Return of the Stormcriers

CHAPTER 3 - THE GUEST

  The gloomy night almost completely concealed the three men as they hurried through the winding streets of Clearfield towards Joseph's house. The storm clouds blotted out the moon, leaving the world in nearly total darkness. Rain poured from the sky, soaking through their recently dried cloaks. The previously bustling streets were now nearly empty, save the three men and a smattering of unlucky guards who's watch shifts coincided perfectly with the downpour.

  "What are they doing here?" Andrew asked Vincent quietly. His feigned excitement to meet the guest was gone, replaced by a grim acceptance for what awaited him at Joseph's house. He knew exactly who he was being led to meet. Well, not who it was, but he knew who the "guest" worked for.

  "We have no idea," Vincent said. For a large man he kept up with his two lean compatriots easily.

  "Have you contacted Hal?" Andrew asked worriedly, if this was anything more than a coincidence the man they worked for needed to know immediately.

  ​"Not yet, we wanted to get more information first," Vincent replied, shaking his head. "There were two of them poking around Clearfield. The other man took his own life when Joseph attempted to grab him; that's who we got the necklace from." Andrew shook his head in irritation, they were certainly true believers in their cause, he had to give them that.

  "I grabbed this man less than twenty-four hours after his partner killed himself, I do not believe he knows of his death, or has alerted anyone of our interference." Joseph muttered in Andrew's ear as they ran, I managed to get the drop on him before he could swallow that pill they carry."

    "Good work," Andrew complimented, continuing to jog at a pace he had not maintained in many years, his legs beginning to ache slightly from the exertion, he was not as young as he once was. No one, as he had noted to Vincent earlier, could escape time.

  Joseph's house sat in the poorer section of town on the far edge of Clearfield from the side Andrew had entered earlier. It was a small, one story, nondescript house, with a sagging wooden roof. The ancient gray wood had long since lost its color, muted and weatherworn. Joseph unlocked the door with a slender key he produced from his pocket and led them into his abode. The first room of the house was small, but well lit by several hooded lanterns that hung around the walls, which cast their light throughout the entryway while trapping the smoke within their housing to keep the air clean and breathing bearable. Weapons leaned against every wall; short swords, bows, claymores, even a pike, filling most of the unoccupied spaces with the exception of open doorways in the left and right walls that led to the two other rooms of the house. A large riding saddle sat on the seat of a large comfortable looking chair that sat in the center of the room. Joseph was clearly a man who was not accustomed to having guests. From a smaller, wooden chair that sat just inside the front door, Joseph picked up a miniature crossbow that could only have been about a foot long from the tip of the loaded bolt to the back end of the stock. He stowed the crossbow in an inner pocket of his cloak along with a small bundle of bolts before striding over to the back right corner of the room and stomping his foot down upon the wooden planks so hard that it seemed as if the aged wood would break under the strength of the blow.

     "It's me with two friends." Joseph said to seemingly no one in particular after the echo of his stomp had subsided. The bald man took a few steps back as the floor where he had tread was lifted from underneath and placed to the side to reveal a hidden staircase that led below the small house. A short gray haired man holding a stubby candle upon a small, silver saucer with an ornate handle stood near the top of the staircase; the old man was as wispy as the thin mustache that protruded from above his upper lip. The candle in his hand appeared to be ready to go out at any minute as if the instrument was a reflection of its bearer. He squinted out of the darkness at the three men, his eyesight not what it had once been.