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IX Thaddeus was hopping about frantically. As a Page it was his responsibility to serve the needs of the guards near the Silverton estate. He had never expected to do much more than clean and oil armour, keep the armoury stocked, and give the guards more ale when they wanted it. It was a horrendous shock to his system when he heard the tower alarm ring. He had heard feet tramping, so had thrust on a cloak and sandals and joined an archer making his way up to the tower lookout. As he had climbed the ladder he heard a scream. The lookout collapsed to the floor with a bloody shoulder. “You look after him!” the archer he had followed bellowed, heaving himself up to the stone floor, bow already loaded with an arrow. Now Thaddeus was responsible for helping the wounded guard, and he did not have the faintest idea about how to help the man. His stomach churned every time he looked in the same direction. Ripping a strip of his night gown off and dipping it in the water bucket standing in the corner, Thaddeus reached out and started wiping the dirt and blood away from the man’s wound, groaning in disgust as he went. Just then however, the light went out… Hagen celebrated in silence as the lookout tower was plunged into darkness. This threw the archer inside for long enough, so that Hagen was able to release another arrow at the considerably larger target of the searchlight in a window of the Silverton mansion. The rooftop was now pitch black, and none of the archers dotted around could get a clear shot at him. Using the time fully to his advantage, Hagen moved across the rooftop to the opposite side. Peering over the raised lip he spotted a Mechanist robot, alerted by the confusion, stomping about in search of a human to inform of the ‘wretched creature’ it thought it had heard. Glancing around the windows of the buildings opposite, Hagen spotted an open one with a wooden frame. It wasn’t a great distance, so Hagen removed a rope arrow. Tying one end to the rooftop around a flagpole, Hagen prepared to fire again. His shot hit the frame, and the rope hung taught, suspended above the street. Removing his sword, Hagen clambered out. He created a transport by placing his sword across the rope and holding both ends of it. Pushing off, Hagen glided down the rope. The street looked tiny below now that he was falling, and he just hoped that the arrow, lodged in the wood would hold. He glanced back towards the rooftop however when he heard a shout of anger. A guardsman stood astride the rope on the lip of the roof, his sword raised upwards at an angle in one hand. The man was out for blood Hagen realised, and tried to speed up his progress down the rope by shifting his weight forwards. The rope shuddered though, and Hagen felt gravity pulling him down, his stomach in his throat. The guardsman had severed the rope at his end, and without its hold the rope was dropping down to hang against the side of the building. Letting the sword fall from his hands gave Hagen just enough time to reach out and grab the end of the rope as he fell. Just as he got hold Hagen watched the wall loom closer, so he stuck his legs out and prepared for the inevitable crack of his legs as they broke when hit the stone. Surprisingly for him they didn’t, and he just felt the rope arrow give in the window frame, his body somersaulting in mid-air, before he felt a thump and a clatter. Blinking his eyes open he saw that he had landed on a metal walkway, originally shrouded in darkness. Hauling himself up with the assistance of the steel railing, Hagen limped along, his feet falling heavily on the metal gratings below his feet. He heard people rousing from slumber in their bedrooms as he passed, and once or twice he heard a shout from a startled servant or child. Rounding a corner he saw a flight of steps that led down into the darkened alley, leading off the main street he had been skirting on the walkway before. He clunked down the steps, and sat down on the bottom one to get his breath back. The pain in his legs started to ooze off as he sat for a few moments. The Mechanist robot that had been alerted earlier had returned to duty, pounding along the end of the alley at regular intervals. The guardsman had also disappeared, obviously believing Hagen to be dead. Now is as good a time as any thought Hagen. Standing up, stretching his spine, Hagen recalled a map of the city he had memorised, and planned a less-travelled route to the docks… “You’re late,” grumbled Cesan as Hagen entered the small hut outside the warehouse complex. “I ran into a little bit of trouble!” protested the ex-lieutenant of the city watch. “Trouble huh?” The man turned in the direction of the window and glanced around for movement. Seeing that the coast was clear he pushed Hagen back out the door and into the shadow of a group of large wooden crates. “The patrol passes every 3 minutes, so you’d better hurry up with the lock!” rasped Cesan in as patronising a voice he could. That was exactly what Hagen planned to do. Jogging out across the gravel he came to the door, the only entrance into the shipyard of The Stormplough. An electronic dial was set into the wall next to it, and a series of buttons controlled the movement of the numbered discs. Entering the code he had extracted from Silverton was a simple task, and within a few seconds the heavy metal door had slid across revealing the pathway along the edge of the shipyard. Stepping out onto the viewpoint Hagen took in the site. Against the moonlight Hagen could make out the silhouette of The Stormplough, its rigging playing cobwebby shadows across Hagen’s body. To one side was a small office building with a gas lamp outside, the only light visible. Regularly, every thirty seconds, was a patrol by a Mechanist robot. Infernal machines. Get their optical sensors in everyone’s business. Before Hagen had had enough time to compose himself, Cesan and his first contact, along with several other thieves entered the compound. All wore dark cloaks like Hagen, and their faces were covered by the fabric. “Meet our new accomplice Gentleman,” Cesan rumbled softly. The new arrivals nodded in turn, then jogged down the steps to the ground floor. Hagen was once again left with Cesan. “Now we wait.”
Hagen quickly got bored with waiting, and so resorted to sorting pebbles with his feet on the ground…
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