Den of the Red Wolf

Cerna Gora stood in the dressing room of Lord Joraen, the eldest son and heir to Duke Kerryns of Cricciel.  She tossed Joraen’s copy of the Ducal signet ring from hand to hand.  Stealing the ring had been as difficult as she had expected.  That is, not at all.  Hardly a satisfying evening’s work.  Well, time for some fun.

She walked back over to the safe from which she had extracted the ring a minute before.  To any but the most trained eye, it was as securely locked as it had been when she arrived.  Certainly Joraen would swear it had never been touched.  Cerna twisted the safe’s handle upwards.  That would set off a magical alarm.  A squad of McArneson’s Swords would come running.  All she had to do was to cross almost all of Cliffside while avoiding capture by one of Loksenta’s elite mercenary companies.  Now, that is what she considered fun.

It would take about three minutes for a squad to respond to the alert.  A few more minutes to convince the Duke’s guards to let them in and to trace the alarm to Joraen’s quarters.  That did not matter, though.  A good squad leader would send troopers to cover all of the walls that ringed the manor’s grounds.  She had to be gone before the squad arrived.

Of course, that was the easy part.  Climb back up to the manor’s roof.  Leave the rope.  Untying it would take time.  Dash over to the far side of the roof.  Jump off.  Use a little magic for a gentle landing.  Back out the delivery gate whose lock she had picked less than a quarter hour earlier.

Cerna paused to listen.  She was in a narrow, well-lit alley between the Duke’s property and that of Margrave Rosynwen next to it.  It was an easy place to get trapped in.  She had several options for getting out of the alley, some riskier than others.  She heard distant shouts of command.  She checked her mental time count.  Under two minutes.  The Swords should not have been able to respond that fast.  A risky option, then.

She tossed a grappling hook over the Margrave’s wall and scrambled to the top.  If one of the Swords had heard the clang of the grappling hook catching on the top of the wall, the evening was about to get much more fun.  It did not seem like any had, however.

Cerna scampered along the wall.  She did not have any problems with the rounded wall cap.  Her soft slippers gave her plenty of grip.  She had as much chance of falling as she would walking down Crossroad.

She crouched at the corner of the wall.  The squad passed beneath her.  Even the Swords tended not to look up, at least if she did not make any noise.

Standard procedure for the Swords when receiving an alarm like the one she had triggered was for one squad to report to the scene.  The rest would fan out to the perimeter of Cliffside.  To the north and east was the cliff over the Lyvenness that gave the district its name.  Cerna had left that way a couple of times, but not tonight.

The southern perimeter next to Dragon’s Reach held mostly restaurants and upscale shopping.  At this time of night, there would be too many people not to be noticed.  There would not be enough to blend in.  Besides, she had gone that way two weeks ago.

Magical wards along the borders with North Park and East Park kept out the riff-raff.  The border with Midtown was filled with townhouses of minor nobles bordering broad avenues.  The Swords would have guard posts on those egresses.  None of these precautions were insurmountable.  Cerna was having increasing difficulty in finding new ways out of the district.  Cliffside was getting boring.

This time, Cerna would not try to beat the Swords.  She would join them.  She made her way to the manor of Eorl Tourat.  The Eorl had notoriously weak security.  At least, weak for Cliffside.  She let herself into the Eorl’s garden.  There, she donned a Swords uniform she had secreted there earlier.  She would come back for her sneaking garb in a couple of days.

She jogged across Cliffside to the Swords guard post on the Avenue of Mared.  She did not have to pretend to be breathless and excited when she arrived.  She danced from foot to foot as she waited for someone to answer her knock.

The bored-looking woman who opened the door looked Cerna up and down before asking, “What is it, Private?”

“Message from Sarge Dirnat, Corp.  He and us was headed to the alert.  Private Arno, he saw three men running towards North Park.  Sarge took the rest after them and told me to go for backup.”

“Do I know you, Private?  You don’t look familiar.”  The Sword trooper was starting to get suspicious.  This was not according to procedure.

“No, Corp.  Just started last week.  Private Gormless.  Actually, still Provisional Private, but I hope tonight makes me a regular.”

“Why didn’t Dirnat send a message through the links?”

“Magic died, dinna it?  Couldn’t use the link.”

“Happening more and more, lately.  Need to get an enchanter worth his pay,” the woman muttered.

“Sarge, message for you,” she shouted over her shoulder.

Cerna repeated her message and answered the same question for the dark-haired man who answered the woman’s call.

“OK, Deidral,” he said after Cerna had finished, “procedure is that the squad goes to cut them off if they turn south before they hit the park ward.”

“Sure, Sarge.  I’ll marshal the troopers.”

“I’ll do that.  We have to leave a pair of troopers here to man the post.  I want you to stay here.  Who do you want to keep you company?”

Cerna bounced up and down on her toes and waved her hand in the air.  “Me, me.  I want to help.  I’ll stay here with the Corp.”

Corporal Deidral sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose.  “Fine.  That’ll give you more of the squad, Sarge.  I’ll hold down the post with - Gormless, was it?”

“You betcha, Corp!”

Cerna watched with Deidral as the Swords squad hurried out into the night.  She figured it would take them at least twenty minutes before they figured out her ruse.  Midtown was just a few yards away.  She could get away clean if she made a run for it.  That would be too easy.

She started to pace back and forth excitedly.

“‘Citing being a Sword, ain’t it, Corp.  I coulda joined the Silver Company, I coulda.  But, says I, it’s McArneson’s Swords for me.  That’s where the action is.  And I was right!”

Deidral pressed her hands to her temples.

“Please be….No, here’s what we are going to do.  This escapade is going to keep the squad out for a while.  Quite a while, if they’re the ones to catch the thieves.  They’ll be hungry when they get here.  There’s an all-night diner two blocks down Mared and one block to the left on Winson.  Get us a pile of sandwiches.  They won’t be great, but this area of Midtown mostly shuts down at night.  And get me some coffee.”

Deidral took some coins out of a drawer and handed them to Cerna.

“You betcha, Corp!  I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time.  Please, take your time.”

At that, Cerna walked out of Cliffside with a Ducal signet ring and a pocketful of McArneson’s Swords’ coins.