The more he looked at it, the more it seemed like a problem with no solution. He walked the handful of neat, ordered streets, gauging the handfuls of armored men on every corner, moving in brisk patrols, covering the two gateways that led into the Community. He saw the high walls tipped with glass and evil-looking wire with thorns of metal laid into it. Twenty feet tall and constructed so that even if one managed to scale them, there was no convenient jump to a roof or balcony. Just a straight drop to the cobbles...
So how to get out again? Get in, hide, disguise yourself and then accomplish your task... but what then? The gates will be shut, the guards perhaps alerted... and you will be like a rat in a pit, waiting for the dogs to corner you.
"What's your business, savage?"
Razkar was snapped from his reverie by the harsh words, the sight of a trio of chain-mailed guard dogs glaring at him. He pushed himself up from his position against the wall and exhaled a stream of Taloba Grey.
"Just have smoke, sir," he said with the broken, fawning accent that he always used when dealing with men whose brains were clearly in their blades. "Go to fuck-fuck place, yes? Hear is good, yes?"
The self-proclaimed leader rolled his eyes and sauntered forward, cronies backing him up, looking Razkar up and down like he'd nearly stepped in him.
"Good folk pay better money so they don't have to look at scum like you all day, you ball-eating barbarian." Gods, Razkar had to stifle a giggle. Clearly he didn't know about Edward. "Now get about your business, fuck off and don't come back, alright? You're welcome here as long as you pay and behave yourself. Otherwise..."
He slid his sword a few inches from its scabbard; once again, his duo aped his movements. Razkar bit down hard on the urge to butcher them both, but... no... no... not now. Instead he backed up, head bobbing over and over, eager to please as some Ravok coolie.
"I go, sir, I go...!"
He did at that, but he chose his route carefully. Razkar walked swiftly across the cobbles that were scraped clean of horse shit, past ladies and gentlemen who actually looked worthy of the term. Clearly the Gated Community attracted the rich and eager to escape the squalor of the streets... but Razkar wasn't really watching the street life.
He was counting.
Thirteen... Fourteen... Fifteen.
He beheld the lair of his target. At the end of the street, just as his poor deceased victim had said. A three-floor building of stone, with high windows and... shadows, moving beyond them. Razkar's eyes narrowed and he saw...
A female. Not skinny, not bent with age... another stout, motherly female. A perfect maid for a pampered exile.
A male. Tall. Broad. Movements careful, thought out. A guardian. One of a pair.
But the man himself? There was no sign, no trace... save for the glow of candles in the upper windows, as if a man hard at work in his study.
Seeing all he needed to, Razkar walked to the nearest gate without any delay. His mark was found, the layout was good and the gates... guarded... heavily-guarded. But at night, with confusion and surprise on his side? Perhaps he could slaughter enough to carve a hole for himself, dash into the city and the million bolt holes it provided.
There will be repercussion. The Sun's Birth will know a Myrian killed one under their protection, made a mockery of their "impenetrable" stronghold. They will come hunting for you. You and Edreina...
Razkar shook his head viciously, teeth gritted. Such were the risks of his life! He accepted the task, he would take the Nuit's gold, and that meant he had to kill the man Anar DuFarro, Arnold Barrow, whatever he chose to call himself. He had crossed an ocean to accomplish this. He would not shirk now.
"But I still need help getting in," he muttered to himself, feet following themselves as he bowed past the guards watching the north gate, "Some... distraction, while I hide myself, wait for nightfall. Someone..."
The answer came to him in a flash, and it came with a burst of laughter that startled a few passing pedestrians. Once the Myrian was over it, shaking his head and wondering if it was Myri, Lhex or some other deity who made such japes at his destiny, he started walking to the Pig's Foot.
