Hunting Page 24

  Unable to resist a smile, Ash shook her head. "Borrow a sword off one of the Watch, if you want one. But there's no sense me giving you a weapon you've never used while leaving myself half-armed."

  At this point Heran remembered he wasn't talking to her, and firmed his mouth, but since they'd reached the Watch House Ash was already halfway out the door. That would be the last time she'd agree to ride in a coach when a horse was available.

  The Lower Commons was not home, but she'd ridden through it often enough exercising mounts for Reeders Stables. The day had already shifted to halflight – the period when the sun had passed into the shadow of Westgard, but had not yet set – and most folk would be returning home, or preparing dinner. It was also shift change for the Watch and, barring a flop-eared dog, the yard of the Watch House was empty.

  "Captain." Ash joined Farpatten in checking again for any sign of pursuit. "Send them with me."

  Farpatten gave her a brief glance. "We're not yet at so desperate a pass."

  "I can put them somewhere reached by a rooftop path known only to friends who have no Luinsel connections," Ash said.

  The Guardsman simply shook his head, and Ash made no attempt to push the point further, following him into the Watch House. But she could see the idea take hold as Farpatten tried to organise sufficient Watchmen to send back to the safe house to investigate. The attempt on the Veirhoi could only have been arranged by someone deep in the confidence of the Rhoi's Guard. Until Farpatten had discovered the traitor, any arrangement he made was at risk. And all this while he had no idea whether his primary charge, the Rhoi, was facing a similar attack.

  "What guarantee?" he asked, turning on Ash almost mid-sentence.

  "None. But I'd give odds he'd be safer with me than back at the palace."

  Farpatten was a decisive man, quickly making arrangements for contact. Ash then had a helpful discussion with the Watch Sergeant, borrowing a few stray items of clothing, which she handed to Lauren and Heran.

  "The rapier will make you stand out a little, but I guess it's safer to keep you armed. Luckily it's getting on for dark."

  Heran looked at the oversized cap she'd given him, sighed, and pulled it on. Then he glowered at her reaction, even though all she'd done was widen her eyes and keep her mouth firmly closed.

  "You're truly obnoxious, you know that?"

  She grinned. "You're not the first to mention it."

  "Can't you take this seriously? Someone just tried to kill us!"

  "This is me taking this seriously, Heran," Ash said, surveying Lauren doubtfully. A worn coat was not going to make him look less upright, and the bruised temple stood out like a brand. "Let's get moving in case they did try to follow us. We'll go over the back wall, Captain."

  Farpatten nodded, and came to offer them a leg up. "Don't make me regret this."

  Ash nodded. "Tell Thornaster–" She hesitated, then said, "Tell him I'll see him soon."

  Chapter Thirty-One

  "Wait, we're going into Mockhold Valley? That's your idea of a safe place?"

  "It's my idea of a place that people who usually ride around the Deirhoi District would be more likely to get lost than to find us."

  "And what do we do about the locals? How do we avoid getting mugged – or worse – while we're hiding from assassins?"

  "I told you, remember? Roof running. This way."

  There were hundreds of routes to the roofs of the Shambles, but with two beginners, one of them tall and reasonably solid, she'd be using the safest. First an easy climb up an old wrought iron fence onto a stone wall that had once circled one of the original large estates. The wall had been used as a support for dozens of less solid buildings, but still provided a safe crossing to a tight row of three-story houses which were better quality than most, and from there to the estate's manor house, a solid core in a sea of lesser structures.

  Ash took them up on the wall, pausing to survey the terrain and play lecturer.

  "Three rules. First, walk light and keep your mouth shut. These are people's homes, and we don't want to damage them any more than we want them to know we're running around on them. Second, walk where I walk. I'll be going slow, giving you time to watch my feet and my hands. Third, if I yell 'jump', leap in whatever direction I'm heading and grab for anything that looks solid. That shouldn't happen on this route, but it's still the Shambles, after all. Any questions?"

  "If we are separated?" Lauren asked, voice lowered but as crisply correct as ever.

  "Get up as high as you can and wave at anyone around my age who happens by. There are a few who do use the roofs outside the Huntsmen, but most of them will head the other way if they spot you. Just tell them Ash wants you stashed, and they'll look after you."

  Without further ado she led them up and along a far more convoluted route than she'd usually bother with. But Ash was glad of the need, aware – though Thornaster had no plans to leave for months yet – that this was the start of a long goodbye to a life she'd loved. The beginning of the end of Ash Lenthard.

  During the late afternoon and early evening the Shambles was at its liveliest. Cats that had dozed during the day stirred, eyeing off the flights of birds choosing their roosts. Voices rose in chatter or shouts, dogs barked for table scraps. The deep streets were already disappearing into shadows, but the halflight made for easy navigation of the roofs. Ash walked the sky as the broken moon rose, and thought the world glorious.

  Heran and Lauren kept to her rules, and just past sunset she had brought them to the building opposite the Huntsmen's headquarters. A trio of spare staves were tucked against the base of the chimney.

  Ash collected one and murmured: "I'll go across and swing over a walkway for you two," and immediately put words into action.

  The walkway – two boards lashed together – had been useful for outfitting the attic with a few larger items. Ash set it carefully in place, and then stilled, staring along the street below. Then she snatched up her staff and said tersely, "Go inside and wait. There are candles and a tinderbox on the table immediately to your right. I'll be – I'll try not to be long."

  Before either of her charges could respond, Ash left them, hurrying toward the crossroads at the end of the block of buildings. Lit by an open taphouse door, it had offered her a brief tableau of three figures – two male, and one much smaller, kicking at the legs of the tallest of the three as he carried her.

  Five winding streets connected at the crossroads, all alley-narrow. Two were possibilities, and with no means of choosing between them Ash had to rely on speed, racing quickly along one, and then finding an easy roof and attempting a light-footed sprint to the ridge. A dangerous risk – new routes did not mix with speed – and a tile slid down behind her as she balanced on the roof's apex.

  It shattered in the first street as she crouched gingerly above a none-too-stable piece of guttering, but the noise usefully drew the attention of someone well ahead of her in the street below. She couldn't make out more than a suggestion of a shape, but it was a shape that made a noise – a question – and was briefly answered.

  Toning down speed in favour of care, Ash prowled closer, and reached the corner of this new clump of buildings in time to see her targets vanish into a particularly decrepit two-story building. All the windows were boarded up and the place looked a few nails short of collapse. The roof was the kind she would avoid unless suicidal, so she found a way down to the packed dirt of the street.

  There was no front door, only a piece of wood hanging from a twisted hinge. The entryway was musky with old urine, and a gaping hole in the floor could be seen through another door to her right.

  Dim light and voices led her up a stair to her right. Ash tested each step, straining her eyes in the dark and trying to hold her weight from creaking boards. At the head of the stairs the ceiling had fallen to the left, thick timbers riddled with mites and worm. To the right was a door, half-open, and she slid towards it across a sagging landing which had long since lost its balcony r
ailings.

  The captive was Ash's horse-mad charity case. Even skinnier than the first time Ash had seen her, if that was possible, glowering defiance as she tried to kick the one who held her, despite a jagged and clearly infected cut on one leg.

  "...that it's worth it?" the other boy was saying.

  The first laughed. "She aint dumb enough. Are you Tongueless?"

  Ash swapped her staff to her left hand and slid a knife out of her boot. She took two steps forward, flung the knife into the thigh of the shorter boy and, covering the remaining ground in a rush, drove the staff at the other's knee.

  Too slow.

  Letting go of the girl and stumbling back before the blow had quite landed, the taller boy stared at Ash incredulously, and then grabbed her staff with both hands. Ash, at a strength disadvantage, lost the staff and moved backwards, hampered by the rubbish in the room. He swung at her wildly, and then tossed the staff as she reached for her second knife.

  "I'll teach you, you damn rat!"

  He leapt at her, connecting as she straightened, and they crashed to the floor in a billow of dust. Her knife gone, Ash brought knee and elbow into play immediately, and did her best to avoid a couple of flailing blows. But then he got hold of her throat, and shook her like the rat he'd named her.

  As he began to squeeze in earnest, Ash raked for his eyes while scrabbling for her dropped knife with her other hand. She had to get him off – had to – !

  The boy bellowed, jerking back and trying to reach over his shoulder for the knife, which had been buried in his shoulder by his former captive. Ash used the opportunity to squirm away, scrambling for her staff.

  They both made it to their feet at the same time, but now the boy had her knife, and his friend had stopped yelling and was struggling upright. Breath tearing her throat, Ash struck hard at the larger boy's chest, thrusting with all her might so that he staggered backwards, then fell onto the sagging balcony, and through it.

  The entire building shook with a second crash, and creaked dismayingly. The floor shifted, the walls leaned, and the entire building considered tumbling into a graceless pile. Then it settled.

  "Damn," Ash croaked, and then switched her attention to the second boy, who took the better part of valour, backing away.

  "Get away from me, scut!"

  Fright turning to annoyance, Ash rubbed her throat, then said: "Stay there, we'll leave, then you can check on your...friend."

  His friend wasn't making any noise, but that was fine with Ash right at that moment. Keeping a wary eye on the remaining boy, Ash ushered the former captive toward the door, tested and then walked with swift surety across the landing's exposed support beam to the top of the stairs.

  They protested her weight and she frowned again, glancing back at the girl, who was watching from the doorway. "Can you cross it?" she asked, and the girl considered for a long moment, then set a bare, scabbed foot onto the rotting wood and started across. Daere nodded and went ahead down the stairs. She doubted it would hold both of them. Below, the fallen boy started swearing, flinging words out of the dark as if he could knock the escapees down with them.

  Ash didn't waste any time, getting outside and scanning the nearest buildings for a good route up and then herding the girl toward it. Her new charge was slow to move, and favoured one leg, but at least accepted Ash's help with the climb.

  "We'll rest here a while," Ash said, once they'd reached the relative safety of the roof. She guided the girl so she could sit against a chimney, and tried not to be too obvious about how badly she needed to sit down herself. "My name's Ash. What should I call you?"

  Still no response. The boys had called the girl 'Tongueless', so perhaps she couldn't speak at all. But why hadn't the girl at least tried to scare that pair off with the gale she was able to summon? And why was she here? Ash hadn't thought her a Shambles dweller, despite obviously living rough.

  With her throat so sore, Ash wasn't inclined to try to coax answers, and concentrated on gripping her hands together to quell a growing tremor. What had happened in there? She'd been so slow, had had all the weapons and still she'd nearly – nearly killed Thornaster, had hesitated because the stakes were higher than she could accept. Marriage to Thornaster was something she could embrace, but this soul bond...

  "Telat."

  Ash blinked, and then studied the girl in the rising light of Cuinefaer. A single word, but it made Ash realise she'd overlooked an obvious possibility for why this girl wouldn't talk to her.

  But with Lauren and Heran waiting, now was not the time to experiment. "Nice to meet you, Telat," Ash said. She pointed at the infected gash on the girl's leg. "Come with me, and I'll give you medicine for that."

  Thankfully, there were no problems getting back – a fortunate circumstance since Ash was far from at her best, and Telat seemed to be staying upright out of sheer grit and determination. Ash had never been gladder to see the Huntsmen's headquarters, gently lit and inviting.

  Also more crowded than it had been when she'd left it, with Lauren and Heran at the far end of the long attic, facing three of her Huntsmen. Lauren had his hand on the hilt of his rapier, but the atmosphere was of wary discussion, not confrontation.

  "Lark, Melar, Bitty – how handy."

  Her friends turned, and then paused to take in her appearance.

  "You sound like you have a severe case of someone tried to strangle you," Melar said appreciatively.

  "I have a severe case of need to sit down, anyway. This is Telat, and it looks like you've already introduced yourself to Lauren and Heran. Melar, can you clean out that cut on Telat's leg? And if any of you speak Firuven, that would be handy, because I think I overlooked an obvious–"

  Her voice had faded to a scratchy whisper, so Ash gave up, made a general 'get on with it' gesture, then dipped herself a drink out of the rain barrel.

  "Something tells me that even before you ran off this was more than an exciting excursion to show the Veirhoi the seamier side of the city," Melar said, turning to hunt out their collection of medicking supplies.

  "Making it harder to assassinate him," Ash said, plopping herself down on one of the piles of mats they used for seats, and trying to coax Telat to join her instead of backing toward the entry bridge. "Matters are coming to a head."

  "Ash!" Larkin exploded. "You're running from assassins and you just left them here? Fine! You abandoned the Veirhoi in the Shambles and then nearly got yourself killed, but who cares? We all know you're completely indestructible, so let's have an explanation instead of an argument."

  "Hiding, not running." Ash sipped her water and sighed.

  "Do you speak Firuven?" asked Lauren.

  Telat froze, then seemed to become visibly taller, the whole of her attention fixing on Lauren. Then she crossed the attic in one concerted rush to stand, almost vibrating, before him.

  "Say that again," she demanded, in almost the same language Lauren had used. Formal Firuven rather than Trade Firuven.

  Lauren, after only a momentary hesitation, switched to Formal Firuven: "Forgive my mistakes: I am conversant but not expert in your language. This one wishes to tend the injury on your leg." He nodded toward Melar.

  Telat didn't so much as glance in Melar's direction, the whole of her focus still on Lauren. "Again," she breathed, as if she thought her ears were playing her false.

  Eyebrows drawing together, Lauren tried: "How did you come to be in Montmoth, Sera?"

  And the storm broke.

  The whole of the attic stilled in respectful awe, the girl's tirade no less powerful for being incomprehensible to most of her audience. Eyes fixed on Lauren's face, Telat worked her way from indignation through fury to a kind of exulting glee, and finally stopped not because she had run out of things she wanted to say, but because she was sick and starved and exhausted.

  Lauren, too startled to maintain his first seruilis mask, caught Telat's arm as she swayed, panting, and he and Melar helped the girl to one of the piles of mats.

>   Larkin gaped at the scene. "What was all that?"

  When Ash didn't respond, Heran said: "She is – I think she said that she belongs to a Firuvari crafter house. That when her grandfather died, those appointed her guardians announced they were taking her to be trained. And brought her to Montmoth and just...left. Most of what she said is what she wants to do to them."

  "She is House Docenti," Lauren said, glancing up from an examination of the swollen, seeping gash on Telat's leg.

  This produced another respectful silence. Firuvar was too far away to be more than stories to most of Montmoth, but among those stories House Docenti featured not infrequently as the source of fabulous extravagance. And should you have no use for staircases of frozen flame, or fountains that sang, they offered more practical items, such as goblets that nullified poisons. In Montmoth, where even the glowing stone used in the Gods' Hall was an expensive rarity, House Docenti was almost literally a name to conjure with.

  Even Bitty blinked a few times, but then pragmatically unpacked a bag of stale bread she'd brought along from the bakery and offered it around while Melar and Lauren worked to clean, salve and bind Telat's leg. Ash tore a bun to tiny fragments and washed it down, and when Sim arrived with Carl and Dest in the middle of this she drew a rough map and sent them off to check on a house where a piece of trash might still be in the cellar, one of her knives in his back. If he was, they'd deliver him to the Watch.

  "But she must understand Old Tongue," Larkin said, after this interruption had been dealt with. "When you told her to come each day to the bakery, she did!"

  "I understand Firuven much better than I speak it," Ash said, struggling to make herself audible. "I wonder how well I'd do if I'd tried to learn just by listening?"

  Melar looked over at her. "Ash, do you want to have a voice tomorrow?"

  "Bah."

  "Why didn't they just kill her?" Heran asked, and then haltingly repeated the question in Firuven.

  "You speak as if your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth," Telat observed, obliging Ash to gulp rather. "They are all cowards. They think I am – they think that if they kill me, they will be cursed. So they put me here, in this frozen place."