Rudel grunted at the Baron's order, his expression making it clear that playing nursemaid to a debtor was beneath him. He shoved Lutz back towards the stairs. "Move, investment."
He was led not to some barracks, but to a cramped, windowless storage closet near the back of the warehouse. It smelled of mold and old rope. A thin, stained mattress lay in one corner next to a chamber pot.
"Home sweet home," Rudel sneered, pulling the door shut. Lutz heard the distinct click of a lock. He was in a cell.
"Charming. The 'damp mold' aesthetic is really in this season." Lutz mocked himself.
He stood in the darkness for a long moment, the silence pressing in. The events of the day—the hanging, the memories, the confrontation with the Baron—crashed over him. He slid down the wall onto the mattress, the rough wool of his vest scratching his neck. He was owned. A slave with a debt around his neck heavier than any rope.
He didn't have long to dwell. Perhaps only an hour later, the lock clicked again. Karl stood in the doorway, holding a small lantern. The flickering light carved deep shadows into his sharp features.
"Up," he said, his voice flat. "The Baron doesn't pay for idle hands. You have a job. Consider it your... orientation."
Lutz followed him out into the main warehouse, which was now mostly empty and lit by a few hanging lanterns. The Baron was at his desk, going over a ledger. He didn't look up.
"The Sea Serpent docked two hours ago," Karl said, leading Lutz to a workbench where a rough sketch of a ship's deck and a manifest were laid out. "It's a Loen merchantman. In its hold, mixed in with legitimate cargo, is a crate. Small, unmarked. The harbor-master is on our payroll, but he can't delay their unloading past dawn. We need it tonight."
Lutz looked at the sketch. "What's in the crate?"
"That's not your concern," Karl said, a faint, almost imperceptible smile touching his lips. "Your concern is getting it. The crew will be mostly ashore, drowning their pay. Two night watchmen. One at the gangplank, one making rounds." He leaned closer, and Lutz caught the scent of oil and smoke. "Rudel could knock them both into the water, but the noise would bring the city watch. We need it to disappear. Quietly. That's your specialty, isn't it, Fischer? Making things disappear."
It was a test. A direct application of the Baron's "investment" theory. They weren't just testing his courage; they were testing his specific value as a Marauder-in-waiting.
Lutz studied the sketch, Andrei's mind analyzing the sightlines while Lutz's instincts assessed the risks. "I'll need a few things," he said, his voice low. "A dockworker's cap, a coil of good rope, a small crowbar... and a bottle of cheap whiskey."
Karl's eyebrow raised. "Whiskey?"
"For the watchman on rounds," Lutz said, the plan already forming. "A friendly dockworker who had a bit too much to drink, sharing a drink with a lonely sailor far from home... it's a better story than a body in the harbor."
For the first time, Karl looked genuinely intrigued, not just analytically curious. He nodded slowly. "The tools are easy. I'll get you the whiskey." He turned to go, then paused. "Don't disappoint the Baron, Fischer. He doesn't like it when his assets depreciate."
Left alone for a moment, Lutz looked down at his hands. They were no longer trembling. The fear was still there, a cold knot in his stomach, but it was being crowded out by a sharp, focused clarity. This was a language he understood. Deception. Misdirection. It was a con, just like the ones he'd run in the market, only the stakes were his life.
The game had begun.
The tools appeared on the floor of his closet-cell ten minutes later: a coarse wool dockworker's cap, a coil of sturdy rope, a small, flat crowbar that could be easily concealed, and a bottle of cheap, amber-colored whiskey. No one brought them. The door simply unlocked and clicked shut again. The message was clear: his needs were accommodated, but his presence was an afterthought.
Lutz sat on the thin mattress and methodically examined each item. The cap was stained with sweat and smelled of salt. Perfect. He put it on, pulling the brim low. The rope was good quality, supple but strong. The crowbar was cold and heavy in his hand, a sliver of potential violence. He stashed it inside his jacket. Finally, he uncorked the whiskey. The smell was sharp and abrasive. He didn't drink any. Instead, he took a small, deliberate sip, swirled it in his mouth, and spat it onto the front of his own shirt. The pungent odor of alcohol immediately began to cling to him. The final touch was to splash a little on his hands and neck. He was no longer Lutz the debtor; he was a drunk dockworker, a ghost of the harbor night.
An hour later, the lock clicked again. Karl stood there, holding a lantern. His eyes swept over Lutz, taking in the cap, the smell, the slightly slumped posture. A flicker of something—not approval, but acknowledgment—passed through his gaze. He didn't speak, merely jerked his head and turned.
Lutz followed him through the silent, cavernous warehouse and out a side door that opened onto a narrow, stinking alley that ran parallel to the main wharves. The cold night air was a shock, cutting through the whiskey-scented miasma around him. The sounds of the harbor at night were different—softer, more secretive. The clanging of day-shift work was gone, replaced by the gentle lap of water against pilings, the creak of moored ships, and the distant, mournful cry of a foghorn.
"The Sea Serpent is on berth seven," Karl said, his voice barely a whisper. He pointed to a three-masted merchant ship tied up further down the quay. Lanterns glowed softly on its deck, casting long, dancing shadows. "The watchman at the gangplank is old, half-deaf. The one on rounds is younger, bored. He's your key. The crate should be in the forward hold. It's marked with a blue 'X'."
"How do you know all this?" Lutz asked, the question slipping out before he could stop it.
Karl's head turned slowly. In the dim light, his eyes were black pits. "We have people everywhere. That's what you're now a part of. Or you're nothing at all." He gestured toward the ship. "You have until the change of the watch at four bells. Don't be seen. Don't get caught. If you do, the Vipers don't know you."
"Right. And if I see the harbor master, should I ask for his blessing or just pick his pocket too?" Lutz replied, Karl maintained a serious expression and didn't say anything.
The weight of the moment settled on him. This was it. His first test. Failure meant death, either at the hands of the city watch or, more likely, Rudel's. Success meant deeper entanglement in a life he never chose.
He took a deep breath, pulling the persona of the drunk around him like a cloak. He shuffled out of the alley and onto the main quay, adopting the rolling gait of a man who'd spent too long on a ship and too long in a tavern. He kept his head down, muttering incoherently to himself, a solitary figure in the vast, fog-shrouded night.
The Sea Serpent loomed larger as he approached. He saw the first watchman, just as Karl had said: an older man seated on a barrel at the foot of the gangplank, a lantern at his feet, his chin already nodding onto his chest. Lutz gave him a wide berth, stumbling past as if barely aware of the ship's existence. His eyes, however, missed nothing.
He needed to get aboard without using the gangplank. His plan was simple, audacious, and relied on the watchman's inattention and the cover of darkness. He shuffled past the ship's stern until he found what he was looking for: a thick mooring line, as thick as his arm, tying the ship's port side to a bollard on the dock. It rose up into the shadows, slick with damp.
This was the moment. A direct test of the body he now inhabited. He glanced around. The quay was deserted. With a final muttered curse for the benefit of any unseen ears, he grabbed the rough, wet rope. It was like climbing a sodden, vertical snake. The fibers dug into his palms, but Lutz's muscles, honed by a life of scrambling over roofs and through windows, held firm. He moved quickly, hand over hand, his feet finding purchase against the ship's hull. The world narrowed to the strain in his shoulders, the smell of tar and wet rope, and the dark water swirling below.
'Note to self: if I survive this, invent climbing gear. And then patent it so I can afford to not do this ever again!.' He thought.
He reached the gunwale and hauled himself over, rolling silently onto the deck. He lay still for a moment in the lee of the railing, his heart pounding, listening. He could hear the slow, heavy footsteps of the second watchman somewhere amidships, and the faint snore of the old man below. Phase one was complete. He was aboard.
The deck was a maze of coiled ropes, capstans, and hatches. According to Karl's instructions, the forward hold was his target. He began to move, keeping to the deepest shadows, his steps light and deliberate. The ship was a living thing, creaking and groaning around him. Every sound seemed amplified in the silence.
He found the hatch leading to the forward hold. It was secured with a heavy padlock. A smile touched his lips. This was where the crowbar came in. But as he reached inside his jacket, a new sound froze him in his tracks.
It wasn't the watchman's footsteps. It was a voice, humming a low, tuneless melody. And it was coming from the other side of the hatch. The hold wasn't empty. Karl's information was wrong.
Lutz pressed himself against a large wooden crate, his mind racing. The plan was already off course. The trial had truly begun.
The low humming from the other side of the hatch froze the blood in Lutz's veins. Every instinct screamed at him to flee, to scramble back down the mooring line and vanish into the night. But the image of Baron Vogler's flint-like eyes and the certain, brutal death that awaited failure kept him rooted to the spot, pressed against the rough wood of the crate.
Think. You have to think.
Andrei's mind, used to solving abstract problems of syntax and etymology, flailed against the immediate, physical danger. Lutz's memories offered sharper, more primal solutions: run, hide, fight. But none of them fit. He couldn't run. He couldn't hide forever. A fight was a last resort that would bring the entire ship down on him.
The humming stopped, replaced by the sound of someone shifting weight and the rustle of paper. The person in the hold was settled, comfortable. They weren't leaving.
A distraction. He needed to draw them out, to create an opening. His eyes scanned the deck frantically. The crowbar was a weapon, not a tool for subtlety. The rope was too long. The whiskey… an idea, half-formed and desperate, flickered in his mind.
He couldn't just throw the bottle. The sound of shattering glass would be an alarm bell, not a distraction. It would bring the watchman from the gangplank running. He needed a sound that was intriguing, out of place, but not overtly threatening.
His gaze fell on a pile of loose iron chain links coiled near the base of the mast, likely used for minor repairs. They were small, heavy, and would make a distinct, metallic clatter if dropped. It was a risk. But it was all he had.
Moving with a painstaking slowness that made his muscles ache, Lutz crept away from the hatch, toward the pile of chains. The deck seemed to groan with every shift of his weight. He felt impossibly loud, a bull in a china shop made of shadows and silence. He reached the chains, his fingers closing around a handful of the cold, heavy links. They felt like a terrible idea.
He needed to throw them away from the hatch, to pull the person's attention to the opposite side of the ship. He looked across the deck to the starboard railing. It seemed a mile away. Taking a deep breath, he underhanded the handful of chains with as much force as he dared.
The result was both better and worse than he could have imagined.
The chains didn't land with a single, loud clang. Instead, they scattered, hitting the deck with a rapid, chaotic series of clinks, clatters, and rolls that seemed to echo like gunshots in the quiet night. It was a bizarre, unmistakable sound that seemed to go on forever as the links skittered across the wooden planks.
'Well, so much for subtlety. Hope you like the sound of a one-man brass band, you poor bastard.' Lutz said inwardly.
For a heart-stopping second, nothing happened. Then, from within the hold, came a sharp, startled curse. Heavy footsteps moved toward the hatch.
Lutz scrambled back to his hiding spot behind the large crate, his heart hammering against his ribs so violently he was sure it could be heard. He squeezed himself into the smallest possible space, pulling the dockworker's cap down over his eyes, the smell of his own whiskey-soaked shirt filling his nostrils.
The hatch creaked open. A large, broad-shouldered man in a sailor's jersey emerged, holding a lantern high. "Hello?" he called out, his voice thick with suspicion. "Jens? That you messin' about?"
He took a few steps away from the hatch, toward the source of the sound. His back was now to Lutz. This was the moment. But the man had left the hatch open, the lantern light pooling just inside. If Lutz tried to slip in now, he'd be silhouetted in the light.
The sailor bent down, picking up one of the stray chain links. He frowned, turning it over in his hand. "What in the blazes…?" He took another step forward, peering into the darkness toward the starboard side.
Lutz saw his chance. It was a tiny window. As the sailor's attention was fully focused ahead, Lutz moved. He didn't run; he flowed, keeping his body low, using the deep shadows cast by the lantern itself. He reached the hatch and slipped inside, pressing himself immediately against the inner wall, out of the direct line of sight from the opening.
The hold was a cavern of shadows and smells—damp wood, burlap, and the faint, sweet scent of grain. Crates and sacks were stacked high, creating narrow canyons. He had to find the one with the blue X, and he had to do it now.
He heard the sailor outside mutter to himself, then his footsteps started to return. Lutz's pulse spiked. He was trapped. If the sailor came back in and closed the hatch, he was finished. He had to find the crate immediately or abort the mission.
Frantically, his eyes scanned the nearest stacks. Nothing. He ducked deeper into the maze of cargo, his hands trembling as he felt the rough wood of the crates, searching for a painted mark in the near-total darkness. The footsteps were right outside the hatch.
Then he saw it. On a small, unassuming wooden crate tucked behind a tower of grain sacks, a faint blue 'X' was painted near the top. It was there.
The hatch began to creak shut.
Lutz didn't think. He lunged forward, not toward the crate, but deeper into the shadows, behind the largest stack of sacks he could find. He pulled his limbs in, making himself as small as possible, just as the hatch closed with a soft but final thud, plunging the hold into absolute blackness. A moment later, he heard the sound of the padlock being clicked back into place.
The distraction had worked. But he had succeeded only in locking himself in the hold with his target, and with a sailor who was now undoubtedly on high alert. He had the crowbar to break open the crate, but the noise would bring the man running. He was closer to his goal than ever, but more trapped than he had been since he woke up in a hanged man's body.
The trial was no longer about theft. It was about escape.