A sizeable crowd of people gathered outside the massive wooden front doors to the towering building of stone. The doors were closed. Strange. They'd been providing aid and letting those who'd lost their homes to the fiery attacks from the dragon sleep inside for the longest time now. With the steward's promise of the church continuing to help those in need, the shut gates were all the more peculiar. Curiosity won out, and he approached the mass of people, listening in. From what he could gather, it'd been closed and locked all day. Every single priest had gone inside and then, without warning, the church of the fallen angels cut itself off from the rest of Halmstadt. Some of those gathered cried out for food and shelter, but most, he heard, shouted in anger. Those taking shelter inside had not been thrown out beforehand, leaving them still in there. Their loved ones were now out there, wanting to see their family or friends.

  The anger simmered and grew even as Vidar stood there taking it all in. Some shouted for axes to be gathered, but Vidar knew it would do them no good. Now that he was close enough and knew what he was looking for, he saw them. Small, almost completely faded algiz runes hidden all over the door. Most of them were paited over with oils or obscured in other ways. No one would suspect a rune thought lost to the ages to be out in the open like that. Elbowing his way forward, he put his finger to one and sure enough, essence filled the inner circle.

  The priests had known. It was not a fluke that Vidar found the algiz rune. He was just the first one in an age to attack the church. In this case, the church's padlock. They must've grown lax in their upkeep of the runes, a mistake they would not repeat, especially now when the barrier runes were soon to become public knowledge, if they hadn't already.

  Vidar tuned out the crowd, trying to imagine what was happening inside the church of the fallen angels. Wincing, he stopped. All he could think of was the ritual room covered in blood and the pale bodies in that cart.

  Someone in the crowd shouted a word that broke Vidar out of his dazed thinking.

  "Shadow!"

  Blinking, he turned around, but it was impossible to tell who'd spoken. What of the shadows? He'd seen them. Felt them following him. On a bright day like this, the mere thought was laughable. But in the night? Not so much. Perhaps the whispers of people being stolen away weren't so far-fetched, after all.

  Guardsmen were hurrying across the snow-covered field of graves surrounding the church. Vidar allowed himself to be pushed back into the crowd and then left, not wanting to get involved. He threw a glance toward the inn where he'd emerged, following his escape from the church. It was an exit, but also an entrance. Perhaps? No. Curiosity was one thing, but breaking into the church to satisfy it was another. If caught, everything he was trying to build would be for nothing. It was not a risk Vidar was willing to take. Not now. Maybe never.

  Rend was the more pressing matter either way, so Vidar set off, hearing the yells and other sounds of the scuffle breaking out in front of the church, where guardsmen clashed with the gathered, concerned citizens.

  As he hurried along, he caught the eye of someone loitering by a corner of a baker's shop. The man, a young, spindly lad with disheveled brown hair and dark, almost empty-looking, hungry eyes, looked away, startled. When Vidar left the street, he peeked back out, and the obvious thief was gone. Those bastards were following him.

  In order to lose his pursuer, Vidar walked one street over in the wrong direction and entered a shop. As he peered out the window, trying to glimpse the thief, someone cleared his throat, pulling Vidar's attention.

  "'Ya looking for something?"

  The smell hit him then, the warm, earthly scent of worked leather overpowering a subtle tone of warm oils and the nose-pricking sharpness of chemicals from somewhere beyond the shop itself.

  "W-what?" Vidar asked, half-turning, not wanting to take his eyes off the window. When he saw no sign of the thief following him, he breathed a sigh of relief and turned to the proprietor. "Sorry. What?"

  "Asked ya if ya wanted something, or are ya just hidin' out?"

  Taking in the shop, he realized that yes, he did want something. Throwing one last glance over his shoulder, Vidar stepped up to a small, round table where the leatherworker sat punching holes into a thick hide with a needle almost the size of Vidar's finger.

  After digging a little, one of the small wooden discs he carried with him, this one with the kenaz symbol painted into the shallow grooves, clanked onto the table, spinning a little before coming to a rest.

  "I'm looking to buy a satchel of sorts that'll give me easy access to my runes without having to look."

  The leatherworker, a grizzled man with a thin, graying mustache overshadowed by a massive nose, plucked the disc off the table and squinted at it, turning it this way and that. "Simple enough job, but it'll be extra."

  "Why extra?"

  "Would have'ta design it from scratch, ya know? Takes time."

  "Of course," Vidar said, holding out his hand to retrieve the rune. "I'm sort of light on funds at the moment, though."

  The leatherworker scoffed like he'd heard that sentence from clients more times than he wanted to count. Still, a small smile spread beneath his little mustache. "Can make them runes, can ya?"

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "Wouldn't be much of a rune scribe if I couldn't," Vidar said, with an air of sophistication as he readied himself to haggle.

  Satisfied, he exited the leatherworkers’ shop, having almost forgotten about being followed. The stark cold reminded him, but after making sure no thieves loitered around any corners, he set off in the hatch's direction. His satchel would be ready in a few days, the leatherworker promised, and all Vidar had to part with was a few sowilo and kenaz runes, as well as a single algiz rune. That last one the leatherworker hadn't heard of yet, but he accepted it as payment and promised to spread the news of its uses to his friends and direct them to Runes Aplenty if they, too, required protection.

  Feeling like quite the businessman, Vidar made it to the right street. Then, all sense of accomplishment fell away, however, when he spotted the thief again by a stand selling shrunken apples. The thief from before guarded the hatch. They knew. Of course, they knew.

  Swearing to himself as he pulled back, Vidar circled the house and took a side street to approach from a different direction while considering how to proceed. This thief couldn't be a very experienced one, because he just kept looking at the hatch without even glancing around the street. Because of that, the lad didn't spot Vidar until he stood right next to him.

  "Hey!" Vidar shouted.

  The thief jumped and spun as he let out a girlish yelp. Apples from the fruit vendor's stand tumbled to the ground, and the vendor let out a long string of loud curses until the thief withdrew a dagger from his pocket. The vendor fled as the thief held up the trembling tip of the weapon toward Vidar.

  "What do you want?" Vidar asked, hearing the anger in his own voice as he disregarded the weapon. The thief didn't look like he knew which end to stab with. Even if he did, algiz runes kept Vidar safe and the stakra rune in his hand was the only weapon he needed if it came to that.

  "W-what?" the thief stammered, looking like he wanted to bolt and follow the fruit vendor.

  "You're following me," Vidar said. "Why?"

  The thief straightened and puffed out his chest, but the voice coming out between his thin lips was shrill and wavered. "Y-you have to c-come with me!"

  "No, I don't."

  "You don't?"

  Vidar took a step forward and the thief stepped back, almost tripping over one of the fallen apples. "You need to tell me why you are here and what you want," he said, showing the rune he was holding. "Or I'm going to use this to hurt you."

  The thief wouldn't know what the symbol on the rune meant, but from the flash of fear in the lad's face, it had the intended effect, and the tip of the knife shook so much now that Vidar thought the thief might drop his weapon.

  "Do you understand?" Vidar asked.

  Swallowing hard, the thief glanced to the side. Vidar saw what the thief intended before he took his first step. He'd decided to make a run for it, but that was out of the question. Vidar needed answers, and he was tired of not getting them. The thieves had crossed a line in attacking his new shop. To enact his retribution, more information was necessary.

  Triggering the stakra rune after pointing it at the thief's legs as the lad turned to run, an invisible thrust pushed him off his feet. In triggering the rune, Vidar triggered the opening of the circle small enough to only put the thief on his ass, rather than maim him. A man without legs was not prone to answering questions.

  As the thief fell, he dropped the dagger, and it disappeared into a drift of snow with an audible thud. "Ah!" he cried out in fear, scrambling on hands and knees, digging into the snow, trying to retrieve his weapon.

  Vidar stepped on the thief's hand and got down on his knees. He showed the stunned thief the stakra rune. "I could have taken your legs if I wanted to."

  The thief grew still and quiet, almost as if he was playing dead.

  "Nod if you understand."

  The thief nodded, not daring to look up.

  "Tell me your name," Vidar demanded.

  After a moment of silence, the lad let out a whimper. "Linus.".

  "Your name is Linus?"

  "Yes?" the thief said, though it came out almost like a question.

  Vidar removed his foot. "Stand up, Linus."

  Wet from the snow and shivering, perhaps from fear, Linus got to his feet. Looking at him like this, the lad seemed even younger than he'd first appeared. He kept eyeing the rune in Vidar's hand. Vidar didn't blame him. Stakra was a powerful, scary tool.

  "Now, Linus," Vidar said, his tone firm. "Tell me why you were guarding the hatch."

  "The what?" Linus asked, confused.

  Vidar pointed. "The entrance to the sewer system."

  "O-oh," Linus stammered. "Well, I lost sight of you, and you often go down there."

  They'd been following him for a while, then. Vidar wasn't surprised.

  "How did you know I was going down this one?"

  Linus gave a small shrug. "It's the one you go down the most when you're in this part of town. We're watching the others too, but I figured you'd come here."

  "Were you going to follow me down there?"

  Linus shook his head, eyes opening even wider in fright. "I was going to catch you, bring you with me."

  Before continuing the obvious line of questioning, Vidar wanted to make one thing clear. "Are you a part of the thieves' guild, Linus?"

  Linus nodded again.

  "And is the thieves' guild down there right now?"

  "Not as far as I know."

  "Good," Vidar muttered. They probably hadn't found another key yet. "Where were you to take me, and why?"

  Linus licked his lips, his breathing uneven. He gave a quick sniff, pulling in loose snot through his reddened nose. "My boss… he wanted to see you."

  "He wants to see me? That's a load of crap," Vidar said, his voice sharp. "If he wanted to see me, why would he try to burn down my house?"

  By the look on Linus's face, Vidar read that the lad had no idea what he was talking about.

  "I don't know," Linus said. "I don't think my boss would do that."

  "Give me the name of your boss."

  "I can't do that," Linus said, his voice shaking. "They'll kill me."

  Vidar held up the stakra rune to Linus's face and began mumbling gibberish in a low, threatening voice, as if casting an evil spell.

  Linus cried out in fear, crossed his arms in front of his face, and blurted out, "Fjodor!"

  "That was easy," Vidar said with a smirk. "Your boss's name is Fjodor?"

  Linus hung his head in defeat.

  "And this Fjodor… is he the boss of all of Hamstadt?"

  Linus let out a nervous chuckle. "No, no, just this area."

  "This area?" Vidar asked, pointing to the ground.

  Linus nodded without looking up.

  "How many bosses are there in Hamstadt?"

  Having revealed one secret, the next came easier. "Four."

  "And the boss of Andersburg? Who took over after Yallander?" Vidar asked, remembering the foul man he'd been forced to kill.

  Linus gave a name, one he'd heard before, the same name Torbjorn shared before his end. "Tyv."

  "That's it, then," Vidar thought aloud. "Four different bosses. One wants to meet me, another wants me dead and my house burned to the ground."

  "Who are the other two?" Vidar pressed.

  "I don't know."

  Vidar raised the starkra rune again.

  Linus let out a small whimper. "I don't know! They don't tell me much. I only know Tyv, Yallander's replacement because Fjodor hates the guy's guts!"

  "Interesting," Vidar mused, standing up straight. "Okay, Linus, here's what we'll do. I'm going to go down there after you tell me where I can find this Fjodor fellow. I'll meet him and have a chat."

  Linus squirmed. "He doesn't like to wait."

  "I don't care," Vidar said. "Where?"