still. The surf moaned, strangely muted, while the wind whispered and gusted. The surrounding streets showed no other sign of violence. Crouched on his haunches, he looked more closely. Human innards, steam rising in the damp air. Was this all that remained of Bell, late guard at the Hanged Man? Was it a hound’s work? It looked more like the attack of a predatory cat such as the catamounts of the Seti Plains, or the snow leopard of the Fenn Ranges of northern Quon Tali. Still, that damned baying sounded as if it reverberated from a beast the size of a bhederin.
He stood, eyed the frowning cliff face and Mock Hold, perched above like a dark thunderhead. No lights shone, no fires burned along its walls. It was as if the fortress was as lifeless as a crypt. Yet Temper felt certain he’d find the answers to tonight’s mysteries concealed within its halls. At least he hoped to; he had no idea where else to look. He jogged on, heading across the centre of town.
On Agayla’s doorstep, Kiska had waited, enclosed in a hug that seemed to go on forever. Letting go, Agayla had eventually stood back, hands still tight on Kiska’s while she stared out into the darkness. For one terrified moment Kiska had thought she would forbid her to leave. She revisited her haunted vision of wasting away on the tiny island, walking in circles round and round its narrow shores. But the instant ‘Burn watch over you’ had passed the old woman’s lips, Kiska’s thoughts were free to fly ahead into the night. She waved goodbye, but her mind already was on Cutter’s Strait – the main north-south concourse dividing the old town from the new.
Now, crouched deep in the shadow of a chimney, her toes curled around the edges of wet roof tiles and her back to the warm brick, she looked out over the deserted streets. From here the town seemed dead – every window shuttered, cloth hung to disguise any sign of life. The moon leered down like a mocking eye.
She gripped the crossbow across her knees, trying to squeeze reassurance from its weight and resilience. Tonight, just a mere few turnings into the streets, and she no longer knew where she was. The experience had shaken her to her very core. It was as if she had suddenly found herself in another town. She had no idea which direction to take or how to get back. Yet the streets possessed an eerie familiarity. This looked to be near where she’d run during the riots that erupted in response to the Regent’s ban against sorcery.
It had been the first night of the protest, before simple crowd dispersal had degenerated into outright looting, arson and extortion; before Agayla locked her away. She’d watched from the rooftops while unseasoned soldiers ran wild, drunk with their newfound power, behaving like wharf-front thugs. The few veterans seemed unable – or unwilling – to contain them.
She’d turned away, sickened, carefully tracking a rooftop path from the worst of the crash of shop-fronts and roaring fires, when a shout pulled her attention down into the confines of a dark alleyway. Three soldiers baited an old man, grey-haired, whip-lean. A fisherman by the look of his thread-bare shirt and oiled trousers. Laughing, they punched and kicked him while he retreated up the alley. The sight enraged her, and without thinking she’d pried loose the largest roof tile she could find and heaved it down amid the soldiers.
One man fell immediately, dropped by the heavy ceramic. His friends shouted their astonishment and ran from the alley. The old man staggered back. Kiska ran to a roof corner over a grated window and let herself down. From there, holding fast to the window bars, she set her feet atop a fence, then lowered herself to the garbage-strewn pavement.
The soldier lay stunned, perhaps even dead. His friends had vanished. She searched for the old man but found no sign of him. He must have stumbled off while she was climbing down. Shaking her head she turned to go, but discovered that the other two soldiers had not fled as far as she’d expected. They now blocked the only way out – unless she attempted to climb again. And she didn’t believe they’d give her time for that.
A step scraped the stones behind her and she spun to put her back to the wall. It was the fallen soldier, now standing. Blood smeared one side