I headed down the alleyway on the left side of the building. I could hear one of the rear guards coughing by the garden door, which meant they had been rotated out for another shift. Ensuring that nobody was looking down at me from either end, I adorned the mask and leapt up to the top of the wall. The brickwork was just wide enough for me to get a good hold of it without needing to kick off the opposite wall.

I was extremely careful not to grind the front of my chestplate against it. I rolled over the top and landed gracefully on my feet. It was a blessing that my stealth skill granted me the ability to muffle the sound of my movements to some extent. The garden was a sad affair. The small patches of grass had long since turned brown and died out from a lack of care. A single shed sat at the bottom left corner between cracked paving stones. Nobody had lived or worked here for some time.

The back door to the townhouse stood at the top of a small set of stairs. I reached into my belt for my tools and retrieved my pick. I could easily rake it open, but doing so would rattle the door in its frame and potentially alert someone inside. Slow and steady wins the race after all. The lock hadn’t been changed when the military moved in. Amateur mistake, though understandable with armed guards on every angle.

I opened the door with a painful slowness. The crack was just wide enough for me to see inside. The room was pitch black – which just made it easier to spot where the guards were sitting and waiting. The bottom floor was completely clear of any watchful eyes. The small kitchen and larger living room that was connected to it had been left to the exterior watchmen.

The upper floors would be more dangerous. The staircase upwards was tucked away out of sight between some thin plastered walls. It was a blind left, and the footprint of the corridor beyond was tight. If someone was watching I would need to knock them out. If I had to knock them out, then it would become a mad dash to Forester’s room so I could kill him and escape. But fortune had favoured me thus far – as I crested the steps and tried to sneak a look into the landing, I discovered that nobody was there. The doors were closed. Only one of them had a light burning inside.

Now, the challenge was finding which room Forester was in.

As an egotistical noble, he’d obviously choose the biggest and most comfortable room for himself. Master bedrooms in this style of house were usually up on the third floor, dominating the entire space for itself. I put my ear to the door and listened in. I could hear the occupant shuffling around inside. Another officer? I didn’t need to worry about them. It sounded like they were getting a restless night.

My heart nearly leapt into my throat as I put my weight down onto the wooden floorboard in front of me. It let out an agonising creak that stretched on for seemingly hours. Was I rumbled? Had one of the occupants heard me? No, to my relief – they continued sleeping and pacing as they had before. Perhaps they had no reason to believe that someone had broken in. Up another flight of stairs that threatened to give me a heart attack with every noise they made.

There was only one door on the top floor landing. The master bedroom didn’t have a secure lock on it, but it was barred shut from the inside by a latch. I pulled out my knife and carefully slid it through the crack. It was easy to find the bottom side of the culprit and push it upwards. With one hand on the blade and another on the door handle, I pushed it open without dropping it back down into the clutches of its paired holder.

But I didn’t burst through the entryway and start the messy bit. I gave whoever was inside a moment to react to their door opening on its own. I counted the seconds down in my mind and clutched the dagger tight to my chest. That was enough. Either he was asleep, or there was nobody there. I pushed it open proper and stepped into the room, checking both corners to my left and right to prevent any surprise attacks.

The ‘penthouse’ was empty.

With a scowl I hurried to the king-sized bed at the other side of the room and ripped away the white sheets. The lump that I thought I had seen before was just a few pillows that had been discarded and placed underneath. The sheets were tangled, suggesting that the person using the bed had gotten out of it and not bothered to remake it.

With that area exhausted, I instead turned my attention to a small wooden table that had been brought into the room. It was covered with military documentation, and a map of the planned offensive on the Federation. It all begged the question, if Forester wasn’t in the master bedroom, where was he really? Had he left the premises during our lunch break?

While it stung to miss out on my chance like this, it wouldn’t be so bad if I could get away unscathed and undetected. I could try again later with a new approach. Those were the kinds of thoughts going through my head as I reached out to open the door once again. But I hesitated. Something was off. I could hear a great commotion spreading through the house. Dozens of footsteps approaching my location.

There was no time for me to hide or escape. I gasped in shock as the door swung open, nearly striking me across the face and head. A wall of bodies poured into the room and grabbed me, wrestling me to the ground, kicking, punching and pulling on whatever they could grab. Even with my impressive strength, I was completely disabled. Before I knew it a pair of iron cuffs had been buckled onto my wrists.

This was my nightmare scenario. I was roughly pulled back up onto my feet, and my weapons were taken away and handed to one of the officers standing in front of me. I didn’t say a word. I just stared at the leering face of their commanding officer as he paced around the room. How the hell did so many of them run into the building so fast? “What do we have here? An assassin trying to kill Lord Forester, I presume.”

I remained silent. Nothing good ever came out of talking with these people.

“Nothing to say? No defence to offer? Lord Forester is a very careful man – he knew that the Federation would try an underhanded trick like this. It seems that our efforts to obfuscate his movements have paid off.”

Stigma appeared next to him and smirked, “I can kill some of them. All I need is your energy.”

What good would that do me? There were way too many of them, and even more waiting besides.

“Just make sure they don’t take you out of the city.”

Stigma pouted and dissipated again. The officer snapped his fingers in front of my eyes, “Who are you speaking to? Have you lost your senses?” He was getting irritable that I wasn’t playing his game. The fact that I was still alive could only mean one thing, they wanted to make an example out of me with a public execution. I had some time to try and figure a way out of this. I jostled as two of the other men searched my pockets and stole my belt. It was a good thing I gave Cali my cash before I came in here.

“Where are we throwing him?” one of your captors asks.

“We don’t have any cells open at the moment, just lock him on the second floor and I will confer with Lord Forster as to the date and location of his execution.”

I was promptly marched down the stairs to one of the two doors that I had been spying on earlier. The lit room was open now, with the current occupant peeping through the gap to see what all the noise was about. The other room next to his was completely empty of any real furnishings or comforts. A bed frame without a mattress was the only thing inside. I was pushed inside with enough force to topple a normal person easily, but instead the man responsible found his arm folding upwards as I refused to tumble.

I stepped into the room of my own accord and turned back to the doorway, which was slammed shut and locked behind me. My arms were still captive to the metal chains that they’d slapped onto them. Without the ability to use my arms properly, my prospects of escape were dwindling fast. I had no tools, no weapons, and not much hope.

“Shit,” I seethed, “Should have known that this would turn bad.”

Stigma appeared again, “Don’t worry Master – I’m keeping a watchful eye on where they’re taking my body.”

It’d take them a while to catch on to the true nature of my weapon. Someone would need the foresight to inspect it first – and pass it through to an inquisitor for retrieval. I tugged on the metal shackles holding my wrists and then pulled as hard as I could. I could feel the old iron links giving way to my immense strength, if only slightly. I stopped before I broke them. I didn’t want to give them the impression that I was trying, or could, escape from them.

There were probably still a bunch of armed men guarding the building, now that they’d had the chance to spring their carefully constructed trap. I sat down on the edge of the bed and waited. It would be a good while before they decided on what to do with me. It was likely that I’d spend the rest of the evening there, only taken to the gallows for a prompt execution the following morning.

That was, unless the Inquisition found out that I was the one who had snatched Stigma. That would change the calculation dramatically. They would want to be the ones to dole out the punishment, as they’d rightly guess that I was the man responsible for killing eight of their number at the start of my journey. It would be an extra special execution in that case, one where they would inevitably give a long, winding speech extolling the virtues of their faux-religion. That speech would have to be delivered by a ranking officer vying for a higher position in the order. How many of those were in town? I wondered.

To be blunt, my plan was seven different kinds of fucked up now.

They knew my face, had presumably moved Forester to another, safer location, and had also taken my weapons and tools. This was a stacked deck and the only thing that could dislodge me was sheer luck.

Stigma caught my attention again with a tittering laugh, “You know even without my blade you can still make use of some of my powers. Simply destroy those feeble shackles and this wooden door, and we can be away in pursuit of my home.”

I could break the shackles without her assistance, and there was another problem; “And how much life energy will that blow through?”

Stigma smiled awkwardly and didn’t answer. I guess Stigma didn’t do half-measures. Okay, so I wasn’t going to do that. I sighed and tried to ignore an errant itch that had started up on my left thigh – an area I couldn’t reach with my hands tied up.

“I hope Cali and Tahar don’t do anything rash for my sake…”

Stigma rolled her eyes, “Why not? Sacrificing their lives to rescue you is a worthy trade.”

Aside from the fact that dying in the process would mean not rescuing me at all, “You know, the value of a person isn’t just weighted on how much they can help me.”

“…Are you serious?” she asked with genuine recoil in her voice, “What happened to doing whatever it takes to survive?”

“Doesn’t mean I have to be a totally friendless sod,” I responded. Cali had shown me a new way of working; a small party of travellers could do a lot together if they had the right skills. Having company was a nice bonus on top of that. I couldn’t ever guarantee her continued loyalty, but that just meant that I needed to look after myself. I could manage to eke out some affection for the pair now that my life didn’t require a constant state of paranoia induced delusion.

To assuage Stigma’s complaints, I rolled on to the next topic.

“Leave the escape to me. Just commit where they took you to memory and guide me there when the time’s right.”

She wasn’t pleased but relented anyway, “Very well Master.”