A Dance of Cloaks - By Dalglish, David Page 0,16

single quick motion she unbuckled her belt, counted to three, and then ran off the side of the house. When the fence neared, she looped the belt around one of the spikes and then did her best to hold in a shout of pain as her body rammed into the bars. She started to fall, but then the belt tightened. Using a similar technique, she kicked off the bars and somersaulted. Her breath caught in her throat as she passed over the incredibly sharp tips. She pictured herself impaled, her corpse upside-down like some grotesque ornament.

Then she was over, and the blessed ground met her feet. She rolled along, then scrambled toward the nearest tree. Compared to the house, it made easy climbing with its many shoots and branches. Haern was waiting for her among the leaves.

“Keep quiet,” he whispered. Tears ran down his face, but he kept the sobs out of his voice. With a slender hand, he pointed through a gap in the leaves where the street was visible to them both. Soldiers ran past, torches in hand. They scoured the area, but not once did they inspect the land behind the walls.

“Laurie Keenan’s property might as well be a foreign nation,” Kayla whispered. “A smart call, though you have the courage of a lion to leap like you did. If your knee had buckled…”

“It didn’t,” Haern said. “Not until I landed.”

She pulled up his pant leg and looked. His knee had already turned a shade of blue, with the very center an ugly brown. When she touched it gently with her fingers, she could tell it was badly swollen.

“We need it wrapped and iced,” she whispered. “And you need to give it rest.”

Haern nodded.

“How long can we hide here?”

Kayla shrugged. “We pressing our luck as is, but if we stay away from the mansion we should be safe. I hear all his traps are within its halls.”

Haern leaned his head against a branch and closed his eyes.

“Don’t let me fall,” he said. “Please?”

“Sleep if you must,” she said, reattaching her belt. “I’ll keep us safe.”

Several hours passed. If she had any doubt to the boy’s identity, the tenacity of the soldiers’ search erased them. Carefully she pushed the blonde hair off his face and looked at his soft features.

There was no doubt he was Aaron Felhorn, and by his actions and his skill, he was most certainly his father’s son.

When the sun finally began to creep above the city walls, Kayla nudged him awake. He snapped his eyes open and stared at her without a word. It was as if now the danger was passed, he had grown inward and shy.

“Come, Aaron,” she said. “Let us get you home.”

“Haern,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “Call me Haern.”

“Why?” Kayla asked. “I know who you are; there is no need for pretenses.”

“Because when I am Haern…” He stopped and looked away. “When I am him, he is everything I am not.”

She wasn’t sure she understood, but she had a lot more pressing things to worry about than what name the Felhorn whelp wanted to be called.

“Should we head west?” she asked. He nodded. “I thought so, but we have a slight problem. How do we get over the gate?”

He didn’t know. It seemed when the hounds were at his heel, he was a fountain of ideas, but when things quieted down, the fountain ran dry. She almost smacked him upside the head and threatened to cut his throat if he didn’t produce an idea, but the thought was so absurd she laughed.

“I guess we wait,” Kayla said. Her stomach was rumbling, and she badly wanted someone to look at Aaron’s knee…Haern’s knee, she corrected. When she glanced about, she had little faith in the tree’s cover once the sun reached its fullest. If discovered, she would probably wish for the comfort of the noose. Keenan’s cruelty was legendary throughout not just Veldaren but all of Dezrel. Inside his compound, he ruled, not the king.

“What if someone else opens the gate?” Haern whispered. “Maybe we can run through.”

“Maybe,” she said absently. Maybe if whoever it was didn’t notice them hiding in the tree. Maybe if they weren’t stopped by guards on their frantic dash to the street. Maybe if archers located in windows didn’t feather them dead. If they were to do something, she realized, she needed to do it before the rest of the estate began their daily routines. If spotted, they didn’t have a beggar’s

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