Freelance Heroics (33 page)

Behind her, at the point where the path exited the forest and entered the cleared area in front of the mines, Mazik and the others stood waiting. Mazik was holding her sword, and had her knife hidden along with the others inside his robes. Raedren, she knew, had a barrier ready to cast, in case there was any trouble. The others stood at ease, their weapons sheathed or laid on the ground beside them.

One other person had accompanied them as well, a squat older man with a balding head, a rich brown beard, powerful arms, and a pair of wire-thin eyeglasses hooked on the neck of his dirt-smudged tunic. He was behind the others, sitting on the cart they had brought with them, safely out of view.

Gavi cupped her hands around her mouth. “We’ve arrived for the meeting!” she shouted, down into the depths of Flatrock. “I’ve lain my weapons aside and am releasing my mana now. Please come out when you’re ready.”

As the echoes died away, Gavi stepped away from the entrance. She took a deep breath, tensing . . . and then, true to her word, she let everything in her mana pool drift away. Aside from her personal mana barrier, she was now functionally manaless. She let her hands hang visibly empty by her side, and waited.

Gavi had only been waiting for a couple minutes when she heard footsteps inside the tunnel. She kept her hands by her side, and her stance unthreatening, as she watched the seven children climb out of the darkness. Three of them stopped several paces away from her, while the other four—carrying shields, which they dropped to the ground right outside the entrance, and then took up position behind—aimed loaded crossbows at Gavi.

The closer three all looked familiar. Each of them was someone Gavi and her friends had come across in the last three days.

In the middle was one of the older boys from the first two days. He was still wearing the same ill-fitting leather vest and rust-red bandana, and was still carrying a metal club and tattered shield. He seemed to have taken off several of his earrings, though he still had plenty on each ear. He wore a sullen expression, though Gavi felt that marked him as a budding teenager as much as anything.

To the boy’s left was a girl nearly his size. Gavi remembered seeing her behind the barricades on the first days as well. She still had her round bucket helmet, though now it was under her arm, revealing short black hair cut into a ragged fringe. She had sunken cheeks, and wore small loop earrings just like the boy, though she only had one on each ear. Also like the boy, she had a sullen, distrustful expression. She carried a mace and a shield, though they also hung at her sides, for now.

To the boy’s right was the little girl from the fake bandit’s room. Though she was the size of an eight-year-old, Gavi was convinced she was older, meaning she was at least part halvelin. She wore simple clothes, without armor, save for the usual leather pads on her elbows and knees—those were probably to help them crawl through tight tunnels, Uard had speculated the day before. The girl had a quiver on her back, filled this time, as well as a short bow at her side. Her black hair was pulled into a high ponytail, and she wore two bandanas—one around her forehead, the other hanging loosely around her neck. Like the first girl she had loop earrings on each ear, but unlike her companions, she didn’t look sullen or distrustful. She kept scanning the environs, constantly alert.

Gavi had to restrain herself from reaching for the focus crystal around her neck; she didn’t need to touch it any more than she already was to keen. She stretched out with her senses. Two of the three children were casters—the boy and the larger girl. Neither were very powerful, though Gavi doubted they were fully trained. Not that that was surprising; Gavi didn’t consider herself anything like fully trained, but even Mazik and Raedren, who were both accomplished casters, weren’t able to do much more than enhance when they were these children’s ages. Even if it was true that anybody can learn to cast, it was still difficult, which was why few attained even Gavi’s level of mediocre proficiency.

“Thank you for meeting with us today.” Gavi bowed. “My name is Gavi Ven’Kalil, an adventurer from Collateral Damage, a guild out of Houk. May I ask your names?”

The boy pointed to himself. “I’m Jus, leader of the New Lyfe Gang.” He pointed to the bigger girl to his left. “This is Jekt, my second-in-command.” He pointed to the halvelin girl. “This is Bruanis, in charge of special operations.” He squared his shoulders and scowled. “What do you want?”

Gavi thought she heard a snort from her friends. She knew how they felt. With those titles, these kids were acting like they were playing at war, not really fighting, but Gavi pushed those thoughts away. They had earned the right to be taken seriously.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Gavi bowed again. “I’ll cut right to the chase. We were hired by the Di’Culot family to capture or kill a bandit named Ungerr. I understand this person does not exist, correct?”

Jus sighed. “Yes. I made that up to keep people away. I thought, if he was saying he’d kill us if anyone came, they’d leave us alone for a while. And we had a couple of old guys helping us at first, before they realized we weren’t going to let them boss us around.” He crossed his arms and scowled. “I didn’t think people would keep believing it after we told everyone it was a lie.”

Gavi smiled. “Yes, that’s been kind of perplexing for us, too. We think the Di’Culots just don’t want to admit that you did it yourselves.”

Jus snorted. “Idiots.”

“You may be right.” Gavi banished her smile, turning serious. “We may have another solution to your problem. One that will get the Di’Culots to stop sending adventurers after you, and give you a better livelihood as well.”

The New Lyfe leader stared at her. Taking that as a not complete refusal, Gavi gestured to her friends. “Do you mind if one of my teammates approaches? It’s his idea, so he’ll be able to explain it best.”

“The angry one, the dopey-looking one, or the other one?” asked Jus.

“Er, the angry one, probably.” Gavi pointed. “The one with the robes.”

Jus looked at his companions. Tiny Bruanis nodded. Jekt reached into her pocket and pulled out a dull, cracked focus crystal. “If he empties his mana pool and leaves his weapons behind, he can approach.” She held up the focus crystal, making it clear that she would check.

“You heard her.” Gavi snapped her fingers. “Chop chop.”

“Yesser. Or sers, I suppose.” Invisible mana streamed away from Mazik as he slipped out of his weapon-laden robes.

Mazik pulled a thin stack of folded paper out of his back pocket as he came to a stop beside Gavi. He matched the young New Lyfe leader’s gaze, keeping his expression confident yet kind. It was hard to not seem like he was looking down at the boy, since that’s physically what he was doing, but Mazik did his best to not look like he was
talking
down to him, nor make it seem like he felt he knew better.

I mean, I
do
know better
, Mazik thought with a concealed grin,
but there’s no profit in letting them know that. This isn’t a time for hard bargaining. Nice and easy, self. Take it nice and easy.

Mazik introduced himself. Jus waved a hand dismissively. “What’s your idea?”

“Right to business. I like that.” Mazik cleared his throat. “Our goal here today is to broker a deal between you, the New Lyfe Gang, and your former employers, the Di’Culots. Our hope is to establish a framework whereby your group will retain autonomy and independence, as well as de facto ownership of the Flatrock mines, while the Di’Culots will be incentivized sufficiently to agree to no longer hire adventurers such as ourselves to attempt to retake their lost property.”

“Not interested,” said Jus. “We don’t want anything to do with them.”

“Please, hear me out before you make your decision.” Mazik spread the papers in his hand like a stack of playing cards, revealing two copies of the same document. He handed one to Jus, and kept the other for himself. “Shall I go over the proposed agreement, or would you like to look over it first?”

After about ten seconds of scrutinizing the document, Jus waved at him, indicating for Mazik to get on with it. So he did.

“I’ll give you a brief outline. Though the de facto ownership of the Flatrock mines has changed since they were first opened, one thing remains the same: these mines have valuable iron ore, ore which the Di’Culot family wants. In exchange for them relinquishing all claims to the Flatrock mines to the outlaw Ungerr and the New Lyfe Gang, the Di’Culot family would obtain the rights to purchase ore in amounts upward to one and a half times the total yield of the Flatrock mines last year.” Mazik smiled, doing his best to look disarming. “In short, they’ll give up on attacking you if you promise to sell them a lot of ore.”

Jus frowned. “But we already told you. Ungerr doesn’t exist.”

“Ah, that may be true!” said Mazik, one finger raised, like a teacher who was building up to the big reveal. “But the truth, as it were, isn’t always the most important element of a deal. In this case, and for whatever reason, the Di’Culots can’t seem to wrap their heads around the idea establishing a business arrangement with a bunch of children—their words, not mine—but that’s not an insurmountable problem. All we need to do is tell them a little fib.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jus.

“We tell them that Ungerr
is
real!” said Mazik, a twinkle in his eyes. “Not only that, we tell them he’s not actually a vicious bandit. An outlaw, certainly, but not a dangerous man, save for when provoked.” Mazik flourished with his arms. He was really getting into it now.

“We’ll tell them that Ungerr’s goal is to protect everyone in the New Lyfe Gang, but if push comes to shove, and he’s captured or killed, he’s instructed you all to collapse the mines and run away rather than cede them to the Di’Culots. That means they’ll be faced with the option of either being able to immediately resume ore shipments to their customers—at a slightly lower profit—or having to first retake and subsequently reopen the mines, which are both expensive propositions.”

“That won’t work,” said the bigger girl, Jekt. Her voice was a little gravelly, though whether from time in the mines or disuse, Mazik didn’t know. “They’ll see that there are only kids when they come to collect the ore.”

“We’ve thought of that as well.” Mazik stepped to the side and gestured at the rest of the group. “First of all, we wrote the deal so it’ll all apply to your group, even if Ungerr isn’t involved. Though I wouldn’t suggest offering up the truth on that little tidbit, of course. But even so, we expected there would be some ill will between you and the Di’Culots, so we thought it would be best to bring in an intermediary to help the two parties work together. Tell me, do you recognize the man on the”—Mazik glanced over his shoulder—“on the left over there?”

The three kids craned their necks. It was tiny Bruanis who spoke first, and her voice was as tiny and cute as Mazik expected, though strangely steady, likely from the responsibility she bore. “That’s Mas Oblou, the blacksmith.”

Mazik grinned. “Exactly. Mas Oblou has agreed to act as intermediary between the two parties, including inspection of early shipments and helping the New Lyfe Gang with accepting payment.”

The squat older man, upon hearing his name, shoved his hands into the pockets of his overalls and sauntered over. He waved as he approached. “Heya Jes, Jekt, Bruanis. Glad to see you lookin’ well. You still getting enough food and everything?”

“Yessir,” said Jus. Mazik was surprised; he hadn’t expected to hear such respect from the combative young boy. Jus bowed. “Thank you for always helping us. I hope the ore we’ve been sending you has been good.”

“Of course, yes, thank you for asking.” The blacksmith fiddled with the glasses hanging from his tunic, though he didn’t put them on. “That’s why I agreed to help out. I’d like to see you kids with more stable earnings than what my humble business can provide.”

Mazik deftly hid his shock. He glanced at Gavi, and found that she was doing the same. They hadn’t known the blacksmith had an existing relationship with the kids.
What luck! Though I guess they had to be selling to someone, and the local smith is suspect number one.

Mazik rubbed his hands together. “As excepted, I think Mas Oblou is someone you can work with?”

The boy stared at the old smith for several seconds, then nodded. “Of course. It’s those Di’Culot weasels we want nothing to do with.”

“In this case, I think this is your best option. This agreement”—Mazik tapped the document he was holding—“applies for five years, where you would have to sell the aforementioned one and a half of last year’s yield to the Di’Culots each year. That’s to account for growth, by the way—if you don’t mine that much, you won’t owe them the extra. There are minimums noted . . .”—Mazik leaned over and looked at Jus’s copy of the agreement upside-down. He tapped his copy this time—“right here.”

While the three kids—young teenagers, Mazik mentally corrected himself—inspected the passage in question, Mazik lowered his voice. “And, just between you and me and anyone else who’s listening, this doesn’t mean you can’t sell to others. Like Mas Oblou here—you’ve been buying some of their ore, correct?” The old smith nodded. “If you send enough to the Di’Culots, they won’t notice if you slip some out the back door. It’s a good idea to diversify your customer base.”

Mazik realized the three kids were staring at him with blank expressions. He waved as if he could scatter their gazes. “Never mind. Getting too advanced there. The point is that you’ve got some flexibility, and you’re locking in a price that should be good for both of you. And they’ll stop sending people to attack you.”

“So they claim,” said Jus.

Mazik threw up his arms. “Look, I know. They were pretty shitty to you, right? And they’ve been sending people like us to attack you. But that was business, and so is this. They’re nothing if not businesspeople. Think about what’s best for your people now.”

“If by ‘pretty shitty,’” said Jekt, a pronounced growl in her voice, “you mean that they forced us to work long hours for terrible pay, their guards abused us, the other adults insulted and beat us, and there were frequent cave-ins, but they didn’t care if any of us got buried alive. They just left our friends down there to die. Then yes, pretty shitty.”