After an entire day of lurking in every inn, tavern and bar I could find, my patience was beginning to wear very, very thin. I hadn’t seen nor heard a single word about a knight staying, and sneaking a look at the logbook using my stealth skills had also returned no results. If I applied too much pressure and said too much, they would be warned about me looking for Bell very quickly.

I crossed another inn off my list. This wasn’t working.

Fourst was my main broker of information in Blackwake. He didn’t launder every single whisper and rumour he heard. When I got something from him, I knew it was reliable. There were several others who were in the same business. If I wanted to get another lead, I’d need to talk to one of them. I headed down a dark alleyway on the poor side of the city and knocked on an inconspicuous door marked with a triangle engraved into the wood.

“Who is it?”

“Ren.”

The door clunked open, on the other side was a guy around my age. “Hey Clark. I’m in the market for some info, can I come in?”

He adjusted his small, circular glasses with the tip of his finger, “Sure.” We followed him inside. He disappeared into another room to finish up whatever he was doing before I arrived. I took a seat inside the main room and waited for him to return. Clark was a smuggler and an information merchant. If there was a lot going on, he was the man to talk to.

“Who’s your new partner?” he called from the room over.

“This is Cali. We did a job together, and she decided to keep tagging along with me.”

“Trustworthy?”

I turned to her, “Sure. She’s saved my ass a few times.”

He returned without the dirt covered apron, “Sorry. I was organizing some of our new intake. You’re a sight for sore eyes, to be sure. I thought you swore off coming to Blackwake.”

“I did. But you know how things are. I’m here to do a quick job, and then I’m going back to the Federation.”

“Sounds good. Business around here is really slow. Even worse this past week.”

“Why?”

“This is a freebie, there’s a bunch of order knights hanging around the city. More than usual, considering the warfront is moving up past the Bend. Some of them came back from there once the fighting was over.”

They were beefing up security for some important people, “John and Forester.”

Clark laughed, “…How did you know?” I wasn’t going to reveal that an Inquisitor had been leaking info to me.

“Long story. Are you saying they’re both here in Blackwake?”

“At least one of them, I don’t know which.”

“Where have they been concentrated?”

“There’s dozens of knights working out of an old barracks down by the docks. That place was left abandoned for a long time, but it looks like they re-opened it recently. I thought it was for the war effort, but that isn’t the case. Wait a second, you aren’t planning on messing with the knights, are you?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s suicide,” he fretted, “You can’t fight them! And there’s too many of them to sneak through.”

“I’m not going into the barracks,” I explained, “They’re escorting someone. I want to find out where he’s hiding.” Clark sighed. He didn’t like what I was doing. But Clark was always the biggest worrywart of a rogue that I knew. His meticulous attention to detail was only matched by his paranoia.

I was only planning on scoping the place out. I could easily loiter outside the building and keep an eye on the traffic coming and going. Hopefully I’d catch a glimpse of Bell, or hear about what they were doing with him. I had no illusions that it was going to be easy to get to him.

“We could set it on fire,” Cali suggested.

“No. I want to him to know it was me.”

Clark shook his head, “This is starting to sound oddly personal, coming from you.”

It was personal. As much as I hated to admit it. It went against everything I’d been taught, everything I’d stuck to. Those rules and principles had served me well. It was the reason I was still alive when so many others I knew died by the side of the road, unburied and unmourned. I wanted Bell to see that he couldn’t escape from his choices. Fitch was a close friend, and he was the reason he got hung from a damn tree.

I wasn’t going to let it dictate my course of action. I kept reminding myself, over and over, that this was just another job. A contract with myself. “I can handle it,” I said bitterly, “Why does everyone keep acting like I’m in over my head?”

“If you’re dealing with Inquisitors and order knights, you are in over your head.”

He was right, but I didn’t want to hear it. I reached into my pocket and dished out some of my change, “That’s for the info.”

“Come on Ren, you can’t seriously expect-“

“It’s my funeral, Clark.”

“I don’t want it to be your funeral. You’re diving into some dangerous business here.”

Maybe knowing that my life was on a permanent timer had made me reckless, or maybe Adel’s words had more effect on my behaviour than I was willing to admit. Either way I wasn’t going to back down after investing so much time and effort into it. I refused to say any more. With my sum paid and a new lead on where he could be, I headed for the door.

“Keep an eye on him, will you?” Clark asked of Cali, ignorant of her true nature as a thrill-seeking sociopath.

“Yes, I will.”

“Hurry up Cali, daylights burning.”

---

The Blackwake “docks” weren’t really docks in the purest sense. The lake was huge and picturesque, a popular tourist destination for people rich and poor, but there was no external outlet to the ocean and no trade. Instead there was a large waterfront district where a lot of business happened. Shops, stalls and hotels painted in vibrant colours ran up and down the cobbled roads. There was no need for industrial production here, so the water was kept remarkably clean.

Stuck out on one of the piers was a large, rectangular building behind a small wooden wall. This was the old barracks, a building that from my own experience rarely saw much use. Blackwake had little need of a full contingent of knights. The city hadn’t been put in jeopardy for decades, and nearby battalions could quickly move on it in the event of an attack.

We stood across from it, shivering as the biting lakeward wind swept over us. Just as Clark has said, Knights had been posted at the front gate, and the once dilapidated building had been cleaned up substantially.

Cali leant against a crate and crossed her arms, “Do you think this is where they are keeping him?”

“Maybe. If their original plan to put him up with some nobles didn’t work out, and they’re too cheap to buy him an inn room long term.”

“Why would a noble family agree to offer refuge to a rogue?”

“Good question. I assume our mark has a few favours owed to him, all of these nobles and knights are connected to each other. Forester is a big name in the order, even I’ve heard of him. A little cash under the table or some knights dispatched for intimidation, that’d be worth handing out a spare room in the palace, don’t you think?”

If there was one thing they were good at, it was preserving their power and wealth. The Knights were meant to serve the King, but in reality they were often soldiers of fortune for whomever had the ‘charity’ to donate enough money. The nobles and the King cemented their positions in society by using force.

The barracks had the front gate, guarded by two men. There was an upstairs window on the second floor, looking down into the main courtyard below. A small door was on the front left wall of the building. There were other entrances that I couldn’t see. While we watched and studied our target, two knights arrived to relieve the men standing by the gate. My hopes of seeing Bell walking around or through a window were dashed, but I was expecting that. Nothing could ever be done easily.

“Wait here a sec.”

I pushed through the bustling crowd and towards the front gate, using my best ‘lost dumbass’ technique to project myself as a bumbling wanderer. I stood myself at the end of the wooden wall, and stared out onto the lake. I reached into my jacket and messed with a small paper map I hadn’t used in weeks.

It was hard to pick up over the noise of the popular waterfront promenade, but my patience was rewarded a few moments later, as one of the two new watchmen started to speak.

“Did you hear that the estates are open again?”

“Really? I thought they were expecting it to take weeks to clear up.”

“One of the nobles hired a merc and sorted it out themselves. They carted his body out - stabbed in the gut. Nobody wanted to press charges for murder, they said it was his fault.”

“Hopefully that means Forester is going to take this kid off our hands.”

“All the houses have been stripped bare. Until they find all the missing things, it’s unlikely they’ll want to welcome any guests inside.” The two continued to talk casually about everything and anything, but I had finally gotten what I wanted. Bell was inside the barracks, and they were guarding him for Forester.  I returned to Cali’s side and rubbed my hands together.

“He’s in there. Wish we didn’t waste so much time with that hotel lead.”

“How are we going to get to him?”

We weren’t. We were in a heavily populated area, I couldn’t exactly walk up and stab the guards unless I wanted to really cement my status as a murderous outlaw. “This is the boring part. We have to wait. I don’t imagine they have him locked up. Bell’s an impatient asshole, he’ll be demanding to be let out for a beer or something eventually. Then we can tail him.”

“And then?”

“I’m going to scare the shit out of him.”

“Would it not suffice to find a way to isolate and execute him?”

“Sure. But I want him to know it was me.”

“That is a rather morbid intention.”

“I know.”

I settled in for a long day of gate watching. Bell would crack eventually, and then he’d know how badly he fucked up.