A Cutthroat Story:

Tibbles the Conqueror (2)

“You boys are early,” Tibbles said as seven guards in full armor walked into the room in single file. They had short swords and spears and Korenth’s sigil, a common crow, engraved in the top left corner of their chest plates to signify them as the kingdom’s royal guards.

“You,” the first guard said, pointing at Tibbles, “Come here.”

“Why?”

“Comply or be beaten and dragged out,” the guard said firmly.

Opting to avoid the bruising, Tibbles obeyed and walked forward. The guard turned him around and placed stone cuffs around his wrists and connected them behind his back.

“You’ll be alright,” Polan reassured him, while Trevor laughed.

Gripping Tibbles by the upper arm, they hauled him out of the cell and into the corridor, which was just as mundane and featureless. The floor, walls and ceiling were all the same grey brick, identical iron cell doors punctuating either side until the right turn at the end of the hall.

Practically dragging Tibbles, they walked till they arrived at the only cell with the door open.

Waiting for them inside, was a narrow faced bald man in casual attire one would expect to see on royals. He stood in front of a chair in an otherwise empty room. Hauling Tibbles the rest of the way, the guards seated him in the chair to face the man. With his arms cuffed behind his back and not around the chair’s, he had to lean back onto his arms, making his seating awkward and uncomfortable.

“My name is Cordell, the right hand of the Mantle of Korenth, advisor to the King’s advisor.”

“So you’re an errand boy to another errand boy?”

“Ah, you still have your wit. Taking it from you in the little time you have left, would be my pleasure. But before that, we’ve brought you here to verify the details of the battle that occurred on the pirates’ ships. Will that be a problem?”

Tibbles was certain that if he answered all of their questions honestly, he would probably be returned to his cell unharmed, to wait to be hanged, albeit with less time to escape. However, he was already out of the cell. He was sure that if he said the right words, he could forgo breaking out of the cell and sneaking out and just walk right out the front door. He would just have to tell the right lies. After all, gold only listened to silver tongues.

“I’d be more than happy to answer any questions you have, if you can promise me something in return.”

Cordell rolled his eyes. “I hope you know there is no way out of this. There are no lies you can tell, no truths that you can twist and not a shred of mercy in my body. You will answer me and then you will hang. And no amount of gold will change that, especially not coin that peasant trash like you would have.”

One of the guards behind him shook his head. “There he goes again...”

Cordell whipped around. “Excuse me?!” he snapped.

The guard closest to them took two cautious steps forward. He raised both hands as if he was easing a wild beast and in a soothing tone said: “I know this isn’t the greatest time. Some of us have been meaning to bring it up for a while now, but the chance never came up…till now, I guess.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“To put it plainly, we think you have a bad relationship with money.”

“A bad relationship?” Cordell repeated, trying to wrap his mind around the words. “Like a gambling problem?”

“No, you attach people’s worth to the amount of money they have and their social status. And then you push that onto us and frankly, it’s usually in hurtful and demeaning ways. Honestly, it’s very hard as your second in command to keep morale up when you’re always putting us down because we don’t make as much money as you do.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about, Neil. And even more baffling is the fact that you chose to bring this up here and now, literally in front of the man I was just trying to intimidate.”

“You don’t remember all the insults or the jokes? What about the things you said to Bruce last week?” Neil asked.

“Hah, I just made a little bit of a joke with him.”

One of the other guards that Tibbles guessed was Bruce came forward to the front as well. “You called me a fourth rate piece of vagrant scum because I said that I couldn’t afford to pick up your tab at the tavern.”

Cordell gasped. “Bruce, I thought you knew that was only a joke?!”

“If it was only a joke why didn’t you invite me to your birthday party last week?”

An awkward silence fell over the room as they waited for Cordell to answer. As amusing as the situation was, Tibbles was actually beginning to feel bad for them.

“Enough of this!” he said finally. “We aren’t here to interrogate me. We’ve been tasked with getting accurate accounts of the sea smiths’ retrieval. We are here for nothing else. Now do your jobs before I have you all fired.” All of the guards promptly refocused their attention on Tibbles once again.

“You, Tibbles. I have been told you fought alongside the sea smith Typhon and had a hand in slaying many of Ransom’s and Bora’s men. Is that true?”

“Yes, but before we go any further, I think there’s something you should know. The pirates betrayed you. We stopped one of the settlements and they had the young sea smith, Morgan, make them a sword that literally makes the dark,” Tibbles said and shimmied a little to put emphasis on dark.

“You mean the Murk Blade? The Mantle is quite aware. She even accounted for it. Once the sea smiths got here in the end, which they did, it wouldn’t be an issue if the pirates had one or two weapons. Especially since, once we got the sea smiths, we would have a virtually unlimited supply.”

“Oh…no, the sea smiths made a second weapon….named…the fist…of fire. It’s much more powerful than the Murk Blade or Typhon’s spear. It…covered the sea in flames so tall that they licked the clouds…and consumed the water just like kindling. The cursed thing almost burned us all, honestly.”

“You literally just made that up.”

“No, I didn’t,” Tibbles muttered.

Cordell opened his mouth to answer and then closed it. He looked back at his subordinates with an exasperated and amazed expression and then turned back. “We literally watched you pause mid-sentence to think up a name and what your imaginary weapon does. We practically saw the gears turning in your feeble little mind!”

Tibbles just shook his head and spoke as if reciting something he’d memorized: “I only paused because the trauma of the violence has wrought havoc on my mind that’s already been damaged by alcohol and life as a cutthroat. After all, there’s only so much the human mind can tolerate before it begins to break.”

“And there’s only so much nonsense I can tolerate in one day,” Cordell said as he drew a dagger from his belt and placed it at Tibbles’ neck. “No more half-truths or tongue-in-cheek talk. Tell me the whole and absolute truth or I will cut you open and expose your plebeian gullet to much more air than it’s used to.”

Suddenly a man’s voice echoed to them from one of the cells. “What do you mean she’s gone?! Find her now!”

Seconds later a woman’s voiced yelled back: “Where are my guns?!” and screams followed before the heavy clattering sound of armored bodies hitting floor. Then there was silence.

“Three of you go out there and squash whoever is making that ruckus,” Cordell said.

More screams followed and one of the guards shut the door. The four remaining guards looked at Cordell.

“What are you looking at me for? Go out there and fight her.”

Each of them shook their heads except for Bruce. “You know what? I’ll happily go out, if you can tell me when my birthday is.”

Cordell bit his lip.

“Can you remember any of our birthdays?” Neil inquired.

“This isn’t the time for this!”

“Stay right where you are,” the feminine voiced yelled. The talking must have drawn her to them because now she was directly outside of their cell. “If you try to leave I will gun you all down before any of you can get a foot out the door.”

“Vella, is that you?” Tibbles called out.

“Tibbles? I’m surprisingly happy that you managed to survive. What are you doing in there?”

“The usual, I guess. Can you get me out?”

“Will you pay me if I get you out?”

“Sure.”

“Alright, deal.”

“What about the rest of us? What are your demands?” Cordell asked. He sounded surprisingly level headed, like he was prepared to barter his way out of the situation.

“Throw out the keys for the doors and I’ll let you all live.”

“Maybe we can come to ano-,” Cordell began. Without a second’s hesitation Bruce snatched the bunch of keys off Cordell’s waist and shoved them through the slot in the door.

“Nicely done. Now I’ll be taking my friend there with me. I’ll be opening the door and the same rules apply. If you try to leave or reach for me, I will not hesitate to shoot you all. Do you all understand?”

Each of them murmured confirmation while Tibbles grinned and stood up from the chair. Vella pulled the door open, revealing the small woman holding one of her golden pistols aimed at them, a few ends of her short black curly hair dripping with blood. With a motion from her free hand she beckoned Tibbles forward and he gingerly came. None of the guards, nor Cordell made a move to stop him or attack Vella. They did nothing but watch, as Vella closed the door again and lock it.

“Sloppiest guards I’ve ever seen,” Tibbles said as they walked down the corridor.

“Yep, that’s what you get when your kingdom hasn’t seen trouble in so long. Maybe if they’d sent the some of the castle’s cards they might have actually been a challenge. I heard some of them are actually pretty scary. Either way, you’re free to go.” Vella opened the door leading outside and swung it open. In front of it was a long set of stone steps leading up into the street. Tibbles guessed that this was where they had been brought in and the door at the opposite end of the cells lead to the gallows.

“You aren’t coming?”

“I’m going back to free the rest of the cutthroats we came here with, makes the odds of my escape better if I’m not the only one they’re looking for.”

“So much for compassion. When you get to Polan and Trevor, tell them I’m putting the plan into motion immediately and I’ll find them later on.”

“What plan is that?” Vella asked.

“To steal the sea smiths of course,” Tibbles said before running up the steps and slipping into the crowd.