slipping fingers into Tibs’s pocket.

“You’re going to lose a hand,” Tibs said, grabbing it, then looking around for guards. “Which is going to make your life difficult.”

“I knew you’d know,” he replied petulantly. He was young. No older than when Tibs had been sent to Kragle Rock, and like him, Stifin survived the ways he could when he had no one but himself to depend on. And while he was nowhere as skilled picking pockets as Tibs had been then, his ability to get into places surpassed his.

It was why he’d picked him for this job.

“How did it go?” Tibs motioned for him to hand it over, and in return, Stifin made a motion of his own for Tibs to give him his payment.

“It went okay,” he replied with a shrug. “There were guards by the door you told me about, but then someone yelled for them and they ran off. Then it was just picking the lock.”

Tibs took a silver coin and offered it to the boy, whose eyes grew wide as he took it. Tibs didn’t let go of it, and Stifin handed him a small bundle of torn fabric.

“It was hidden in a hollow book with a bunch of other things. I didn’t take any other,” he hurried to say. Tibs had warned him against the temptation to take more than what he was being paid for. The lack of light on the words comforted him.

Tibs took the bundle, but didn’t let go of the coin when Stifin pulled on it.

“I did way you told me to,” he said, worried.

Tibs nodded. “I want to help you more than this.” He’d spent the night working out how he’d say this. What words wouldn’t have scared him away if a stranger told them to him, back when he lived on the street. “It’s going to be work, but if you apply yourself, you’ll have a roof over your head, and food when you’re hungry.” The boy looked at him uncertainly, but he hadn’t run off. “There is a merchant on Cobble Heel Road. The sign over the door is of a bundle of wrapped fabric with a needle through it. He’s expecting Regis to see him and ask to be tested to be his apprentice. Nimble fingers are key for what he’ll need you to do, and a willingness to work hard.”

“Do…I get to keep the coin?” Stifin asked fearfully.

“Yes,” Tibs replied, fighting his disappointment.

“Then I’ll do it!” The words glowed brightly.

Tibs let go of the coin. It was all he could do, and he’d told the merchant it might take time before his son would get over his shyness and ask to be tested, so, maybe, Stifin would realize how much better things could be with a master teaching him a craft, instead of living the life of freedom the street often felt like it was.

The boy ran off without looking back, and Tibs turned to head commit his last break-in in this city.

* * * * *

Getting into the house was simple. This part of the city didn’t have guards patrolling the streets, and the locks on the doors were rarely more than a bar across it on the inside to keep strangers from barging in without announcing their intrusion to every other house. Windows might have a wooden latch, if they had shutters to keep the rain out. This one hadn’t.

The woman who lived in this room had been happy, once. Living in a slightly better part of the city. She and her man worked hard to feed their children. They had little, but they earned it. Then sickness took them from her, and left her weakened. Unable to work the ale boilers as she had. Even tidying a room, which was all the work she could get now, left her exhausted. But she pressed on, instead of giving up and letting the end come faster than needed.

Her one happiness was the one item left over from her man. The wooden ring he’d carved her to celebrate their first born. It was the one item that kept her going.

And the fucking noble had taken it from her, then bragged to all that listened about the exploit.

Tibs had nearly burned the man down where he’d stood, recounting to his friends how he’d charmed the fool of a woman, had her believing he was there to save her from the miserable life she’d built for herself. How she’d begged for him not to take the worthless wooden thing when it was all he found in that hovel of hers. How she howled in despair as he slammed the door behind him and left her to die the way her kind deserved, in the filth and their tears.

She hadn’t died, Tibs had been pleased to find. While her essence was no thicker than that of any other city folk, she was still made of harder stuff. Tibs had seen the misery on her face as she carried on with her work, and he’d delayed his departure to make sure that noble paid for what he’d done in the only way they felt.

He’d taken the man’s coins. That had been what he’d distracted the guards from, while Levtival and Cuixtli distracted those in the house from the thief he sent so he could bring some happiness back to the woman.

He placed the open bundle on the worn dresser, with the wooden ring in the center. It was exquisite work in its simplicity. Her man had been quite the woodworker, Tibs expected. Next to it, he places the piece of paper on which he wrote his message, his letters neat and crisp. He’d bothered because he’d found out she knew her letters, too.

‘The Night Runner’s last job. 

I wish I could do more for you.’

But it was all he could. Giving her coins would only make her stand out and bring the greedy down on her. If he had someone in another city, he could have sent her away, but Tibs didn’t leave people behind who’d helped others. The teams he made were built from criminals and ruffians because it was what the work needed, and once he left, they went back to other crimes.

He didn’t think of them as bad people, but he knew where their interests lay.

With the ring delivered, he only had one more stop, then he’d be ready to leave.

* * * * *

Tibs looked at his reflection on the polished metal, running fingers over the short beard he’d let grow for his role as Tiberon. It wouldn’t do for the next one. Tyborg was a respectable guard. Someone for whom neatness was important. He took care of himself, his weapon, and whatever he was hired to guard.

He made a blade and shaved it to the skin without worrying about cutting himself; metal was his element, it couldn’t hurt him. Once clean shaven, he put the supple leather armor on, missing his old one, with its hidden places and ability to repair itself. It had taken decades, instead of the years to would for a normal boy, but he had eventually outgrown it. That was one thing Sto hadn’t taken into account when he’d made it for him.

To that, he added his bracers. The leather was cracked, in spite of oiling it daily. Too much wear and Tibs, not realizing the weave protecting it was failing until some of the damage was done, but the reserves were still intact, and even without them, they meant too much to him to abandon. So he took as best care of them as he could, and build a story to explain why a young man as neat as Tyborg would wear something so old and worn.

They were his mother’s, left to him after she was killed protecting her town. The only thing he had left of hers, other than the memory of how much she loved him.

He wiped the tears and straightened. He attached the sword to his belt and left the simple room. The caravan he’d hired on waited at the Zenith gate, and he didn’t want to be late.