The Thieves Guild
by Jake Care.
Season 3,
episode 40.
The Battle of Six Armies.
Crown Vilhelm was no stranger to violence.
When he was younger, he had led many raids on the outer fields of Ness.
It was his daring and skillful attacks during the great famine that led to him being
named Crown.
That was many years earlier, but there are some lessons you don't forget, and
surviving while facing a force with swords and armor is at the top of the
list.
To the gate. Spread the word, we retreat to the gate.
Vilhelm stood high on his horse, a vision of courage and
splendor, despite his cowardly message.
He may have been a coward, but he was also wise.
The force in front of him was enormous, and the force to his left appeared
small, but very well-armed.
Finally, the force in black behind him was significant and powerfully armed, but
there were two things that worked in his favor with a retreat to the gate.
They were smaller than his force, and behind them was Dragon Road's long
slithering path to Gautland.
Facing death, wouldn't they let him retreat?
He felt it was at least a possibility.
Another benefit of a force with a history of stealth and extended operations
was that they knew how to communicate well.
His entire army turned within minutes of his shout from atop his horse.
And with a nod, Vilhelm turned his mighty steed and rushed toward the Black
Rats, which he hoped would scurry back into their sewer.
Rogers had barely emerged from a hedge, his new sword in his hand, when
the army in front of him disengaged and rushed back down the Great Road.
The rest of the merchant guards charged forward, blood in their eyes.
Rogers, however, assessed things. From the left, far in the
distance, howls and screams and green cloaks and shirts
were rushing forward. The force from Gautland held them off as they retreated.
Still, they couldn't help but take losses.
The merchant force was being pushed back furiously.
Rogers couldn't quite believe the size of the Outlanders' army.
It stretched up and down the Great Road and seemed well-organized.
He wondered why they didn't attack earlier.
With their force, they could have overrun the city if they had even a token
understanding of the city's breadth and thin defenses.
As it was, they had picked the absolute worst time to attack
with a massive force of citizens emerging from the Old Quarter,
and a merchant force that clearly was trying to send a message.
The merchants were taking real losses, and Rogers rushed forward and started
yelling for the force to pull back and wait and see what the Outlanders would do.
He felt pretty strongly that they were going to retreat back to their city across the
plains. Losses at this point would be senseless.
Spread the word,
we should pull back.
Let the Outlanders flee.
Most everyone ignored him, but a few of the younger guards seemed to embrace the
"Don't put yourself in death's way" message.
It was odd. The Outlanders were mere yards from him, but they were so focused
on retreating that they ignored everyone but those immediately engaged with them in
battle. So he felt like a ghost watching the battle proceed without
him.
He quickly made his way down the line, and one of his shouts caught Dervish's
attention. He disengaged with an Outlander who seemed interested
solely in protecting the retreat and let him go without chasing him down.
Rogers, what in the name of the gods are you doing?
They are retreating. Our losses are pointless.
We should pull back and simply make sure they leave the city.
Dervish looked terrible, with blood from gushing wounds
he caused splashed across his armor and dripping down his face.
His sword was more red than gray.
There was a moment that Rogers wondered if Dervish would swing his sword at him,
but as quickly as he thought it, Dervish scowled and pointed his sword at him.
Close your mouth and leave. I will deal with you later.
Without another word, Dervish turned and launched back into battle.
Rogers was no fool, and he knew there was naught else he could do.
As the battle continued, he melted into the charred remains of the
flats.
Sax launched himself forward with a bellow that shook the walls.
There was a time he could take a half dozen well-armed men by himself, and
although that was years earlier, much of his might remained.
His men followed closely behind.
An arrow embedded itself in his chest armor, penetrating enough just to
make him angrier. Before another could fly, he had knocked two rangers to the
ground with his powerful bulk, and removed an arm from another with a mighty swing of his
broadsword. "This is what it is all about," Sax
felt, joy filling him as he swung his sword in an arc, forcing
two rangers to fall back, while a third was nearly cut in twain at the
waist. His men were similarly rabid.
Sax had personally picked them, mighty fighters who had waited years for their swords
to dance like this.
Another ranger fell and Sax laughed."You are nothing but squirrels.
You are more timid than rabbits.
You can't hide in the plains now, you pathetic excuses for warriors.
I should have kicked you out of the guild years ago.
You don't deserve the title of knight,"
Sax spoke as he dodged, leapt to the side, and then stabbed
forward. A cry of pain was the fitting exclamation on Sax's
battleground speech.
The Rangers fell back, but Sax was relentless and marched forward.
The tight space gave him every advantage.
Pure might was all that mattered in a corridor of deadly steel.
How many had Sax killed? A half dozen?
A dozen?
He took two steps forward. It would be more, oh, so much
more.
But as he stepped forward, three rangers found a small gap and sprung
around the guard to his right and turned Sax's attention from the front.
He was suddenly not fighting two or three.
It was six, with more pushing forward.
He pounded one of the rangers with the hilt of his sword while kicking one in front of
him.
It was at this point that the mighty and formidable warrior glanced ahead.
He had not done so being lost in joy of battle, and the sight made him
grit his teeth. As far as he could see down the wall, there were
rangers,
dozens of them, perhaps hundreds. He could cut down a score and they would be
replaced by three times that.
His men dispatched the rangers that had slipped through, but not before Sax had taken a
glancing blow to his shoulder. It meant little, but the fact that a blow got
through made Sax think while he fought.
He had a decision to make: fight to the death or retreat and
rally a more organized force.
Philos stayed well behind the thief forces, acting as a shield for Raylan,
who was ill-prepared for such a battle.
Philos refused to let Raylan head to the tower, being worried that the Outlanders would
have another force approaching from the south.
For a similar reason, he didn't want Raylan left lightly guarded in the sewer.
He had patiently explained this to Raylan, and despite Rebecca's and his own
protests, he was little more than an observer.
It was a sudden change in the battle that made Philos rush to Raylan and reverse his
previous plan. "Guildmaster, you must head to the sewer.
Cross the river and head to the tower.
The Outlanders are retreating, and they will soon overwhelm us.
We will hold them to give you more time and then we will follow, but you must leave now."
"I refuse to leave my guild members. I will do my part.
Do you have a dagger or sword?"
Philos didn't even reply, but turned to Rebecca.
"Can you force him to go?"
She laughed.
"I can't even force him to flee an unguarded prison."
She patted Philos on the shoulder.
"But I can convince him.
My dear Raylan, you are the guild master, and you promised me a visit to
an inn. Please don't foolishly die on me
and your guild members."
Raylan knew it was wise, so he didn't hesitate.
He grasped Philos' forearm. "Your mission is to save as many of your
guild mates as possible, nothing more." "Aye, Guildmaster." He
waited until Raylan turned and jogged toward the distant entrance to the
sewer. Rebecca glided lightly behind him, her swaying black dress
making it look like she was floating across the ground.
Simpson was too old to fight, but he fought anyway.
After all, hadn't he succeeded in his mission to travel to Harvest House and
returned to the Thief Tower without assistance?
Still, he was old and slow, and one of the final people in the wave of Green
to make it across the great bridge.
There were shouts ahead, and Simpson had to strain to hear what was being said.
A young man ran past him.
"They are retreating. They are retreating!"
Simpson continued forward. The battle may have been over, but he still
wanted to be a part of it.
The bodies began not far from the bridge, and he realized he didn't want to be part of it at
all. For every one dead Outlander were three or even four bodies
in Green. Women, men, not much younger than himself, youngsters
barely out of apprenticeship. They all lay in pools of blood,
body parts severed and laying nearby.
The streets ran red with blood. He continued onward for no reason
other than to honor the courage of his guild mates.
The dead lay everywhere. There were many dead Outlanders, and at a
certain point he realized that even a mighty force can't defeat
masses of people with something to live for.
The dead Outlanders never outnumbered the dead in Green, but the number of dead
Outlanders became so great he couldn't count.
"So many dead."
Simpson didn't recognize any of the dead, and he considered that a small
blessing. He passed a young woman, nearly a girl, lying on the ground and
holding a stick.
Not even a club, a stick.
She looked unwounded, and Simpson knelt down to lift her and see if he could help
her.
Perhaps she was simply unconscious.
He lifted her head and it rolled back in a sudden lurch, her neck clearly
broken.
The cruelty stunned Simpson. She was no threat.
She was probably just standing there, too stunned to do anything, and
someone walked up and broke her neck.
Simpson slid to the ground and started sobbing....
a pair of simple leather shoes approached from the edge of his vision.
"Come, my friend. Let us go.
There is a reason that battles aren't for the old.
It's not that it's too hard for us to fight.
It's that it's too hard for us to survive."
It was perhaps fitting that the mighty Sax did not die in an epic battle against a
fellow warrior. It was also perhaps fortune smiling upon him that Sax did
not die drowned in drink.
In the end, however, his death was how he had wanted it.
There were bodies next to him that he had slain through force and skill, and it was
not a single sword thrust, but many from many hands that ended his life.
But perhaps the most glorious of all was that he died not due to
someone besting him on the battlefield, but due to his arm tiring from
unleashing death upon others. As the rangers rushed forward, routing the
remainder of Sax's personal guard, a few stayed behind, looking
upon the former Guildmaster knight.
He had an odd smile on his face, with blood dripping upon it from a gash above
his eye.
Look at that smile. I wonder what he was thinking.
He was probably thinking about a large flagon of ale.
There were laughs, and then Sax's body was covered with a brown cloak, the
new color of the Knight Guild, as declared by its new Guildmaster,
Quinto.
Vilhelm had to pause his retreat to get word to the forces that had
penetrated deep into Ness. He had hoped that a retreat would pause
the attacks, it had from those in green in the rear, but the force in blue
seemed intent on sacrificing itself to make his retreat as difficult as
possible.
It was such needless death. Vilhelm leaned down to the messenger.
"Tell Kanton to sweep away the knights in blue.
I
don't know what their intent, but they are killing our men as we retreat."
The messenger rushed off and Vilhelm turned his attention to the thieves,
but as he did, they were gone. He had planned on a deadly assault through
the thick line of thieves to clear his path through the gate, but when he turned back
to them, they had disappeared like roaches under firelight.
"The path is clear. Retreat as quickly as we can.
I doubt we will be attacked." Vilhelm thought of Raylan, imprisoned in
Gautland. Unlike the forces in blue, his had discipline and
wisdom. "They will live to fight another day," Vilhelm
thought, "and that day will come."
With a kick, Vilhelm's horse vaulted forward, eventually passing under the great
gate and rushing down the long and winding Dragon Road and back to
Gautland, where he hoped his wounds upon Ness would achieve something.
Rodgers worried over the merchant forces.
They were well-armed but badly outnumbered.
His earlier warnings were common sense, he thought.
The moment the retreating army focused even slight attention on the guards in
blue, they would be overwhelmed.
So while Dervish led his forces into feint and attack against an army
uninterested in battle, Rodgers kept an eye for any hint of a
counterattack.
It came so suddenly that Rodgers had little time to do anything but rush forward,
yell, and point at the mounted knights rushing their way.
Dervish was far up the line toward the gate, so Rodgers focused on
getting word out among the guards, hoping yelled warnings would be faster than
feet.
"Look, cavalry approaches. Maneuver into the flats.
We can regroup."
Rodgers made sure not to use the word "retreat," but he didn't need to
worry too much about how his message was going to be received, as when the
guards looked up the Great Road, the cavalry were hard to miss.
To Rodgers' relief, the guards fled into the houses and alleys of the flats.
Rodgers ran as fast as he could, yelling out to escape the attacking cavalry,
and his warning took hold quickly. At the last possible moment,
Rodgers himself fled toward the houses, a swing of a sword from
horseback barely missing him as he dove into a charred house.
As he expected, the knights didn't follow.
They were simply cutting down anyone who dared to attack the retreating Outlander
force. He hoped that his warning had made its way to Dervish and that the
proud old man would choose wisdom over foolishness, but such
concerns were out of his control now.
He exited the house through the back door and began gathering the scattered
merchant guards to get them into an organized force again.
But what he'd do after that, he had no idea.
Raylan slipped upon a stone step and fell into a pool of piss and shit.
He would have been mad, but it reminded him of his escape with Maylor.
As he pulled himself up, his wet hand slipped on a different stone and he fell back
into the putrid water again.
You do realize that's not a bath, Guildmaster?
Can you just give me a hand?
I most assuredly cannot.
Raylan scowled as he looked at Rebecca.
She somehow still looked elegant, despite what he was certain was a dress
covered at the bottom with filth.
I'd be angry, but I don't blame you.
Raylan pulled himself out of the water and wiped his hands on his tunic.
Did you know that my first official duty as Guildmaster was to be pummeled with
garbage and piss?
I did not. You must tell me the story.
And as he and Rebecca wandered through the sewer and made their way out and then over the
southern foothills, Raylan told Rebecca about his first few weeks in the
Guild, the Founder's Day Parade, the banquet, his escape from
the basement of the merchant tower, and his first trip to Gautland.
Rebecca was mostly quiet as he told the story, only interrupting at
moments to applaud his courage or his wise decisions.
By the time they arrived at the south gate, Raylan realized that he had
unintentionally impressed Rebecca. He didn't know quite what to make of that.
He always seemed to stumble around girls. Maylor mocked him.
All his previous girlfriends thought of him as just a mischievous boy.
But Rebecca seemed impressed with his achievements as Guildmaster.
As they waited for Felos to organize the entrance through the gate, Raylan
decided to make idle chat to go over some practical things.
The tower is massive, and there are plenty of unused rooms.
I'm sure we'll be able to find you a place to refresh yourself and then sleep.
My dear Raylan,
you are such a gentleman,
but I have my own quarters on the second floor.
(dramatic music)
A Podcast Alchemy production.