Chapter 11: Raid

Fen awoke refreshed and brimming with ideas. The happiness of his first good night of sleep in a week soon waned when the ideas all came together and he realized what his next step would have to be.

“That was a change.” Regis said.

“Huh?” Fen asked.

“You woke up with a smile, but then you promptly resumed your normal scowl.” Regis noted. He was reading, perched in his normal chair.

“Yeah. I just realized what I’m about to do today.”

“Mind enlightening me?” Regis asked.

Fen trusted Regis as much as he trusted anyone else at this point, so he told the informant of the new developments he had discovered in relation to The Chosen Storm.

A gloom entered Regis’s eyes when Fen mentioned that today’s date was the last one mentioned in the ledger. “You’re not.”

“I think I have to.”

“These are the guys who snuck a note into your pocket. Your pocket, Fen, and you’re going to break into their warehouse?”

“I think I have to.” Fen repeated.

Regis shook his head. “Well, I’ll use that money you stashed here to buy you a nice funeral.”

“Thanks bud. That means a lot to me.” Fen stood and strapped his sword and dagger to his belt. He rooted through his bag for a few moments and pulled out a bundle of throwing knives, strapping them to himself in various locations. He hoped that this level of weaponry wasn’t necessary, but deep down, he knew it would be.

Fen had the thought of going back to Goran and asking for his help in this, but he knew that the guard captain would need to get permission that would delay the operation, or he would need to jeopardize his job to act without permission, and Fen wasn’t willing to ask that of him yet.

It was a bright sunny day once again, the weather belying the immense discomfort that was roiling within Fen’s heart. Luckily, there was a chill to the air, so Fen didn’t stand out in his long cloak.

Fen made his way across Unger to the warehouse where the cult was stationed. He circled the block, staying a building or two away at all times, but he caught enough glimpses of the hideout to piece together what was going on.

There was a small entry door on the front side of the building. There were two guards in stormy gray robes, one on either side of the door.

On the back side of the building, leading into a wide alley, there was a rolling warehouse door, and there were three more guards outside of this door.

There was an open window on the front, but Fen couldn’t get close enough to see through it without being noticed by the guards. Fen found a nice perch a street away where he could just see the small front door, and he waited for a while, watching the building.

Eventually the door was opened, and another cultist asked a quick question of one of the guards and then took his place as the guard as the man slipped inside. In the moment before the door closed Fen got a good look inside. The warehouse was a roiling mass of activity with at least three dozen cultists bustling about as they prepared to move.

Fen worked his way back around the block, slinking through alleys until he found a hidden corner from which to watch the huge rolling door.

Soon enough, the door rolled open and a series of covered wagons rolled out. The handlers leading the donkeys wore normal clothing, but Fen had no doubt that the cargo in those wagons was dozens of gray cloaked cultists, prepared for trouble.

As soon as they were far enough down the alley Fen moved. He caught the first guard unaware, dropping him with a thrown knife. The other two were rolling the door shut, and Fen dropped another with a dagger in the back.

The third guard turned in time to see Fen, but he didn’t even have time to draw a weapon before Fen’s sword took him in the throat.

Fen quickly dragged the three corpses into the warehouse, reclaiming his knife and dagger as he looked around the empty alleyway to see if anyone had seen the attack. There was no sign of witnesses, so Fen ducked into the warehouse and rolled the door most of the way shut.

There were no more cultists in the warehouse. It was a large open building full of boxes and crates with sleeping pallets lining the walls. In the very back corner there was a small section that was cordoned off with tarps.

Fen headed straight there, sword still drawn just in case.

Parting the curtain revealed an empty command center, a large table with chairs around it and stacks of papers and scrolls. The rest of the room was empty save for a nice bed in the corner.

A large map was unrolled on the table, and it immediately caught Fen’s attention. It was marked with the locations of the raids the cult had been paid to do, but there was also a dozen or so marks that Fen couldn’t place any significance to.

Fen rolled up the map and stuffed it into a sack he had brought, and he also shoved as many of the other papers as he could fit. A terrible sense of deja vu struck Fen, reminding him of the other night when he had been stuffing papers into a sack in the basement of the Palace. He almost laughed at how mundane this job had felt when he accepted the task, and now here he was, stuffing dangerous secrets into a sack for the second time this week.

His ruminations were interrupted by a commotion, so he slung the sack on his shoulder and grabbed his sword.

A robed figure burst through the tarps and swung a bladed staff at Fen. He blocked with his sword and rolled out of the way of the second guard who jumped into the command center right behind him.

Fen leaped through the tarps beside the first cultist, grabbing the corner of the tarp as he rolled past. The tarp caught hold of the staff of the first cultist as he stabbed at Fen. Pulling the tarp taut forced the cultists strike off its course which let Fen get inside the reach of the man. He died to Fen’s sword.

A glance through the tarps showed Fen that the second cultist had a bow aimed right at him, and Fen launched himself behind a stack of crates just as the arrow flew, slicing the air where Fen had just been. Arrows kept flying out of the command center, piercing through the tarps and thunking against the crates where Fen was hiding. He was pinned, but there was only one cultist, and his arrows couldn’t last forever.

It was a distraction. As soon as his instincts tingled Fen stood and sprinted across the warehouse, an arrow getting worryingly close as he leaped from his cover.

A blinding flash of light filled the room as Fen made it to the rolling door, followed almost instantly by floor shaking boom.

A bolt of lightning scorched through the tarps, loosed from the hands of the last cultist. It smashed through the stack of crates where Fen had been hiding and then it smashed through the wall mere feet from Fen as he slipped through the narrow gap in the rolling door.

Every hair on Fen’s body stood stiff from such a close call with the magical lightning, but he suppressed his panic at nearly dying and sprinted away from the warehouse. He began a circuitous route back to Regis’s house, getting himself lost in the crowds in a way where he could easily tell if he was being tailed.

The diminutive man looked surprised when Fen finally entered more than an hour later.

“I would have bet money that you’d be dead by now.” Regis said.

“Well, it was close enough.” Fen dumped his sack of papers to the ground. “At least it paid off. Probably.”