“And why won’t he turn me in?” Gun said, abandoning all pretense that he was not the Scholar being looked for.
“Three reasons. One, I sent you; two, he’s got no love for the Noble Houses and won’t care if one’s Fallen; an’ three, he’s blind. He can’t see a Scholar, but he can feel the quality of the cloth you’re wearing.”
Gun unwound his scarf and held it out to her. “Not for the water,” he said. “For the warning, and the advice.” This time she nodded once and took it.
Still, he waited until she had gone on her way before taking a firm grip on the clay jug of water and starting back to where he’d left Mar. He was careful to take a different route from the one he’d come by.
Bracing herself on the arch of the opening, Dhulyn leaned into the old kitchen fireplace, large enough, she was sure, to roast a mature inglera whole. She was just starting to feel the burn in muscles overtaxed by hauling wine casks out of the way, and firmly ignoring the familiar feel of cramping in her lower back. Even in the lantern light, you could still see the marks fire had made on the brick walls, particularly at the back, where Alkoryn now tapped upon the stones. Parno stood by him, a war hammer ready in his hand, the closest thing to a mallet they’d been able to find in the Tarkin’s armory, and just as extravagantly decorated as every other weapon there.
This was the middle one of our three fireplaces in the old summer kitchen, and though Alkoryn Pantherclaw had known perfectly well which of the three was wanted, he’d insisted that all of them be emptied of their contents.
“We hope to mislead those who’ll come after,” Alkoryn had whispered to the Tarkin. “If they do not know which of these holds the passage, they will have to break into all three. They may even think we escaped elsewhere.”
One of the guards had dropped a cask during the moving, shattering it on the worn stone floor, and now the heady smell of aged liquor mixed with the dry dust smell of the old kitchen itself made Dhulyn’s stomach lurch. She swallowed, looking for something to distract her. The Tarkin, Tek-aKet, was only a few paces away, half-sitting on an upright cask, his right arm around the Tarkina, his left hand resting on his daughter’s shoulder.
“Look, Zella,” he was saying, pointing with his chin to several barrels that had been rolled to one side. “That sweet wine was laid down by my father when I was born.” He looked up at her again. “We should have been able to drink it next year.”
“We still shall,” she said, in a voice so firm that even her little daughter nodded.
Dhulyn straightened as Alkoryn stepped back from the fireplace wall and motioned Parno forward. The Senior Brother indicated five particular stones, waited for Parno to nod, and then touched them again in a different order. Parno nodded again, rubbed his upper lip with the first two fingers of his right hand, and touched the stones himself.
“Tap there, my Brother, but gently. Say that you wanted to knock out a sentry, rather than kill him.”
Parno nodded, and hefted the war hammer.
“Want me to do it?” Dhulyn said.
Parno just showed his teeth as he swung the weapon forward and lightly but firmly tapped the stones in the order he’d been shown.
With a grinding Dhulyn felt in her bones, a section of wall moved backward. Two of the guardsmen helped Parno push it aside to reveal a long tunnel. Alkoryn caught Dhulyn’s eye and nodded.
“Lord Tarkin,” she called over her shoulder. “We’re ready. Alkoryn Pantherclaw will go first, seeing he knows the way.” Dhulyn tapped the shoulder of a tall guard with thick black hair. “Kole, isn’t it? Go with him. Then you three,” she said, nodding at the remaining guards. “Lord Tarkin, you and your family next, and Parno Lionsmane and I will come last.”
The Tarkin was nodding, but his mouth was twisted as if he’d eaten something unpleasant. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful,” he said. “But I cannot honestly say I’m pleased that the Mercenary Brotherhood knows of secret passageways in my Dome.”
Dhulyn shrugged. “It was someone else’s Dome before you, Lord, and the Brotherhood is older even than the Dome, older than the reign of Tarkins. Older than Imrion, if it comes to that. There’s many things we know.”
Hernyn wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and resisted the desire to spit. Then he thought about where he was, and how long he was likely to be there, and spit freely on the inlaid tesserae of the Onyx Walk. He heard an unmistakable clatter in the distance, and looked to Din-eDin, who nodded his acknowledgment that he, too, had heard the approaching noise.
“Won’t be long now,” the older man said.
It was Hernyn’s turn to nod. When they’d first taken up their station an arm’s length down from where the narrow service corridor met the Onyx Walk, they’d heard the sounds of voices and what seemed like moving furniture echoing up the long hallway from the old kitchen, but now, while they could still hear voices, the louder noises had stopped.
A shadow moved into their field of vision. Hernyn glanced at the extra weapons he’d lined up behind him on the floor of the passage and picked up a handheld crossbow he’d found among the Tarkin’s things. A toy, really, and he’d blushed when he saw that Dhulyn Wolfshead had seen him pick it up. But she hadn’t said anything, she hadn’t even smiled. It was a beautiful little piece, finely constructed out of ash wood and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and probably intended for ceremonial use. And deadly just the same, he thought. Not very good for distances, of course, but he was willing to let the man approaching get close enough.
“Hold.” Din-eDin put up his hand; he’d squatted down to take a quick look about waist height around the corner of the wall, and was now straightening. “He’s one of mine.”
The Guard Captain was stepping forward to meet his man when Hernyn put out his arm, blocking his advance.
“Don’t step into the Walk,” he said. “Not for any reason. That’s how we get flanked. Make them come to us.” A part of Hernyn felt like a School boy reciting his lesson, as if Din-eDin had been only testing him; a part was embarrassed to have to correct an older, more experienced man; a part-and this by far the largest, was rolling his eyes at the carelessness of those who were not Mercenary Brothers.
He leaned against the cold stone of the left-hand wall and angled his head until he could see the approaching man clearly. He was in the uniform of the Tarkin’s Personal Guard, right enough. But why wasn’t he running? The only reason for the men at the other points to come down here was to fall back to this position when their own was overwhelmed-and if they were quick enough, to get out through the tunnels Alkoryn had said were there. And this man didn’t move like someone who’d been overwhelmed. He moved like someone taking a walk-or no, amended Hernyn as the man stumbled and put out a hand to the plastered wall of the Onyx Walk. He walked like a man who was drunk and determined not to show it.
Drunk… or wounded?
“Are you hurt, man?” Hernyn called out.
The approaching guard shook his head, but kept advancing at that strange, overly-careful pace. As if he pushed against a stiff wind, though no air stirred in the halls.
“Ask him where the others are,” Din-eDin said. Hernyn flicked his eyes to the older man. There was sense in that, at least.
“Do your comrades still stand?”
“Let me pass,” the guard said.
Hernyn resisted the urge to rub the back of his neck, where it felt like all the tiny hairs were standing up. There was no urgency in the man’s tone, no fear, no excitement. Nothing, in fact. And surely his shadow should be angled the other way?