Stealing the Commander’s Gold

All was silent…till at last the faint echo of voices came. Every fiber of my being quivered at the sound.
I closed the fabric over my satchel, shut the iron-bound chest, and rose, with practiced speed.
Footsteps sounded on stone in the hallway. I popped open my lantern’s hatch and blew out the flame, plunging the room into darkness.
There were the voices, arguing just as they began to push open the door.
“—you know the Commander would have our hides if he got in under our watch. I don’t care if it seems like paranoia, we are doing another search!”
“This is ridiculous, Tamar. Whether he’s the leader of the Erratican, or the Terracondra who scrubs the floors, there’s no way he could have gotten in here tonight. We would have seen him.”
Two guards entered, the second one bearing a torch. I pressed myself against a corner and drew my cloak around myself.
The first man snorted, “Of course he could have, he can melt into the shadows, can’t he? Your eyes are so dull, he could probably slip past you in broad daylight holding a red banner in front of your face.”
“…Well, we still would have heard him,” growled the second man.
The guards moved to the center, one holding the torch aloft while the other procured a ring of keys. I slowly inched to the left, towards the open door.
A lock clicked, coins were sifted through, and the second guard asked, “Satisfied?”
“There are three trunks filled with the sort of valuables a thief would come for, not just one.”
At last, I slipped out the door of the Treasury.
How gullible some people are! I thought, tiptoeing down the hallway. I went to the fourth window overlooking the outer ward, climbed up on the sill, and carefully lowered myself onto the top rungs of a ladder.
They will never catch me, the poor, honest, dim-witted guards, no, they never could. And it’s not as if it is their fault, or that stupidity is something they can recover from, like an illness. Oh, how I pity them; I hate having to steal these things and so cause the fury of Lord Adelric to fall upon them. They tried to stop me.
When I reached the ground, I ran across the grassy outer-ward, past one of the inner gatehouses, all the way to the outer curtain. Now, I had to hurry—before the guards sounded the alarm that someone had broken into the Treasury.
I carried a coiled rope tied to a thick, barbed piece of iron, and quickly I unraveled it, and tossed the hook high up the twenty-foot wall. It flew over the top and wedged between the stones on the other side. I tugged on it, and began to climb, using the space between the stones for footholds.
Suddenly, a ringing filled the air—
‘Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!’
I nearly dropped the rope in alarm.
When I looked around, a few soldiers in chain-mail were coming from the gatehouse. I climbed faster.
One soldier loaded a crossbow, and fired at me. I lunged to the side, clinging to the rope, and the bolt smashed into the wall a foot away, sending little shards of rock flying. Desperation bloomed inside me.
Another soldier charged forward, and came at me with an ax, but I drew a long knife, and threw it at him.
“Agh!” he gasped, clutching his arm.
The third hurled a spear at me. Fortunately, it was too high. Unfortunately, it struck the rope just above me. The rope severed, and I just managed to catch myself, gripping the corners of the stones. I heard the metal grappling hook clatter to the ground outside.
Before they could attack again, I seized the spear embedded in the wall, pulled myself onto it, and jumped up to the top of the outer curtain.
I lowered myself onto the other side, and another crossbow bolt whistled over my head. Once I was only ten-feet away, I leapt to the ground, snatching up my grappling hook.
As I strode away, the distant voice of one of the soldiers bellowed, “You can’t hide forever, you monster!”
They call me, the Shadow…but my name is Storm. I fend for myself, I live by myself, I name myself—call it what you will.

This experimental opening scene was from a previous version of Chapter 1, in which I was trying to make it more exciting than ‘The Bakery’ opening. I later discarded it, since I felt it wasn’t really in line with Storm’s true personality, and didn’t provide as good a segue into what happens next.

See the next deleted scene from Vol.1, ‘Phantom warns Storm in a Nightmare’