Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,134

he gave the lip overlooking the courtyard a wide berth. He positioned himself on the wall behind the guard.

As noiselessly as he could, he secured another section of rope to the roof and slowly began to rappel down the wall. The guard was almost directly beneath him. Jesper was no Wraith, but if he could just make the drop silently and sneak up behind the guard he could keep things quiet.

He tensed, ready to drop. Another guard strode out of the gatehouse, clapping his hands in the cold and talking loudly, then a third appeared. Jesper froze. He was dangling over three armed guards, halfway down a wall, completely exposed. This was why Kaz did the planning. Sweat broke out on his brow. He couldn’t take three guards at once. And what if there were more in the gatehouse, ready to ring the alarm?

“Wait,” said one of the guards. “Did you hear something?”

Don’t look up. Oh, Saints, don’t look up.

The guards moved in a slow circle, rifles raised. One of them craned his head back, scanning the roof. He began to turn.

A strange, sweet sound pierced the air.

“Skerden Fjerda, kende hjertzeeeeeng, lendten isen en de waaaanden.”

Fjerdan words Jesper didn’t understand crested over the courtyard in a shimmering, perfect tenor that seemed to catch upon the black stone battlements.

Wylan.

The guards whirled, rifles pointed at the walkway that led to the courtyard, seeking the source of the sound.

“Olander?” one called.

“Nilson?” said another.

Their guns were raised, but their voices were more bemused and curious than aggressive.

What the hell is he doing?

A silhouette appeared in the walkway arch, lurching left and right.

“Skerden Fjerda, kende hjertzeeeeeng,” Wylan sang, doing a surprisingly convincing impression of a drunk but very talented Fjerdan.

The guards burst out laughing, joining in on the song. “Lendten isen…”

Jesper leapt down. He seized the closest Fjerdan, snapped his neck, and grabbed his rifle. As the next guard turned, Jesper slammed the butt of the rifle into his face with a nasty crunch. The third guard raised his weapon, but Wylan snagged his arms from behind in an awkward hold. The rifle dropped from the guard’s hands, clattering against the stone. Before he could cry out, Jesper lunged forward and rammed the butt of his rifle into the guard’s gut, then finished him with two strikes to the jaw.

He reached down and tossed one of the rifles to Wylan. They stood over the guards’ bodies, panting, weapons raised, waiting for more Fjerdan soldiers to flood out of the gatehouse. No one came. Maybe the fourth guard had been pulled away for Yellow Protocol.

“Is that how you shut up and stay out of the way?” Jesper whispered as they dragged the guards’ bodies out of view behind one of the stone slabs.

“Is that how you say thank you?” Wylan retorted.

“What the hell was that song?”

“National anthem,” Wylan said smugly. “Schoolroom Fjerdan, remember?”

Jesper shook his head. “I’m impressed. With you and your tutors.”

They liberated two of the guards’ uniforms, leaving their own prison clothes in a tidy bundle, then bound the hands and feet of the guards who still had pulses and gagged them with torn pieces of their prison clothes. Wylan’s uniform was far too big, and Jesper’s sleeves and pants looked ridiculously short, but at least the boots were a reasonable fit.

Wylan gestured to the guards. “Is it safe to leave them, you know—”

“Alive? I’m not big on killing unconscious men.”

“We could wake them up.”

“Pretty ruthless, merchling. Have you ever killed anyone?”

“I’d never even seen a dead body before I came to the Barrel,” Wylan admitted.

“It’s not something to be embarrassed about,” Jesper said, surprising himself a little. But he meant it. Wylan needed to learn to take care of himself, but it would be nice if he could do it without getting on friendly terms with death. “Make sure the gags are tight.”

They took the extra precaution of securing the bound guards to the base of a stone slab. The poor nubs would probably be discovered before they managed to get loose.

“Let’s go,” Jesper said, and they crossed the courtyard to the gatehouse. There were doors to the right and left of the arch.

They took the right side, climbing the stairs cautiously. Though Jesper didn’t think anyone would be lying in wait, some guard might be charged with protecting the gate mechanism at all cost. But the room above the arch was empty, lit only by a lantern set on a low table where a book lay open next to a little pile