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Thanks so much to CitrusChickadee for reviewing! Therion being Awful(tm) is exceedingly fun to write, no matter the situation XD I'm glad you enjoyed!
With that, on with the tale!
Relevant Events: Therion's Chapter Four
24. No Time
"So this is Northreach…" Therion murmured as he padded into the snow-dusted town, with Tressa, Alfyn, and Cyrus close on his heels. As had become their custom when entering unfamiliar places, given the various troubles they'd faced in the past, half of their group had made camp outside of town in order to remain hidden in relative safety, should anything unfortunate befall the vanguard half.
And based on the scene currently unfolding before them at the city's entrance, such an unfortunate event was a distinct possibility in a place such as Northreach.
"Hmph…and it's eager to make a first impression," Therion finished, his visible eye narrowed. He and his three companions watched apprehensively from the shelter of the evergreen trees that lined the path into town as two men roughly grabbed a merchant by the arms, each of their free hands rummaging around in the feather-capped man's bag.
"S-Stop!" the merchant cried, struggling against the men's vice grips. "Those are mine - !" He was cut off with a yelp as one of the men - one of the thieves, rather - slapped him hard across the face.
"Not anymore, they ain't!" he snapped, snatching a handful of jewelry - the merchant's wares, no doubt - from the bag and shoving it into his own pocket.
"'And it over!" the other thief demanded, reaching for the wallet hanging from the merchant's belt. The merchant twisted in an attempt to avoid the thief's hands, but could resist no further once he was shoved to the ground. Once the thief had torn the wallet from his belt, the two men dashed off, leaving the merchant lying prone and stunned on the cobblestone path.
"Th-Thieves!" the merchant cried as he found his voice and struggled to regain his footing. "Someone, stop them!"
None of the nearby townsfolk, however, moved to assist the flustered man. A few of them averted their eyes, while others sighed and shook their heads in what could only be interpreted as despair. Only one man even bothered to make his way over to the fallen merchant, his mouth set in a grim line as he extended a hand to help the other man up.
"Sorry to say, but ain't no one going t'stop those thieves," he said gruffly, clapping the merchant on the back to knock away the snow that had caked itself onto his coat.
The merchant gaped at him in astonishment. "Aren't there guards in this town!?"
The other man merely snorted and shrugged. "E'en the guards won' lay a 'and on 'em," he replied. "Tha's jus' 'ow life is 'ere. Best not to get too attached t'anythin'."
He gave another shrug and walked off, leaving the merchant to sink back down to his knees in defeat, his only audible response a soft, murmured, "But…"
Beneath the trees, Therion's expression shifted to a sullen scowl. "A thief's paradise, huh," he muttered ironically.
"A-And a merchant's hell," Tressa added, giving a shudder that likely had little to do with the cold. She reached up and gingerly removed the feathered merchant's cap from her own head, shoving it inside her winter coat, as though she thought the very sight of it would make her a target of larceny.
"Not a very cheerful place, that's for sure," Cyrus added with a frown. "I must confess to not knowing much of the usual affairs of Northreach, but…I don't believe I'd be remiss in suggesting that this situation the city finds itself in is far from ordinary."
"No kiddin'," Alfyn agreed gravely. "Looks like dishonorable thieves like those two bastards have the run of the place…"
"Mhm…" Therion shook his head. "I'd bet anything that this is Darius' doing. Everyone living in fear…tch. All the more reason to put an end to him and his lackeys."
Cyrus nodded. "I concur. How, then, do you propose we begin? I don't suppose questioning the townsfolk would yield many results at this juncture…"
"Not likely," the thief agreed. "If Darius really has got this whole place under his thumb, then your average citizen won't be likely to risk their own neck giving a bunch of strangers valuable information. Not without a few glasses of liquid courage, that is…"
"Ah, I see what you're saying!" Alfyn said. "It'd be best to check the tavern, right?"
While Therion nodded, Tressa sighed. "Taverns again, huh? You sure like your alehouses, don't you, Therion?"
Therion fixed the young merchant with a flat look. "I don't go because I 'like' them. I go to hear people talk. Mead and spirits are good for loosening tongues, after all, and that's just what we need here."
Tressa scoffed. "Heh, so your interest is purely professional? Sure…"
"Look, taverns are places where rumors and secrets are spoken and traded." A smirk slowly replaced Therion's deadpan expression. "But…I wouldn't expect a brat like you to understand."
As though a switch was thrown, Tressa's jaw dropped and her demeanor turned indignant. "Hey! Who are you calling a brat!? I've been turning trades and making profits since I was five!"
"Have you now?"
"I delivered spirits to three alehouses every day for over a year! I've seen my share of drunken fools."
"Oh? Should I be impressed?"
Tressa grinned, placing her hands on her hips and puffing out her chest. "You bet! Still can't stand the smell of grog, though." She broke her pose to shrug nonchalantly. "Makes me gag."
Therion's eyes rolled. "Hmph. Still a brat after all, then."
Leaving Tressa to fume in his wake, the thief wheeled around and strolled out from under the cover of the trees, eye shifting side to side as he properly entered the city of Northreach. He heard tentative footsteps behind him as his companions followed, but his attention was focused on the various townspeople flitting about around them.
Not a soul tarried long on the street, moving briskly to their respective destinations with their heads down and their hands clamped tightly around their purses. None of them seemed to pay Therion and the others any significant amount of attention, though he guessed that it was not for lack of interest. More likely, it was fear that had them keeping to themselves, not daring to make eye contact with anyone they did not recognize.
The hell has Darius done to this place…? he thought, frowning.
As the four travelers began to make their way down the street leading to the tavern, a sharp gasp from Cyrus suddenly broke Therion from his thoughts. The thief's hand immediately went to the dagger on his belt, but just as he was opening his mouth to ask what was wrong, the scholar abruptly seized Therion by the shawl and dragged him into a nearby alley. Startled, Alfyn and Tressa followed, though neither of them seemed to be aware of what had frightened Cyrus so.
"Cyrus!?" Therion spluttered, too flustered to do much more than gape blankly at the scholar. "What the hell are you - !?"
"Shh! There is no time to explain!" Cyrus hissed. The man whipped off his cloak, then, unexpectedly, he threw it over Therion's shoulders. While Therion stood stunned, Cyrus pulled the younger man's arms through the sleeves, clasped the cloak at the neck, and threw the hood over Therion's head. The scholar then stepped back, eyes narrowed, as though surveying his work. After a few seconds, he reached forward again, pulling the hood further down over Therion's eyes.
"There we go…" Cyrus murmured to himself. "Hm…yes, this should suffice."
Therion stared at him incredulously. "...is there time to explain now!?" he exclaimed in a hushed whisper. He reached up and pushed the hood back up so that he could see properly. "What's going on, Cyrus!?"
"Very well." The scholar nodded, but moved to pull the hood back down to cover Therion's face once more. "Look out onto the main street, by the door to the inn. But make sure not to show your face! You'll see why in a moment."
Therion briefly considered swatting the professor on the back of the head in return for his strangely evasive behavior, but he quickly decided that it would be far faster to simply heed Cyrus' words for himself. Passing by a still-bewildered Alfyn and Tressa, he leaned out of the alley, squinting to see the length of parchment that had been posted outside the door of the nearby inn.
It was, unmistakably, a wanted poster. One that clearly bore Therion's likeness, no less.
"...you have got to be kidding me," he deadpanned, pulling back into the alley and running his hands over his face. "Damn you, Darius…you just had to make things this much harder, didn't you?"
"It would appear so," Cyrus sighed, shaking his head as Alfyn and Tressa went to go take their own look at the poster. "And unfortunately for us, the drawing is quite the spitting image of you, Therion. It would not do to have you walk about the city undisguised, lest you draw unwanted attention before we are ready to face Darius directly."
"No kidding," Therion muttered. "Ugh…talk about humiliating. Typically, it's only a careless thief who lets himself get caught enough times to have a godsdamned wanted poster made. Just my luck that we're up against someone who knows my face well enough to use it against me…"
"If nothing else, I suppose we should be grateful that it's only you," Cyrus reasoned. "Darius does not know the rest of us, after all. That way, we seven should be able to move about without attracting too much suspicion…especially since he may be fully expecting you to come alone."
"Grateful…sure."
"Yikes…" Alfyn murmured as he and Tressa pulled back into the alley to join the other two. "So now you're a wanted man…eh, Therion?"
"Yeah," the thief grumbled. "As if I didn't have enough problems."
"I sure wouldn't want to be you right now," Tressa said with a shrug, earning her a sharp glare from Therion.
"Hey, but think about it!" Alfyn cut back in before a squabbling match could break out between the merchant and the thief. "If anythin', those wanted posters show that you've got Darius runnin' scared. And that proves you're a thief to be reckoned with, right?"
Therion paused, mulling over the apothecary's words. True, the wanted posters were bound to cause problems for him if he let anyone see his face, but could they really also be a sign that Darius was afraid? Fear was not an emotion Therion ever recalled seeing in his old partner - it was almost too difficult to imagine him ever "runnin' scared," as Alfyn had put it.
But then again…Darius wouldn't have gone through the effort of plastering Therion's face all over town if he didn't believe that Therion was coming after him. The posters weren't just an annoyance, they were a precaution. For whatever reason, the revelation that Therion was still alive had spooked Darius enough to recruit an entire city in his measures to deal with him.
After all, by surviving that fall all that time ago, Therion had proven that he was not one to go down easily.
Though the predicament was still frustrating, Therion allowed himself a small smirk at the notion that his very existence was enough to distress Darius so. "Heh…fair enough, Alfyn." He nodded in the apothecary's direction. "Maybe you're good for more than mixing potions after all."
Alfyn laughed. "That's me, full of surprises! So…anyway, we should probably go check out the tavern, like you said before. We'll have to be careful not to let you be seen, but…we need all the info we can get, right? And hey, if anything happens, I've got your back!" He patted his satchel of herbs and grinned.
Therion snorted slightly, a wry smile on his face. "Heh. No offense, but I hope I won't be needing your services."
"Now that's the spirit!" Alfyn clapped the thief on the back and gestured at the exit of the alley. "Let's go!"
Neither Tressa nor Cyrus had any objections, so the four travelers quickly made their way back into the street proper, heading in the direction of the tavern. They mimicked the townspeople well enough, keeping their eyes down and their ears perked up, just in case any enemies lurked nearby. They managed to reach the alehouse without issue, however, and slipped through the door unmolested.
Once inside, Therion resisted the urge to lower his borrowed hood, instead tilting his head slightly to allow his visible eye a decent view past the edge of the black fabric. The tavern wasn't empty, but it wasn't crowded either. There were no signs of the typical raucous, drunken laughter one might hear in other towns, and most of the establishment's patrons seemed perfectly content to keep to themselves and quietly nurse their drinks. Only a few scattered pairs of people murmured softly to one another, creating a low buzz of noise that blurred together enough to drown out their exact words.
Therion supposed he should've expected as much from a fear-ridden city like Northreach.
Still, he sauntered up to the bar, leaving his companions to mill about in his wake. His eye flickered briefly to the wanted poster bearing his image that hung just behind the tavern keeper's head.
Hmph, he thought ruefully as he pulled Cyrus' hood lower. They didn't even get my best angle.
Not wanting to attract any more attention than necessary, he tore his gaze away from the poster and instead leaned against the bar, grunting to the tavern keeper, "Give me a glass of your best." The man made a slight noise of acknowledgment and set to work rooting through the bottles under the counter.
In the meantime, Therion turned, surveying the tavern once more with one half-lidded eye. Cyrus, Alfyn, and Tressa had procured a table and were talking quietly amongst themselves, though each of them seemed to be on their guard. The rest of the tavern's patrons hadn't moved much, though the pair of men seated closest to the bar were giving Therion long looks that he wasn't overly fond of.
He was well aware, after all, that even if he did not show his face, he wasn't exactly being any less suspicious by appearing as a shifty, hooded figure. As the two men began to whisper to one another, Therion started to wonder if his search for information was worth risking discovery like this.
Suddenly, from out of his blind spot to his left, a third man appeared, roughly jostling against Therion's side in a way that couldn't have simply been accidental. The thief jolted, flinging out his right arm to brace himself against the bar. Though, as he did so, the Fool's Bangle around his wrist clanked, and Cyrus' sleeve slipped a little up his forearm, exposing the cuff. Upon seeing it, the expressions of the men near the bar grew cold.
…damn it all, Therion cursed inwardly.
The man that had bumped into him swept away to a nearby table, not glancing in the young thief's direction, but the intentions behind his actions had been clear. Therion's eye flicked back over to the wanted poster, where a note beneath his image detailed his usual attire - Fool's Bangle and all. Beneath that, however, another more ominous message was printed.
"BEWARE: Any involvement with this man will be considered direct opposition to Lord Darius."
Therion grimaced. "Lord" Darius, huh? I guess he really does rule this town…
He turned back to face the tavern keeper, who had gone pale and retreated a few steps since catching sight of Therion's cuff. "A-Apologies sir, w-we're out of our best," the man stammered, refusing to make eye contact. "Actually, we're out of everythin'! We're closing for the day! Best yer be on yer way now!"
Of course, the tavern keeper made no move to actually close up shop and usher the other patrons out, but he ducked behind the bar, busying himself with cleaning something or other. Clearly, his conversation with Therion was over.
"Hmph…guess I'll be on my way, then," Therion muttered. He knew when he wasn't wanted.
The thief turned on his heel and made his way back to the tavern entrance, feeling the eyes of the other patrons on him, even through Cyrus' cloak. He made brief eye contact with his three companions, subtly shaking his head when they almost rose to join him. Even if Therion himself wasn't welcome anywhere in town, it did not mean that the other travelers couldn't investigate on their own, so long as they kept their ties to him a secret.
With that, he stalked out the front door, Cyrus' cloak billowing around him as the frigid air of the Frostlands struck him once again.
"Well," Therion mumbled to himself, letting the door swing shut behind him, "that was a spectacular waste of time. Hopefully the others manage to pick up at least something useful in there…"
Keeping his eyes to the ground, he moved away from the tavern, heading down another one of Northreach's main streets. He wasn't entirely sure where he was going, and he certainly didn't want to stay out in the cold forever, but he was beginning to think that, no matter what establishment he attempted to enter, he would receive the same response as he had at the tavern.
You just couldn't stand to make anything easy for me, could you, Darius…? he thought bitterly. You absolute bastard…
"Found yer!"
Therion was suddenly jolted out of his thoughts by two hands seizing him; one grabbed his arm and twisted to its painful limit, while the other yanked the hood off of his head, exposing his face. Therion immediately jabbed the elbow of his free arm hard into his assailant's stomach, forcing him to loosen his hold with a grunt. He attempted to take off running in the opposite direction, but quickly found his path blocked by a second man, clad in black and with a dagger in his hand.
The second man grinned widely as Therion skidded to a halt, nearly slipping on the snow-covered cobblestones. "Yer got some guts, marchin' inna this town!" he commented snidely.
Therion's eye narrowed, and he glanced over his shoulder. The first man that had attacked him had recovered, and was now blocking the other side of the street while brandishing a dagger of his own.
"...and you are?" Therion deadpanned, keeping his voice carefully even. "Wait, don't tell me. You're Darius' welcoming committee, aren't you?"
"Aye!" grunted the first man. "And we'll make sure yer get th' warmest o' welcomes. Boys!"
From out of the shadows of a few nearby alleyways, four additional men darted, falling into place to surround Therion, effectively cutting off any escape route he might've hoped to utilize. Still, the young thief was relatively unfazed, gazing around at the various newcomers with a dull expression.
"...I suppose 'quality over quantity' doesn't mean much here," he quipped flatly.
The second man scowled. "Grr…if we stab yer enough times, yer'll still die!" he snapped.
The first man merely laughed. He was, Therion noticed, dressed differently than the rest of the men, and seemed to command a somewhat greater presence. "Yer think yer can stall for time by yappin'?" He smirked. "Ain't nobody comin' to save yer, even if yer scream bloody murder."
Therion was seriously beginning to regret instructing his companions to stay behind in the tavern.
"Yer best give up 'ope now," the second man added. "Ever'one 'ere fears Lord Darius!"
"I noticed." Therion's eye rolled as he crossed his arms over his chest. "So what's it like leeching off of someone else's power?"
"Shut it!" the second man spat, at the same time that the first shouted, "Kill 'im!"
What ensued was not so much a fight as it was a dancing routine, at least from Therion's perspective. There were a lot of Darius' men in the conflict, true, but each of them individually barely had enough skill to fill a thimble to the brim. Therion practically pranced around them, darting between their attacks with practiced ease, as well as slipping in a few well-placed slashes of his own. Within minutes, every man except Therion was on the ground, bleeding from some wound or another, though none of them were dead yet.
"B-Bleedin' 'ell…" one of the men gasped, clutching at a shallow gash in his side."'E's too good…"
"Enough," Therion said gruffly, straightening up to hide his own exhaustion. "I've got bigger fish to fry."
In response, the alleged leader of the men chuckled darkly. "Heh…enjoy yer victory while yer can. 'Cause there's no way yer leavin' this town alive…"
More footsteps sounded around the corner, and within moments, Therion was surrounded yet again by an extra four men. He fell back into a fighting stance, gritting his teeth and clutching the hilt of his dagger tightly. "This is getting old fast…"
Despite his confidence in his own abilities, Therion knew that it was only a matter of time before his own stamina gave out. Even if the men Darius threw at him had little talent to speak of, if there were enough of them, they could still keep coming until they'd worn him down enough to finally land a lucky blow.
Could've certainly used the others' help right about now… Therion thought ruefully, a grim smile plastered firmly on his face. This lone wolf act clearly isn't getting me anywhere…
"Yer ready to die, mate!?" the leader shouted, shoving himself back onto his feet. "It'll be slow 'n' painful for yer, that's for sure! 'N' there's nowhere left for yer to leg it!"
Therion scowled. "I'm starting to see the appeal of quantity over quality," he muttered. "These odds are bad any way I look at them…"
Suddenly, a low, dignified chuckle sounded from a little ways behind him. "That look of resignation is unbefitting of you."
Therion whirled around just in time to see an entire row of Darius' men fall screaming at the feet of a familiar figure. The thief's jaw dropped in a rare display of unguarded surprise. "Heathcote!?" He blinked twice, then shook his head roughly to clear it. "I don't suppose you could have gotten here a little sooner!? What the hell are you even doing here anyway!?"
The butler smirked wryly. "You can thank me later! For now, there is no time to explain. Follow me!"
"Why does everyone keep saying that lately…?" Therion grumbled, but he wasted no time in following Heathcote's instructions. "Agh, whatever. You don't have to tell me twice!" Leaving Darius' men shouting and scrambling behind him, Therion took off sprinting after the older man, through the gap his attack had created in the circle of thieves.
Darius' men chased them swiftly, but Therion wasn't worried. Heathcote seemed to have a destination in mind, and he was surprisingly spry for his age to boot. Combined with Therion's own fleet-footedness, the young thief had no doubt that the two of them would be able to escape their pursuers with little issue.
He just hoped that they would have time to go back and pick up his three deserted companions after the fact.
See you guys next time for Tale 25: Trouble Lurking!