She dived for it at the last possible second, indifferent to the fact that by so doing, she was also flinging herself toward the drop-off. She grabbed the tome, somersaulted to the very brink, and stamped down hard. The action shattered clay tiles, countered her momentum, and kept it from tumbling her off the edge.
She felt a swell of satisfaction, which ended abruptly when she took a good look at her prize. Viewed up close, it was a little too small and didn't have a title embossed on the front cover. It wasn't the perfumer's formulary after all, just a decoy Aeron had procured in case he needed a diversion.
She spun around. The ridge walkway was clear. The thief had disappeared, but where?
As before, Sefris could think of several possibilities, but she knew that at that point, in Aeron's place, she would have tried to reach the ground as quickly as possible, which meant he'd bolted down the stairs. She could use them herself, but despite her skills, would waste precious seconds clambering back up the slanted roof. It would be far quicker to descend via the controlled plummet she'd learned during her training.
She swung herself off the brink and dropped, grabbing at protrusions and depressions, the merest unevenness sometimes, in the timber wall with its flaking white paint. Many of these handholds could never have borne her full weight, but even so, the fleeting contacts served to slow her down a little.
She landed in a snowy flurry of dislodged paint chips, executed a shoulder roll, and vaulted to her feet uninjured. The gable-and-valley configuration of the roof existed at street level as well, which was to say the whole building was cross-shaped, and positioned behind one of the projecting arms, she could no longer see the spiral steps.
She dashed around the structure until they came into view. Her quarry didn't. Assuming she'd correctly guessed his intentions, he'd already made it down to the teeming street, where a good many humans, orcs, goblins, halflings, and gnomes were bustling about.
She pivoted, peering into the crowd, and abruptly spotted a flash of copper in the bright, warm autumn sunlight. Aeron had pulled up his cowl to cover his red hair, but when he glanced back, no doubt checking to see if she was still on his trail, it didn't quite hide his goatee. The thief was striding toward a staircase that, at first glance, looked like it led down into someone's cellar, but which she suspected was actually an entrance to the Underways.
She didn't want him to reach the steps. He probably could elude her down in the tunnels. She couldn't hit him with a chakram, not with so many people milling around between them, but her magic might work, and at that point, she didn't care who saw. If anyone took exception to her actions, she'd deal with him.
She gestured, and the shadow of a brown-and-white horse standing in the traces of a parked hay wagon lengthened and deformed into a tentacle, which then reared from the ground. The animal whinnied and shied, and people nearby cried out in alarm. Aeron turned, saw the length of darkness lashing in his direction, and tried to dodge. He wasn't quite quick enough. The tentacle spun around him and held him fast. He thrashed, struggling to squirm free. Agile as he was, with that skinny frame, he might actually do it, but it wouldn't save him. By that time, Sefris would have closed to striking distance. She raced forward.
Broadsword in hand, a Gray Blade scrambled out of the crowd to bar her path. With his slender frame, ivory skin, and vivid green eyes, he looked as if he might possess some elf blood.
"Hold it!" he said. "I saw you ca-"
Sefris drove her stiffened fingers at the half-elf's solar plexus. He had excellent reflexes. He jumped back in time and brought his round target shield up to block. His sword leaped in a head cut. She shifted in so close that the stroke fell harmlessly behind her. Sefris rammed the heel of her palm into his jaw, snapped his neck, and raced on toward Aeron.
Maddeningly, a second Gray Blade-middle-aged, stocky, and entirely human-lunged at her. Apparently he'd been hurrying toward Aeron and the tentacle, but had spied his partner's fate and turned back around to avenge him. His sword point streaked at her face. She sought to deflect it with a press, and avoiding the block, it dipped down to threaten her midsection. She had to retreat a step and twist at the hips to keep it from piercing her guts.
She gave him a roundhouse kick to the knee. Bone snapped, and he fell down. She stamped on his chest, breaking ribs and rupturing his heart.
She ran on. People scurried to get out of her way, which afforded her a good view of the conjured tentacle. It writhed and shifted from side to side, clenching and unclenching, its coils empty. The Gray Blades had delayed her long enough for Aeron to wriggle free.
She dashed down the steps into the Underways, cast uselessly about, chose a direction at random, and sprinted that way. After she passed a couple intersections, she realized further pursuit was futile. The thief had escaped her for the time being.
But not forever. She'd eavesdropped on Aeron's conversation with Kesk, and was convinced that the tanarukk was right about his fellow rogue: The redheaded thief would keep on trying to liberate his father. That meant she'd have another chance to catch him, and surely he couldn't be so lucky twice in a row.
Miri woke feeling sore, yet drowsily contented. Judging from the warm covers and medicinal smells, her comrades had carried her to the healers' tent, and she was going to be all right. She could feel it, and in any case, the important thing was that she hadn't disgraced herself.
Standing behind the bramble barricades with the senior rangers and their allies, waiting for her first battle to begin, she'd been frightened she wouldn't be able to bear it, that she'd throw down her bow and run away. And when the enemy-orcs, ogres, and huge, shapeless, crawling masses of mold-appeared among the trees, it was as terrifying as she'd imagined. But somehow she'd stood her ground, loosing arrow after arrow until the foe overran her position, then frantically hacking with her broadsword. She cut down two orcs, turned, and saw an ogre swinging its club at her. The world went dark.
Evidently her side had won the fight. Otherwise, she wouldn't be lying in a clean, soft bed. She realized her throat was dry, opened her eyes fully, and looked about to see if one of the priests had left her some water.
She wasn't in a tent but a small, sparsely furnished candlelit room with bare whitewashed walls. A thin young man with a red beard sat watching her. The sight of him made her snatch for the sword that no longer hung at her side, even as it pierced her confusion.
It wasn't an ogre that had wounded her-that had happened years ago, in the Winterwood-it was a collapsing balcony in Oeble, after which, what? Had Aeron sar Randal found her and decided to make her his prisoner?
As if by magic, a long, heavy fighting knife appeared in the thief's hand.
"Calm down!" he said. "I don't mean to hurt you. If I had, I wouldn't have carried you to Ilmater's house for healing."
She sneered and replied, "Yet you pull a dagger on me, even though I'm injured and unarmed."
"According to the healer who attended you, you're only a little bit hurt at this point." He smiled crookedly and added, "Besides, this afternoon I found out just how tough an unarmed outlander woman could be."
"You met Sefris."
"I did if she shaves her head and moves like… I don't know what. A cat? lightning? Flowing water? Whatever you liken it to, it was scary."
"That's her."
"Who in the Nine Hells is she? How do you know her?"
"How do you? What happened?"
"I'm the one with the knife," said Aeron, "so I'm going to ask the questions."