“Lord Bight! It’s Lord Bight,” people cried around them. “He’s here!” Overcoming their fear of the plague, people came forward to gather around their governor. The Governor’s Guards hurried forward, too, and swiftly took their places around Lord Bight to keep the crowd at a safe distance while he talked to the citizens and tried to allay their fears and answer their most desperate questions.
Meanwhile, Linsha recognized one young guard and called him over. “Morgan, come help me. Commander Durne fell in the hole.”
Together they climbed carefully over the edge and down the steep slope. Tendrils of acrid smoke rose to meet them. Dirt and debris slid under their boots, making their footing unstable. They found the Khur first, flat on his back and grinning at the night sky. He was unhurt and unperturbed by his predicament, so they left him where he lay and searched deeper for Durne and Linsha’s prisoner. The pit was hot. and treacherous, with hidden holes and shattered debris.
A faint groan led them to the commander, who was sprawled on his back against a large pile of street pavers. The speaker lay on his chest close by, his legs still tangled with Durne’s. Morgan scrambled over to his commander and examined him as best he could without moving him.
Linsha slid over to the other man. He remained motionless and limp, his arms flung out. She tugged him free of the commander’s legs, then pulled him over. He rolled, gurgling, onto his back to reveal a dagger buried in his chest. Muttering several highly suitable epithets, she pulled the knife out of his body. It was an old one, plain and well used. Probably his own. Disgusted, she laid it on his chest and turned back to Commander Durne.
Morgan had the commander sitting up and trying to get his breath.
“Had his wind knocked out of him,” the guardsman grinned, obviously relieved.
Commander Durne drew a gasping breath and winced.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“I hit my back on the stones. I think he fell on me.”
They all looked at the body.
“Who is he?” Morgan wanted to know.
Linsha shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought I recognized him from the incident at the south pier, but he wouldn’t talk to me. I was hoping we could arrest him and make him talk. He must have fallen on his dagger.” She decided it would be better not to say any more, even to Commander Durne.
“Too bad,” Morgan said and immediately dismissed the dead man from his thoughts.
The two of them eased Commander Durne to his feet, but when they tried to help him climb the slippery slope, he groaned in real pain and nearly fell again.
“Morgan, we’re going to need some help to get the commander and that Khur out of here. Go see if you can find some rope and some extra arms.”
The good-natured guard didn’t mind taking orders from a squire when they made sense. With an easy punch to Linsha’s arm, he climbed up the side of the sinkhole and out of sight.
Commander Durne sank thankfully to a sitting position on a heap of dirt. Linsha squatted beside him to wait. Despite her efforts to ignore him, she found her eyes drawn inevitably to his face, and she saw his pale gaze studying her. A delicious warmth stole over her, and she indulged in a visual appreciation of his handsome features: his wide mouth, the long, straight nose, the slight indentation in his chin.
He endured only a moment of her silence before his words came tumbling out. “I do not have and never have had a relationship with Shanron,” he said abruptly.
Startled, Linsha lowered her eyes. “Even if you had, it is none of my affair. You are my commander. You made that very clear.”
He sighed. “I am well aware of that. Yet I find myself drawn to you. I hoped I could put you out of my mind during your absence…” His voice trailed off. His hand cupped her chin and gently tilted her face up to look at him. “Even in this reeking darkness, you’re beautiful,” he whispered. “What is it about you I cannot resist?”
Usually so confident and self-assured, Linsha trembled. She tried to say something, but nothing even remotely coherent came to mind.
“Commander Durne! Lynn!” Morgan’s voice called above them. “Here comes a rope.”
The moment of privacy was gone. Linsha felt rather than saw Durne withdraw from her, and although disappointment cut her, she understood. He couldn’t reveal his feelings or even show favoritism for her in front of his guards and still remain an effective leader. She gave him a small smile, then scrambled to her feet to fetch the rope.
With the help of willing hands above and a strong rope, Commander Durne climbed up the sinkhole. Linsha managed to urge the Khur to his feet, tie the rope around his middle, and help him out of the hole as well. The dead man was left where he had fallen.
He wasn’t alone for long.
True to the needs of that disastrous week, workers soon set about filling the sinkhole with dead victims of the plague. When it could hold no more, the bodies would be covered with lime and buried under a mound.
Linsha was the last one out of the hole. She climbed out gratefully and withstood a bearish hug from the drunken Khur. She watched him walk unsteadily away. “Thank you, Morgan,” she said to the guard as he coiled up his rope.
“Good work, you two,” Lord Bight said, joining them. “Now, if the fires are out and everyone is finished playing in the hole, we must go.”
A crowd of people still hovered around, and they followed the governor and his guards as the group mounted the horses. Lord Bight was given Morgan’s horse, and Morgan and Linsha doubled up with other riders.
“Lord Bight,” someone called. “Would you open the city gates? We have friends and family behind the walls. Some of us have jobs. It’s too late now to stop the spread of the sickness in the inner city, so let us go in.”
Guild Master Vanduran joined the governor by his horse. “The City Council acted in what they thought was the city’s best interest,” he tried to explain.
Most of the people wouldn’t accept that. “They never asked us!” another man shouted.
“That’s right!” called a woman. “When they closed the gates and the fires started tonight, we thought you intended to burn the harbor district.”
The lord governor looked out over his citizens and raised his hand for silence. “I did not order the gates to be barred, and I never considered burning the sick house or any part of the city.” His voice took on the same hypnotic, reassuring tones he had used at the gathering on the south pier. “The closing of the gates was a misunderstanding between myself and the council. The fires were not of my doing, but I promise you I will investigate these rumors of arson. Do you believe me?”
A murmur of cautious satisfaction met his question.
Led by Lord Bight, the company rode forward slowly, so the trailing crowd of Sanction’s citizens could keep up with them. More people-men, women, kender, dwarves, elves, and a scattering of other races-joined the march through the hot, dark streets toward the city wall.
Torches were burning beside the huge double doors that stood closed and barred against the city’s own populace. City Guards paced the walls and watched nervously as the crowd approached. They didn’t recognize Lord Bight in the dim light until he raised his hand to stop the procession.
As soon as the riders and the whispering, expectant crowd halted behind him, he rode forward into the torchlight, accompanied by Commander Durne.
“Who dares bar the gates of this city against me?” he shouted.
Agitated voices called from the wall walk, and there was the sound of running footsteps.
Captain Dewald’s fair head appeared over the wall. “My lord! I did not know you were out there. I’m sorry. We were told to allow only Commander Durne and his men to reenter.” He snapped orders to someone below, and a postern gate was thrown open.