Soon together with dealing with Wyatts sickness Andrea would be asked to check on other gang members and sometimes other elements from the criminal underworld of arminier. Still despite being absorbed in the tasks of a healer, Andrea constantly asked herself how she could help the children avoid danger. Inspiration came during a discussion with one of the clients,The wound had been inflicted during a transportation job, he had been ambushed by the slavers in an alleyway and had lost the item he was carrying to delivery.
Andrea knew the slavers were dangerous but due to the nature of their jobs they were disliked by other criminal gangs and they relied on brute force to perform their ambushes. During the next days she began forming a plan and canvassing the areas around their burrow. After two weeks and with Wyatt much recovered she finally invited him to see what she had accomplished.
They walked to a plaza near the slums temple and she was carrying a bag with several parchments each with a very distinctive silk ribbon and shape drawn onto it. All the way Wyatt made small talk but inquired not at to what she wanted to show him and what was the basket for. As they got to the plaza she handed the basket to a merchant and asked Wyatt to remember the ribbons and shapes as well as make them a mark that only he could remember. Afterwards she asked him to walk with him and get a large mug of beer from a street vendor. Slowly she led him winding through the streets and as they did she would suddenly produce one of the marked parchments and hand them to him. They soon left the slums and entered the temple district where once again she produces a parchment almost out of nowhere. Finally they entered the financial district and as she sat at a fountain she bent down and from behind her feet pulled the last remaining parchment.
Wyatt grabbed the last one examined it and smiled before inquiring how she had managed to get the parchments duplicated and moved about the town without him noticing. Andrea explained that no such thing had happened, the parchments had been moved across town by the boys through a series of routes she had traced. Each route required the boys to take advantage of their small sizes and nimbleness, not to mention they each had a rope and other equipment that allowed them to traverse the route without being seen. Any larger person that tried to walk over those routes would find himself falling through a clay roof or simply unable to find footing. The merchants stored the items for them and the boys retrieved them from the closest merchant to take them to their final destination. The merchant system was set up thanks to offering them protection from smaller thieves by the use of their own men posted on certain sections.
Wyatt listened intently with a thin smile on his lips. Once she finished he took a long look at her and finally broke into a full toothed smile. The plan was perfect but Andrea had to consider that the older men with him were good with a blade but not experts, if it came to blades with the slavers the slavers were more brutal and greater in number, he would support her plan and inform the gang of the changes, but also he would need to further train the men so they could handle their own in a swordfight. Andrea smiled and let him know that she also had a plan for that and was more than happy to train them.
Over the next days other gangs began to come to the pub and leave their goods to be moved during the day and fenced with whoever they chose to make the sell.
When the delivery business was slow Andrea would take the idle men to the yard behind the pub and train them hard and without giving them any respite. At first the men were skeptical about her capacity to train them and their snickering and remarks soon had Andrea fuming. On day she finally had enough. She took a deep breath and asked Arlen and Bair to move forward with their fighting clubs.
The two men swagged forward exuding certainty and then she asked them to get into position and strike at her. Arlen laughed and shook his head before mentioning how she was exposing herself to too much pain. The bored look in Andrea´s face was as insulting as she expected it and as she saw both men respond to their wounded egos and lunge she sidestepped and smacked Arlen on the shin and Bair on the wrist. Both landed on the ground and their clubs skidded away from them. Andrea still Angry turned to the other men and asked if any still doubted her skill, if so she would be more than glad to let them test her for themselves in pairs, but for every one of them that failed to land a blow she would expect a silver coin and a very heartfelt apology if none could be provided she would take her payment by smacking them around until she felt satisfied. As she finished her speech she saw Wyatt enter the yard and smile. From behind her she heard scuffing and turned in time to catch Arlen by the wrist, twist him using his own momentum and smacking her club against his plexus making him fall to the ground gasping. She shook her head and continued Addressing the group.
After a couple of days and some attempts to hurt her they soon understood that there was a reason she was training them and it wasn’t her pretty face. They soon came to respect her when after each spar she would tend to their wounds to ensure they weren't going around bruised and battered. What had been nothing but another prison soon became her home. It had started with the friendly greeting of men and children as they saw her pass and grown up to them inviting her over to play drinking games or card games with them. Sure some had made passess at her, but her rejection and sometimes a twisted wrist had served as a reminder for the other men that her pretty face was not to be mistaken for an easy target.
A full year had passed and Wyatt was not only seen as a gang leader, other gangs came to him for advice and sometimes even for mediation amongst disputes that would in other times end in blood. Andrea never meddles in this affairs but Wyatt would sometimes consult with her out of respect for her way of thinking. Sure she had not come here thinking of becoming a criminal’s healer, but somehow she felt she was dealing with a wound that would fester if left alone, and that was the cities crime. Sure the criminal factor was still there, but the tension of the slums seemed to have diminished greatly over the last year. The days were safer, the merchants didn’t look over their shoulder the whole day knowing theft was now limited to richer neighborhoods as Wyatt had determined that it was no use robbing from those that could help them hide.
One night she sat one of the roofs with Arlen sharing an apple when she saw the shadows move. A small group of men probably no larger than five were running from shadow to shadow and looking out of their hiding places. Andrea and Arlen crouched over the roof ledge and dipped into the shadows while keeping their eyes over the men. Arlen was the one that noticed they weren’t part of any gang and quickly deduced they were slavers. Andrea’s teeth ground against each other and her eyes were filled with rage. She moved forward and felt Arlen’s tight grip on her arm. She turned and saw him shaking his head. He was right if they attacked they would only raise the animosity of the slavers, more because she sure as hell would not be willing to kill them just to ensure they never caught anyone again. As they watched the men moved over a narrow street and jumped out. A startled yelp was muffled and as quick as they had appeared they disappeared in the shadows carrying away a young woman.
Andrea knew it still happened but it was a completely different thing to suddenly face the event so directly. She jumped off the roof and noticed Arlen did not follow, perhaps her demeanor told of how little company she wanted. She walked all the way back to the pub and drank herself into a numb stupor.
Her headache the next day was horrible. She had drunk far more than she was capable of handling, and the young men with his back scratched lying next to her told her she had also gone and taken her rage out in a more recreational manner. She moved to her herb cabinet and mixed up something for her hangover as she put on her trousers and shirt. The young men in her bed rolled and asked her to return to bed she smiled and patted him on the head before telling him to sleep it off but leave before she returned and left the room without any more comment. As the hangover subsided and she sat under the shadow of a large tree in the yard watching the men and older children train it seemed curious how she was good enough to even cure a hangover after poisoning herself. Like lighting the idea cracked all other thought from her mind and she gasped. A devilish smile drew itself on her face and she gulped the rest of her remedy in a single pull before running into Wyatt's room without any previous warning.
Wyatt got up and picked his axe from the ground taking a stance in a too quick manner for a man his size, as soon as he saw Andrea he dropped his stance and sat back down. Without missing a beat Andrea proceeded to explain to him a plan to bring the slavers under control, she would need Arlen, Bair and another pair of the best fighters for it, but once done, the slavers would think twice about ever coming into the slums to take anyone from them. Wyatt mulled the plan, asked dozens of questions and made dozens of complaints all of which Andrea put to rest by either invoking the archdukes law or simple camaraderie amongst the other criminals, or, right people as they began calling themselves after Wyatts ascension into crime lord status. Finally Wyatt smiled and nodded, they would carry out Andrea´s plan, but he would need time to prepare for his people and he was coming whether she wanted it or not, this was the kind of thing that could boost his almost legendary status if done correctly. Andre smiled and nodded, it was time to get even with the woman that had seen fit to throw shackles around her, she was gonna enjoy this.
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