found an agitated Bani and felt something wet on his hands. Looking at them, he sat that his palms were oozing that bluish blood from a dozen lacerations.
“Are you all right?” Aleest softly asked from the other side of the wall.
“Yes, I'm fine. Just be careful. There is something sharp on the top of the wall.” A moment later Aleest’s blanket was tossed along the top of the wall. Shortly after, the lad slid over and lowered himself to the roof top. There was a couple cuts in the blanket when Aleest held it up for inspection, but overall it seemed unaffected by the usage.
“Your hands! That looks like it had to have hurt, not to mention you weren’t joking when you said that you bleed blue blood.”
“It has been like that since I left the dwarves. It will be fine in a little while. Almost already scabbed up.” Cero jumped when a familiar gruff voice yelled out behind him.
“I knew you scoundrels were up to something when I saw you leave the road. Now you both are in for a flogging on top of the branding.” The guardsman from the gate was angrily advancing on the building that the both of them were standing on the roof of. He was flexing his fingers like he was anticipating scourge’s haft in his hand.
“Run, I think he means it.” Aleest stated the obvious as the two of them bolted in the direction furthermost from the guardsman, ignoring the outraged orders to halt. The part of the lower city seemed to be the habitations of some of the more impoverished. The buildings were built closely together allowing one to run from roof to roof with relative ease. Someone on the ground such as the guardsman would be hindered by the fences and clotheslines that crisscrossed the space below. There was nothing clearly defined as a street to ease movement. With this advantage, the duo easily outstripped their pursuer.
When they stopped to catch their breath, they had left the guardsman several yards back. Fortunately, some of the neighbors didn’t seem to get along well and had built sturdy fences out of the available materials. This had made the guardsman’s path an exceedingly difficult one to follow. It didn’t take much to drop down off the roof top and progress inwards to what resembled a street. The smells were overpowering, to say the least. All manner of refuse lay rotting in the gutters and in spots the gutters were so clogged that pools of what could only be defined as raw sewage encroached on the street. Carefully skirting these many hazards, they returned to the road that led from the gate. Crossing the street, they were about to enter a side street that led towards the city proper in the hopes of avoiding accidently running into the same guard if he was still in the vicinity.
“Hey you! Halt there you cursed little rapscallions. I'm going to flay…” After the initial instinctive urge to bolt again, they looked over their shoulder to see why the guard had stopped mid threat. To their immense satisfaction, they discovered that the guard had been so distracted that he had blundered into one of the pools of sewage and lost his footing. He was now floundering in the slippery substance and spewing the vilest of curses. The intended victims of his wrath casually took the opportunity to disappear into the side street.
“Did the guard at the gate give you any trouble?” Both Cero and Aleest jumped when Urake came up behind them a short while later on intersecting with the main road.
“Not really.” Cero smirked at Aleest without Urake noticing.
“That is good. After he charged us fifteen silver to let the wagon through, Emeck and I got worried that he might hassle you two.”
“Fifteen for the wagon and two people? He wanted ten silver a piece to let us through.” Urake raised an eyebrow at Cero’s admission.
“I didn’t know that you had that much silver on you.”
“We didn’t.”
“Then…?” Urake gave the boys a sideways look.
“We went over the wall.” Urake nodded thoughtfully at Cero’s comment.
“That was a little risky. A guard could have seen you. I was on my way back to make sure you got through safely when I ran into you two.”
“He did see us. The guard was suspicious of us so he decided to patrol the wall and saw us come over.” Aleest explained what Cero would rather have left unsaid.