In our last instalment, Darklight, the great black mage, had made grave error, once again, letting his rival see another day. But how many days are there until a victor is decided? Let us see if today will be the day…

Emelia stared down at the city from the high rooftop of the derelict building, feeling the wind brush her hair aside as the sound of a sharpened blade rang in her ears. She turned to face the men, “What will happen to the stall owner?”

Marek was callous in his words, “He’s already dead.”

“How can you be so calm about it? I thought he was your friend!” Emelia couldn’t believe that Marek was taking this so easily, as if he didn’t care about his good friend’s death.

Marek rose from his seated position against the lip of the wall around the rooftop in anger. “We were friends! And friends will die for each other! The same way I would die for him, for Artelk… for you!”

Emelia partially smiled as she sat more arrogantly on the lip of the rooftop. “I thought we were just working together.” Marek feigned choking her, while looking down at Artelk, who just leant against the raised lip, rubbing his blade along a small piece of flint stone that looked like it couldn’t sharpen a butter knife. “Now can you see why I hate working with women?”

Artelk broke the ramblings to bring the issue into focus. “So, Mrs. I’ve-got-it-all-planned. Why did you not know about Darklight?” Artelk didn’t bother to raise his gaze from his sparking blade. He was taught not to show emotion, but now he felt anger for the youngish maiden. He had seen her as a calculating woman, so how could she miss such an obvious fact? In his opinion, she had risked his life because she didn’t inform them of Darklight’s presence. It had been so long for Marek that he could forget, but she had been researching and following the emperor. But, as a gentleman should, he would not release his anger in such a crude way as to shout, and so, he held his tongue about his true feelings.

She suddenly became very wary when he asked the question, fearing the answer would enrage them and or ridicule her. “Well, I have never actually seen him before. I have learned about him from word of mouth.” Emelia waited for the reactions. Artelk simply lifted his eyebrows and continued to sharpen. Marek began laughing aloud. Marek began, “So you have dedicated your life to killing a man you have never seen until this day? That has to be the funniest thing I have ever heard. A vendetta against a faceless man.” Marek became more serious in his tone seeing that his laughter was causing his friend great pain and thought he should make an attempt at a recovery speech. “Well, when it’s the emperor you’re chasing, your target wouldn’t be that hard to find.”

Emelia moved on to more trivial subjects. She didn’t want to remember the last experience. It wasn’t exactly pleasant for her. She was a strong willed woman and being saved like a damsel in distress made her feel weak and helpless.

“The emperor is quite cute thought…”

Marek brought her back to reality the hard way, “I wonder how ‘cute’ he will look when his head will bounce across the floor…”

Artelk spoke out, but Marek knew he was thinking about something. He’d hardly said a word. “Let us get off of this roof. The day has been chilling enough without this wind as well.” Emelia added a face of sarcasm to her tone, “So where are we supposed to go?” “I know of a place if you have the confidence to go there” Marek looked with a face of confusion, “And where would that be?” “We can go to The Thieves Den.” Emelia’s face showed her apprehension, but she nodded in agreement. So the warriors left the rooftop and began their route to possibly the most deadly place in the city.

Weaving through the traffic of the Merchants Quarter, Marek raised the question, “How will they react to our presence?”

“We shall see…” Artelk said with slight confidence.

Down one of the stinking alleys that gave perfect cover for people trying to move silently in the city, there was a little sheet of cloth covering a doorway, which Artelk stood at without intending to enter just yet. He held Marek and Emelia back so that he could gain entry without losing vital body parts. Turning to the curtain, he whispered something that no-one but he and the curtain could hear. With the saying past, a tall man with a turban wrapped around his head and a short sleeved shirt appeared, greeting Artelk like a brother.

“Artelk I thought that feisty little piece had you!! Where have you been?”

Artelk looked smooth and cunning, “That feisty little piece has aided me in an assault against the emperor.” Emelia stepped from behind him with a look of sheer despise. How dare he call her a ‘feisty piece’?! She was infuriated, but kept her calm considering current location and company. She walked up to the man enticingly and smiled with a grin of anticipation… before grabbing the man tightly by the crotch and squeezing as tight as she could. The man winced and fell to his knees in pain before Marek grabbed her and dragged her away from him with some choice words,

“Are you insane?! He would offer us shelter and safety and you grab his nuts?!”

Artelk laughed and helped the man up. “Oh she is feisty and very strong too!” “Ha ha ha ha. Aye, that she is.” He turned to face her and bowed. “I am Dometio, but my friends call me ‘Slash’. I am the leader of the thieves in this city.” Dometio invited them in and calmed the man standing on the other side of the curtain whose Scimitar seemed sharper than Satan himself.

Artelk walked on as the two other unfamiliar persons were circled by the thieves looking them up and down. Artelk turned to watch what was going to be an amusing show. But his consideration for his fellow thieves broke in, “Aren’t you going to stop them, Slash?”

“Nah. That’s how they gain trust. If they can’t beat them, then they trust them.”

Artelk spat his mouthful of fresh ale across the floor, “Marek’ll smash them into very small pieces! That is if the Valkyrie doesn’t snap their necks!!”

“Ah, they’ll be fine.”

Artelk merely shrugged it off and would enjoy the soon to be close range bloodbath.

The grunts, who clearly were beginners at the thievery trade and would rely on mugging, eyed the Valkyrie up and down in slobbering enjoyment, waiting for the first chance to get much closer than her pockets. Marek, however, had a ‘larger’ problem. It was around eight foot tall and about the size of one of the old oaks in the deep forest to the West Country. The overtly large, gruesome looking man had about 2⅓ foot on Marek in height and, even with his huge suit of armour, his width didn’t exactly match the awesome size of the giant. Marek’s confidence usually didn’t waver, but in such a situation, it was perfectly acceptable to feel a little quaking in the knees. Still, he kept his courage and spoke in an evil roar.

“Are you looking at something in particular, big boy?!”

The giant thief simply laughed, “Not much…”

Emelia spoke over her shoulder, “Marek…”

Marek was very calm in his tone, “Yes?”

“This is bad.”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“No.”

“So, what are we going to do?”

“Go on instinct…”

Marek immediately lunged at the giant as Emelia broke the jaw of her first opponent with a quick rising knee. However, Marek was a little less successful in his attack. The giant reactively grabbed his fist and threw him into the nearest wall, at which, Marek recovered quickly and walked back up to the giant’s circle of reach before ducking under the next blow thrown. Emelia was having no problem with her opponents, who found her training with the two old knights to be far too stylish for their untimely attacks. After, her amazing ascension, breaking a jaw, she floated to the floor, smashing her left elbow into the face of the next rabid contestant. As Marek ducked, he saw his chance and brought the big man down to his size with a rather powerful punch to the groin. All the while, Artelk watched and laughed at the amusing, if yet futile, attempts from the thieves.

Marek was not used to giving his opponents time to recover, and starting now would be foolish, so, as the giant ‘bowed’ to his level, Marek grabbed his head, before using all the force in his armour to bring his knee to the face of the large being. As Emelia took her second opponent out with the wonderful face-smash, she finally moved to the next, sweeping low, snapping the leg, which would no-doubtedly get infected in this part of the city, before turning to look at Marek, who had just made the overgrown muscle-bound giant bounce off of the roof and the floor in one strike. The battle was done, and a victory painfully gained.

Marek turned to look at Slash, who clapped in reverence.

“Well done! No one has ever taken out Sledge that easily!”

Marek was clearly displeased with his unwanted display of skill, and, in his mind, though he would never say, the danger placed upon Emelia’s being.

“What the hell were you thinking? You must have known that they would be damaged!”

All the other occupants of the den, who cheered the other attackers, became very silent. Slash washed down some ale, “You now have their trust. You need that around here. We must talk. Enter my room…”

Marek wiped some of the remaining brick from his collision off his shoulder, checking no harm had come to Emelia, before entering a back room of the domicile with Artelk and his new acquaintance, Slash.

Slash spoke first, showing his authority in ‘his place’, “From what Artelk tells me, you want to bring the big ‘E’ down. Well, you’re in luck. So do we. Due to his increasing need for more soldiers, thievery is becoming hard with the extra guards around, and we also have the major problem of thieves going to work for him! They say that ‘it’s a more stable income’. Ha! Weaklings. We were considering you two to be our newest members.”

Marek spoke in despise, “I will be no common thief.”

Artelk looked at Marek sternly, which was rare, “Do you not understand?! They have the man power and the equipment we will need! Do you think we came here simply to recover before we battle and get caught? Marek! You know better!”

Marek gritted his teeth, knowing that Emelia was already hurt by the fact that she was captured, let alone having a comrade state the point poignantly. “I understand. Forgive me, my friend.”

Artelk laughed, “You haven’t been defeated! You have won! We can win now!”

Marek gave a small laugh, “Yeah, I suppose. Emelia, is this alright with you?”

Emelia was stunned! Marek barely asked her conformation on anything before rushing ahead and doing it. What was really strange was the importance of the conformation. She could hear in his tone that he would abide by her decision, even if it meant turning his back on his lifelong friend to follow her in her quest.

“I… think it would be opportune…”

“Then it’s settled,” said Marek, “shall we tell our new soldiers?”

Slash spoke in return, “Settled! Let’s go!”

Slash burst out from the back, startling every thief in the room.

“Big announcement everyone! It’s time!”

The room cheered madly, knowing that, all their training was finally going to be put to good use. More specifically, for their good. The giant approached Marek again, this time, more respectfully and without intent.

“ ’s’good to have you aboard.” The large man placed his huge slate of a hand in Marek’s and shook it fiercely.

Slash spoke again, in his announcing tone. “We need a leader, and we all know who that will be.”

The crowd shouted in unison…

“HER!!!”

Slash looked as if he had the rug pulled from under his feet! Marek was a little more bemused than downhearted. He never wanted the position, but the decision was unusual to say the least.

Emelia spoke, “Err… Thanks?” It finally dawned on her that everyone was waiting to hear something from her. “Yes! The plan! Well, this is how I see it…”