Chronicles of the Black Swords
'The Love of the Shadows, the Life of a Thief"
"This tale is taken from the well known play of the same title. I first saw it many a long years before the King set me to the task of putting the history of the Hellblades down before they are lost to time. I saw the play again just days ago and remembered the story of the thief and the Hellsword that he carried. I dug my way into city records and found that there was more than a small grain of truth to the old story. Then I came across a few pages of crumbly parchment. They were, I truly believe, penned by the hand of the thief himself in the days following the destruction of the Maskrin knights. An order known for their brutality to those around them who didn't live up to their code."
Chronicler Albreth Ravenclaw
I'm sitting in a small room above a noisy tavern, in a town whose name I have forgotten. My hands shake with age and my eyes strain to see the words I pen here. My life, as it has long been, is now nearing it end and I wanted this down for all who dare follow in my path to see...
Pardon me, my eyes and thoughts wandered for a second. Drifted to the black sword that hangs in it worn gray scabbard from a peg on the wall.
Andric Vang.
It grows to be the only thing I can see clearly. A pommel shaped like three skulls above a blade of the blackest ebony...
"Oh how I curse that stinking sword!"
But I wander again. Please forgive my ramblings, my mind is not what it once was and it has been on other things of late. Teresa is coming soon. I must finish this.
Allow me to introduce myself.
I am Bandara. Von Jeric Bandara.
"I was a thief."
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When Von looked out from the shadows he was hard pressed to stay silent. The urge to laugh was so very strong. The 'pigeons', as the younger thieves had taken to calling the rich people in town, were out in force. He starred out from the darkness with a strong contempt of ...pigeons. The rich. They wander the streets in their frilly clothes with the powdered wigs and perfumed silk cloths press to their noses. The snobbish airs of grandeur burned at him. He had been to the bigger cites, he had seen the real thing. True kings and queens
These...pigeons... were a sickness. A sickness without a cure.
"They don't break a sweat in their lives except in their mistresses bed." Von says softly to himself. He has of late taken to talking to himself. It's a habit he's trying to break but it seems to be growing. "And this is what calls me a thief? What do I take from them? Bits of rock, shiny pieces of metal? They have their lives! That's more than most of them deserve given their actions."
The alley smells of piss and other less pleasant things. Still it's a familiar smell to the young thief. He grew up living off these streets. A vulture in the shadows, a common rat in the eyes of the guards. To some little more than a maggot in the heart of their city.
To Von? This is home.
His dark eyes sparkle when he sees a fat merchant on the street. The large man looks to be in a great hurry. Von can't help himself, he has to grin. The only time a man that fat would be moving that quickly would be when he had a goodly amount on him. Von almost laughs out loud when he sees the man looking around him suspiciously.
"Why doesn't he just where a sign?" The young thief's voice is low but it could have been heard. He shakes his head at the noise. "I have got to stop doing that."
Von then realizes he just said that out loud as well. Angry now at himself he follows the man with his eyes for a few seconds more, then with a grim chuckle, fades back into the shadows.
Running a parallel course to the merchant, he weaves his way through the rats and filth that has come to choke this part of the city. He leapes over drunks and trash on silent feet. Without a pause Von reaches to his side and pulls back a bolt on the side of the scabbard. The lock thrown the ebony blade all but leaps into his hand. Two foot of black steel that seems to swallow the light. An evil hiss fills the corners of Von's mind. Then a soft and wicked chuckle echoes through him.
Andric Vang is not a pleasant blade to wield but it does add a certain zest to life.
Sliding into the side of a building the shadows swallow Von. His eyes alone shine out into the night giving little warning to the merchant. Using a small steel mirror, from a pocket sewn into the back of his gloves, Von looks around the corner. With a tight-lipped grin the young thief see the man turn into one of the side streets.
"Taking sweets from children would be harder." Von says to himself as he moves back to the other end of this alley to wait. When he see the merchant pass he eases the dark blade around, turning it till it's held blade down. The three skulls that make up the pommel have been used more than a few times as a bludgeon. A quick look shows the street empty.
The strike hits before the man even knows that Von is there. As he crumples Von catches the man under the arms and drags the heavy weight back into the shadows.
Seeing as well as in daylight Von uses his left-hand to do a quick search of the man. The pouch on his side gains him a sizable amount of coins that ring like silver.
It is.
A grin slowly comes to split his face when he finds what it was that had been making the man hurry. Around his flabby neck he had hung a leather pouch. A small bag filed with ten rubies each the size of the first knuckle on Von's little finger. The thief has to let out a soft chuckle as he pours them back into their bag. He stuffs it into a pocket made into the inside of his belt.
"You are a fool indeed." He says to the man in a whisper. His lips near the unconscious man's ear. "You shouldn't have been carrying these without ten guards around you. Well to each their own foolishness. It just makes my job easier."
Von Jeric was just about to move out when he hears the heavy booted feet not far behind him. Moving without though Von's hand drops to the hilt of Andric Vang. Dark power flows from the sword up his arm like a river of shadow. With a leap none could copy Von goes straight up. His fingers lock onto the edge of the roof tile a good twenty feet above the cobblestones! He pulls himself up onto the tiles as silent as a mouse.
The young thief watches the two city guards walk up the alley and find the merchant. He smiles when he sees them looking around for him. They never look up. Of course not the roofs are far to high to reach here.
The feeling of eyes on them must be making the guards nervous though. They don't wait for the fat merchant to wake they simply drag him out behind them. Von stays where he is till they are gone from sight.
"I wouldn't be surprised if they don't steal the man's boots then blame it on Me. " he says to himself as he rises to his feet.
Looking around for a second, then deciding that where he is will do just as well, he takes off across the rooftops. The night was still young but what he has in his belt more than fills his required tribute. All but sprinting across rain slick tiles he is soon within sight of the old manor house that serves as the towns thieves guild.
Once a grand structure the city grew up around it, then abandoned it to the Sons of the Shadows. This whole part of the city has been falling to neglect for the last dozen years.
Now it belongs to the poor, the sick, the wicked!
The thieves!
Von is about two houses away when he is brought up short by a knife against his throat.
"Va Shada?" a voice behind him asks in thief chant. The knife's edge presses harder into the skin.
Bandara moves his hands out from his sides slowly to show that they are empty. His left arm, held just a little straighter than the other, tenses for a half second required to loosen the leather thong. His hidden dagger slips from down his sleeve and into his palm. The smoke blackened blade giving no hint to its presence.
"Beth van Shada Va till." He tells the man as he holds himself limber waiting for the feel of the knife cutting his throat. He holds the strike that will carry his killer with him ready.
The knife slowly moves away.
