Er Mu - Release that Witch

At the end of his field of vision he could make out a fuzzy natural gray, just by standing here and looking, he could already feel the magnificence of the city walls — the city walls were the most outstanding work of the stonemason guild before they were dissolved. Both its height and thickness were second to none in the Kingdom of Graycastle. He had even heard that the walls had rooms and channels that offered places for nearly a thousand soldiers to rest. Making it possible to guarantee an uninterrupted patrol and fast support.

When the walls became clear for Theo to see, the figures of the fugitives also entered his field of vision.

A large number of civilians had gathered in the outskirts of King’s City. They had built simple sheds along the walls. In front of those sheds, many fires were burning, sending white smoke into the air, they were all seemingly boiling rice porridge. For now, these people had not yet run out of food, and their facial expressions were also still good. But King’s City would certainly not support them with free food forever, as soon as the aristocrats had selected their workforce, they would send their troops to drive these people away.

“How do you plan to go through with your task?” Margaret asked curiously, “Will you sent out the soldiers given to you by His Highness to pull the people in by propaganda?”

“No, such a plan would have a low efficiency. Moreover, it would be very easy to come to the unwanted attention of others,” Theo shook his head. “If you want to get something done in King’s City you either bribe an official or hire the rats, about this you should already have a profound understanding of.

“Sure,” she laughed, “I wanted to help you with one or two words, but it seems it is unnecessary. So, if there is a need for money, just come to me.” Margaret handed him a sign, “As long as you reveal this, one of my shop managers will immediately contact me. Of course, everything under 100 gold royals can be directly taken.”

“Thank you.” Theo took the token — it was a deep red stone, engraved with some lines he had never seen before.

“There is no need to be so polite,” she chuckled. “The money will be repaid to me by His Highness, with interest.”

After arriving at the canal’s pier, Theo ordered the soldiers of the First Army to stay on the outskirts and wait for news of him. Their only current task was to avoid the sight of King’s City patrols as well as they could, while Theo himself entered the city together with the caravan. At the gate, he noted that the inspection of the guards had become a lot stricter than before. Apparently, they didn’t want any of the fugitives, who were able to escape from the East to enter the city.

After entering the city, the first thing that came to his eyes was a row of towering gallows.

Hanging on them were four women with their hands tied on their back, releasing an awful stench due to their expose to the scorching sun. Seeing such a scene let Theo immediately frown.

“Timothy is performing witch hunts in the city, and they are the unfortunates who get caught,” Margaret sighed, “but that is not accurate, of some of the witches the nobility just got bored, they just took advantage of this opportunity. It’s hard to say what is better, continuing to be imprisoned in a dark room without light, or being freed from the pain as soon as possible… No matter what, I wish for them that they can rest in peace.”

During the last half year at Border Town, Theo had realized that witches were not as unforgivable as the Church had preached and that except for their strange abilities, there was no difference between them and ordinary people. Looking at the bodies of the women hanging on the gallows he could determine that the smallest had only been around fourteen to fifteen-years-old. When he realised this, it suddenly felt like as if his heart was being pressed together, immediately returning the suffocating feeling.

Apart from the refugees outside of King’s City, little else had changed within half a year. Beside the main road which led to the city gate, that was paved with blue stones, all the other side roads and alleys were made out of mud. Now, under the hot summer sun the ground was covered with cracks, and whenever a carriage passed by a burst of yellow dust would rise up from it. It was hard to imagine that the capital city of the kingdom unexpectedly was outdone by the municipal constructions of a desolated small town just outside of the western border.

After crossing two streets, in one line the caravan entered the market area. Instead of following, Theo waved goodbye to Margaret and turned walking on his own into an alley.

Arriving at the familiar entrance of the “Covert Trumpeter” tavern, he immediately pushed the door open and went inside.

“Hey! The tavern will only open at night!” Someone shouted.

Theo ignored them and directly went to the bar, facing the strong man who busied himself with earnestly wiping a wine glass: “Still remember me?”

“From under which stone did you jump up grasshopper, didn’t you hear that the pub only opens at night?” He impatiently put down the glass, raised his gloomy face, while two waiters also came over to encircle him, stopping their table and chair arranging, “Now I will count till three — Th-Sir Theo?

“It’s me,” Theo spat to the side. “I have a good business deal I want to offer you.”

Theo was brought to the second floor of the small house; the brawny man had told the waiters to continue cleaning then shut the door.

These rooms were usually used to entertain those customers with special needs, but for only twenty-five copper royals a night, the environment wasn’t very elegant. Within the room, there was an unpleasant moldy smelling and a narrow bed, with a bedding on top which was so crumpled as if it hadn’t been washed or taken out to the sun to dry for a very long time. The cracked table was missing a corner and the cracks were filled with a black floccule, giving it a dirty and greasy appearance. But Theo was too lazy to care about all of this, he sat on the bedside, quietly waiting for the opposite party to start to talk.

“You have disappeared for quite a while,” the brawny man said with a grin. “Since Sir Naji has taken your seat, why didn’t you have come to the tavern? Even if you are no longer in charge of this matter, you could still have come to drink a cup of wine with us, right?”

His nickname was Black Hammer; he was the watchman for the “Covert Trumpeter”, and one of skeleton fingers’ member. His name sounded quite scary, but he was only one of King’s City many street rats. To help each other, the rats had formed groups, divided the territory under their control, and according to their business operation they were either a huge and firm group or a loose organization. These underground organizations had more or less all had a noble or wealthy merchant as mastermind behind them and the skeleton fingers was no exception. But unlike a domestic dog, most rats didn’t choose to be loyal to only one person, as long as they became interested, they would work for everyone.

“Nonsense,” Theo said bluntly. “This night, you will call Hillwei, Swineherd, Silver Ring, and Pott into the tavern. I have something I need to get done.”

“These few are only the people of the Covert Trumpeter,” Black Hammer shouted out shocked, “Will they be enough?

“I said, this is an excellent business opportunity.” He shrugged, “I have come looking for you since you have done a lot of things for me already.”

According to the usual procedure when dealing with street rats, the first step was to find the connector, and then it was the other party who determined whether they take up the task or not. When the two came to an agreement, the connector would delegate the task to the right person, and at the same time be in charge of the money.

Of course, during the whole process, they would make no contract or certificate which could be used as a guarantee, and ultimately, if they could achieve the desired result for the employer was also completely unknown. In general it could be said that the more prestigious organizations would care about their credibility, so their commission costs were also high, while the new organization would charge a lower price, but made it more likely to lose one’s life and property in the process. With time a delicate balance had been formed between the street rats and the city patrol, which together maintained an image of superficial order inside of King’s City.

Before Theo had entered the palace to become a palace guard, he had served as patrol, responsible for giving some task to the street rats to handle if they were inconvenient for the public to see. As a result, making it very clear to him which groups of street rats were the most powerful and what their share in King’s City was, giving him the opportunity to eliminate the time taken to deal with the connector. As for the reason why he had chosen the Skeleton Fingers, that was because they weren’t as thoroughly bad as the others.

“Can I ask you, whom are you working now?” Black Hammer asked after a moment of hesitation.

Theo didn’t give him an answer. Instead, he simply pointed with his thumb into the direction of the palace behind him.

After leaving the patrol and rats, most people only knew that he had become a guard, but they didn’t know that he was soon selected by Wimbledon III as the personal guard of the 4th Prince, following His Royal Highness to Border Town. Within his six months of disappearance, they should think that he had been working in the palace. Moreover, by just pointing to the direction of the palace, he hadn’t lied — the royal family wasn’t only Timothy, Roland Wimbledon was also a member of the royal family.

“I see,” he nodded. “But Hillwei and Swineherd are gone, can I pick my own hands?”

“What happened to them?”

“Dead,” Black Hammer said full of hate, “Within last year’s winter, a conflict with the people of Dreamland Water arose, they had taken hold of poppy flowers and dying fern, selling it within the northern city district. Casas had led everyone to drive them back. During the fight, Hillwei got a knife to his neck, the blood simply could not be stopped from flowing, and Swineherd was also thrown into the canal.

Theo frowned, with such kind of thinks the patrol would bother themselves, from time to time they would even deliberately provoke the rats into biting each other in order to control their strength and quantity, so whenever one of them died, they wouldn’t care. “That’s all right, but remember, they must be the people of the tavern.”

…

Theo took a deep breath after leaving the Covert Trumpeter.

The moist and moldy smell in the pub made him want to vomit, only when his lungs were once more filled with the burning hot summer air was he able to disperse the dark and suffocating feeling.

Although Black Hammer had invited him to wait in the tavern, even claiming that he would come up with good wine to entertain him, Theo wasn’t willing to stay in that small place for too long. In the event that something unforeseen arose, he would be unable to react by the time he became aware of it.

After leaving the tavern, he decided to go to the inner city, and look for a reasonable Inn and reserve a room there for the night. As for the soldiers of the first army, they were already very skilled in setting up camp for the night, so there was no need for him to worry about them.

When night fell, Theo returned to the Convert Trumpeter.

At this time, the pub was doing its usual business, and from time to time a customer would enter or exit. For a while he just watched from the dark, waiting for the regular customers to come into the house.

As a low-grade tavern in the outer city, most of the visitors were commoners, so the drinks were also the cheap ale. Just ten copper royals was enough to drink several large cups in succession. Within the noisy surrounding, he quickly found Black Hammer’s men; they were sitting around a table next to the wall and on top of their table laid a white phalange.

When Theo, calmly and collectedly walked over, a person immediately stood up to make a place for him.

“Good evening, Sir,” Silver Ring and Pott greeted him with a nod.

“Let me introduce these two to you. This is Little Finger.” Black Hammer patted the little woman beside him and then pointed at the young man opposite her, “And this one is Hill Fawkes, he only recently became a member of the Skeleton Fingers.”