The Wandering Thief

A light shines on red curtains. The red curtains open slightly to reveal a man in a white suit, wearing a white bowtie and a smiling mask. He bows gracefully and says: “Welcome to the show of masks. Where you see stories of those who wore the smiling mask. From apparent fantasy to science fiction. Last time you saw the story of Lukas Fehrweather, the Archmage of Zars who helped the royal princess Zoe Galvin to get over a trauma that had become a huge mental blockade for her. This time you will see the story of quite a different person, just a thief. Or is he just a thief? Enjoy.”
The man disappears behind the curtains again and the light disappears, now only darkness remains, darkness and a story.

A castle, in shambles, ruins almost a more accurate word if not for the people working hard at restoring the castle. Humans, elves, dwarves and orcs working hard together to rebuild the once imposing walls of the castle. Of course hostility was still a big thing, but they learned to set aside their differences for the time being because they had a common enemy, necromancers. Those who do not respect the will of the dead, who do not let the dead rest, they were the biggest enemies of the tribes. And yet even with common enemies one can’t just ignore everything one hates about another race. But they needed to work together to rebuild the castle that stood between the land of the dead and the land of the living. The walls did stand, but never for long because of the relentless necromancer attacks, knocking down the walls because of the tactical importance of said walls. Adventurers tried their best to help, living amongst the temporary tents of the castle. Merchants brought new wares every morning to restock supplies of food, weaponry and material. But one day, a man came who brought a storm of events along.

He came in, walking with a bag slung over his shoulder, a dark aura surrounding him, an unapproachable aura. He walked into one of the weaponry tents. The store owner was a human and didn’t notice him at first.
“Hello! Welcome to my­… Thieves are not welcome,” His tone changed immediately but the thief didn’t flinch.
“Relax, if I had come here to steal I would have to be an idiot. I need you, and if I steal from you then I wouldn’t be able to get weapons. I’m just here to purchase a bow,” the thief said calmly. He was used to the treatment because amongst all adventurers thieves were the most despised. Even fellow adventurers were reluctant to work with thieves, but sometimes they were more than necessary to boost a team’s strength.
The merchant led his customer reluctantly to the bows, telling the thief a bit about each of them. The latter gave them a quick glance and pointed at one specifically, giving the merchant a questioning glance. Even though the merchant had travelled all over the world, he had never seen a thief without a mask nor had he ever feared a customer before, but the thief just stopped both of the records in an instant.
The face was not that special, a normal man’s face, but the eyes, the eyes were different in color. One eye was blue and the other one was red.
“150 thousand gold for that bow,” the merchant finally brought out. The thief rummaged in his cloak pockets before bringing out a bag and dropping fifteen coins into the outstretched palm of the merchant, fifteen platinum coins, one being worth one thousand gold coins. Owning platinum coins was a symbol of wealth. Not anyone could get them and if one had one, very many were reluctant to use it. The thief grabbed the bow he had eyed, a bow made of phantom wood and the string was steel silk. It was probably the best bow one could find in a large vicinity and also the most durable. The thief left the weapon merchant with a new bow in hand and walked to a secluded spot in the castle to eat something. He pulled off his cloak and put down the knife sheaths he had attached to his hip. Out of his bag he grabbed a packet of waxed paper containing cheese. Wrapped in a normal towel was a loaf of bread from which he broke off a small piece. With his knife he cut a bit of the cheese and put it on top of the bread. He ate a few bites before drinking a bit of water out of a flask. Once he finished his meal he dusted himself off, reequipped himself and went off to look at the castle’s surroundings. He wanted to familiarize himself with the castle and its surroundings before battling in it.

Night fell quickly and the thief stood on top of the wall, a quiver hanging from his hip and his bow out. For the task he had put on his mask and equipped himself thoroughly. He saw other humans and elves standing on top of the wall as well, but no one spared him a glance. They all avoided any eye contact and he ignored it. The thief dedicated his attention to the sight outside the walls, the trees around the castle sometimes gave a peek of a human body part that looked like it was rotting. The thief took a deep breath before hearing one cry which was followed by a number of cries, cries that made ones blood chill, cries one heard in the depths of ones bones, cries of the undead.
The undead came charging out of the woods. Archers and mages started attacking the undead from above the wall and warriors were spread across the wall’s holes and gates in case the undead came through. The archers and mages spread across the walls did their best, but for the first time there was a new kind of undead, undead archers. They shot back and the archers panicked a bit, which influenced their aim immensely. Some dropped their bows and lost precious seconds when trying to pick them up, but in one case the bow was dropped outside of the castle walls. It was an elf right next to the thief. The elf who lost the bow started to panic, but caught a bow thrown at him, the thief’s bow. The thief threw his quiver to the elf as well and threw his cloak off the walls.
“Shadow, be my partner,” the thief said and his shadow stood upright.
The thief jumped off the castle walls and unsheathed his knives. In front of the undead he stood there and asked: “Who wants to die first?”
The shadow was mimicking every action of the thief as he decapitated heads of the undead, just that it was on a different undead. The undead were falling in front of him like nobility fell in front of their angered king. Archer’s quickly noticed that the thief had one side under control so only the warriors remained and the archers and mages spread out across the other sides of the wall to support the other archers and mages. The massacre the thief and his shadow created was one of a kind, not fearing the constant danger of arrows that whizzed past his ears. The forest’s supply of undead seemed to dwindle though and slowly but surely only the thief remained on his side. He ran to help a different side and shouted to one of the magicians: “One of you go to the north gate and give a signal if undead come.”
The archers and mages spread to the east and south gate respectively, one of them going to the north gate, readying a signal spell.

Time was passing by and with the moon the undead disappeared, hiding in the forest and waiting for reinforcements that would be sent by the necromancers. The participants of the battle all cheered and the thief fell down in the midst of corpses, exhausted. The warriors had been too scared to go out of the castle premises and so he had been left alone with the defense of the west gate. The north gate had been immediately covered by mages and archers that were able to be spared from the other two gates and the builders could continue repairing the castle walls. With exhaustion keeping the thief from standing up. Suddenly he saw a hand stretched out to him. It was the elf whom he had given his bow.
“A person who gives his bow willingly to one who is defenseless and jumps into the fray of battle is not a bad person. I am indebted. You have my gratitude. I hope you have no qualms with us elves and I wish to apologize for our rude behavior towards you. I cannot promise a better behavior, but I wish that you know that you have my eternal gratitude,” the elf said humbly. The thief looked at the elf for a few seconds before he stood up and shook the elf’s hand.
“Thank you for your consideration, but I’m used to this treatment. But my job here is done. You should have a nice day, oh and you can keep the bow, won’t be able to use it to its fullest anyway,” the thief said and went into the castle. The elf followed but didn’t find him within.

After a while the elf found out that the thief had left, disappeared without a trace of him having been here except the memories he had left and the feeling of battle he had ignited in the onlookers.

 

A light signals the end of the story, the man from the beginning stepped out of the curtains. He bowed once before saying: “That concludes the story of the wandering thief. Now you might ask where he went, but the story does not continue, so imagine yourself. Let us give you a short rest before our next story begins.”
The light turned off after the man disappeared behind the curtains and darkness consumed the world.

Author's Note

Wow, I actually managed to not take half a year between two stories, I'm proud of myself. Well I thank you for reading this and would be grateful if you would take your time to review this story. And yes, it comes after 'The Princess and The Weakest'.