When the first guard was fifteen paces along his way, with his back turned, Leesil slipped from the shadows, heading for the wall with Brot’an close behind him.
Pawl a’Seatt had been too restless this night to even remain at the shop for closing time. Whatever was happening at the guild, what he did not know, ate at him too much. He’d left Teagan to close up and then hurried off before the scribe master could even express surprise.
Pawl had taken to the city’s heights, heading toward the castle and keep of the sages.
Little might be learned in watching the grounds, other than to know how much the captain of the Shyldfälches had done to seal the place. But even that was something compared to the nothingness of waiting and wondering when the translation project might restart.
The Premin Council had locked up Wynn Hygeorht, and from that moment, all work on the project had ceased. Pawl was certain there must be a connection between her imprisonment and the stalled transcriptions.
Dressed in his voluminous black cloak and broad-brimmed black hat, Pawl now crouched upon a rooftop across from the guild’s northern corner, where a short access road off Old Bailey Road connected to the Outwall Loop. He knew his behavior was probably foolish and certainly pointless, but he watched the northern circuit guard turn around at the rear central barbican for the sixth time since he’d arrived.
The city guard headed back along the wall. It would be a while before the one walking the wall’s southern half appeared in sight at the keep’s back.
Pawl hung his head, wondering again what he’d thought he could accomplish here.
Movement caught his left eye as something dark shot across Old Bailey Road.
His sight sharpened until the night grew bright in his eyes. Two figures, the second taller than the first, rushed for the bailey wall. They ducked in next to the jutting barbican’s southern side where it joined the wall.
Another movement pulled Pawl’s attention.
A tall figure stood up on a roof a few buildings south of him. It wore a dark, hooded cloak that bulked up at its back. The cloak did not swing freely, as he could see the figure’s legs, and the figure crept to the building’s edge, crouching as it looked down into the street. It appeared to be watching the pair that now hid on the barbican’s far side.
Pawl silently ran and leaped to the next rooftop. Upon landing, he dropped low. He rose slowly, peering along the rooftops, but that other unknown figure still watched the street below.
He had seen similar tall figures moving about the city roofs once before. He had not sensed them as undead, so they had not particularly interested him until now. What was this cloaked figure doing, watching the guild? And who were the two below that this one took such trouble not to be noticed by them?
Pawl remained there in the dark only a few buildings away, watching and waiting.
Chane could still see the sands falling in his mind’s eye, and yet Shade had not acted. Her first loud bark took him by surprise and made him flinch. She was finally outside the bailey gate, raising a ruckus to draw the guard’s attention. Chane nodded one last time to Ore-Locks and stood up to make a silent dash for the keep’s main doors.
He had barely cleared the corner when the barracks door opened outward.
Chane ducked back around the corner at the sound of hard boots stomping the courtyard stones. Peeking out with one eye, he tensed at whom he saw.
Captain Rodian strode out of Wynn’s barracks.
Chane frowned, clenching his jaw. Had Rodian placed himself on night watch? Did he not have enough men to see to the keep? The captain was not some random guard, and would know Chane on sight.
At this unforeseen complication, Chane held up a hand for Ore-Locks to remain still. He then peeked around the barracks’ corner again.
The captain stopped midway to the keep’s main doors. He turned in the courtyard at the sound of Shade’s barks echoing up the gatehouse tunnel. Striding toward the tunnel, he slipped from Chane’s sight as he approached the tunnel’s mouth, but his footfalls stopped too soon.
Shade’s cacophony of snarling and howling continued, echoing loudly in the night air.
“Maolís!” the captain suddenly barked. “What’s going on out there?”
“Not sure, sir,” came an answer. “Should I go and see?”
The captain’s footfalls began again, eventually echoing as if he had headed into the tunnel.
The courtyard was empty, but the captain would still be in direct line of sight to the keep’s main doors. If he raised the portcullis to see to matters himself, would he recognize Shade? There was no telling what might happen then, or how long Shade could continue her distraction.
Chane did not hesitate. “Now,” he rasped.
Ore-Locks pivoted and stepped straight into the barracks’ end wall.
Chane hurried out, creeping along the barracks’ front. As he passed its door, for an instant he was tempted to enter there, go straight to Wynn, and alter the whole plan.
Someone still had to secure the path, so he continued along the barracks to its far end and the eastern corner of the courtyard. There he paused in the shadows, looking between the keep’s main doors and the gatehouse tunnel, in direct line of sight to them.
There was no turning back.
Chane inched toward the keep’s doors with his eyes on the tunnel, determined to make certain Wynn and Ore-Locks had a safe path to the library.
Chapter 14
RODIAN STRODE DOWN the gatehouse tunnel.
He’d been spending as much time as possible at the guild. The key to learning what was really happening could only be found here—mostly through Wynn Hygeorht. When he reached Guardsman Maolís at the tunnel’s outer end, he peered through the portcullis’s thick beams.
“What’s going on out there?” he demanded.
The path to the closed bailey gate was all clear, but he heard a dog in the street beyond it, making a commotion.
“Sounds like a dog having some kind of fit, sir,” Maolís answered.
“Yes,” Rodian replied dryly, “I can hear that.”
Maolís was a solid guardsman with thick arms, carrot red hair, and a smattering of freckles across his small nose and broad cheeks. He also had an unusually firm grasp of the obvious.
Suddenly, Rodian thought of one very tall dog—or wolf.
Shade always tended to remain near Wynn, but she’d run off a few nights before. Then another “dog,” very much like her, had shown up later in the company of a shy elven girl with strange eyes.
“Open the portcullis!” he called up.
Loud creaking and clanks echoed in the tunnel, nearly drowning out the dog’s noise. When the outer portcullis was only halfway up, Rodian ducked under, heading quickly to the bailey gate. He pulled it open and looked down.
It was Shade, but she instantly fell silent, ears stiffening upright as she stared at him. She looked almost startled, at a loss over the gate actually opening, if such emotion was possible on a dog’s face.
Rodian took a step and reached out carefully.
Before he could grab her scruff, she wheeled and bolted up the road toward the city. He started to run after her.
“Shade, stop!” he called.
Her tall form was nearly as black as night’s shadows, and she stretched out her long legs into a full run. Before Rodian even reached the head of Old Procession Road into the city, Shade swerved right up Wall Shop Row a whole block away and was gone.
“Shade!” he called again, slowing to a halt in frustration.
What had the dog been doing out here? If she’d been howling to get inside—back to Wynn—then why run off the instant the gate opened? Why had she left Wynn in the first place?