Tyron stood, grim-faced, as his skeletons went about their work. With the Shivering Curse applied, and the cloud of darkness constantly flowing from his cauldron, the field of battle was firmly to the advantage of his undead, and it showed.

Men and women were crying out, screaming and cursing, cut down by skeletal soldiers they couldn’t even see. A part of him burned with cold anger at this betrayal. He hadn’t deserved this. At every opportunity, he had dealt straight with Filetta and her ‘Guild’, even paying their extortionate prices.

Still, he shouldn’t be surprised.

When finally the fighting died down and the screams had ceased, he walked forward, several undead around him in case he needed protection. Surprisingly, Filetta was still alive, despite the two bone spears he’d hit her with. Without much practice with the new spell, it appeared he was still inaccurate, since he’d failed to hit anything vital.

With a gesture, he deactivated the script within the cauldron, and the construct cut off its seemingly boundless spread of darkness. Within a minute, the magick had dissipated, and Tyron looked down on his former collaborator as she slowly bled to death.

“They wanted to tie up loose ends?” he asked.

She grinned with bloodied teeth and nodded.

“Didn’t turn out quite like how I’d expected,” she choked out.

Despite her failing condition, he didn’t get too close. Underestimating opponents was an excellent way to get himself killed. The proof lay on the grating right in front of him.

“I suppose this gives me an opportunity to do the same,” he mused. “With the crackdown coming, I don’t want any sign of the guild’s dealings with me to surface. If they sniffed out the slightest hint of a Necromancer, they wouldn’t stop until I was found.”

Groaning with pain, the thief rolled herself onto her side and glared up at him.

“Do you really think you can kill the guild? You don’t know anything about us.”

Tyron frowned.

“There’s not really a good way to say this, Filetta, but I’ll soon know everything about the Guild that you know.”

“I’ll never talk,” she spat. “I’ll be dead in a few minutes anyway.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s the point.”

Perhaps it was the shock, or maybe the pain, but at his last statement, the truth began to sink in. She paled, her eyes going wide.

“You wouldn’t.”

The Necromancer stared at her levelly.

“I will.”

He turned his gaze to the dead lying amongst the now empty sacks, their blood slowly dripping into the churning water below.

“I suppose I should thank you for this final shipment. Along with the ten men in your crew, it’s a good delivery.”

Filetta slowly closed her eyes.

“You got them too?” she groaned.

“Of course. No loose ends.”

“No loose ends,” she repeated.

Then, she died.

Tyron gazed around the scene of the fight. Two dozen of his skeletons stood at attention, ready and waiting.

“This is going to take a long time,” he sighed. “May as well make a start.”

With a mental command, his minions began to move, collecting the bodies, dragging them into a line, cleaning up the scene. From the tunnel in front came another ten skeletons, each dragging a corpse along behind them. As he’d said, not one of Filetta’s people had escaped.

He walked over to the cauldron and reached inside, withdrawing several large cores, each heavily engraved and bound in a dark netting formed of finger bones. There were four in total and he placed them equidistant around the intersection, activating each with a touch as he placed them down.

The constructs began to function immediately, soaking up the ambient mana and feeding any death magick they dragged in back to the cauldron itself. It wouldn’t be able to remove all traces of what had happened here, but it would remove enough. Only a dedicated search would turn up any results, and there was little reason for anyone to go walking the sewers or streets, hunting for death magick specifically.

As his undead stripped the bodies of their clothes and valuables, anything at all that might be bespelled, Tyron stood over Filetta’s remains and raised his hands.

He was much more proficient working with spirits than he had been in the past, so the spell formed smoothly. Soon he stood before the familiar pillar of mist, a spectre staring balefully from within.

Don’t do this to me, Elten.

Filetta had possessed a pleasant voice, rough around the edges, perhaps, but clean and clear. It was now a horrific rasp, a terrible combination of a whisper and a scream that echoed across the divide between the living and the dead.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“That’s not my name, Filetta. I’m Tyron Steelarm.”

He executed a short bow.

“Nice to meet you. I presume ‘Filetta’ was not your real name either?”

A moment of silence. Then.

My thieves’ name was Filetta. I was born Miriam. Release me. I beg you.

“There’s always begging, after the attempted killing has failed. Who started this mess? Certainly not me. However, there’s a chance I can release your spirit, allow you the dignity of a true death, if you cooperate with me. Or, I can squeeze your ghost like a sponge and force everything I need to know out of you.”

He held out a fist and clenched it slowly for emphasis.

“If you don’t want that, then cooperate. When every member of the Guild who knew of our deal is dead, I will reassess the ultimate fate of your soul.”

Give me a guarantee. You KILLED me!

“You will get nothing of the sort,” he replied coldly. “Now, are you going to talk, or am I going to make you?”

~~~

“Where in the realm is Stacks?!” a voice bellowed. “That FUCKER better not be dead!”

“Shut the FUCK up, Dag!” Stacks growled. “We are being hunted, in case you didn’t fucking notice!”

Homing in on the sound of his voice, the burly man headed towards him, smoothly moving around the boxes strewn about the warehouse, despite the near total darkness.

“There you are,” the knifeman said, relief thick in his voice. “I was worried you were gone too.”

“What do you mean, too? Who else is gone?”

Dags took in a shaky breath, and Stacks resisted the irrational urge to slap him. This man was one of the finest knife fighters he’d ever seen, how was he this rattled?

“You haven’t heard? Filetta is missing—”

“I know about Filetta.”

“— and Matron is gone. My boys picked up a runner from her stockpile in the tunnels. It’s all gone, everyone dead. He was the only one to make it out.”

“FUCK!”

Stacks slammed a fist into the wall, no longer able to contain the anger boiling in his chest. He felt he was choking on it, rage and indignation so profound it constricted his neck like a vise.

Who was doing this? Those Salt Bay fuckers? They didn’t have the balls. It wasn’t the Marshalls, they didn’t operate this way. The Shade Town rats? There was no way they had enough muscle.

So who? WHO?

“Boss. We need to move. I don’t think it’s safe here.”

“Where the fuck is safe? Dags? Do you know?!”

The wiry man reached down and tapped the two sheathed daggers at his waist.

“I can protect you from a lot, but not if I don’t know what I’m fighting. It might be better if we hit the streets, try to blend in with the crowd.”

Stacks hunched his shoulders and pulled his hand up to his mouth, nibbling on his thumbnail out of habit as he thought. Disappearing into the crowd was good and all, but what about the organisation? If the leadership couldn’t be reached, how was he supposed to hold it all together?

He’d built this enterprise from nothing but a group of kids running the streets, into a proper gang, into a recognised group with their own turf. He’d be damned if he was going to let it all burn over the course of a few nights.

“We need to get a crew together and get some eyes on whoever is doing this to us,” he said, jabbing a finger hard into the knifeman’s chest. “We’ve lost two warehouses, the stockpile and a workshop just this week, and we have no fucking idea who’s done any of it!”

He gestured to the stacked crates around them.

“I don’t care if all the shit burns, but we need to find out who is doing this to us. You understand me? If we don’t know, we can’t fucking kill them. So I need you to round up everyone you can find. Contra. Mole. Eggtop. Anyone we can trust with some fucking levels. Then come back here. Go.”

Dags looked as if he wanted to argue, but he wisely held his tongue, turned and moved off into the shadows. Once again, Stacks was left alone. Briefly, he considered moving back upstairs, heading to his office, but decided against it. If this place was hit, he didn’t want to be trapped up there without a way out. All of the secret entrances and exits were on the ground floor. Instead, he found a good vantage point near one of the corners and hunkered down, keeping his eyes and ears open.

With the advantage of his feats, seeing and moving in the depth of night wasn’t an issue for the thief. From his position, he could see everything that happened on the floor of the warehouse, but none would be able to notice him.

Not to mention, he was conveniently positioned close to a tunnel entrance that linked to the sewer network. Should things get out of hand, he could easily leave.

Mind buzzing and chest pulsing with anger, Stacks watched, silent and still, while he tried to make sense of events. Things were simply moving too fast, he wasn’t able to get his feet under him. Who could be responsible? He had a list of enemies as long as his arm, who didn’t? The Guild had slit many a throat over the years, but this was too large to be simple revenge. This was organised.

Who the FUCK is it?!

His thoughts wound in twisted circles, considering a possibility, then discarding it just as quickly and moving to the next. Eventually, he would loop back to the first suspect and begin the whole process again. Nothing was making sense.

Stacks.

A sound, like a whisper, but from where? His head jerked up and his eyes flicked around the warehouse.

Nothing. No movement at all. Had he imagined it?

Stacks.

He recognised that voice.

“Filetta?” he whispered. “Where are you?”

She was alive? Finally some good news. After he thrashed her for disappearing over the last two days, maybe she could shine some fucking light on this situation.

Stacks.

That whisper came again, and this time he was finally able to settle on a direction. The sound had come through the false wall to his left. She was in the tunnel. Why didn’t she open it herself? Was she injured?

“You better have a fucking good explanation for where you’ve been, Filetta,” he growled.

Turning to his right, his hand sought and found the hidden latch, flicking it open with a dextrous motion of his fingers. A small panel, no higher than his knees, swung open soundlessly and he crouched down to see.

“Are you there? Come through,” he breathed.

Stacks.

“Fucking. Really?”

She couldn’t make it to the entrance? If she was too injured… that would explain her absence. Grumbling to himself, he slid down to the floor and shimmied through the narrow entrance and into the wider tunnel beyond. Before long, he was able to drop down into the sewer below.

Landing in a crouch, he scanned the tunnel, hands held at the ready.

Where was she?

And why was it so cold?