"Sadly, no. Think maybe I might buy a piece if I can get enough for your things."
"You hide in the woods, all by yourself, and try to ambush carriages without a real weapon?"
"Well," said the man a bit hesitantly, "has been awhile since I got one. But today's my lucky day, ain't it?"
"I should say so. Crooked Warden, you must be the worst highwayman under the sun." "What did you say?"
"He said," said Locke, "that in his highly educated opinion you're the—" "No, the other part."
"He mentioned the Crooked Warden," said Locke. "Does that mean something to you? We're members of the same fraternity, friend! The Benefactor, the Thiefwatcher, the Nameless Thirteenth, patron of you and me and all who take the twisty path through life. We're actually consecrated servants of the Crooked Warden! There's no need for animosity, and no need for you to cut us down!"
"Oh yes there is," said the man vehemently, "now I'm definitely cuttin" you down." "What? Why?"
"Bloody fuckin" heretics, you are! There ain't no Thirteenth! Ain't naught but the Twelve, that's truth! Yeah, I been to Verrar a couple times, met up with lads and lasses from the cuttin" crews what tried to tell me "bout this Thirteenth. I don't hold with it. Ain't right like I was raised. So down you go, boys!" The man began hacking at the demi-silk ropes with a vengeance. "Shit. Want to try and snag him in the belay lines?" Jean swung over beside Locke and spoke with soft urgency. Locke nodded. The two thieves took hold of die ends of their belay lines, stared upward and, at Jean's whispered signal, yanked them downward.
It was hardly an efficient trap; the lines were slack and coiled up above the cliffedge. Their tormentor looked down at his feet, hopped up and stepped away as seven or eight feet of each belay line slipped over the cliff's edge.
"Ha! You'll have to get up earlier than that, gents, if you don't mind my sayin" so!" Whistling tunelessly, he vanished out of sight and continued chopping. A moment later he gave a cry of triumph and Locke's coiled belay line flew over the edge of the cliff. Locke averted his face as the rope fell just past him; it was soon dangling in thin air from his waistbelt, its frayed far end still too many feet above the ground for safety.
"Shit," said Locke. "Right, Jean. Here's what we do. He should cut my main line next. Let's hook arms. I'll slide down your main line, knot what's left of mine to the bottom, and that should probably get us within twenty feet or so of the ground. If I haul up my belay line and knot that on the end of the other two, we can make it all the way down."
"Depends on how quickly that arsehole cuts. You think you can tie knots fast enough?"
"I think I" ve got no choice. My hands feel up to the task, at least. Even if I just get one line lashed, twenty feet's a happier fall than eighty."
At that moment, there was a faint rumble of diunder overhead. Locke and Jean looked up at just the right moment to feel the first few drops of rain on their faces.
"It's possible," said Locke, "that this would be really fucking amusing right now, were it anyone but us down on these ropes."
"At the moment, I think I'd take my chances with your pigeons if I could," said Jean. "Damn, I'm sorry for leaving the Wicked Sisters up there, Locke."
"Why in Venaportha's name would you have brought them down? There's nothing to apologize for."
"Aldiough," said Jean, "maybe there is one other thing I could try. You carrying sleeve-steel?"
"Yeah, one, but it's in my boot." The rain was beating down fairly hard now, soaking through their tunics and wetting their lines. Their light dress and die stiff breeze made it feel colder than it really was. "Yourself?"
"Got mine right here." Locke saw a flash of bright metal in Jean's right hand. "Yours balanced for throwing, Locke?" "Shit, no. Sorry."
"No worries. Hold it in reserve, then. And give us a good silent prayer."Jean paused to pluck off his optics and tuck them into his tunic collar, then raised his voice. "Hey! Sheep-lover! A word if you please!"
"I sort of thought we was done talkin"," came the man's voice from above the cliff's edge.
"No doubt! I'll wager using so many words in so short a time makes your brain feel like a squeezed lemon, doesn't it? You wouldn't have the wit to find the lucking ground if I threw you out of a bloody window! Are you listening? You" d have to take your shoes and breeches off to count to twenty-one! You" d have to look up to see the underside of cockroach shit!"
"Does it help, yellin" at me like that? Seems like you should be prayin" to your useless Thirteenth or somethin", but what would I know? I ain't one of you big-time Verrari felantozzers or whatever, am I?"
"You want to know why you shouldn't kill us? You want to know why you shouldn't let us hit that valley floor?" Jean hollered at the top of his lungs, while bracing his feet more firmly against the cliffside and pulling back his right arm. Thunder echoed overhead. "See this, you idiot? See what I" ve got in my hands? Something you'll see only once in a lifetime! Something you'll never forget!"
A few seconds later, the man's head and torso appeared over the edge of the cliff. Jean let out a cry as he flung his knife with all of his strength. They cry became triumphant as he saw the blurred shape of his weapon strike home in their tormentor's face… and changed yet again to a frustrated groan as he saw the knife bounce back and fall away into thin air. It had struck hilt-first. "Fucking rain!" yelled Jean.
The bandit was in serious pain, at least. He moaned and clutched his face, teetering forward. A nice hard smack in the eye? Jean fervently hoped so — perhaps he still had a few seconds to try again. "Locke, your knife, quickly!"
Locke was reaching into his right boot when the man thrust his arms out for balance, lost it and toppled screaming over the edge of the cliff. He got one hand around Locke's main line a second later and fell directly into the crook of Locke's waist and rope, where they met at the iron descender on his belt. The shock knocked Locke's legs away from the cliff and the breath from his lungs, and for a second he and the bandit were in free fall, flailing and screaming in a tangle of arms and legs, with no proper pressure on the line in the descender.
Straining himself to the utmost, Locke curled his left hand around the free side of the line and tugged hard, putting enough tension on the rope to snap them to a halt. They swung into the cliff-face together, the bandit taking the brunt of the impact, and dangled there in a struggling mess of limbs while Locke fought to breathe and make sense of the world. The bandit kicked and screamed.
"Stop that, you fucking moron!" They appeared to have fallen about fifteen feet; Jean slipped rapidly down beside them, alighted on the cliff and reached out with one hand to grab the bandit by the hair. With the hood thrown back, Locke could see that the fellow was grizzled like an underfed hound, perhaps forty, with long, greasy hair and a grey beard as scrubby as the grass on the cliff's edge. His left eye was swelling shut. "Stop kicking, you idiot! Hold still!" "Oh, gods, please don't drop me! Please don't kill me, sir!"
"Why thtfuck not?" Locke groaned, dug his heels into the cliff and managed to reach the edge of his right boot with his right hand. A moment later he had his stiletto out at the bandit's throat, and the man's panicked kicking became a terrified quivering.
"See this?" Locke hissed. The bandit nodded. "This is a knife. They have these, wherever the fuck you came from?" The man nodded again. "So you know I could just stick you right now and let you fall, right?" "Please, please don't—"
"Shut up and listen. This single line that you and I are dangling from right now. Single, solitary, alone! This wouldn't be the line you were just chopping at up there, would it?" The man nodded vigorously, his good eye wide.