Read all previous installments here. “Are we fighting to kill, or just to maim?” Matilda asked. The fighters arrayed in front of her — and, now, also sneaking up behind — were armed to the teeth. Literaly, in one case, though having a knife in your mouth seemed more dangerous to its wielder than anyone …
Madam Zephora Harte scooped up her skirts and hurried around the far side of the room, keeping a safe distance from the unconscious man on the floor. Then she followed Derek the wench down the hall back to the front door. Matilda passed the frying pan to another wench and trailed after her.
The door knocker was in the shape of an erect phallus. Matilda banged on the door with her fist. “I’m from the Mercenary Guild,” she said when it opened. She held up a tiny strip of paper she’d ripped off the help wanted flyer. “They said you needed urgent help tonight?”
The Mercenary Guild was located in the Lothbury District, close to the higher-end merchants that most needed its services, but on a back street, so that the fighters’ foul language — and fouler smell — wouldn’t offend the area’s classier customers.
Matilda found the King’s Armpit — no relation to the King’s Arms by the central square — just where Joe told her it would be. Down a dark alley that reeked of stale beer, urine, vomit… and something else. Was that a pile of rags in that alcove? No, a decomposing corpse. Clearly, this was an area completely ignored by the Chamber of Commerce.
One week earlier: Matilda Scarletstrike teleported into the World of Warcraft entrance where her team was waiting for her.
“Does Krim have any rules about looting dead bodies?” Matilda asked the guard as the two of them dragged the body between the market stalls towards the disposal chute.
“Guards! Guards!” The knife merchant stepped out from his booth and grabbed Matilda’s upper arm. She glared down at him and he swallowed and stepped back.
“Rat pies! Get your fresh rat pies here! Authentic medieval rat pies, just like they made in the fifteen hundreds!”
