Stepping Wild (Dungeon Runner 04)

After a dozen turns, Tibs decided they were far enough. While he hardly felt the earth he'd encased himself in, anyone else doing that could only stand it for a limited time.

He stopped. "I need to get out of this."

Charlie raised an eyebrow at the earth that fell out of the glove Tibs pulled off. The same happened with the other one. The fighter chuckled when more fell as he unstrapped the arm from the shoulder and it dropped to the ground.

"I didn't want it to flop on me," he explained. "And packed tightly in the gloves, it lets me punch harder without breaking my hand." The other arm joined the first. He loosened straps on the side of the chest armor and yet more dirt piled at his feet.

"That can't be comfortable to walk in," Charlie said. "How did you get all that packed in there?"

Tibs shrugged, helping dislodge more of the dirt. "I had help. And it was worth it for those thugs thinking I'm a brute." He got out of the chest piece and shook the dirt out of the vest.

"So you're one of those."

Tibs paused undoing the leg straps. "Those?"

"Those who use their brains to make you think what they want you to think."

He returned to loosening the straps. "I go with whatever works."

"Then, can I get your name now?"

He shook his head. "Can't know who might overhear us." He doubted the people he sensed on the other side of the walls on each side would report to the Master, but this was about maintaining the illusion Tibs was normal, and no good thief would risk giving out valuable information until he was certain it wouldn't spread.

"Then, if you're ready to walk," Charlie said as Tibs shook the dirt out of his pants, "I know the perfect place for us to talk."

* * * * *

"Mags!" Charlie called to the woman behind the bar as soon as they entered the tavern. "One for me and my friend." He headed for a table at the rear and sat, careless of having his back to the door.

Tibs sat facing him.

"Now that there aren't any ears I don't trust around, can I get your name? I appreciate the rescue, but I have to wonder why you were willing to take them on for me. Especially to the extent of passing yourself off as a thug."

He waited for the woman to place the tankards on the table, then thanked her with a couple of coppers. She raised an eyebrow at Charlie.

"I was paying for them."

"Then, these can be thanks for the discrete service."

Charlie chuckled. "That comes with the ale. It's why I like this place."

"Then they'll be an expression of my generosity."

"Thank you, good sir." She returned to the counter.

"My name is Thibaud," he said once she was behind it.

"Where are you from? I don't know that accent."

"Arteron."

Charlie paused, the tankard to his lips, then shrugged. "Never heard of it." He took a long swallow.

"It's a city many months on the other side of the border." Tibs took a small one after removing the corruption and wood essence from his.

"And what bring you here?"

Tibs smirked. "Revenge."

Charlie raised an eyebrow. "If the rescue's to get me to kill someone you hate, I'm not doing it. I'll fight, and someone might die as a result, but straight-up aiming to kill someone's bad luck."

"Luck's not a thing."

Charlie smirked. "And you know that how?"

"Read it in a book,"

Charlie looked disgusted. "I guess that if you're smart enough to act like a thug, I shouldn't be surprised you know your letters."

"You don't?"

"I know them, but never got to make them mean anything. Every time I tried, all I got was a headache. I get enough pain fighting."

Tibs studied him over the rim of his tankard.

He'd watched Charlie fight before their encounter, and his odd way of doing it make Tibs think there was more to the man than just being a thug. But there had been no light on his words. How smart could he be if he didn't know that pushing through that pain lead to learning? He took the sip of his mostly tasteless ale, rubbing the bridge of hi nose. But then again, he knew well that cleverness didn't come from books.

Some people simply had that.

"I've never seen anyone fight the way you do."

Charlie smiled. "There was this woman going around the squares, when I was younger, demonstrating that fighting. I followed her around for months. She was slim, hardly any muscles on her, but she took on anyone willing and even the best of them went down. She was a little odd, always talking about the body and the mind and how they were the real tools in a fight." He shrugged, then grinned. "What I saw was how easily she won, and I wanted that." He laughed. "It's nothing like she made it look like. I copied her movement as best as I could, practiced when I wasn't watching her. I'm nowhere near as good as her, but I made something of it."

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"She wouldn't teach you?"

"She taught anyone who was interested, but it was more lectures than fighting. She wouldn't train the body, she said, until she knew the mind was ready. Like I said, I get enough pain fighting, so I figured I could work it out by watching." He grinned. "I like to think I managed it well enough."

Tibs nodded. One on one, Charlie easily moved around his opponent, almost like he knew where they were going to strike, and put a hand or an arm in the way and deflected it. Even when he dodged, it was with easy steps and always in preparation for a strike of his own, one with precision as well as strength. Tibs had watched him take down an attacker with one hit in the pit of the shoulder. The woman had been left on the ground crying in pain, cradling the arm.

Even taking on those in the alley, he'd held his own until the others joined in.

"Why did the Master send those thugs to beat you?"

With the others, the reason was clear. They committed their crimes without the Master's approval, didn't pay the dues needed to gain that approval. As a thug, Charlie was only someone the people under the Master would hire to help them. If he didn't want to work the way they did, they didn't hire him.

Charlie shrugged. "Just another misunderstanding." The words glowed slightly.

"Another?"

"Like I said, it's nothing important."

Tibs finished his ale, thinking over the complications that kind of unknown could bring. He stood. Too many. "I'm glad I was able to help. Have a good rest of your day."

"Wait." Charlie grabbed his arm before he stepped away. "You didn't help me for nothing. If you need me to be on good terms with him for whatever job you want me on, I'll go kiss hi ass. I need the money."

No glow, but that didn't remove the risks. "How did you get on his bad side?"

"I don't— it's nothing I can't—" he looked away. In his tankard, before raising it. "They organize fights for anyone with money to pay and watch. There's all kinds there. Poor folks, money, even rumors of nobles, but I never saw anyone I'd call that there. I like to fight, so I got in and fought. I won more and more of my fights. I don't fight like the others, so people like watching me, and that meant I got more fights; made more money. I moved on to fights worth more and more money. I loved it. Meant I live well, and women love a man with money. I was looking forward to a lot of that."

Mags brought a tankard to replace Charlie's. She looked at him, and he shook his head. Charlie hadn't convinced him to stay yet.

"Then, I was told to throw my fight. To make it look like I was on my way to winning, then let my opponent get in a lucky hit that took me down. I didn't want to. I don't mind losing against someone better, but throwing a fight?" he shuddered. "They told me if I didn't, I'd never fight again. So I said I would." He grinned. "And hatched a plan."

He sat. "How did it go?"

The smile turned sour. "Not how I wanted it." He drank. "I figured it'd be my last fight, so I should make it count. I placed a bet for me winning. Put all the money I had, then did like they told me. Until it came time for that lucky hit. I never gave it to him. I took him down no different from any of my previous opponent, but I made it clear I won." He sipped his ale. "Forgot who controlled the betting pool in my hurry to get rich. Never got my winnings. Not even what I'd bet." He snorted. "I did get a proper beating before they threw me out."

"That was the first time you got in trouble with the Master," Tibs said when Charlie didn't continue.

"Without the money, it took a while for me to heal. I had friends who liked me for more than my money, and they let me stay with them while that happened, fed me. When I was ready to figure out what I'd do for money, the fight people told me they wanted me back." He chuckled before another swallow. "Turns out that without someone unusual in the circle once in a while, not as many people go to them. So long as I'd learned my lesson and played by their rules, I was back in. I said yes and meant it. I like money." He sighed. "Turns out I like winning more. Like I said, I don't mind being beaten. I figured getting paid to throw the fight was just like being paid to work. My job was to lose. There'd be nothing to it. There was a bunch of normal fight, then came the one I was told to throw. I don't know what happened. Maybe he wasn't as good as they thought and he couldn't read what I was going to do, but he moved into my punch, instead of aside, and he went down. I was as surprised as they were, even told them to keep my winnings and they did."

He down his tankard. "To be clear, I was going to lose. I had to do that to keep fighting, and told myself it was fine. A fair price for the life I got out of it. And I really don't know how it happened. Fights get hectic. They believed me when I told them it was an accident." He smiled. "And that gave me an idea."

Tibs was getting a sense of where this was going. He motioned for Mags to bring them tankards.

"I learned my lesson about the betting," Charlie continued after she delivered them. "I never bet a lot, a few silvers here and there. On the next fight, I even bet triple what I usually did on me to lose. I figured, what's more believable than me losing money on the fight because I'd slip and won? I gave my friends the money to bet on me winning and we split what that gave us."

He took a long swallow, then looked bitter. "I got away with that twice. On the third time, I was ready for the same kind of talk about following orders and I had my explanation ready. I'd show them how I'd done everything I could, but it was the woman I was going to fight who bungled it. Only this time, when I got to the prep room, my friends were there too, strung up and bleeding. I thought that beating was going to kill me. I wish it had. But the Master's not that stupid. I can't suffer if I'm dead. I can't be hated by the friend I had left for getting some of them broken and killed if I'm dead."

He slumped. "Healing when there's no one there to help is no fun."

"How did you do it? You don't move like someone who healed wrong." And the only indications of injuries Tibs sensed were from the previous fights. Injuries that healed badly left a trace in how life essence flowed around it.

"I stole. Broke into alchemist shops I knew of, got enough of their good stuff I had a hope of healing, then hid in a hole until I did. Thought about leaving after that. I'd never be able to get serious money here. Even made it to Trade Gate, planning on getting work on a caravan, but found I couldn't. I wasn't going to be chased out of my home by some would-be king of crooks. So I wouldn't have money to throw at my friends, I could make friends again. Maybe the girls wouldn't line up to get in my bed, but there'd be some. I did thug work. Protected merchants for a few coppers a day. Then they stopped hiring me."

"The Master."

Charlie nodded. "I found a few places that could use a dumb thug, but the Master always found out and made sure they didn't want me working there. Even was a mule for a while, moving crates through the city, but that stopped too. He wants me miserable. But I'm not the only fighter who got on his bad side, and we figured we could get a few coppers by setting up our own fights. We figured he wouldn't give a fuck if we wanted to beat each other up. We were wrong. That's the fight you saved me from. No idea what they did to the others."

There had been glowing words here and there. Exaggerations, more than lies.

Charlie straightened and let out a breath. "But, if you need me to mend ways with the Master for me to work for you, I'll go kiss his ass. I'm out of options."

"You don't have to mend anything with him." He motioned for ales. "I want you on my team specifically because you'd rather do your thing than bend to his rules." He smiled. "Nothing I'll be doing is with his blessing."