STALKER7

An ongoing story about professional dungeon delvers and the dirty, dangerous jobs they do for their wealthy patrons.

Part One – Again

Part Two – Serious People, Serious Coin

Part Three – Old Legend, New Skin

CHAPTER 4 – ALLEY RATS

4 – ALLEY RATS

Nothing like a new contract and a hefty deposit to put swagger in your steps, Mikal thought. He whistled ‘The Dirty Miner’s Daughter’ all the way through High Town Square and not even the Watch’s stink-eye could dampen his spirits.

It might not clear his debts, but fifteen hundred for the job, plus another hundred in mad money was enough silver to change a man’s luck. Descending the South Bank stairs, the sun looked brighter, the wind felt cooler, the view across the Endetti Plains just a hair more magnificent. Mikal Shiver was back in business.

Yes, the survey was in Dominion lands. That chewed at the back of his mind. How could it not? Like everyone else in the five kingdoms, he’d been raised on stories of the Founding War: how Olo Ekion had united the southern slave states and defied the Tyrant Zael and his legions. How Ekion, grievously wounded at the Razing of Horiach Tien, had still led his army to victory.

As the first king of the new Confederacy, it was Olo the Unbroken who decreed their former oppressor’s territory off-limits. It was cursed land, he said. Spoiled by dark magic, blood, and decades of depravity. The power of the Ur’Gench Tyrants was defeated, not extinguished. Remnants of their legions remained: scattered warriors, war beasts, fugitive mages lurking in the wilds. And so, the border forts were constructed and the Black Line drawn. A Proscription Edict was in effect and strictly enforced; no one was permitted to cross the river lest the vile darkness reawaken to threaten the continent once again.   

 But the lawyer lady claimed the powers that be had turned a corner on all that history. Guess a hundred years was enough time to soak up the former horrors. After all, the northern forests were full of timber, the hills laced with minerals, the fields of rich soil were open and untilled. And Mikal had official paperwork that said he could cross the Fekete Ver and not be hanged for it.

He reached the bottom gate and flinched at a splinter of guilt. Edna…  He’d promised to check with her before he signed anything.

Shit.

He slowed his pace.

That old adage about forgiveness and permission wouldn’t hold water with the former surveyor. The deposit made it obvious he’d already signed on the dotted line, but there was no way in the seven hells Mikal could tell her the contract’s details. Madam Mescebran and her snide clerk had specifically demanded discretion. And Edna would turn his sack into a coin purse if she knew the particulars.   

Pieces of the truth then. Digestible bites. He would be upfront about the fee, hazy on the fine print. ‘Up north, near the river’ would have to do, and silver would sweeten the syrup. It was an easy enough sell: Mikal was an old hand at negotiating contracts and the rich are known for their money, not their brains.

He went straight to The Short Shovel and as expected, Edna was pissed. Between back rent, her finder’s fee, and the cost to scrape up a crew on short notice, he gave her the entire seven-fifty. It also kept him from getting smacked with the nearest blunt object. Besides, Edna was straight as a razor when it came to a customer’s accounts, and holding the deposit not only kept Mikal in her graces but gave him a layer of deniability if Auditor Stein sent more thugs.

“Crew I can do,” Edna announced. “They’ll be fresh, Mikal. Green as grass, but I’ll kit them out. Not top shelf, mind. But good enough to clean a lofty’s crypt.”

“It’s an I and A, so four strong backs ought to do it, Ed,” he said. “Client is in a hurry though, and I don’t want to chance someone getting Miner’s Sweats, so see if you can hire a couple old hands. Someone in-between jobs.”     

“They’re all lugging,” Edna said.  

“What about Cinders? Or the Galt sisters?” Mikal asked. “They were whining in the Arse just yesterday.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“What?” Mikal asked.

“The dead cast a long shadow, Mik,” Edna finally said. “No mucker is going to crew with you right now.”

Mikal winced as four faces swam up in his memory. “No way around that, I guess.”

“Nope, not for a while. For some, not ever.” Edna hefted a thick coil of hemp rope. “Don’t worry, I’ll scare up some new talent for you. After all, there’s no shortage of folk who think delving is a quick road to riches, right?” 

“Fools and dreamers,” Mikal agreed. He turned to leave.

“And Mik? Mind yourself so far north,” Edna called after him. “I’ve heard tale of foul things swimming the river, hunting south of the Black Line.”

He turned back, kept a straight face. “Bah, I’m not worrying over it. King’s Rangers are on the job. Besides, it’s been a hundred years. How bad can it still be?”

***

After that, it was straight to The Basilisk’s Arse.

The Raderburg job may not have killed Mikal but it damn near broke him. He’d never admit it, but Edna’s retirement suggestion was more than tempting. Delvers had a short shelf life as it was – that was the nature of the work – and the few that survived any length of time either retired by injury or burned themselves down to a nub fending off the constant hazards. Between the gray in his beard and the creak in his bones, Mikal was hitting that junction where he’d either need to strike it rich or get out. Problem was, success stories like Edna’s were damn few and very far between.

Mikal could see that time on the horizon, feel it like the threat of rain on the wind. One day, maybe soon, he’d be forced to ‘weigh the take’ on his own life.

But not just yet. Today he had a contract. Today he had coin to spend. And there was nothing like buying a few pints to let his fellow diggers know he could still shoulder his pack.

Much like the day before, the afternoon disappeared in the bottom of a tankard. He made good on his bar tab, repaid those mates who’d bought him rounds in the past, and leveraged a few for skint evenings to come. Cups were raised to his old crew once again, but also to the future. It had only been a month since the Raderburg job, but it felt like an age since Mikal dared to think he had one. All told, it was a solid follow up to a good morning. He left the tavern at sunset, leaning in the breeze and pleasantly surprised to find he still had money in his pocket.   

He was halfway back to his apartments, humming The Dirty Miner’s Daughter for a second time that day and admiring the last of the warm gold sunlight slanting through the narrow streets – which is why he didn’t see the quarryman waiting in the alley.

There was a rush of boots behind him and a burlap sack slipped over his head. Mikal’s yell was cut off by two stiff jabs to the kidneys. He folded like a book. Next thing he knew, thick hands dragged him bodily backwards and threw him down into a rancid puddle. He curled in on himself as a flurry of steel-shod kicks knocked the wind out of him.

They stopped all at once and a voice growled in his ear. “I said I’d come for you, you crinkly old bastard.” A pair of hands rifled his pockets, yanked the coin pouch from inside his jacket. “I’ll be keeping this,” the voice said. “This is a bit of consolation for you busting my mate’s jaw.”

One last kick to the gut, the boot steps receded, and Mikal was left gasping for air enough to vomit.

He lay wheezing on the cobbles for a long time, his clothes soaking in garbage swill, pain blossoming all over his body. Finally, he pulled the sack off his head, heaved himself to his feet and wobbled home, staggering from one wall to the next like every other burned out souse he’d ever pitied.

When he reached his apartments, the stairs up to his bedroom were too steep, too tall, too risky. Instead, he fumbled his key into the lower door and stumbled into the downstairs great room, the office of Shiver and Funk – Surveyors.      

He hadn’t set foot in there since… before. Two steps over the threshold, the weight of old familiar things sagged him quicker than the quarryman’s kicks.

Corbin’s second-best pair of boots sat in the corner, floppy and scuffed, in need of new laces; a quiver of arrows hung from a peg, the spares Stepan re-fletched for the Raderburg job but forgot to bring; the iron-banded shield with a busted strap Holm had been meaning to fix for weeks; and the leather bracers Mikal had custom made with copper splints so they wouldn’t interfere with Freda’s spell slinging – a gift he never got to give.

They sat there, those things, edging a ragged hole that suddenly opened in Mikal’s chest; a chasm where grief and shame roared deep down in the dark like an underground river.

Do the dead forgive? Forget? Do they even care?

Part of Mikal reached out like a drowning man. Another part backed away.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and cuffed the tears welling in his eyes. After a moment, Mikal Shiver straightened himself as best he could, then turned to leave.

And froze: someone else was in the room.

He snatched a war pick off a nearby bench and brandished it. “Come at me now, you thick hob. I’ll kill you.”

A figure stepped out of the shadows at the rear of the room. It was tall and skinny, holding a mug of steaming tea. “Hello Mikal. I see you haven’t changed the lock. Or the sign.”

Mikal let the pick drop. “Hello Vera.”

______

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