Covenant's End - Ari Marmell Page 0,75
running from the edges of her hood, Widdershins could barely even see the building across the street; it was little more than a darker shape, etched in falling droplets. Between the dark of night and the inclement weather, it might as well have been miles away.
She stared anyway.
How many times am I going to have to do this, anyway? How many—?
“You realize,” Major Paschal Sorelle said from behind her, “that I'm going to need that sword back.”
“Of course. That was the understanding when you lent me one of your Guard-issued blades for the duration of this operation, wasn't it?”
The peculiar sound he made in response to that might have been a stifled laugh or simply an accidental mouthful of rainwater. “Something like that.”
“I mean, it's not as though someone could just take a weapon from under a trained guardsman's nose.”
“Don't push it.”
She finally turned his way, then struggled to repress a laugh of her own. “You're wilting.”
Paschal glared at her from beneath the brim of his hat, which was now heavy enough with rain to fold down around his ears. The normally erect plume dangled and wobbled, a sad, wet rodent's tail.
“I hope you guys are better at keeping your powder dry,” she noted.
“We have dealt with weather in the past, believe it or not.”
“Paschal,” she said, suddenly serious, “I can't stress this enough. The idol—”
“I know, I know. You told us. The priestess told us. Over and over.”
“You need to take it seriously. All your people do. It's easy to scoff at the idea of a curse, but—”
“You mean it. I know. You and the others just get us there, let us worry about keeping ourselves alive and, um, un-cursed. If the place is as much of a maze as you've described it—”
“More. And thank you for giving me my turn to interrupt; you went twice in a row.”
“How unchivalrous of me. Widdershins, I'm more concerned about you. Are you up to this? Are Lambert and Vernadoe? There are those who would call what you're doing traitorous.”
“Lisette's the traitor. Lisette and anyone who's loyal to her. They can all rot, the seams of breeches.”
“‘Seams of…’?”
Thump-splash-squish announced the approach of a Guard messenger, sprinting across the rooftop. He skidded to a halt at Paschal's side, spit out a mouthful of rain, then said, “Last team's in position, sir.”
Shins smirked, wondering idly if the rain made her teeth glisten, said, “Try to keep up,” and stepped off the edge.
Nearly blinding, nearly deafening, but even the downpour could not wash away the reek of the alley. Old garbage had soaked into the earth; its stench was baked into the bricks. Burning down the entire block might, might have been enough to cleanse the odor.
This was hardly Shins's first time in this specific alley, let alone the many just like it, so she knew she could deal with it. Nevertheless, she gave some very serious thought to asking Olgun to turn off her nose for a bit. She decided, however reluctantly, that he was probably busy enough enhancing her sight and hearing, and didn't need the extra distraction.
Besides, she wouldn't be here long.
She found the sentry more or less where she expected. He appeared to be a beggar, sheltering in a shallow doorway in a futile attempt to escape the elements. Most passersby, if they noticed him at all, would dismiss him just as readily.
Which, Shins knew, was the entire point.
Come to think of it, she wondered, as she studied the man far more intently than the ambient light and visibility should have permitted, don't I know him?
“Say,” she said over the rain, stepping out of the shadows, “didn't I once drug you and force you to guide me through the Guild?”
The rather comical, tangled-marionette thrashing as the thief tried to leap to his feet, draw his weapon, and reach for his signal whistle all at once granted Shins more than enough time to act. With an almost casual openhanded shove, she bounced the man's head off the brick wall behind him. Not too hard—she wasn't looking to kill the guy—but definitely more than enough to daze him, at which point she spun him around by the shoulders, wrapped an arm around his neck in a brutal choke hold, and made sure he was down for a good long while.
“You'd probably have preferred the drugs again,” she observed as she carefully lowered him back to the stoop on which he'd sat, watching as the rain swiftly diluted the blood dribbling from his scalp.