The night of betrayal, the night of truth, or the night of terror. This Sunday night had more than one name, given to it mostly by criminals from all around the country.
But our actions began way before that. It all started in the evening as hundreds of people went around the whole city, whispering to their friends that we would make an announcement in the eastern part of the city near the outer wall. And the news spread fast.
Guards were immediately ordered to head there and checked everyone for any illegal items. They didn´t find many though … the criminals naturally hid within the shadows and refused to show themselves. Tens of thousands were in the area, eager to listen to our announcement that would only come much, much later. And meanwhile, they were getting the attention of so many guards …
As the sun went down, I could even see the masses in the distance from my tower in the noble district near the royal wall. I could hear the noises they made, which honestly sounded more like a distant whispering than anything else.
I chuckled happily, stepped back from the railing and grabbed the rope, hanging down from a large bell. After wrapping it around my arm, I jumped down, slowing down my fall considerably this way. At the ground, I nodded towards the dead guard, took the backpack on the ground and left the tower, dressed in my dark attire with a golden crown on my back. After closing the door behind me quietly, I turned westwards and followed the main street, guarded by three legitimate royal guards.
They all looked a bit defeated though, as they would lose their job one way or another after this day. One of them was completely corrupt, one slept with a queen, and the last one was selling information about the royals and their palace on the black market … which bit him back that very day.
We had credible proof they did each of these things, and they all would die if we spilt out everything. As such, they had no reason not to help a poor girl like me out. Before we entered the grounds of the royal palace though, they bound my hands in front of me, not too tightly though and put a black bag over my head. I was completely blind this way, but I didn´t need to see anyway. My hearing was as sharp as ever, making me hear even their heartbeat as we walked towards the gates, or rather, they dragged me behind them. We had to make a show out of it after all.
“Hold it right there!” One of the other guards said as we walked through the open gates. “Why are you bringing this person here?”
“There are some indications he is one of the groups of criminals that call themselves ‘The Crown’. She is to be brought towards the prison immediately.” The corrupt guard said to my right without any hesitation.
“I see. Do you have a proof of passage yet?” The guard asked.
“I fear not.” The corrupt one said.
“Hmm… sloppy work, like usual. It is good that the info travelled faster than you did. Here are your papers.” It sounded incredibly easy to get past this point, but in reality, it was not. Getting our hands on these valid papers was a hassle as we needed to bribe several administrators and a mage for that. They would only stay valid for so long as they were charged by a mage, and the mana infused in the special ink would slowly dissipate away, making it look like a completely normal piece of parchment afterwards.
But we had time. Twenty minutes towards the treasure chamber was enough for us, especially because we, or rather the captain of the night guard, cleared out every obstacle in our way. Naturally, we didn´t bribe every guard there was. We couldn’t after all. One rat and our house of cards would crumble down.
Thus, we only bribed, or rather threatened those who could not betray us. The captain of the royal night guard for example, probably running for his life at that point, was responsible for at least one assassination attempt on the king when he was still a prince. I didn’t know how the king managed to overlook that, but it was beneficial to us so I didn’t bother too much.
But bribing the other, normal guards? Not a chance. The only thing we could do was to put the incompetent ones in our way. Those who liked to slack off during work and those who were kind of new to the job.
It was no wonder that they didn´t even check our permits as we entered through a side entrance while I counted my steps. In my head, I was going through the blueprints I pieced together with so much effort, and confirmed we were on the right way. The hallway echoed considerably, fitting together with what I knew about this one perfectly.
“Prisoner transport” One of my attendants said as we turned around a corner and for the last time we could pass easily. Next was another crossing, one way would lead towards the cells, another one towards the treasure chamber. While slowly getting rid of the ropes around my wrists under the coat, I walked onwards towards the crown of thorns, just waiting for me.
“Prisoner transport.” Another one of my attendants said at the next checkpoint and showed them our papers.
“You took the wrong route.” A guard with a really deep voice said.
“He is going to the special cell.” The manwhore said.
“The special cell?” I could hear the confusion in his voice.
“Yeah? Never heard of it?” One of my other attendants said, knowing he wouldn’t get out of here alive if he messed up.
“No … not really.” The guard muttered, but I could hear his voice wavering.
“All the people who the kingdom doesn’t want to reappear in any way get there.” The corrupt one answered and laughed madly.
“Oh … I see. Go on then.” I let go of the dagger in its sheath again and stepped forwards as the rope was pulled once more. This felt a bit too easy to be honest, but we needed to get through four more checkpoints on the way.
Several hundred metres, we went past the first one quietly. I could hear two men snoring loudly and really wondered how there could be so incompetent guards. Sure, we had the option to select out of a large pool, but still …
After going a few more hundred metres, we stopped and one guard knocked against the wall. A hidden door opened from the inside and I stepped into the secret passage. Afterwards, I let the rope fall to the ground and pulled the bag from my head which enabled me to finally see through the gaps of my mask.
In front of me was the guard who showed me the White´s family vault last time. He wasn’t really bribed or threatened into it, but he still helped us nonetheless. Maybe the king shouldn’t have recruited someone from the slums who knew how it was to live without anything to secure the wealth of all of the nobility, especially when some wanted to redistribute that wealth more evenly.
The guards behind me didn´t even step into the passage, but gave me the passage papers and turned around without uttering any words. Soon afterwards, the secret door closed again and the slightly socialist guard led me through the dark hallway. As we were on the other side of the secret passage, I grabbed his arm and placed my index finger on my mask, indicating him to be as quiet as possible.
Slowly, and quietly, I unsheathed a dagger and pulled the guard back. With one hand on the warm handle, I opened the door abruptly and dashed out of the secret tunnel. My other hand already raced to the guard´s mouth as I stabbed into his side with my sharp dagger. For a millisecond, he did manage to yelp, but afterwards, there was only a deathly silence, especially after I yanked his head to the side in anger. Grabbing him under the arms, I turned him around and dragged him back into the secret passage.
There was a lot of blood seeping into his clothing, kindling the bloodlust in my veins a bit but luckily it didn´t drop on the floor as I turned him around before that. After closing the door once again and waiting a few minutes, I confirmed that nobody heard his yelp, broke the small chain around his neck and gave the guard the second key. Afterwards, I opened the door again and strolled towards the third checkpoint, which was of another nature altogether.
We were on the last stretch towards the treasure chamber as I waved towards the wall to my right. Behind this wall were court magicians, always on alert to sense anything magical. The only magical thing in my backpack didn´t have a magical signature though, mostly because it wasn’t an artefact. Thus, we simply strolled through the hallway, even though we didn´t even try to bribe them. They were wealthy enough to betray us anyway and we couldn’t find anyone of them doing anything illegal … which was kind of a bummer but there were only so many royal mages in the first place.
Strolling through these luxurious hallways for a few more minutes, we arrived in front of the treasure chamber, or the last checkpoint.
“What is this supposed to mean?” One of them asked while we walked towards them. Both of these guards at the door readied their sword while the socialist one to my side held his hands in front of his chest soothingly.
“This is Michael Myers. He is here to …” My guard stopped explaining as one of the other guards placed his sword on the other throat.
“Sorry.” He said, the blade trembling slightly. “But if you try to scream or anything else, I will stop you.” The other guard, the last uncorrupted key carrier, slowly seethed his sword again and held his hands high.
“Why?” He muttered slowly. To my knowledge, these two were quite the good friends, and thus, the betrayed one should know what was going on.
“They bought the medicine to cure the terminal illness from my little brother.” He said, looking aghast as I pulled out my dagger. It was true. We did manage to buy a costly medicine that healed his brother, but afterwards, we took him in our custody with the rest of his family.
“We saved together for this …” The uncorrupted guard said, making me change my opinion somewhat.
“It would have been too slow. I´m so sorry…” The guard said, while I jumped and hammered the knob of the handle onto the other guard´s head. He fell unconscious nearly instantly, only held up by his friend.
“Let´s go, we don’t have all night.” The guard said who led me towards my family vault last time. Nodding towards him, I retrieved one of his keys and put it in the fitting keyhole. The other two followed suit shortly afterwards and together, we turned the keys at the same time.
With a satisfying click, the door unlocked without sounding any alarm. Giving them the thumbs up, I opened the heavy door alone, grabbed the unconscious guards sword and rammed it into a fugue, holding the heavy door open with it as it threatened to close again. I snipped once, pointed towards the guards and then down the hallway. If they wanted to make it out of here alive, they should better run now.
Then, I strolled into the room and looked at all the valuables. This would all be mine in the future … sort of. Humming quietly, I took the backpack off and took the sole item out of it. It looked like a glass sphere, filled with a strangely white powder. But this thing was so much more than that.
A unicorn had to give its horn for this, and only a madman would even consider crafting one of these things. Inside the spere was a perfect vacuum, only achievable by … how should I know, Jack crafted this thing without telling anyone how he did it. Well, as long as it worked, I had no problems.
Even though this thing here was probably more than most of the items in here, I threw it into the middle of the room carelessly. The glass broke up into countless shards as air flooded into it and towards the fine powder.
It reacted instantly. By some invisible force, this powder was pulled towards a single point and melted into a completely white sphere. For a few seconds, it hovered in the air until it reacted with the mana in the air. White lightning appeared in the air in random positions, licking the walls of this place feverously, sucking up all the mana there was in them and most importantly, blinding me completely.
All of them, the invisible circles and the visible ones were deactivated within seconds as flashes of lightning were appearing everywhere. I paid them no heed though. That lightning was entirely harmless against humans who possessed mana, and certainly against a vampire who had no mana at all. Nothing hit me as the lightning went on and on and I strolled forwards while counting my steps meticulously. After a few, I turned to my right and made 47 more steps. I turned towards my right and felt the shelf in front of me. Smiling brightly, I took out my key from my backpack and opened the black box.
Feeling the velvet with my thin gloves, I felt the fabric close to me and soon found the hidden zipper. I opened it quickly and lifted up the velvet together with the sword, still blinded by the lighting around me. Feeling the bottom of the black box, I found the object I was searching for.
The mimicry was nothing more than a ball with a three-centimetre radius for now, but the function is had was quite amazing.
I stepped back from the shelve, turned around to my left and dashed 47 steps back, only to turn right and run as fast as possible, still blinded by everything and nothing to guide me but my hand in front of me, and the occasional stacks of gold coins I was hitting with my feet. My hand nearly missed the pedestal in the middle of the room as I only scraped over the top of the crown of the king, pushing it off the stand. It clinked as it hit the ground, and I nearly cussed loudly. This wasn’t planned at all, but I was sure the king would forgive me the few scratches on the crown.
Leaving the crown as it was, I ran onwards towards my primary objective. The lightning seemed to have lessened somewhat, incentivising me to open my eyes at least a little bit. I couldn’t see far because of the brightness, but at least I could find my way without kicking against piles of gold coins constantly.
At last, the recess on the wall got closer and was revealed as completely unprotected. Smiling happily, I dashed towards it, grabbed the crown in one go and let the little ball in my hand touch it.
Nearly instantly, it transformed into an exact replica of the crown of thorns, down to the very last atom. As far as I was aware, this replica was capable of imitating the aura of the artefact perfectly, the only issue was that it wasn’t capable of any of the features the real crown of thorns was capable of.
As the lightning lessened even more considerably, I placed the imitation into the recess and dashed away from it, the real crown in my hand. The ball of unicorn horn powder still hovered in the air but was already beginning to vibrate ominously.
I jumped over a few piles of gold to get faster into my family vault, gently placed the real crown of thorns into the black box, put all the velvet over it and closed the zipper again. Afterwards, I shut the lid and let the lock snap close. Satisfied, I made sure it looked just like I entered it, and dashed out of the vault again, directly towards the pedestal where the king´s crown once was.
With my dagger, I carved ‘Break’ in the same language the circles used into the wood, picked up the crown and ran as fast as I could as the ball of unicorn horn powder turned dangerously red. I could already hear it zapping as I rushed out of the room, directly into the hallway where tens of guards and several mages waited for my arrival, weapons drawn and already preparing their deadly spells.
One last time, I looked into the room and noticed how the ball turned blue.
Smiling happily, I cockily placed the crown on my head and laughed loudly.
“Kneeleth, because I am thy queen.” I said and saw how a pitiful ball of fire travelled through the air while the integrity of the ball to my left gave in completely. All the mana it had sucked up destroyed the ball from the inside, turning it into a deadly weapon for most.
In one second, it compressed the ball until it had the diameter of my pinkie finger, and then it exploded, spewing all the mana out in one go. It rushed against the walls of the treasure chamber, reactivating all the circles again as their power sources were refilled, reactivating every magical trap and most importantly, rushed out of the open door.
I could feel a wave of mana punching into me, nearly throwing me over in the process. It felt like a wall had crashed into me, but I was probably the least affected. The fireball, flying towards me was simply slapped to the side and crashed into the wall without any dramatic effect mostly because the spell had lost all resemblance to what it was. The fireball though had a relatively smooth ride though.
The humans on the other hand though …
In one second, they looked completely alright, and then, they simply collapsed, their souls cracked open by the mana. I gave them mana sickness throughout one single second and that revealed itself as really deadly.
“I told you to kneel.” I said and listened to the clamour in the distance. My mana bomb was highly effective, but it apparently didn´t reach that far. Shrugging, I picked up the sword I stabbed into the ground earlier and closed the door as if nothing happened.
Holding down the crown with one hand, I jumped over the first few corpses and ran as fast as I could.
I could already see a group of reinforcements, ten in total, forcing me to take a detour. For once, I actually knew what my options were, where I could take a turn and where I needed to go. Another group of three guards appeared around a corner, forcing me to throw the sword at one of them and evade the spear thrusts of the other two by jumping over them. My feet even hit one of them in the face, breaking his nose in the process. In mid-air, I grabbed the clothing of the other one and pulled him down with me. He fell backwards while I landed graciously on my two feet and instantly sprinted off into the distance once more. Fourteen seconds later, I could see ten more guards rushing towards me, but I already found the hidden handle of the door and opened it. It fell back into the frame the moment they reached it, forcing them to search for the handle themselves which would take some time.
You are reading story Tales of Death´s Daughter at novel35.com
Meanwhile, I was already running through the dark hallway and it became obvious they lost me quite quickly. I mean, what were they supposed to do?
Search for a magical signature? Good luck, because there was nothing magical on me.
Listen to the screams? What screams? I could only hear death rattles behind me.
Only as I stepped out of the side entrance again did I present me as a target again. Bells rang everywhere, relaying the alarm I must have set off by deactivating their circles to every guard nearby. But sadly, they didn´t really know what was going on as I found a strange interest in cosplay all of a sudden. Wearing heavy armour that was too large for me above my usual stuff, I simply strolled out of the palace, my sword drawn and looking in every direction, searching for the perpetrator who did this.
The crown was already hidden in my backpack which fitted nicely under this armour. Nodding towards everyone who ran past me to protect the king and his family, their utmost priority, I presented my high rank to everyone proudly and walked opposite to the steady stream of knights and guards.
I didn´t walk out of the gate cockily though. They would surely check me there and that would be when I was forced to fight in an armour that didn´t fit me at all. Instead, I climbed one of the stairswells in a small tower leading up towards the wall, discarded the armour on the top of the stairwell as I didn´t hear anyone too close by, open the door and rushed over to the other side. In one swoop, I kicked the ground, grabbed the embrasures and slammed against the other side of the wall, hopefully undetected by the guards still on the wall. A few seconds later, I simply let go and slid down the wall, only slowed down by the friction between my clothing and the smooth stone.
I crashed onto the dirt down below and directly rolled into a nearby bush, ignoring the pain in my already healing legs. Closing my eyes, I listened to the clamour and to the guards on the wall. So far, nobody has seemed to notice my escape, but I didn´t want to push my luck too far either. Looking through the gaps of the bush, I stared at the wall for quite some time until I noticed a considerable gap between the guards.
Using this, I knelt down, kicked the ground again and sprinted towards the fence on the other side of the circular road leading around the wall. Not too soon afterwards, I was back in a familiar forest, hiding from my own guards that patrolled the area and certainly noticed the clamour. But I could hear them perfectly as they searched the surroundings, making it fairly easy for me to undress my cape, wrap it around the king´s crown and put the package back into my backpack. I even put my mask away as well, but I wasn’t too willing to go without anything that covered my face either.
It took me a few minutes to find the spot I was searching for and started digging in the soft earth. Not too soon afterwards, I found a little chest with a scarf and a new black mantle, this time without the crown symbol inside. I wore both of these items, pulled the scarf upwards and the hood downwards. I still didn´t look that unsuspicious … but whatever. I wouldn’t be using the main roads anyway.
Instead, I used the backyards of the noble mansions to make my way towards the tunnel with relative ease. Nobody protected their backyards anyway as there was simply nothing to steal … except a few flowers maybe.
Well, not everything went perfectly as I heard a few search dogs in the distance, which made me chuckle involuntarily. I was a vampire, the only smell they could find on me was that of my surroundings.
Happily, and undetected, I thus ran through the tunnel leading under the noble wall and resurfaced in a still destroyed house. Well, the new owners didn´t want to renovate the property yet … we were the new owners, so that would never change.
In any case, it wasn’t too difficult to mingle with the commoners who were still out during the night, possibly for the announcement we had to make … one could argue this was planned all along. Anyways, I didn´t even have to hide from too many guards as they were mostly ordered back towards the royal castle after some time. Even though they must have found that armour already, they still prioritized the safety of the king, which wasn’t entirely unsurprising.
The crown was just a symbol, the king was what held this country together. But it was nonetheless a rather powerful symbol. Around eleven, I opened an unsuspicious wooden door of a hut near the eastern gates.
“Wait … wait.” I said towards the two people inside, opened my backpack and retrieved my mantle out of it. My hands soon found the crown, which I unrevealed shortly afterwards. I could see their eyes growing a bit wider as I sat the crown on my head and looked into the distance majestically.
“Kneeleth, thee peasants. Thy queen hast arriv’d to releaseth thee from thy hardship.” I said and balled my hand into a fist in front of my chest while pointing into the distance.
“Oh, no. Her slutty head has stopped functioning.” The whore said while holding her hand in front of her mouth.
“Well, well. Hang her at once. She shall be punished for les majesté.” I said and placed one hand onto my hip while pointing at her with the other.
“You aren’t queen yet.” She said, which made me pout involuntarily. A bit angry, I picked up the crown and threw it over to Tom. Sadly, I completely forgot he failed at every skill involving moving his body. The crown flew past him and hit the ground, making us all look at it in horror.
Slowly, I strode over to it and stared at the slightly damaged serrate.
“Well … nobody will notice anyway.” I said and gave it to Tom carefully this time.
“You just threw a crown through half the room and you don’t even bother? Do you know how much we could sell this for?” The whore asked slightly hysterically.
“One … two copper coins? I doubt anyone would want this thing here considering the king will do everything to get it back.” Tom nodded at my statement and put the crown on his head.
“King of the underworld, huh?” He said, looking upwards with all his might, trying to catch a glimpse of it.
“Aye, aye! When will they come?” I asked and stared at the whore in anticipation.
“Around half.” Tom admitted.
“Great! Whore, get out of here.” I said, even though it wasn’t even close to that time yet.
“Fine, fine. The queen of the underworld is taking her leave then.” She said and stood up.
“That post is not for you. You can be the whore for everyone though.” I said and laughed loudly.
“That´s a very, very tempting offer.” My laughter died down instantly, making her laugh instead. I nearly bit on my tongue as she took her leave.
“Did everything work out?” He asked after some time.
“Yeah, more or less.” I said ominously. “We only have to wait for Mary.”
“I guess so.” He said while I started to wear my other clothing and my mask again. In silence, we waited for the visitors who both came exactly on time.
“Greetings. Everything is prepared, so let us start right away, shall we?” Tom said, pointing towards the crown in front of him. Even his mask couldn’t hide the smile on his lips.
“This is … how did you do it?” Vladimir Tarasov asked, probably attempting to find anything ungenuine about this crown.
“We can talk about everything later, but first, we need to hurry. The guards are looking for this thing, and I seriously don’t want to have it in my hands longer than necessary. It isn´t that hard to conclude we are involved in this after all.” Tom said and picked up the crown. The other two leaders were still taken aback as Tom and I strolled out of the room. They and their guards still followed us as Tom gave the crown to me and I wrapped it in my coat.
“Where are we going?” Guiseppe asked as he noticed a few guards on the street, still searching for any weapons.
“To the stage, obviously.” Tom said and winked a few of his assassins, hidden in a house towards him. The other leaders obviously did the same, which was to be expected. Together, we walked through a few darker streets until we found ourselves in a mob of civilians. Squeezing through them was not a hard task though as our assassins pushed them out of the way, allowing us a relatively smooth passage to one of the stairwells lining the gate. Happily, I leaned against the iron door of the tower and simply opened it with one hand. It was deathly silent in this stairwell as I stepped aside and waited for the bulk of them to get inside first.
On my way upstairs, the reason for the unlocked door became relatively clear as quite a few dead guards blocked the way time and time again. Still, around ten minutes before midnight, I could already smell the fresh air again and nodded towards a few guards with bloodied swords. Bribing and disguising a few of our best men truly worked wonders.
At first, I looked down into the streets of the commoner district which was slowly filling with black-robed men, more than the guards could handle. It was like a mob streamed onto the street from all of the surrounding houses, mingling with the civilians and slowly pushing them to the border of the mob. The few guards could only look helplessly at the hundreds of criminals on the streets who immediately got violent once the guards tried to apprehend them.
And therefore, they let it be for the time being. On the other side of the wall, in the slums, was nothing like that happening for good reason. The first army, camping outside the eastern slums was already streaming into the slums, probably because they heard the alarm bells. But they did have a hard time getting through the masses of peasants who didn´t know what was going on at first.
Well, the general could order his troops to use violence, but I doubted he would do so considering how explosive the situation already was.
“Let it down.” Tom said, nodding towards a person who vanished inside the gate tower shortly afterwards. It didn´t take long for the gate to be lowered, placing one more barrier between the first army and us. A few minutes after that, Tom, still masked, stood near the edge of the wall, flanked by Vladimir Tarasov and Guiseppe D’Antonio. The situation on the wall was incredibly tense, with quite a few criminals up here who had their hands at their weapons while I stood behind the trio, waiting for my mission.
“My dear friends, my dear citizens of this beautiful country. I am the leader of ‘The Crown’. Beside me are my peers, as masked as I am, because we fear the king´s suppression as much as you do. He is taking our hard-earned money unjustly, he is taxing those who cannot pay while letting the nobles get away without paying a dime! We have uncovered the ugly façade that is nobility with our own hands time and time again, and yet, the king stood on their side as we spread their wealth to those who earned it!
He is telling you that you need to pay up, and he is forcing you to give your everything. Is it just that you have to give so much? Is it just that some of us need to live in poverty while some have all the riches of the world?
No, it is not! The saint herself accepted this very fact as she tried to defend you! But even then … his authority is absolute, isn´t it? He is defending you all from foreign invaders and disasters. Should I tell you what a disaster is? That he couldn’t stop these two monsters wreaking havoc! We, a group with no more than a few hundred members had to step in. And even though it took longer than expected, we managed to get rid of them!
What does it say, my brothers and sisters? His authority is not absolute! He is not capable to rule alone! Therefore, we, those in the underground are building a united front against him. Therefore, I will crown myself as the king of the underworld, as a counterweight to the oppression of the current king, using his very own crown.”
I stepped behind him, stood on my toes and slowly let the crown down on his head. It was ceremonial, but we didn´t have too much time left anyway. The only ones who are actually capable of seeing the crown are either our supporters, a few citizens or would be dead anyway. But the very fact that the king lost his crown would be spread like a wildfire. Everyone could put the parts of this puzzle together and say that this in my hands was the real crown.
“Everyone of those who lives in the shadows will go up in ‘The Crown’. I hereby promise I will end the unjust slavery by my colleagues,” Even more weapons were drawn behind me, as the last one of them finally understood what this was. Tom took a step back from the edge while I strode behind Vladimir Tarasov who slowly turned around, gritting his teeth in frustration.
“I will end the unjust deaths in this city happening through robbery every year! And I will end the suppression of the king because I am king myself!”
“Well, well. Goodbye.” I muttered, grabbed the hand of Vladimir Tarasov who was just pulling his sabre and pushed him backwards. Screaming, he fell over the edge, while a massacre started everywhere. Down on the street, humans hastily wrapped a red cloth around their arm while even more streamed out of the houses, already wearing one of these and started to massacre those in black who wasn’t fumbling with a cloth.
The civilians naturally ran away screaming the moment they noticed what was going on, but none of them were harmed. We knew every plan the two groups had, every position where their troops were positioned, and had around fifty per cent of them already on our payroll. Criminals liked money, and whoever paid better, usually won.
That was also the case with the ones behind me who started fighting against each other, foe against foe, and earlier comrade against earlier comrade. It was beautiful, especially as I looked down and noticed a slightly deformed Vladimir Tarasov who resembled mush more than anything else.
Only one of the other leaders was left and he was certainly not a real issue. While his gold rings could be used as an improvised weapon, he was a bit too short, enabling even Tom to fight against him somewhat. They both stumbled across the wall as Guiseppe refused to die, luring out a slight chuckle out of my throat.
As they stumbled past me, I grabbed Guiseppe´s arm and pulled hard, dislocating the shoulder brutally. He screamed loudly, probably experiencing this pain for the first time and stumbled backwards, away from the king of the underworld. Afterwards, I yanked it to the side, forcing him to etch closer to the edge. As he was rowing with his arms wildly and threatened to fall down because one foot was already over the edge, I stepped towards him with a grin on my face and held him by his clothing.
“Do you know what your mistake was? You never thought we would do something against our own economic interests. Buying all your men was certainly costly, but we were never like you. We don’t aim for money. We aim higher.” I said and let go of him. He still tried to grab onto my arm, but as soon as I grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly, breaking a bone in the process, he let go. I could see him tumbling down tens of metres while he screamed loudly. He crashed onto the ground right next to Vladimir Tarasov and made me chuckle as it looked like they were holding hands.
Happily, I turned around and stared at the bloodied criminals, now wearing a red armband as well.
“Go, help your comrades.” Tom said, understanding exactly what I wanted. A bit reluctant, I walked towards Tom again, stood on my toes and retrieved the crown from him after the others went into the stairwell.
“Well, it was a short pleasure … but I had fun. See you later!” I said and threw the crown off the wall as far as I could. It tumbled beautifully through the air, and hit the street down below, as the first army still tried to approach the door while the peasants tried to get away. It was a beautiful scene but had far too little violence for my tastes. The other side of the wall was certainly better in that regard, but the stabbing was already coming to an end. A few of Tom´s subordinates could probably be apprehended as they fled, but so what? Nobody knew anything about us, and that would remain for some time.
“Let´s get going as well.” I said and walked towards the stairwell, Tom following closely behind.