Jimmy and the Crawler

To the gamers who bought Betrayal at Krondor

and Return to Krondor and gave me an opportunity

to work with some of my favourite

characters again.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Map

Chapter One: Trap

Chapter Two: Mysteries

Chapter Three: Recruitment

Chapter Four: Arrival

Chapter Five: Theatrics

Chapter Six: Ambush

Chapter Seven: Departure

Chapter Eight: Instruction

Chapter Nine: Discovery

Chapter Ten: Hunting

Chapter Eleven: Snare

Chapter Twelve: Improvisation

Chapter Thirteen: Realization

Chapter Fourteen: Confrontation

Chapter Fifteen: Krondor

Continue the Adventure …

About the Author

Also by the Author

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

Map

• CHAPTER ONE •

Trap

JAMES CRIED OUT IN PAIN.

He barely managed to pull to the right as the assassin’s blade sliced his left side. Any man a scant instant slower in recognizing the danger would now be lying dead on the floor; but James stepped past the out-thrust arm of the killer, wrapping his own arm around the man’s neck and drawing his dagger.

Squire James of Krondor, once known as Jimmy the Hand, boy-thief extraordinary, and now personal assistant to Prince Arutha of Krondor, had lived among murderers, thugs and bullies his entire life, and he had faced skilled assassins more times than he cared to recount. The man who had tried to take him down was not as gifted as the members of the deadly Guild of Assassins, the Nighthawks, but he was no common street thug, either. James knew this struggle would be over in moments, and he was determined not to be the one who ended up lying face down on the cobbles in a sea of his own blood.

The assassin did as James expected, reversing his dagger and slashing backwards into the space James was at that very instant vacating. His left side was hot and sticky, and hurt as badly as any injury he chose to remember, but he knew the wound wasn’t life threatening, being no more than a slice across his ribs. It would require plenty of stitches, but it wouldn’t kill him. Unless he allowed it to distract him and slow him down.

Ignoring the pain, James let himself fall to the cobbles, then twisted as the assassin lost his balance. He was not willing to let this become a grappling match, as blood loss would quickly give the other man the advantage. Instead he allowed the fellow to fall on top of him. His right elbow struck the stone and pain shot up to his shoulder. Only the frenzy of the fight kept him from losing consciousness. But he held tight to his blade as the assassin attempted to turn and strike.

At the moment when fate decides who lives and who does not, James’s blade met the entire weight of the man while the assassin’s blade sliced through air.

James felt the man stiffen for a moment, then go limp. He lay motionless for a long, painful minute, refusing to give in to the darkness that was threatening to overwhelm him. He had been injured enough times in his young life to understand that he was experiencing shock, and that that in itself could kill him. Losing consciousness for any length of time in this particular part of the city was a ticket to certain death. If blood loss didn’t do for him, the city watch would find him floating in the bay with empty pockets.

Too many people in this part of Krondor wished to see Squire James dead. Some of their ire was well earned, but some of it was simply a matter of circumstance. The Mockers no longer officially wanted him dead for betraying them, or at least that was how it was told to the rank and file, though in fact his life had been bartered for by the Prince of Krondor in return for saving Arutha’s life. Years later, he was still considered to be no longer protected by the Guild of Thieves, but the reality was that he had begun to build a network of agents in the principality.

After a bloody encounter with the Guild of Assassins, and having discovered that the Kingdom’s spy network was non-existent, Prince Arutha had charged James with the task of creating an effective intelligence service, so he had started recruiting. Among his first recruits were a number of young Mockers who still regarded him as a friend. But there were still more who would count it a lucky break to be able to brag that they had ended the days of Jimmy the Hand.

Either way, staying in this part of the city for too long was likely to bring an unwelcome end to the night.

James sat up and took a long, deep breath. His side was on fire and his head swam from the pain. He was far enough from the palace that there was a real danger he might not get there before passing out.

He got to his feet slowly, only to have the ground conspire to move beneath them. Making a quick inventory of the people nearby who might do him a good turn, he discovered the list was short. Staggering along, he kept himself upright with a hand on the wall.

Krondor’s habitual night fog was thickening, and predators were likely to be shrouded in it, so returning to the palace became doubly problematic.

As a port, the city was oddly situated. There was a growing trade port less than five days’ ride south by wagon which would have been an ideal harbour, being south-facing in a wide bay. Even the town of Sarth to the north would have been a better port with some dredging and a man-made breakwater. But the original Prince of Krondor, upon reaching the shore of the Bitter Sea, had declared the promontory upon which the castle was built to be where he’d raise the Kingdom’s flag. The standing joke among the palace staff was that Krondor was where it was because the original prince loved the view of the sunsets from that hall.

James had to admit, they were often lovely sunsets.

He realized he was getting giddy and forced his mind to clarity as he stumbled towards his destination. As he moved slowly along, he reviewed how he had managed to find himself in this predicament. Since returning from the north and his very odd adventures involving the mad pirate named Bear, he had been investigating the presence of a rival gang in Krondor, headed by a mysterious figure known only as the Crawler.

In the last four months life in Krondor had returned as much to normal as it ever did. The prince was busy overseeing the welfare of half a nation, including being the primary spokesman for his brother the king to both the Island Kingdom of Queg and the Free Cities of Natal–the Kingdom’s chief trading partners in the west, as well as its chief military threat. Bulk goods from the northern province of Yabon came down the coast to be brokered and sent eastward, while luxury goods from the east and down in the Empire came through on their way to Yabon, the Free Cities, and the Far Coast.

But one thing hadn’t returned to normal, and that was criminal activity.

Which was why the Prince of Krondor’s personal squire found himself bleeding more than he’d prefer in a side street near the boundary between the Merchants’ Quarter and the Poor Quarter of the city. For weeks he had paid every rumour-monger and informant he could trust to provide half-way decent intelligence and had bullied, threatened and bribed any Mocker he could find, in order to try to piece together a picture of what was going on here.

When the Crawler had first appeared on the scene he had been viewed as merely one more interloper, an ambitious upstart who would be quickly destroyed or absorbed by the Upright Man’s Mockers. By the time James had left the city to deal with the problem surrounding the theft of the Tear of the Gods–the Ishapian Temple’s most revered artefact–he had sensed that something was already different about this gang. There was a relationship between the Crawler and some very evil and bloody magic that was plaguing the principality. He couldn’t connect the events of the last few years since uncovering the demon cult in the Jal-Pur desert, the loss of the Tear of the Gods, and other odd occurrences directly to the Crawler and his men, but what James called his ‘bump of trouble’ told him there was, somehow, a connection, and he intended to discover what it was.

James had undertaken that mission for the prince and the Ishapians a few months previously, and since returning to Krondor he and Jazhara, the prince’s advisor on magic, had been poring over reports, searching for those that directly or indirectly referenced the sort of events that might point back to the Crawler and his allies.

A pattern had emerged. Although it centred on Krondor, it extended from Durbin in the west on the coast of Kesh, all the way north to Ylith, southernmost city in Yabon Province. It had taken a lot of work, but the prince had set it as a high priority: the attempted theft of the Tear of the Gods had troubled him deeply. There were few truly sacred things in life, but the Tear was one of them: without it, all the temples in the world would be cut off from the gods for ten years until a new Tear was formed in the mountains to the west. James was one of the few outside the Ishapian Temple even to know that the Tear existed. That knowledge illustrated the level of threat: someone else knew what it was and had tried to seize it for their own use, or to deny it to the Ishapians.

Whether he was architect or agent, James did not know; but that the Crawler played a part in this he did not doubt at all.

He willed himself to take one painful step after another, holding his left arm tightly against his side, using his soaked tunic to staunch the blood flow as much as he could. His mind kept trying to wander, but he forced himself to focus on what he knew so far.

Weeks of enquiry had brought James to a meeting that had a high probability of being between independent smugglers who were avoiding both the Crown’s scrutiny and the Mockers’ oversight, and an important agent of the Crawler. He had conferred with three of his informants, and then personally ventured out to observe this meeting.

He leaned against the wall and blinked hard, shaking his head, both to clear it and in self-recrimination at his own arrogance.

It had been a trap.

James pushed himself away from the wall and managed to get as far as the corner. He judged the time to be some three hours before dawn: the palace chirurgeon would be less than pleased to be woken in the dead of night to sew up the prince’s squire yet again.

Still, thought James as he half-walked, half-staggered through the empty Merchants’ Quarter, it wasn’t as if the man hadn’t done it many times before.

What had struck James about talking with his informants in the basement room of the inn owned by one of the Mockers he trusted most, was that they were truly frightened. A few confrontations between the Upright Man’s bashers and agents of the Crawler had produced more dead bashers than expected; moreover, the Crawler had made his intentions clear enough by looting a very special shed near the Royal Customs where items of high value were secreted away until cooperative customs agents came on duty. The contents of that shed were worth a half-year’s theft, extortion and robbery to the Mockers, and the Upright Man had put out the word that any man who brought him the identity of the Crawler would be given a lifetime’s riches.

The members of the sheriff’s constabulary whom James trusted were equally uneasy, as there had been a few run-ins with the Crawler’s men over the last few months. Unlike the usual, almost ritual, confrontations with the Mockers–some half-hearted resistance, followed by an every-man-for-himself fleeing of the scene–these fights had been intense and bloody. The sheriff’s men were staunch enough lads, but they were not trained soldiers and it appeared that many serving the Crawler had military training. Twice, the sheriff’s men had been forced to retreat, calling for reinforcements either from their own ranks or the City Watch, only to find that the Crawler’s men had fled by the time they could press home the counter-attack.

Currently, Jonathan Means, the acting sheriff, was James’s most important agent in the city. James lobbied the prince almost daily to give Jonathan the position held by his late father, despite the objections of Captain Garruth, leader of the City Watch. The captain was a good man but he wanted the city constabulary absorbed into the Watch, doing away with the office of Sheriff of Krondor; but James had Arutha’s ear and had convinced him that a garrison city was not a happy city. He had travelled widely and heard many stories from older Mockers about such cities in Kesh and Queg. James had offered Arutha the alternative solution of integrating the City Watch into Arutha’s household guard, the Prince’s Own, which would have put Garruth directly under the control of the Knight-Marshall of Krondor, Duke Gardan. The captain of the household guard would be retiring soon, so personal ambition might sway Garruth more than losing authority over the civilian population of Krondor. The presence of three different commands of armed men made no sense to James, and absorbing the Watch into the Prince’s Own would create a clear demarcation between civilian and military authority. Besides, James already had tacit control of the sheriff’s constabulary as an adjunct to royal intelligence, and he didn’t want them being frustrated by well-meaning Watchmen whose charge was ill defined and based on tradition. The Watch defended the city from enemies without and within; the constabulary kept order, while the Prince’s Own defended the palace. James wondered at what point someone in authority had thought this was a good idea.

Whilst dwelling on these concerns he had stopped moving and now found himself leaning against another wall. He couldn’t even judge how far he had come. Between his loss of focus and the fog, he wasn’t even entirely sure where exactly he was in the Merchants’ Quarter. He squinted at a sign above a doorway depicting a bolt of cloth and an oversized needle and finally recognized it as William & Sons Tailors.

He pushed himself away from the wall and took a few steps to the corner. Moving caused him an unexpected moment of clarity. As he rounded a corner giving onto a broad boulevard that would take him straight to the palace, he appreciated the fact that one unintended consequence of this situation had been his ability to return to his old haunts–the sewers and rooftops of the city–almost untroubled. Even though the death mark had been lifted, he had been cautioned to keep clear of the Mockers and their dens, or else there would be no guarantee for his safety. But James, being Jimmy, had ignored that and dared to travel the rooftops or sewers at need, but it had proven cumbersome and at times difficult, for he had often had to lie low while Mockers conducted business between where he found himself and his destination.

During the recent confrontations with the Nighthawks and the quest for the return of the Tear of the Gods, he had done enough damage to the Crawler’s men to have earned back some grudging respect from the Upright Man. James was among the most likely to achieve the Upright Man’s goal–ridding Krondor of the Crawler–and therefore he was now a valuable ally to the Thieves’ Guild, so the Mockers had started to look the other way when he went poking around.

James reached a point roughly halfway between his ambush and the palace and stopped for a moment to catch his breath. He clutched his side and felt more blood drenching his shirt beneath the leather tunic he wore. This wound was not going to heal on its own. As loath as he ever was to admit he was wrong, he realized he had underestimated the damage he had sustained.

He heard footfalls, boot heels striking the cobbles coming from somewhere up ahead. The lamps were placed far enough apart that small dark areas lingered between the pools of light, and into one of these he quickly ducked. He had no trust in the Goddess of Luck. Experience had taught him that self-reliance was always his best bet. If there were a god of self-reliance, he’d have been praying to him fervently. He found the irony of that contradiction amusing, or as much as he could be amused, given his current situation.

The footsteps got louder and James struggled to stay focused: there might be a furious minute or so coming up that would decide his fate. He reached across his body and slowly wrapped his right hand around his sword hilt, flexing his fingers and tensing as three figures hove into view.

He was teetering on the brink of collapse when they came walking into a pool of lamplight.

Catching sight of the figure in the shadows drawing a sword, the men slowed and fanned out, each of them also drawing a weapon. Rather than rushing into an attack, they approached slowly. A few yards away from James, the two men on the flanks stopped while the one in the middle said, ‘Who passes this night?’

James blinked in confusion for a moment, then pushed himself away from the wall. ‘Jonathan?’

The acting sheriff, Jonathan Means, looked incredulous. ‘James?’

‘I could use a bit of help,’ said James.

And then he fell forward, losing consciousness so swiftly that he did not even feel strong arms grab him to stop him striking the cobbles.

• CHAPTER TWO •

Mysteries

JAMES OPENED HIS EYES.

An oval shape hovered above him, and slowly it resolved itself into a face. Dark eyes looked down on him with concern, but there was an amused set to the lips. A woman’s voice asked, ‘Are you all right?’

James’s first impulse was to say something clever, but he couldn’t think of anything clever.

The face above him repeated the question.

James smiled and blinked and he finally replied, ‘You’re so pretty.’

A light laugh was echoed by a deeper masculine one, and someone out of James’s sight said, ‘I’ll send for the prince.’

‘It’s the drugs,’ said another male voice behind James.

He tried to turn and felt agony rip up his left side. A soft hand pushed gently on his shoulder, firmly forcing him back down. A fog seemed to lift from his mind and at last he recognized the face above him. ‘Jazhara?’

The Prince of Krondor’s magic-advisor smiled. ‘Welcome back. We were worried.’

She was a woman of medium height and solid build, though her figure tended to curves and her legs were elegantly tapered. By any measure she was attractive, and she had a no-nonsense attitude that discouraged James’s usual tendency to try to disarm ladies with practised flirtation.

The voice behind James said, ‘If Sheriff Means hadn’t fetched you here quickly, Squire, I think you might finally have left us.’

The disapproving tone brought recognition even though the speaker was still out of James’s line of sight. ‘Ah, Master Reynolds, again I am in your debt.’

The face of an older man moved into view, hovering over Jazhara’s shoulder. It was William, lieutenant of the prince’s household guard and son of the magician Pug.

‘Help me sit up,’ begged James, and Jazhara piled some pillows up behind him so that he could look around the room. As the last effects of the sleeping draught the chirurgeon had given him before sewing him up wore off, pain returned. He winced as he settled into the pillows.

‘I’ve sent for the prince,’ said William, walking into view. The young soldier had matured greatly since entering the prince’s service and had become James’s unofficial partner in crime. James’s best friend, Squire Locklear, had been banished to the northern frontier of Yabon as punishment for a transgression involving the wife of an influential man at court. James had thought more than once that women would be the death of Locklear.

William was a different sort, something of a romantic idealist. Taller by half a head than his father Pug, he looked like the icon of the loyal prince’s soldier: broad shoulders, resolute expression, brown eyes that gazed unflinchingly upon danger. James often tried to get his goat with a barbed remark, but William would have none of it. He was as stalwart a man as James had ever met, and the former thief actually enjoyed that fact about William.

James sighed as he shifted position, glancing from Jazhara to William. William had obviously been in love with Jazhara before arriving in Krondor, from when they had been students together at Stardock. His attempt to get over her had led to a romance with a local innkeeper’s daughter, who had come to grief. He had suffered greatly over Talia’s death. In James’s judgment Cousin Willy, as he was known to Arutha’s family, had succumbed to Talia’s charms more because she was crazily in love with him rather than he with her. She had been beautiful, vivacious and a flirt, but once she met Willy, all other boys and men had been forgotten. For most men it would have been difficult to resist. But once Jazhara appeared in the city …

James understood the story. He hid it well, but William still cared deeply for Jazhara, or James knew nothing at all.

For his part, James avoided romance. He didn’t trust women. More to the point, he didn’t trust men. He trusted individuals, and after Chirurgeon Reynolds had departed, it occurred to him that the two remaining in the room were second only to Prince Arutha in earning his trust. Jazhara was new to the court and a Keshian by ancestry, but she had been a staunch ally who had faced deadly danger without flinching. Without her participation in the affair with the pirate Bear and the recovery of the Tear of the Gods, James and William might now both be dead and the hidden enemies behind that artefact’s theft might even now be planning to unleash chaos upon every man, woman, and child in the Kingdom.

For a moment the wry thought passed through James’s mind that despite their efforts to remain platonic, William and Jazhara were not done with each other. He just hoped, with some apprehension, that things didn’t get too awkward or interfere with more pressing concerns.

Now Prince Arutha arrived. He too bore that expression James had come to know so well: the one that was set halfway between concern and wry amusement. ‘Almost got yourself killed, again, I see.’

He had changed since James had first met him as a boy, back when he had foiled the Nighthawks’ first of many attempts on the prince’s life. The youthful whipcord body had broadened a little, and palace life had put a few more pounds on Arutha, but he was still a man of slender frame and as fast an opponent with a sword as James had ever encountered.

‘Occupational hazard,’ James said, sitting up a little straighter. ‘I do recall, Highness, more than one occasion when you were less than prudent when it came to staying out of harm’s way.’

With a grimace, Arutha echoed James’s last statement. ‘Occupational hazard, indeed. However,’ he added, ‘I find myself bleeding considerably less frequently than you do, James.’

James’s grin expanded. ‘Well, in fairness, you don’t get out as much as you used to. A few days of bed rest and I should be good as new, Highness.’

‘We can’t afford the time, I’m afraid. I’m sending to the Temple of Sung to fetch in a healing priest. You get one day to sleep off whatever horrible concoction you’re forced to drink, then you’re back out there the next day.’ His expression darkened as he said, ‘I do read the reports coming in from Jonathan Means and Captain Garruth, Jimmy. Along with what you’ve told me, it looks as if we may have something far more sinister going on here in Krondor than a simple struggle for supremacy between rival criminal gangs.’