A Dance of Cloaks - By Dalglish, David Page 0,12

she had taken her eyes off the boy. If he’d made a sudden turn, or jumped through a window, then it would be the soldiers who found him, not her.

She did know this: Undry would not be the one paying her for capturing the child. Anyone worth having the entire city guard give chase deserved a nice ransom. A king’s ransom, in fact. When she spotted the boy, she let out a soft sigh. He was a walking bag of gold, and she never would have forgiven herself if she had let him slip away.

He was limping now, though she wasn’t sure why. He was also veering to the right, and she felt a mix of feelings when she realized where. It was an old abandoned temple to Ashhur, stripped of all its valuables when their elegant white-marble temple farther north had been completed. The doors had been boarded shut, but those boards were long broken. Kayla smiled, for she knew there was no way out. She also wanted to strangle the boy, for if the guards searched inside, well…there’d be no way out.

She looked down the street, seeing no near patrols just yet. She shimmied down the side of a home. Without pause she ran across the street, kicked the door open, and rushed inside.

Where there had once been painted glass were now thick boards with even thicker nails. Where there had once been rows of benches were now splinters and grooved ruts on the floor. The entire place stank of feces and urine. She paused just inside the door to look for the boy, and that was when he struck her.

She felt a fist smash her temple, followed by a swift kick to her groin. As she staggered to one knee, she couldn’t help but smile knowing the boy had assumed a man chased after. Another punch struck her nose, but she caught his wrist before he could pull his fist back. She was not prepared for the sudden maneuver he made. His fingers wrapped around her own wrist, his body twisted, and then she was down on both knees, wincing as the bones of her arm protested in pain.

Any delusions she had of him being a normal boy vanished with her shriek of pain. Her fingernails clawed his skin, but he seemed to not care. Eye to eye they stared, and if she expected to find fear or desperation, it was not there. His blue eyes seemed to sparkle, and as the boy let go of her wrist and tried to kick her chest, she realized he was enjoying himself.

She ducked under the kick, spun around him, and then jabbed his throat with her elbow. When he collapsed, he rolled his body, avoiding the next two blows from her foot. He caught her heel on her third kick and then shoved it upward. She somersaulted with the push, snapping his chin with her other foot. As he staggered back, she landed lightly on her feet, drew two daggers from her belt, and hurled them across the room.

They stabbed into the wood at his feet, barely an inch at either side.

“Soldiers give chase, you stupid boy,” Kayla said. “Do you want to get us both killed?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Kayla drew two more daggers, twirling them in her fingers. The boy was smart, she could see that. He had to know he was beaten, yet the fact that she held back the killing blow surely should earn her some measure of trust.

“Your name,” she said. “Tell me, and I’ll hide you from them.”

“My name…” He was not at all winded from the run or their tussle, though he spoke low as if embarrassed by the sound of his own voice. “My name is Haern.”

“The Haerns are simple farmers,” Kayla said. “Stop lying to me. We both know you’ve never bent your back in a field or soiled your clothes in pig shit.”

“Haern is my first name,” the boy said, his eyes sparkling. “You haven’t asked for my last name yet.”

She glanced toward the door, expecting soldiers to come barging in at any moment.

“And what might that be?” she asked.

“Felhorn.”

And then it clicked. She would make no money from this information, nor from the ransom. Only a fool would dare ransom a child of Thren Felhorn and expect to live another year.

Unless they delivered the child to Thren himself.

“Thren’s your father,” she said flatly.

Haern nodded.

“Good. Listen to me, we don’t have much time if I’m going