Music.
The battering ram boomed against the main doors of Craft Tower,
the sound a dull, impotent thud.
It had been booming for the better part of an hour.
Smoke choked the air along Merchant Avenue, but it wasn't from victory fires.
It was from the Craft Guild's own forges from deep inside the Craft Complex,
where they'd hastily thrown together barricades of metal and superheated stone behind the thick wood.
The attack had stalled. Jasper crouched behind a tipped-over mason's cart,
the shouts of his men lost in the din.
Karch had given him a simple order, bring him Orion, alive or dead.
But Karch hadn't accounted for the sheer stubbornness of craftsmen defending their home.
They couldn't win, but they could make the cost of victory impossibly high.
One of the guards, his face slick with sweat and grime, slammed his sword onto
his shield. This is hopeless.
We need to pull back, regroup. They'll pick us apart from above out here.
The man pointed to the tower, rising above, where archers were doing just that.
Jasper ignored him. His eyes weren't on the main gate.
They were tracing the line of the tower's broader first-floor complex,
and eastern wall that framed it, down to where it met the sewer grates and the
wide, stinking mouth of a refuse chute.
It was a straight drop into the tower's underbelly, designed for dumping slag and waste.
It was also, he wagered, designed with the assumption that no attacking force
would be mad enough to use it as an entrance.
The men respect me because when I lead them into danger, I'm the one in the lead, he had told Karch.
He never imagined he'd be leading them through literal garbage. Follow me.
Jasper's voice cut through the chaos. We're going in through the shit.
The chute was a vortex of noise and filth, a near-vertical slide that ended
in a bone-jarring drop onto a mountain of refuse in a cavernous basement chamber.
Jasper landed first, his boots sinking into a slurry of ash,
broken pottery, and something wet and foul.
He rolled, came up with his sword in hand, and waved his men down.
They poured from the chute behind him, a chaotic avalanche of blue-cloaked guards
gasping in the stench-filled dark.
This was the moment of truth.
The chute led from the tower, but was there direct access to the lower complex?
As Jasper's eyes got used to the dim light, they began to water.
The stench was horrible, and the whole room made his eyes burn.
As he peered around, however, he discovered two things.
The garbage was shoveled and tossed into yet another deep and wide hole on the
other side of the room where he fell, which appeared part of some natural cavern opening.
From his vantage, it appeared bottomless.
Where did that lead? He assumed it led to some natural sewer,
which took it to the great river, and from there far from Ness.
The second thing was that there was a large iron sliding door that led to the tower complex.
It was as he had hoped.
This was how the bulk of the tower's garbage was removed, through that door.
He pointed, through the door. It wasn't even locked, which wasn't much of a surprise.
It opened to a massive pile of still-hot slag, shit, piss, and rotting food.
Why would you possibly need to guard a door that was already guarded by a pile
that made you cough and your eyes water?
The craft guild guards in the basement were old or green, expecting to fight
off rats from the garbage pile, not a flood of soldiers.
The clash was short and brutal.
Steel rang against steel in the cramped space, the shouts of men echoing off the stone walls.
Jasper fought with a cold efficiency, his sword a blur.
He didn't waste movement. A parry, a thrust, a step to the side as a craftsman fell.
He was not a brawler like Sax. He was a predator.
They fought their way up a winding stone staircase, emerging into the workshops.
Here, the battle became a maelstrom. Craftsmen, armed with smithing hammers
and razor-sharp cutting shears, fought with the desperation of men defending their life's work.
Sparks flew as swords glanced off anvils, the air filled with the coppery scent
of blood mingling with the tang of hot metal.
Jasper led the charge, his force a blue wedge driving through the yellow-clad
defenders, leaving a trail of broken bodies in their wake.
Behind him, he knew even more craftsmen were jumping into the pile of garbage to join him.
By the time they reached the main hall, the battle was all but won.
The remaining craft guards, seeing their tower breached from within,
threw down their weapons.
At the far end of the hall, standing before a simple wooden chair that Jasper
assumed was what he considered his throne, was Orion.
He wasn't cowering, he was sneering. Two of Jasper's guards grabbed the craft
guildmaster, dragging him forward until he stood before their new captain.
Orion didn't struggle. He looked at Jasper with a cold, analytical amusement.
So, Karch's new dog has a bite.
Kill the traitor, a merchant guard shouted from the back, his voice thick with rage.
The merchants weren't fools. They knew that Larson had sacrificed their guild
for his own ego, and that Orion, the man everyone thought of as simple-minded,
had done the same in cold, calculated fashion.
Another, a younger man with wide, kind eyes, countered, No, bring him to the guildmaster.
Let him face justice, not murder.
Jasper looked from the defiant Orion to the divided faces of his men.
Bringing him to Karch was the order. It was the safe path, but he had left the
door open, alive or dead.
Karch would prefer Orion alive for his own devices and glory.
Jasper killing him here, however, that was a statement. It was his victory, not Karch's.
Orion must have seen the calculation in his eyes. he extended his hand,
palm up, as if expecting to have it kissed.
You are an intelligent young man. You see the board.
Karch is a piece. He's always been a piece. Why do you think he was Larson's
lackey? But me, young man, I am a player.
Kill me, and you're just his tool. Let me go, and... Orion leaned forward.
I will make you a player.
He smiled, a thin, predatory line.
Cut off a finger, a souvenir for Karch.
Tell him you killed me and tossed me in the sewer. I will reward you tenfold when I return.
Orion's hand hung in the air between them, a single finger now extended.
Jasper stared at the outstretched hand, and then he laughed.
It was a sharp, ugly sound that echoed in the suddenly quiet hall.
The game was more amusing than he could have imagined.
He leaned forward, echoing Orion's own movement.
He looked at Orion's hand, then into his eyes. I will give you your freedom.
A flicker of triumph sparked in Orion's gaze.
But the trophy will be your hand,
and your freedom will be yours to claim after I toss you in the river.
Orion's defiant sneer finally broke, replaced by a flash of pure terror.
Jasper nodded to his guards. They held him tight as the old man struggled and
hurled curses and threats.
Jasper waited patiently, his bloody sword in his hand.
Place his arm on the floor.
And with a single swing of his sword, he parted Orion's wrinkled hand from its arm.
The old man screamed out in pain.
Writhing in the guard's arms.
Find his stump and wrap that for me.
Jasper pointed to the hand lying on the floor.
They dragged the guildmastercraft out of his tower, through the streets still
thick with the smell of smoke, and to the banks of the North Fork.
They passed the merchant tower, a parade of triumph, men cheering and smashing
their swords against their shields.
And the standard at their lead, An old, defiant man holding his handless arm against his chest.
They reached the North Fork. The current was swift and deep.
Without ceremony, Jasper grabbed Orion's arm.
The old man struggled, his cold logic replaced by panicked pleading.
Jasper ignored it all. I hope you can swim.
He shoved the man toward a group of guards. Toss him in.
Two guards grabbed him, and with a heave, threw Orion into the raging water.
He surfaced once, his mouth open in a silent cry, before the current pulled him under.
Jasper watched the spot where he had disappeared, the surface of the river already
smooth and indifferent.
Rogers stood on the imposing balcony of the Thieves' Tower once again.
Everyone was gone, scattered by missions and circumstance.
Raylan and his outlander girl were somewhere in the chaos of the upper quarter.
Rafe was on a mad quest for books in the outlands.
Allard. Allard was a ghost. A story whispered by those few who had seen him in the pit.
Rogers felt the weight of his three captaincies, thieves, harvest,
and now merchant, settle on him like a shroud.
He was supposed to be picking up the pieces, but he wasn't even sure he could find them all.
You told me to report to the Guildmaster thief, but there is no one to report to.
He turned from the view and walked through Raylan's quarters.
The place was tidy, organized.
Someone was taking care of things. He made his way down the winding staircases,
his footsteps the only sound in the cavernous tower.
He had expected to find a skeleton crew, a holding pattern of a guild waiting
for its leaders to return.
What he found instead was life.
He walked to the kitchens first. The smell of baking bread and roasting meat filled the air.
Men and women in black bustled about, chopping vegetables, stoking fires.
It was a smooth, efficient operation, feeding not just the tower's residents,
but sending out wagons of food to the refugees in the old quarter.
He continued to the stables. He half expected to see the young stablemaster,
Bryn, looking overwhelmed.
Instead, the stables were immaculate, the stalls were clean,
the horses groomed and calm.
Brynn was directing two new apprentices, her voice firm and confident.
The stables, once a forgotten ruin, were now a model of guild efficiency.
Wandering through the lower halls and the grand complex at the tower's base, he saw it everywhere.
Harvest guild members were being integrated, not just housed.
They were being put to work alongside thieves, mending clothes,
repairing tools, tending to the sick.
He had never expected to see another color than black in the thieves' tower,
let alone Green diligently working and helping, as if they belonged.
Guards ran drills in the courtyard, their movements sharp and disciplined.
The abandoned tower was now a bustling, thriving community.
Rogers had always seen Raylan as a reckless boy, an irresponsible miscreant
who stumbled into power.
He'd scoffed at Allard's faith in him. But this, this wasn't the work of a figurehead.
An organization this functional didn't run on inertia.
It required vision. It required a leader who knew how to put the right people
in the right places and trust them to do their jobs.
Maybe the boy had finally grown up. Maybe Allard had been right all along.
His tour ended at the massive front gate.
He watched as a group of harvest and thief children played a game with sticks
and a leather ball, their laughter echoing off the ancient stone.
For the first time in weeks, Rogers felt a sliver of hope.
It was then he saw them approaching from across the ash fields,
a man and a woman, walking with the exhausted gait of those who have traveled far.
The woman was unfamiliar, but beautiful, with a warrior's bearing.
The man was dressed in, was that, red.
They picked up their pace as they saw the gate, the woman half supporting the magician.
When they finally reached the entrance, the woman was breathless,
her eyes wide with a look that was part fear, part awe. The road under the mountain is cleared.
She said the words to Rogers, as if she had to tell someone this news,
and he just happened to be the first person she met.
He glanced at the mighty dragon's teeth.
The road under the mountain was cleared. What did that mean?
The man looked past her, his gaze fixed on the great black tower that loomed over them.
His face was a blank mask, but his voice, when he spoke, was filled with a simplistic
yet terrifying certainty.
The wizard's worst fear is realized.
He looked up at the tower, at the balcony where Rogers had just stood.
They cannot hide from him anymore. We'll be back.
Music.
The Podcast Alchemy Production.