Chapter 18 - City of Thieves

The gates of the city rose before them, magnificent and imposing. They too were carved from diamond (in actual fact they were glass, but no-one could tell), set in solid gold (a cunningly realistic paint). Sunlight flashed off their curves, dazzling the travellers. Barney fell back in awe, shading his eyes. Celia gasped. Sammy shrugged and pretended not to be impressed. They were like the gates to heaven.
A small, doddering official came out to greet them. He was elderly, fat, and somewhat out of breath when he reached them, but welcomed them effusively, before asking for payment to open the gates. Our travellers, despite having been attacked collectively by woodmen, a farmer with a gun, bandits, pirates, white slave traders and an enormous angry thing, had not encountered a common conman. Consequently, they saw nothing wrong with being asked for money to go into a city, and coughed up everything they had. The official waved a hand and the gates swept open. Or not so much swept as creaked, crunched and struggled to open. The official pushed Barney through the gap with some urgency. Sammy and Celia were left to leap after him as the gates gave up the fight and shut decisively behind them.

Inside the gates the city rang with the cries of criminals selling stolen goods. It bustled with people, all running, fighting or threatening. An occasional scream cut through the noise, but nobody even turned a head. It was business as usual.
There were no cars in this city. There were no modern buildings, no machinery. Nothing new had come in through the gates in 50 years that hadn't been burnt or shot to pieces in fights over who they now belonged to. It was filthy, people and property alike caked in grime. The thieves, peasants and idiots who had been sent by the king all those years ago had multiplied but not learned how to wash. People were everywhere, spilling out of buildings, sleeping on the streets, throwing punches and generally being uncouth in the extreme. Babies wailed, and no-one came to them. It was not a nice place at all. And there was no way out.

Our travellers stood in awe for a moment, incapable of thinking in the omnipotent stench of ten thousand people who were not just currently unwashed, but had never been washed. Ever.

Sammy turned and hammered on the gates, bellowing. He pushed and slammed his shoulder into them. He swung his boot and kicked the wooden, unpainted side of the gates with all his might. They did not budge. And now he had a sore foot and his voice was hoarse. There was no escape.

They would have to make the best of it, they decided, after a short meeting. This mostly involved Sammy bellowing hoarsely, Barney covering his ears and moaning, and Celia suggesting calmly and sensibly that they find somewhere to stay for the night, before re-evaluating after a good night's sleep. Sammy snorted and said, "more like a good night of being murdered in our beds." But Celia was undeterred. They set out through the crowd, handkerchiefs over noses.

It took a long time to find an inn. Most travellers that mistakenly came to the city did not last five minutes before being mugged, murdered or otherwise incapacitated. Consequently, there were few inns, and these were all established for the sole purpose of robbing those few travellers who had managed to protect themselves in the city, while they slept. The inn they decided on was down a side road. There were fewer people here, but the stench was twice as bad. Celia did not like to think what the drains were used for. The inn itself was dark, dingy and completely unoccupied apart from the proprietor, a skinny man with greasy hair, who looked like he had fallen upon hard times. Not enough people made it as far into the city as this, and those who did only made it because they had nothing to steal or were very large. Because of this, there was not much profit to be made from stealing from them, and he had only just made enough to feed himself this month. This lot of travellers didn't look promising to him, because they were young and one of them was extremely large. But they paid upfront. Not with money, of course. They had long been divested of that. But the girl had presented a rather nice necklace, and so he had let them stay.

The necklace was only worth one room for one night (or so the innkeeper claimed). The room had a surprisingly nice bed, with a soft mattress and a patchwork quilt. There was no other furniture. There were no lights. There were no windows. Some sort of creature was snuffling disturbingly in the corner, out of sight in the shadows. But it was better than the street. Celia set about organising things.

They would take shifts sleeping, she decided. First Barney, then her, then Sammy. At all times someone would watch the door to protect their few possessions from the greedy hands of the innkeeper. In the morning they would leave early, find some breakfast, then travel around the edges of the city until they came to a hole in the wall, or an easy place to climb it. Sammy protested her arrangement for sleeping in shifts. He felt that it would be unsafe for him to sleep at all, because let's face it, who wants their worldly possessions protected by a useless, crazy, annoying weakling, and a lovely but dainty girl. He was at last persuaded, though, and stood at the door while Barney climbed into the bed. Soon, the sound of Barney's snores floated through the room.

The innkeeper was a patient man. He checked many times during the night, but the enormous young man was always there. He did not appear to need to sleep. So the innkeeper sat in the kitchen of his inn and waited. His friend Robbie the Ripper usually dropped in with news sometime during the night. The innkeeper, who had forgotten his name, if he had ever had one, was always ready with a foaming ale in return.

Robbie the Ripper arrived when the night was at its darkest, as he always did. He was shaking with excitement. There was news of new travellers in the city. The strongest of them had fought off the Chain gang - all six of them - and carried on without even needing to get his breath back. He was travelling with two others, a girl who had a sharp tongue and sharp nails, and a boy who looked small and twisted but had knocked out an attacker with a rock. This was the biggest thing to happen in this city for years. It was no longer about making a profit. This was sport. Jack Hammer was taking bets on who would take the new gang out. Only three gold pieces to enter. The game started at dawn tomorrow, and whoever won took out not just the prize pool, but the profits of all the participants’ next robberies.

The innkeeper grew excited as he listened. He smiled a secret smile. A contest! This was just what he needed. And he had the advantage, for he knew the whereabouts of the tree people Robbie was talking about. He gave Robbie a refill, then sent him on his way and sat down to plan. It would take all the cunning he possessed.

The innkeeper's cunning plan consisted of waiting until the big one was too tired to keep his eyes open, then luring his companions into another room with the promise of breakfast, locking them in, stabbing the big one as he slept, and taking off with all their possessions to collect his winnings. He could almost feel the gold in his hands. He chuckled greedily and settled down in his chair for a short nap while he waited.

The trouble with this cunning plan was that the innkeeper had not taken into account several important factors. Firstly, Sammy could overpower him in his sleep. Secondly, at least one of the three was not completely stupid, and thirdly, he had not actually given his three gold pieces and entered the competition. In the unlikely event that his plan worked and he managed to prove he had captured the newcomers, what would actually happen is that his fellow competitors would refuse to pay up and lynch him for cheating. But these things had failed to cross his mind, and so he closed his eyes with the deep satisfaction that comes with impending glory and riches.

When he awoke, sunlight poured through the window. Well, not so much poured. Really it just made a slightly lighter patch on the floor in places where there was a less dirty patch on the window. But the point of the expression is to emphasise that by the time the innkeeper woke up it was late morning. He hurried up the stairs to lock his guests in their room, his original plan having failed spectacularly. But when he reached the room it was empty. Blast those cunning tricksters! They had bested him once, but never again. He returned to his chair to plan.

Meanwhile, Sammy, Celia and Barney were at the centre of a brawl. For a few moments when they had appeared in the city square, the thugs had been too shocked to react. Surely nobody would be stupid enough to walk openly in the streets once there was a hit out on them, let alone if there was a game involving the entire criminal contingent of the city (and thus the entire city, bar a few honest but incompetent shoemakers) in which the top prize was given for presenting the leader with your dead body. The thugs quickly recovered from the shock though. It hurt their brains to think too hard. En masse, they attacked.

Suddenly, Barney was grabbed by a large and hairy man and carried off. Thick arms reached for Celia, but she fought like a very small rhinoceros that has been angered by a cruel taunt. She bit the hand that covered her mouth and it pulled away. its owner swearing. But the freedom didn't last long, for the men kept coming. Another grabbed her and subsequently released her as a fist the size of Celia's head thudded into his face. Celia slipped away as fists flew, and dodged a few grabbing hands. Her freedom was short-lived, though. Darkness swallowed her like a snake swallowing an antelope. She let out an exclamatory cry, but it went unheard in the ruckus.

So really it was just Sammy in the centre of a brawl. His friends were being dragged towards the edges and down side streets. Sammy saw the man pull the sack over Celia and toss her over his shoulder. Unfortunately, he could not help her at that point, as he was otherwise occupied with his seventeen knife-wielding assailants and was bleeding profusely from a stab-wound in his side. The Celia-sack disappeared from view as he blocked a knife attack and dodged the spiked knuckles of a man with no hair and several missing teeth. He grabbed the man by the arm and yanked. He lifted him and swung. The spike-knuckled man flew at speed into the next wave of attackers, knocking them down like dominoes. Unfortunately, in the City with no name, fair play was not on the cards, and a sudden pain wracked through Sammy. Someone had stabbed him in the back. He fell to his knees and everything went black.