Chapter 81: Chapter 80 - Errands for the Black Hounds

Teclos woke up.

He didn’t know where he was for a second, and he had a brutally painful headache. After a brief moment of gathering his bearings, he remembered that he had stayed in the tavern last night, bought Derrick and his friends drinks, and given Derrick the money for the coat.

After that, he had wanted to leave, but they refused to let him go, and he had to drink with those alcoholics the whole night.

The later parts were hazy, but all in all, they had welcomed him quite spectacularly into the mercenary company. Even Zamas joined them to drink, although not directly. He stayed on the second floor, where he could oversee the pub. Zamas was the name of his new boss, and apparently, the information Teclos had brought would earn them a hefty payout from the church if they played their cards right.

So, of course, they had to celebrate that wonderful news.

Teclos was sitting in a chair... well, technically, he was lying on the ground together with the chair, and there was also a boot in his face from a man who was still sleeping on the floor. It was one of Derrick’s friends, though Teclos couldn’t quite remember his name. Something like Pete or Patt.

Moving his leg away, Teclos tried to get up and was greeted with back pain and shoulder pain.

"Oh, you’re awake, kiddo... Zamas wants to see you." Marek was cleaning last night’s mess.

"Ugh..." Teclos almost vomited as he righted himself and asked, "Why? Did I do something stupid last night?"

"Hah! I don’t know, kid, just hurry," Marek chuckled, then continued to mop the floor.

As he stepped through the back door and walked along the corridor, he arrived at the last door at the end, where Zamas was staying. He took a deep breath and opened it.

"Oh! Our new recruit is here!" Zamas exclaimed happily. "Come, I have a friend to introduce you to."

He gestured sideways toward a man standing in the corner.

As Teclos looked at him, he noticed that the man had long brown hair and an intense, stoic look on his face. His build was lean and tall. He gave off a dangerous feeling, a familiar feeling. Teclos did not remember why that familiar vibe struck him so unpleasantly, but it did.

His face was scar-free, a novelty among these mercenaries. Those thugs had even competed over who had the most scars last night.

"This friend’s name is Falcon," Zamas suddenly interrupted his thoughts. "And he is going to guide you today for a few simple errands. Just help him out and bring back good results."

"Yes, sir."

Falcon nodded to Teclos and beckoned him to follow along.

Once outside, Falcon handed him an envelope.

"Our ’errands’ for today."

Teclos read through it and was quite surprised. The first errand was handing money to a priest of the church.

Huh? I thought these guys hated the church? he thought, as he had literally robbed them last night.

They walked through the fresh morning, where the slums were already awake, full of barking dogs, arguing people, and crying children. Falcon moved through it without hurry, but people still shifted away from him.

Teclos walked beside him, the envelope tucked beneath his coat.

After several streets of silence, he finally asked, "You have a priest working for you?"

"Yes."

"And what does he do?"

"He heals our injured."

"Huh... I thought they were rich already..."

"They are..."

Teclos looked ahead, thinking of the men in the tavern. The bruises. The broken noses. The knife scars.

"He doesn’t do a very good job at it, from what I have seen."

Falcon did not answer him.

Not a very talkative guy... Teclos noted.

As they neared the church, Teclos chuckled at the irony. He was literally back at the crime scene from yesterday.

The one he had committed.

Multiple guards stood at the front door of the small chapel and barred their entry.

"Halt! Identify yourselves!"

Falcon stepped toward the guard and smiled.

"Falcon... a member of the Black Hounds."

The guard recoiled at the name. Even with four guards present, their confidence suddenly sank to rock bottom.

Teclos chuckled from behind. They looked like they were about to piss themselves.

Then a priest came to the entrance and beckoned for Falcon to enter.

"It’s okay. They have an appointment with me. Stand down."

It was Merrith, the corrupt priest.

Priest Merrith guided them into a side chamber.

He was a skinny man with soft, small hands. He had very nervous eyes, as if he expected to be stabbed or something. His robes were plain but clean, too good for someone who spent his days among the poor.

"You should not come during morning service... I could get exposed."

Falcon just stared at him.

Merrith swallowed, nervous in his presence.

Teclos then handed him the envelope.

"For you." 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

The priest took it without looking, but his fingers hesitated at the enchanted seal.

"Just hold your end of the deal, and you’ll be safe," Falcon said.

"I know..."

Merrith tucked the envelope into his robes.

"That is all?"

"For now."

The priest’s lips pressed into a thin line. "Tell Derrick I will do everything asked of me."

Teclos watched quietly from the sidelines.

A priest so afraid of a mercenary whose base was in a tavern... in the slums.

As they left through the side door, Teclos asked Falcon why he had to intimidate him. Wasn’t the church way more powerful than them?

Only when the chapel was behind them did Falcon speak.

"This has nothing to do with the church because they don’t know about it. It’s easy to pressure a lone individual once you have dirt on him, and he will keep quiet on his own because of that." He paused for a second. "That is the power of information, so those ledgers you stole made our boss very happy."

That was the longest thing Falcon had said all day.

Teclos absorbed the knowledge slowly as he looked back toward the chapel.

The mighty church wasn’t so airtight and mighty after all...

—

A week passed like that.

Zamas did not give Teclos any grand missions like assassinations or stealing from the Count’s vault or something.

Instead, he gave him small jobs to do.

He carried messages across districts, watched and guarded certain shops, and so on. He stood beside Falcon while merchants paid "street fees" with smiles that looked like they had just swallowed poison. He learned which stalls and roads belonged to Zamas, which alleys belonged to rivals, and which city guards took their bribes.

He was slowly getting used to the pub and its crowd.

They were a rowdy bunch, always smoking and drinking. More than once, a bar fight broke out where Teclos suddenly had to be a part of it. He also discovered the "other rooms," where they made drugs, along with the torture rooms.

Falcon showed him everything. Most of the time, he was a silent and brooding kind of guy. But underneath all that, he was very capable.

Once, after Teclos was used to breaking up fights between common folk and the occasional tough guy, he nearly stepped in between two fighting mercenaries. Falcon caught his shoulder and pulled him back.

He shook his head. "Never stand between dogs unless you want to get bit."

By the end of the week, Teclos had earned more copper and silver than he had working with Saldia for a month.

—

On the eighth day, Zamas gave him a second important job.

This time, Falcon was already waiting for him by the door.

Derrick was leaning against the counter while a slum rat mopped dried blood from the floor with one swollen eye half-closed and a bleeding mouth.

"Goddammit, clean faster!" he yelled as he kicked him in the ribs. "Oh, kiddo! Looks like Falcon is already waiting for you."

He pointed his index finger toward Falcon.

Falcon just beckoned him to follow, and they sat down in a corner.

"There is trouble... a city guard," Falcon said. "Name’s Roban Vey, and he bought drugs on a loan... he hasn’t paid yet."

Teclos looked at him.

"A guard?"

Falcon nodded.

Teclos lowered his voice. "Can we even mess with a city guard?"

"Hah... you tell me, kid."

He was shocked that Falcon was capable of smiling, but after he got over it and thought for a second, Teclos sounded out his worries. "If nobles cared enough or if we stepped on their toes, they could wipe our place out."

Falcon nodded once.

The agreement surprised him.

"True, but corruption," Falcon said, "is one hell of a thing."

Falcon continued, "If it becomes known that a guard buys drugs from ’slum rats’ like us, he loses his post. Maybe his hand. Maybe his life, depending on who wants to make an example out of him."

It was the same lesson as with the priest, and Teclos understood it.

Falcon pushed a folded note across the counter. "He owes nine silver. Take twelve for being late."

Teclos’s eyes bulged.

"Twelve?"

"He can afford it," Falcon said. "And if he cannot, he should have bought less."

The walk to Roban Vey’s house took them from the slums, through the lower gate, and into the city.

Roban’s house sat near the inner wall, a modest but solid little house. A guard’s pay seemed to be quite high, Teclos guessed.

Falcon knocked on the door.

Once.

The door opened after a long moment.

The man inside was broad-shouldered and had tired eyes. He was still in his sleepwear. His gaze flicked to Falcon, then to Teclos.

His mouth twisted into a smirk.

"This a joke?"

Falcon said nothing.

Teclos felt Roban’s shadow beneath him.

The man was trained. His stance was balanced and poised to strike even while pretending to be relaxed.

He was almost like a hunter from Kolma.

But he didn’t know that Falcon was way more dangerous.

"You owe us twelve silver," Teclos said.

Roban stared at him, and then he laughed.

"They sent a kid to shake me down?"

Teclos warned him.

"Zamas wants his money."

"Zamas can come kiss my ass."

Just then, Roban’s eyes hardened.

"I’m done paying slum filth for drugs that barely work."

Then Roban lunged at them, and he was fast.

He grabbed Teclos by the collar and yanked him inside the house, probably hoping to drag him off balance and use him as a shield against Falcon.

It almost worked.

Teclos didn’t resist the pull and instead drove his knee into Roban’s ribs, making him stagger for a second before Teclos got elbowed in the face. Roban grunted, but did not let go. His skin hardened like rock, and he struck Teclos across the face with enough force to send him flying.

Then Falcon entered.

Roban turned around just in time to block Falcon’s first strike. The blow still drove him back into a chair, splintering one of its legs beneath his weight. Roban cursed, grabbed the broken chair, and swung it like a club.

Falcon moved beside him and struck him twice with lightning speed.

It was short, efficient, and brutal.

Air burst from Roban’s lungs as he was blown back into the wall.

Roban stumbled back onto his feet just in time for Falcon’s fist to crash into his jaw.

The guard was thrown against the table, knocking cups and plates to the floor.

But he was still standing, probably because he had hardened his skin at the last second. This guard was stronger than Teclos expected.

Falcon drew his sword halfway.

And the sound of it froze the room.

Roban hesitated for the first time.

That gave Teclos the opportunity to step in and strike him across the temple with a heavy leg kick.

The guard dropped to one knee.

Falcon then kicked him in the chest, hard enough to send him onto his back.

But then a scream suddenly came from the next room.

And a boy rushed out, perhaps eight or nine years old, barefoot and crying.

"Stop! Stop hurting him!"

He ran at Falcon, small fists striking uselessly against his coat.

Teclos stopped, but Falcon didn’t.

He kicked the boy aside.

Hard enough to send him crashing into the table. The child hit the floor, sobbed, and curled himself into a ball.

Teclos stared in disbelief, and his stomach twisted with guilt.

Falcon looked down at the boy with no emotion in his eyes.

Roban groaned, trying to rise.

Teclos’s thoughts raced. If that stupid dumbass of a guard moved more, Falcon could kill the kid and him.

So he grabbed the guard by the hair and shoved his face against the floor.

"Where is the money?!" he demanded, trying to force an answer and get Falcon’s attention back to the guard.

Roban spat out blood, and Falcon walked closer. Then he crouched beside him.

"Your son is watching," he said quietly. "He will see you die first..."

Roban went still.

After a long silence, his eyes shifted toward the hearth.

Falcon searched there and found a loose stone behind the ash bucket. Behind it sat a small leather pouch and a wooden box. Inside were coins, two rings, and three folded paper packets of drugs.

He counted the silver.

"Hmmm... seventeen."

Teclos looked back at Roban.

"He had it."

"No surprise there..."

Falcon took twelve silver, then paused and took the drugs too.

Roban laughed weakly from the floor.

"I hope you rot in hell."

Falcon just left without another word.

Teclos looked at the boy once before he also left.

The child stared back through his tears, hatred already forming in his young eyes.

Neither spoke on the walk back.

By the time they returned to the pub, the crowd was as loud as usual.

Teclos wanted to hand over the money and leave, but a hand caught the back of his collar.

Derrick pulled him back with ease.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"No." Derrick pushed a cup into his hand. "You did a nice job again, and that deserves a drink."

"I don’t want one."

The nearby mercenaries laughed, and Derrick leaned in closer.

"That was not a question, boy."

Teclos looked at Falcon.

Falcon was already sitting near the wall with a cup of his own, shrugging at Teclos.

No help there.

So Teclos drank again.

The ale was bitter, warm, and stronger than it had any right to be. The first cup burned his throat. The second made the room loosen at the edges. By the third, the songs sounded less terrible. By the fourth, Derrick was laughing with one arm around his shoulders, telling the others how the "Kolma boy" had cracked a guard’s head.

Teclos did not remember agreeing to the fifth cup.

By the time he returned home, Saldia was already gone, off to work again.

He fell over a chair at the kitchen table, and the coin flew out of his pockets.

Copper and silver spilled across the wood.

He stood back up, only to fall down into his bed again, fully clothed and asleep in a second.