“Errollyn, stop.” Aisha was fast, and caught his arm. “Errollyn, she doesn't mean it. Forgive her.”
“This isn't a question of forgiving. It is a question of symmetry. Rhillian's is not mine.”
“Errollyn, it's just…you baffle her sometimes.” Aisha's look pleaded understanding. “No serrin acts as you do.”
“And instead of tolerating my difference, she fears it. Aisha.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “You are half human. Do you find me so strange?”
“No.”
Errollyn smiled at her. “You're human enough to lie, but serrin enough to be awful at it.”
“Errollyn, she has a great responsibility. No serrin has carried such responsibility before. The threat we face is vast. The old ways of serrin will no longer serve. She seeks the new. I do not envy her in that, Errollyn. She needs our support, not our criticism.”
“Even if the only support I have to offer is a lie, and the only truth I see is criticism?” Aisha sighed and hung her head. “You think just like her. You think I do this just to be difficult. I don't. I do it because it's what I am.”
“What we are, Errollyn, is of the serrinim.” Aisha's voice was firm. As though her feet were finally steady upon the only solid ground she'd yet found in the whole argument. “I am half human, yet even I am drawn to it. That is what we were meant for. I believe that more strongly than I believe in anything.”
“I know you do,” Errollyn said softly. “And that is why there is no longer any place for me within the serrinim.” He kissed his friend gently on the forehead and continued down the stairs.
“Errollyn,” Aisha said plaintively from behind, “you are the serrinim! Whether you feel it or not, that's what you are!”
Errollyn did not stop his descent. Nor did he look back.
The night was alive with danger. Errollyn could smell it on the wind as he moved, a dark shadow through the alleys, paralleling the upper ridgeline as close as safety allowed. He paused often, and listened to the distant crackle of flames and the ringing of bells. Carts clattered up cobbled roads-wealthy folk on the move, protected by many guards, eyeing the shadows with weapons at the ready.
Once, he heard an approaching whisper of footsteps, and whistled warning in the darkness. The answering whistle revealed Nasi-Keth, three of them, well-armed and moving in the opposite direction. The passing was friendly, but neither party revealed their destination. When they were gone, Errollyn wondered which of the three Nasi-Keth factions they belonged to-conservative Alaine, serrin-friendly Gerrold, or progressive Kessligh.
As he moved between crumbling walls, scanning the ground for tripwires, he considered the situation. It appeared that Steiner had sent carts to Halmady Mansion to transport prisoners. Normally, the route between Steiner Mansion and Halmady Mansion was simple-a short distance along the Sawback Road with mostly grand mansions on either side. But on nights like tonight there came a complication-Family Ganaron. Family Ganaron was a Maerler ally, surrounded by a cluster of Steiner-friendly mansions on Sawback Road, midway between the Steiner and Halmady residences. Most northern families were Steiner, and most southern families were Maerler, but not all. To have a position so near to the enemy's heart was valuable. Steiner would not risk transporting valuable prisoners past Ganaron Mansion. So which route would they take?
Errollyn took a downhill path, descending a steep, winding stairway then dashing across a narrow road and advancing up one side, pressing close to the walls. He ducked into another lane until he reached one of the giant fig trees that loved the sandstone incline. He climbed up its gnarled, twisting trunk until he could see the uphill stretch of the Slipway, one of north Petrodor's two best roads, winding up to the ridge from the docks far below.
He could see the looming rooftop of Halmady Mansion on the distant ridge. There were no flames, unlike those on Halmady's allies downslope. Those houses were disposable, he supposed. Halmady Mansion was too grand to burn.
He waited a long time, but saw no traffic. He heard the clatter of horse and cart here and there, but no one dared the Slipway. The waiting did not bother him. He'd waited for long periods before, hunting in the wilds of the Telesil foothills in Saalshen.
A clatter of hooves and wheels broke the stillness. Finally, horses came into view, and a cart driver, pulling hard on the reins to slow the animals where the Slipway turned steep and treacherous. It was an open cart, Errollyn saw, filled with armed soldiers. In the light of the half moon, he saw blue and white-Family Steiner. The next cart was also open and full of armed men. Then passed three covered carts. Then two more guard carts. He waited a moment longer, knowing it would be slow going around the switchback elbow where a hundred years of wagonloads to and from the docks had smoothed the cobbles slippery. Horses hated it.
If Princess Alythia was alive, she could be in one of those carts…but which? Or perhaps there would be a second convoy. A decoy, in case of ambush. But which would be the decoy? Was it possible that…
A dark shape on the road caught his eye. Small and fleet, hugging the shadows in the wake of the carts. On four legs, not two. A dog, maybe… but it was a strange looking dog, for certain. Errollyn strained his eyes. The dog paused against a wall, ducking this way and that. Errollyn had seen such behaviour many times before. It was scared, yet felt compelled to press on. It sniffed the air, seeking a familiar scent. Clearly it was following the carts. And this was no dog. It was a wolf.
Errollyn nearly smiled. A wolf, in Petrodor? Following some carts? Well, the merchant trade loved exotic animals and the families were known to keep exotic pets. There were plenty of wolves in nearby Lenayin. So Halmady had a Lenay princess, and a Lenay wolf…could it be that simple? No, surely not…Sasha had told him all about her sister Alythia. She ran squealing from bats. But this was just too, too odd. Odd things often required odd explanations. Perhaps he and the wolf were seeking the same thing.
He was climbing from the tree when he heard men yelling, and the clash of weapons. He leapt, bow in hand, and darted along the alley. Horses shrieked, and there came the crash of a cart overturning. An ambush. The ambushers would have blocked the downslope-upslope was the place to be. At the next junction, Errollyn turned left, taking some uneven steps three at a time.
Finally he came clear onto a stretch of the Slipway, perhaps sixty paces upslope of the elbow corner. The corner was in chaos, carts banked up, several turned half-around, but the Slipway was not quite wide enough for such a manoeuvre, and now they were stuck. Men fought, and random fires lit the scene, casting crazy shadows on neighbouring walls. Steiner soldiers appeared to have formed a perimeter about the last of the covered carts and were fighting hard to maintain it, while prisoners were unloaded.
Directly before Errollyn's position, crouched low against the flanking walls, were a pair of Nasi-Keth archers. Neither was firing. Probably they feared hitting prisoners, or their own men. Uphill, with a walled street before them, they had the Steiners trapped…unless heavily armed Steiner soldiers managed to fight their way free, of course. At such close quarters, shoulder to shoulder, it was certainly possible.
Errollyn whistled at the archers…both spun with alarm. He approached in a crouch against a wall, and the men relaxed to see that he was serrin. “We must move now,” he observed grimly. “If their perimeter holds, they'll break into neighbouring houses, from there it's a maze through the city, and they may escape.”
“There's no clear shot,” the nearest archer disagreed, tersely. “What's a serrin doing here?”
“Helping. Just hit what you can, don't take any risks.” With that he stood up, nocked an arrow, and loosed.