The serrated edge of Scar-Hand Venn’s broadsword struck the wooden “Do Not Disturb” plank with a splintering crunch as he and twelve masked thugs dropped from the wall into the courtyard entranceway.
The weathered pine board bearing Kaelen’s handwritten warnings sheared in half. Painted notices about loud breathing and twenty-stone disturbance fees scattered across the wet flagstones in splintered fragments.
“Kaelen Vance!” Venn bellowed, his voice echoing off the brick walls of Stone-Willow Lane like a bronze horn. “Come out of your kennel and kneel to your father Derrick Vance! He has signed your spine to the Crimson Vulture Sect!”
Around Venn, the twelve raiders fanned out across the narrow garden threshold.
Their red leather tunics were slick with rain. In their fists, they clutched heavy iron cudgels and curved skinning blades, eager to claim the bounties promised by Orson Junior.
Two of the younger thugs chuckled under their breath as they kicked the shattered sign aside.
“An eighteen-year-old runaway from Ashford,” one thug sneered, rolling his iron cudgel in his palms. “Young Master Orson Junior paid five hundred spirit stones for this? We’ll have his legs broken before the night watch rings midnight.”
“Don’t get cocky,” the second thug muttered, scanning the dark courtyard. “The boy took first place in the preliminary trials yesterday morning. He might have guild guards hidden in the eaves.”
