The Way of Caine ,The Warcaster Chronicl - By Miles Holmes Page 0,1
what was the take?” Caine said with a puff and a sidelong glance at Tylen.
“Ech ... not as good.” Tylen retrieved a change-purse from his jacket, tossing it onto the tin roof. Five coppers spilled from an otherwise empty bag. Caine rolled his eyes, to which his friend shrugged.
“Market square ‘peared near empty today.”
“All week.” Caine corrected, frowning.
A scream came from below, quickly muffled and followed by the sounds of a scuffle.
Caine and Tylen scrambled to the edge of the roof and peered down into the twilight shadows. Below, two men shoved a third to the wall. The larger of the two, a pudgy man with a clean shaven scalp, held the sobbing victim in place while the other, a lean brute in close fitting dark clothes, pressed close to speak. Even from their lofty vantage, the man’s visage was unnerving to behold. Either a wound or some deformity had left him with only a narrow gap where a nose should be. The victim protested, his voice shrill. The ham-fisted enforcer responded by punching him in the stomach, hard enough for the man to double over. The skull-faced man laughed, a grating hideous sound, and yanked the victim’s head back up by his hair. A moment later, the victim relented, reaching to pull something from out of his boot.
“Ech! The hounds are out.” Tylen snorted, eyes narrowing. “That’s Horace, eh? Boss’ Dakin’s second?”
Caine nodded. “No mistaking that beauty. Looks like a collection night.”
He looked at Tylen, lips curling into a grin. “Maybe this is a chance to make up for a bad week?”
Tylen laughed. Caine did not. The ginger-haired youth swallowed, his face twisting to a grimace.
“Yer not kidding.”
In the shadows of a twisting alley, the pair awaited their marks. Caine leaned back against the wall of an alcove, listening to the footfalls of Horace and his goon. In the alcove opposite, Tylen did likewise. The youth looked across to Caine, his face sickly pale. Caine eased him down with a gesture, his ear still cocked. Tylen nodded back, and pulled a hood over his face. Caine heard the footfalls nearly there. It was now or never. The signal given, Tylen bolted around the corner and into the enforcer. Both men cried out. Tylen’s light hands clasped a shiny bauble at the large man’s belt, and in the next instant, he was sprinting down the alley.
“Blighter took me time piece, he did!” The big man shouted, turning to watch as Tylen escaped. Horace was not so slow-witted.
“Well?!” he shouted, clapping the larger man on the back as if driving an ox. The thug stumbled ahead to give chase with heavy footfalls. Horace shook his head, frustrated, then made to follow his henchman.
Caine stepped from the shadows, Horace’s back to him. His brow furrowed in concentration, and his eyes flashed with an unnatural light.
Magic was coming.
Most times, he kept it back, hidden. Never show them the ace up your sleeve, he’d learned. Now was different. Nobody here but ugly and me, he smiled. The magic bent to his will, manifesting and curling around him in an incandescent circle of runes. He put a hand out, and force surged ahead, catching Horace square in the backside.
The mobster tumbled forward into the slick stones of the alley with a grunt. He slid face first along the slime and muck that lined the alley before coming to rest. The enforcer ahead of him was oblivious on his fool’s errand, shouting after Tylen with impotent rage.
Caine fell upon Horace like a vulture, snatching an overstuffed coin-purse with practiced ease. Horace flailed, trying to fight off his attacker.
“Do yeh have any idea who I am?!”
Their eyes met briefly in the shadows, and Caine winked in reply. Then he was gone, slipping back into the alcove from which he had come.
He heard the skull-faced man getting to his feet, cursing. Caine’s attention fixed upon the eaves of the rooftops above his shallow alcove.
“Yer as good as dead, little dog! D’ye hear me?! Yeh’ve nowhere to go now!” Horace screamed from around the corner.
Caine smiled, the magic within him surging still. Focused on the eaves, the air bent around on him like a soap bubble. The dead-end alcove vanished. Blinking, he found himself three stories up, crouching on the spot he had spied from below.
Not a second too soon. He turned to see the alcove just as Horace rounded the corner, a brutish looking pistol leading the way. The ugly mobster wore a feral grin, but as he