The rest of the letters were condolences from long-time customers and friends of Sundance. Some of them I knew, and some I did not. Some were sent to me, and others just to the store in general, probably by people not knowing who to send it to. Given the past twenty-four hours, I don’t know how anyone could find the time to send a note at all. But maybe it was no more complicated than some people grieving differently and sharing their emotions more openly.

  Regardless, I did appreciate the thoughts and prayers.

  One other letter was from the guild master of the Retailer’s Guild. The guild provided employees for most of the professional services north of St. Michael’s Way. They also extended condolences and offered contractual continuance with two apprentices and Matron Gumtree, who was a long-term fixture in the store. The matron was a mother to all of us and kept an eye on the boys and girls to make sure everything was proper. She certainly had her hands full with some of the brawler guild apprentices over the years.

  I signed the acknowledgment of service terms and set it aside to get placed in the return mail. A little later, I finished re-reading a few of the more personal letters and sat back in my chair.

  Biff cleared his throat.

  I looked up at him. He looked back at me.

  “Well?” I asked. “Are you just practicing for the choir, or do you have something on your mind?”

  “Now that you mention it,” He started, “I was thinking.”

  “Uh oh,” I said.

  He grew stormy. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I looked all innocent and raised my hands. “Who, me? What?” I said, feigning surprise.

  He stared for a few more moments and then repeated. “I was thinking that in your new role, you are going to need a lot of errands run, messages coming and going, and little things picked up here and there.”

  “There’s an idea in there somewhere struggling to get out,” I remarked.

  He sighed. “I have an idea where you can get some cheap help. Useful help, in fact.”

  “Okay, I’m open to new ideas,” I answered.

  Ten minutes later, I stood on the main floor near the fountain and was surrounded by two dozen of the dirtiest, skinniest, hold onto your belt pouchiest group of ragamuffins I had ever seen.

  “You have got to be kidding,” I said to Biff.

  “These here are the boys,” Biff said.

  “And girls.” Half a dozen kids piped up. They could have been girls. They were all so young and dirty, there was no telling for sure.

  “And girls,” Biff added. “There isn’t a person in Keelwell they can’t find or a place they haven’t been.”

  Except for a bathtub, I thought uncharitably.

  Be nice. The pressure is making you cranky, and that's not like you. Bella chastised.

  She was right about that. I was letting the pressure get to me. But then, it was a lot of pressure. But I had promised Biff I would give them a fair shot.

  I looked them over. “Who’s in charge?” I asked.

  Nearly every one of their hands went up.

  “Hey!” Yelled the biggest of them. “Simmer down. The Patron is asking for me, unless one of you is up for a challenge?”

  All the rest backed down.

  “And what is your name?” I asked.

  He thought about that for a moment and said, “They call me Junior.”

  Biff whispered to me, “These are all orphans, abandoned to the streets. Some may not even know their given names. If they were even given names.”

  That put a very different feel to the gathering.

  “Ok, Junior. Mister Biff here says you could be helpful. I’m wondering how.”

  “Well, if you need something found. Or want something lost. Or a message run. Or an odd job or two done. Or something stol-” He was interrupted by Biff’s loud cough.

  Junior seemed to remember something and changed it to, “Something sold, then we’re your boys.”

  “Or girls!” Several shouted.

  Junior rolled his eyes. “I am trying to put a good shoe on here. Let it be.”

  I smiled behind my hand. “Well, that is quite a skill set and some of the things I may need, for sure.” I pointed to his back pocket. “I see several of you carrying those. What are they?”

  “What, my slingshooter?” He asked.

  “Yes. Are any of you good with it?” I asked.

  They all laughed. Junior answered. “When you spend hours each day, every day, with little to do except shoot rats and birds, you get pretty good.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  One of the more vocal ones, who I thought might be one of the girls, said, “Or if you are particularly hungry, you need to get good at slingshooting.”

  The thought of these kids eating birds and rats because they were starving was the last straw. I would find a use for them. And I suddenly had a really strange idea.

  “Who is the best slingshooter?” I asked.

  Hands went up all around the group again.

  Junior ignored them. “Well, there ain’t many that can best me.” Junior began. But one of the kids nearby elbowed him and jerked his head toward the back.

  The others parted to the sides, and the littlest of them stood there looking up at me with no emotion at all on his face.

  Junior said, “Oh yeah. I guess Ears is a little bit better than me.”

  One of the other kids said, “He don’t never miss.”

  “I miss.” The boy called Ears said. “Just not too often, though.”

  “I never seen you miss.” Said several of the kids, and it got picked up by others as well.

  Junior agreed. “Yeah, if he has missed sometime, it weren’t when any of us was around.”

  I looked him over. There was nothing unusual about his ears. He was a common enough looking kid. Definitely smaller than typical. He was probably a bit older than I first thought, given his size.

  “Why do they call you ears?” I asked.

  They all grew quiet.

  “I guess it's because I hear things good.” He said.

  But there was more to it than that. But it appeared I was not on the inside yet, and nobody was going to tell me. That was fair enough.

  “Okay. I need some eyes, ears, hands, feet, and maybe even some skilled slingshooters. But I don’t need just one or two, or even three or four.”

  How many do you need?” Junior asked, beginning to appraise a business opportunity. These kids lived on the streets and would know both value and a mark when they saw one. I was both.

  I needed to set some parameters and build some trust. I saw that Ears had a slingshooter as well.

  “Ears, do you mind if I look at your slingshooter?”

  He stared at me for a moment, shrugged his shoulders slightly and said, “Go ahead.” He walked forward and handed it to me.

  I could see that it was too small for my hands to use, but it was well made. “Where did you get this?” I asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders again and said, “I made it.”

  “He made mine, too.” Said a nearby boy. Several others piped in with the same.

  “Hmmm.” I said as I turned it around in my hands, thinking of how much fun using one of these when I was younger could be, especially if I used some marbles instead of stones. “This is well made. How did you do it?”

  Shrugging his shoulders must be a peculiar mannerism, it almost seemed like some one was talking to him, encouraging him to so something and his answer was a reluctant shrug of his shoulders.

  “I got a glob of the sap that sailors use to seal up their barrels, heat it slowly so it gets less sticky and more stretchy, and then roll it in my hands until I make a really long cord. I cut the cords to fit and then weave three together. I tie one end off on a piece of tree or bone, and the other on a scrap of leather. I do it again on the other side and I make it.”

  The way the other kids stared at him as he spoke, it was as if he didn’t talk alot. But they hung on his every word.

  The piece of tree was a y-shaped branch he had carved down to be smooth. It was quite ingenious.

  “Thank you, Ears.” I handed the slingshooter back to him.

  “Do you know why I need special help?” I asked Junior and looked around at Ears and the others.

  Junior shrugged. “You need stuff done quick, quiet, and cheap?”

  He had some shrewdness to him.

  “Sort of,” I replied slowly.

  I looked around the shoppe. Bella, do we have any clients here?

  No.

  Are you able to close the door by yourself and make it echo a few times in this chamber?

  Oh, please.

  I’m sorry to question you. I said. Please time it when I point at the door.

  “Biff, can we trust this group with our secret?” I asked.

  He looked at Junior and the others. “If it were a little thing. No. They’d blab it all day long. But for our secret. I think they’d take it to the bottom of the bay if they had to.”

  They had initially looked angry with Biff, but by the time he finished, they looked at me, daring to say they wouldn’t.

  “Ok. If anyone wants to leave, do it now. Nobody will hold it against you. But if you stay, you agree to join the Special Services.”

  “What’s that, then?” Junior asked.

  “The Duke made Patron Istari the Commander of the Keelwell Special Services. He can join anyone he wants. Or he can sketch out anyone he wants if they don’t stick true.” Biff said.

  “What do you do?” Junior asked more carefully, clearly not wanting to get sketched out before he even knew what it was, or what it meant.

  “Nope,” Biff said. “In for good. Or out and safe. You decide. Each. Now.” He stood up tall and flexed. Biff was a big guy. He was usually very soft and gentle, but when he went hard, he was as tough as it got.

  They obviously trusted him. There was a backstory here that he never shared with me. I didn’t know what his connection was with them, but it ran deep.

  Nobody moved.

  I lifted a finger and pointed it up. “Leave now if you want.”

  Still, nobody moved.

  I began to wave my finger. They watched it, wondering what it would do. “Going once.”

  “Going twice.”

  I hesitated, seeing if anyone would bolt at the last second.

  Nobody moved.

  I slowly pointed my finger at the door and said, “Gone.”

  The door slammed shut, and the security bar dropped into place. The echoing sound of the door slamming made everyone jump. Including me, and I knew it was coming. The sound moved away from us to the far wall and then rolled back. It made the hairs on my head and neck stand on end.

  Sheesh Bella. You even scared me.

  Their eyes were wide and their mouths were open.

  “I think we may have overdone it,” I whispered to Biff, who also had a startled and then annoyed look on his face.

  “You think?” He whispered back, frowning.

  I looked at all of them, making eye contact for a moment with each. “The entire city will know this in a few hours. But you are hearing it first. The Duke made me Commander of Special Services. Special Services is all about tricks, stunts, magics, impossible ideas, and deadly traps. We need it. Because in a week, a goblin army larger than any in history is coming for our city to burn it to the ground.”

  I paused for just a moment.

  “And our team is going to stop them.”

  They were stunned silent.

  And then everyone jumped, including me again, when a single scrawny voice yelled, “YEAH!” and all eyes turned to Ears, holding his slingshooter in the air and chanting, “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” Over and over.

  After a few repetitions, others joined in. “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”

  Soon, everyone was chanting, including Biff, “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”

  Bella? I prompted.

  Another rumbling occurred, but not like the other. It seemed to take their words, increase them, and then come back low and deep.

  They fell silent again. But they were in. The city would panic, and people with everything would try to run or hide. These kids. These highly irregular citizens stood taller than most.

  Irregulars. That would be their name.

  “You are hereby deputized as Irregulars in the Special Services. You will be paid one gold standard per day of service until such time as the Duke no longer needs your services, or if you voluntarily leave, you are lost, or you violate our code.”

  Junior shuffled his feet. “I was thinking more than a gold, Patron. No disrespect, but that would be hard for us all to eat a meal and pay for stuff.”

  “Junior, you misunderstand me. You each will earn one gold per day. Not one gold for all of you, combined.”

  And the shouting began again, except what started as “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” Turned into “Patron! Patron! Patron!”