The Fly Guild (22 page)

“What are the elves doing with human
children?” Quinton asked.

“Turning them into soldiers,” said Sands.
“Elves live long lives and don’t like to be bothered with silly things like
dying or killing Orcs. So they recruit humans to man their armies and do the
fighting for them. The elven viceroy was paying Wren for his services. Both men
profited from the venture.”

“Yes, and there’s more trouble for us. We
have learned that Wren has also allied himself with the remnants of the other
gangs in the city,” Fist added. “We are facing Wren’s soldiers, gang members,
the elf’s men and all the old-money families from beyond the wall. I’m afraid
your stint as a master may be short lived.”

“Is there nothing we can do?” Quinton
asked.

“We will fight,” said Sands.

“And we will die,” added Fist. “Now that
Wren knows his plans are discovered, there is no reason for him to hold back
any longer. I expect that he is already marshaling his forces inside the wall
to strike at us with all his might. When he comes, the streets will run red with
blood.”

Chapter 8

It didn’t take long for Wren to take
action. Before the sun was completely up, columns of armed and armored men were
marching out of the main gate and filing off to prearranged locations
throughout Star Gleam City. Ahead of them were various thugs and criminals,
most of whom had a bone to pick with either Fist or the Fly Guild. It was
payback time.

Quinton watched from his rooftop vantage
point as one of the groups entered the sector he was assigned to. He looked
down the street, caught the eye of his relay man, who was all of eight years
old, and held up five fingers four times. The boy nodded and darted off. Twenty
men were coming down bakery row and he had a good idea of where they were
headed: The Sour Bread House. Sour Bread and its main proprietor, a man who
went by the name of Slink, had been under the protection of the guild forever
and held a near monopoly on the baking business. But that was about to
end. 

Four of the guards peeled off at the
doorway and set up a defensive perimeter, their eyes scanning for trouble. The
rest stomped through the door, and chaos ensued. First there was yelling from a
man, but it was short lived as his body was dragged out into the street, his
torso still impaled by the spear. Citizens who had gathered nearby to see what
was going on began to scream and run in all directions. From inside the bakery
came more sounds, breaking crockery, breaking glass and breaking bones. More
men were chased from the building, their arms hanging limp at their sides and
blood running down their faces. One of them got too close to one of the four
men outside as he tried to stumble away. The guard lowered his spear and sent
him sprawling to the ground, where he finished him off with a quick jab to the
heart. Bread and other baked goods were being thrown out the door into the
street to lie in the dirt and soak up the blood that was quickly gathering in
pools as more workers were hustled out. 

A woman inside began to scream
continuously until it was muffled a short time later. One of the soldiers
called out to those outside, and two more men entered the building to be
replaced by two others who came out. The dark orange cloth with a black wren on
it that covered most of their chainmail was splattered with blood. The woman
started screaming again, and the men outside smiled.

Quinton had seen enough and retreated
across the rooftops to the far end of the street to his next assigned position
and waited. It wasn’t long until the same twenty men had reformed and started
heading his way. This time, though, they had picked up a couple of particularly
rough-looking thugs who marched confidently thirty paces in front of the
troops. Quinton looked across the street again and found his relay. He patted
his head and held up two fingers, then flashed all five fingers four times over
his head again. The boy nodded and disappeared inside the doorway where he had
been hiding. Two toughs with a twenty-man soldier escort. 

As the men approached his position, a
huddled figure in a robe and leaning on a cane waddled ever so slowly out of
the building where the boy had disappeared. The figure turned away from the men
and attempted to escape, but the old man was too slow. The first tough raised a
fist to strike, and the old man lifted his arm to protect his face. But the
blow never fell. As the old man lifted his arm, he swung his cane around and up
into the crotch of the man, who doubled over in pain. The other tough came
running to his aid, but the old man suddenly did a cartwheel past him, with
something flashing silver as he went by. The second tough fell to the street,
his throat cut. The old man, who wasn’t old at all, just one of the guild's
thieves in disguise, walked over and stabbed the other tough through the heart
and withdrew his knife in one smooth motion.

Meanwhile, the soldiers had formed a line
of ten men two ranks deep and were rapidly approaching the thief, who stood
defiantly in the street. The first row of men lowered their spears and began to
hesitate as they approached the lone man who stood before them. They sensed
something wasn’t right, and they were proven correct. 

All manner of missiles began to rain down
on them from the rooftops and windows. Large chunks of cobblestones, bottles,
pieces of firewood; anything that could be thrown was launched at the invaders.
The soldiers hesitated as debris began hitting them in the shoulder and
glancing off of helmets. One man went down as a large rock hit him square in
the head. The two on either side of him grabbed him under the arms and began to
drag him back down the street. More people came out from around the corner
hurling smaller stones and wielding sticks and stood behind the thief. 

The soldiers were outnumbered and
continued to take hits. A bloody nose and a smashed hand encouraged them to
beat a hasty retreat back down the street, accompanied by the jeers of their
attackers.

“The victory will be short lived,” said
Sands, who had came up beside Quinton without him noticing. He hated when he
did that. “They will come back with more men and some archers, and a few stones
thrown by a mob won’t stop them this time. They’ll slaughter all who oppose
them.”

“What will we do?” asked Quinton as he
watched the crowd regather their precious missiles for the next attack. 

Sands didn’t answer at first. “Each man
has to do what he feels is right.” He turned and walked across the roof, then
slung himself down the wall and out of sight.

“Master Quinton,” yelled a boy’s voice
from below. His relay boy was calling him.

“What do you want, maggot?” 

The boy cupped his hands around his mouth
so he could be heard better from below. “Master Theo is requesting you join the
group over by where the candlemakers meet and join up with Mistress Glitter and
her group.”

Quinton nodded in acknowledgment. “I’m on
my way.” Before he could turn to leave, the boy yelled out once more.

“What should I do, master?”

“Run away,” he said, then started for the
edge of the building. If he jogged most of the way, he could be to Glitter in a
quarter hour.

***

As Quinton made his way through the
streets, they were a contrast in urban warfare. Some streets were filled with
ransacked houses and the odd body lying motionless in the street. Broken glass
and crockery were everywhere, and women and children sat huddled in small
groups, crying. As Quinton made his way down one street, a woman walked by him,
nude, her eyes unfocused, and the dirt on her face was smeared only by her
tears. 

On other streets, it was if nothing was
going on. There were no bodies, no destruction. Some people went about their
business and some took the opportunity to begin closing and locking their
shutters and barricading their doors. “It won’t do you any good,” Quinton cried
out to one wide-eyed man and his young daughter as they attempted to drag a
large post into their house to block their door. “Hell is coming.”

As he headed for the final corner, he
could hear shouts and the clash of weaponry. What he saw when he reached it
stopped him in his tracks. The entire length of the street was chaos. There
were overturned carts, one of which was on fire, and a couple of riderless
draft horses stomped about in a panic, bowling over anyone unfortunate to get
in their way. Men were fighting everywhere, but it was impossible to tell who
was fighting whom. There were no uniforms and no soldiers. This was gangs
versus guild members in a fight to the death on Tallow Street. 

A woman ran toward him carrying a large
rock and stopped ten paces short of him, her eyes wild with hate. She cocked
and threw it at his head as hard as she could, missing him by about a foot, the
stone glancing off the wall behind him. He drew his sword, but she disappeared
back into the raging melee in front of him. Ahead, he could see two men with
clubs circling a boy who had a broken spear. It was just long enough to keep
them out of reach, but eventually they would overpower him. Figuring the boy
for a maggot, he moved to the attack.

Before he could get there, a man ran from
his left, howling in rage, his front teeth missing and his chin covered in
blood. The man swung a table leg at him. Quinton ducked and rolled, coming up
slightly behind the man. A quick slash of the sword cut the man’s arm open from
his wrist to his elbow. The man screamed and grabbed his arm with his good hand
to try to stop the bleeding, but by pausing, two other men had come up behind
him and pulled him down to the ground and began pummeling him. Quinton turned
away and went back toward the boy.

In the interlude, the boy had wounded one
man in the arm, but they had maneuvered him away from the wall, and one was
circling behind him. Quinton increased his pace and ran the first man through
from the back as he approached, surprising everyone. 

“Quinton!” cried the boy. It was Teli.

The man ignored Quinton and moved in with
a club with nails driven through the end to attack Teli. 

“Look out,” cried Quinton. Teli wasn’t
fast enough. The club hit him in the ribs with a sickening thud, like a rock
being dropped in mud, knocking him to the ground. The man yanked the club back
and turned to face Quinton but was too slow. Quinton had slipped in behind him
and ran his elven blade under the man’s arm, dropping him with a cry of pain
and a spray of blood.

A bottle landed near Quinton and smashed
into a hundred pale green pieces, but he didn’t have time to identify the
assailant. He ran to Teli, who was doubled over, his hands over where the club
had struck him. His fingers were smeared with blood. He looked up at Quinton,
tears in his eyes.

“It hurts so bad,” he said in a
whisper. 

“Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

“I just want this to end. I want things
the way they used to be. I want my parents back.” The boy was sobbing and drool
was running out of his mouth onto the cobblestones.

Quinton ignored him, sheathed his sword
and put Teli’s arm around his shoulders. “Come on, you have to help me.”

“No, just leave me here so I can die,” he
muttered as a tree branch that had been sharpened into a weapon went spinning
wildly overhead.

“We can get out of here, Teli. You can’t
give up hope.”

Teli looked up at Quinton with a hollow
stare. “There is no hope here, only death.”

“Death to the guild! Death to the flies!”
came a cry from the end of the street. Quinton glanced over his shoulder as he
and Teli limped through the battle back toward the corner. Gang members with
red cloth tied around their arms had arrived and were tipping the battle in
their favor. 

As Quinton reached the corner, Glitter
emerged with twenty or so guild members, their faces stern and their clubs
already dark with dried blood. Glitter’s eyes were beaming, and a brilliant
blue cloak flowed out from behind her. A soldier’s spear was in her hand and
she wore part of a chainmail coat, enough to cover only her torso. She looked
over at Quinton and Teli.

“Revolution has arrived and vengeance is
ours. Let us rid the world of our oppressors,” she said, her voice stern but
calm. She turned to the men behind her and raised her spear into the air.
“Revolution!” she cried. They answered back with a mighty cheer and followed
her as they charged down the street.

“We’ve got to get away from here,”
Quinton urged as he started pulling Teli along again.

The sounds were starting to die down as
they made it several blocks away from the fighting. Teli had gone silent and
stared blankly ahead as Quinton guided him. He wasn’t sure where to go or where
was safe anymore, so they just headed away from the noise.

Quinton heard the horse before he saw it.
The clopping of hooves on the hard stone echoed between the buildings, and an
armored man on a large gray charger emerged from one of the alleys ahead, sword
drawn. The horse was lathered and snorting as the man fought to control the
beast’s fighting spirit. The man was armored in a solid breastplate of polished
metal that gleamed in the early morning sun. Silver runes were overlaid with
gold lines that twisted around each in its own intricate pattern. An orange
crest adorned a helmet that had a faceplate that hid the rider’s face, but the
faceplate was carved with wide eyes and a fanged mouth, giving the sense of a
mounted demon.

“It’s the prince! He’s alive,” cried an
adoring woman who ran toward his horse, her hands outstretched so that she
might touch him. He flicked his sword down and split the woman’s face in two,
sending her to the ground in a heap.

“No!” yelled Teli. He pulled away from
Quinton’s grasp and began to run away down the street.

“Teli, you can’t outrun him, just stay
low so he can’t get you from the horse,” Quinton warned. Teli continued down
the street in a sort of shambling run.

The prince turned his horse and nudged it
to a walk toward Quinton, who turned to run to catch Teli.

After a few quick strides, he was even
with the boy again. “Listen, head for the bridge, the one with the goblin heads
carved on it. You know the one?” Teli nodded. “Good. I’ll distract him, you
just get there and I’ll catch up to you later.” He gave Teli a shove and turned
to face the horseman, drawing his sword as he did so.

The prince did not even hesitate and kept
coming at a slow walk toward Quinton. The boy knew the prince had the advantage
in speed but would have a difficult time reaching him if he stayed low. But he
also knew the horse could be just as dangerous. It was time to try to even the
odds.

There was a dead man lying in the gutter,
his red armband a stark contrast to the dirty grey cobblestones. Quinton
quickly ran over, tore the armband from the corpse, wrapped it around the end
of his sword and tied a simple knot as the prince approached within a few
steps. The horse was stepping high, waiting for a signal from its master as to
how they would strike this pathetic creature before them. Quinton went into
action. He began wildly waving his sword as close as he could get to the
horse’s eyes while he dodged from side to side. The prince tried to control the
large animal, attempting to spin him into Quinton, but the constant waving of
the cloth so close to his eyes was confusing him. The horse snorted and growled
in protest and began to take several steps backward, despite the prince’s
attempts to urge him forward for the kill.