House War - The Hidden City Part 20

That attention was scant; if they noticed Lefty, it was cursory. Rath's sword was out; he held it across his chest. She could see that much. Could almost-but not quite-tell what stance he had adopted.

Five against one.

Rath's lessons, his harsh words, overlay the silence as Jewel watched, Lefty in her arms. They were his audience; the five men who also watched were different: they were his enemies. Two against one were bad odds, but in the right circ.u.mstance, they weren't impossible.

Three against one was a guarantee of death, unless the one was an expert and the three were incompetent. Anything else? A quick, fast run.

But Rath wasn't running.

Some part of Jewel wanted to scream at him to do just that; some part of Jewel was tensed to sprint. Had she not been holding Lefty, she would have. But had Lefty not come to her at all, Rath would be in his study, with whatever it was he'd managed to cut out of the heart of his beloved maze. And she would be in her rooms, or in the kitchen, struggling in a different way with the language and the lessons that Rath insisted she work through. There would be no rain. There would be no death. The walls would be pale, and dry, and clean. Not a cage, but a fortress.

One of the men spoke. He didn't step forward. But he did draw a long dagger. It was not the equal of Rath's sword. Jewel, no weaponsmith and no expert, could see the truth of that comparison anyway.

"We've no business with you," he said, nodding to the others. They pulled away, forming up in an awkward line, their shoulders almost touching as they also drew the weapons they carried. Weapons that they hadn't used against Arann, or he'd be dead.

"Good," Rath replied, stepping forward, the motion graceful, deliberate. His sword didn't waver. His voice didn't either. It was low, the single word; low enough it shouldn't have carried. But Jewel could hear it so clearly she knew that it had. "I've come for the boy," he added.

"He's not for the taking," the man replied. Ugly man. Face scarred, chin thick, lips rising over a prominently chipped set of teeth. From here, she could see them.

"No," Rath replied quietly. "He's not. Step aside."

The man snorted. He said something Jewel didn't care to catch, and Rath stepped forward quickly. It wasn't a run; it was a leap.

Jewel stayed her ground. She couldn't draw dagger- and knew that Rath would only be distracted if she did, because he'd know. The best she could do-the only thing she could do-was to stay far enough away that she wasn't something to worry about.

Or something for Rath to worry about.

That, and hold on to Lefty.

"He's alive," she said, in Lefty's ear.

There was motion then. Five men. One man. Everything happened quickly. Jewel had never seen Rath fight before. Everything he had taught her so far had been about not fighting.

And she was sure, watching him, that this was a fight. He seemed to know exactly where to be, exactly where not to be, exactly where to thrust sword; he never stopped moving once he'd started, but every step seemed so deliberate it was like a dance.

He offered them no warning. Made no threats. He didn't posture.

Instead, he killed. And this, Jewel had never seen either. She watched not his blade, not his feet, not his hands, but his face when it was turned toward her; pale and composed, it was shorn of any emotion at all. His eyes were wide and clear, almost gray in the clouded day, as if they were mirrors and reflections, nothing more.

When you draw a sword in the streets, it's not a game. It's not part of a tournament. It's not an act of status or prestige. You draw a sword, you use it. You use it quickly.

Yes, she thought numbly. Yes, Rath. Nodding, his words made real only by this act: the falling of bodies, the gout of arterial blood, the sudden screams of voices that were horrible in the silence that followed their end.

Three men ran. The leader was not among them.

The green flash of cloth that had been tied round his forehead was still green; it was forest green, she thought, because of the rain. The water. Hunter green.

The second man had fallen across Arann.

Only when Rath wiped his sword across his sash and sheathed it did Jewel let Lefty go. They both stumbled as her arms loosened, as if they had held each other up.

But Lefty kept stumbling, the awkward motion propelling him toward the body that was slumped over Arann. Over the only person in the world that Lefty trusted.

Rath said nothing as Lefty approached. He didn't try to meet the boy's eyes; he didn't try to touch him. Instead, he grimaced, bent, and lifted the body he'd made, rolling it to one side with an audible grunt.

Jewel approached as Lefty knelt in the mud, his knees absorbing the dirt. And the blood. He was touching Arann's arms, Arann's back.

"It's time to leave," Rath told Jewel, without looking at her.

She almost shrugged. "It's the thirty-second holding," she said, as she watched Lefty, and only Lefty. "If anyone bothers to call the magisterians, they won't be here for a while."

"Count on Kalliaris to frown," Rath replied grimly. "She's smiled on your boy-on both of them-and that's the most we can expect from her in one day. Tell Lefty to get out of the way."

Jewel looked almost dubious. "Arann's big," she began.

"Move him, Jay."

Jewel nodded, and crouched beside Lefty. "We need to leave," she told him, as gently as she could. "We don't want the magisterial guards to ask us how these two died."

Lefty didn't answer. In fact, from his expression, Jewel would have bet that he hadn't heard her at all. She cringed and then reached out to grab the smaller boy's shoulder. "Lefty."

He looked at her then, and she was sorry she'd touched him. His eyes were round, red, almost wild; he looked like a caged, injured dog. She'd had enough experience with injured animals to know danger when she saw it.

She pitched her voice low, kept it soothing, and carefully lifted her hand. "He's not dead," she told him, putting as much force as she could into the words without changing their cadence or tone. "But if we don't move him, he will be. It's cold, it's wet, and he's injured."

"I can't carry him-"

"You don't have to, Lefty. We're here. Rath is here."

Wide-eyed. Too wild.

Jewel took a deeper breath and held it until she was uncomfortable. Rain wet her lips, her face, made her hair even more c.u.mbersome. At least this time she could shove it out of her eyes. She turned her attention from Lefty to Arann.

Touched his forearm, saw that it was bent. And not at a joint. "Arann," she said, daring urgency and volume.

To her great surprise, Arann moved. His moan was most of his answer. Answer enough. "Rath, I think his arm's broken."

"If it's just his arm, he's d.a.m.n lucky."

Thank you, she thought, but she was smart enough to keep that to herself. Rath didn't like sarcasm when he wasn't the one using it.

"Arann, we have to move. Lefty needs you to move."

The giant boy's face rose from the cus.h.i.+on of dirt and stone. It was a mess; bleeding, nose broken, skin abraded.

"Jay?" he said, incredulous. Shaky.

She nodded. "Jay," she said softly. "Can you . . . can you get up?"

But Lefty was weeping openly. "I'm sorry," he said, gulping air, swallowing it as if it were liquid. "I'm sorry, Arann, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Lefty."

Lefty froze and then turned to stare. At Jewel. At her eyes.

"Arann needs you to stop the d.a.m.n crying. Do you understand? He needs you to be stronger."

"Arann," Lefty said, although he was staring at Jewel now. "Arann, what do I do?"

"Listen. To her." Broken words. Wheezing breath.

Rath was her shadow, although she hadn't seen him move. Jewel broke eye contact with Lefty as she became aware of him.

"Ribs," Rath said quietly. "That was quite a beating." His frown made him look older than she'd ever seen him look, although she couldn't say why. Not then. "It's going to be hard to move him. Hard to carry him. I don't know if his ribs have pierced his lungs or not."

She didn't ask what would happen if they had.

"Boy," he said to Arann. He held out a hand, inches from the arm that didn't seem-at least to Jewel's eye-to be broken. "You have to stand, if you can. I have to know how much of your own weight you can bear."

Arann reached out and caught Rath's hand; the older man stiffened as he caught Arann's forearm and elbow and began to lever him up off the ground.

Arann's legs held. But blood trickled out of the corners of his mouth. Hard to tell if teeth would follow. Lefty did a little dance of anxiety. Jewel caught his shoulders and held them in a death grip.

And he allowed it.

"Legs aren't broken," Rath told her. "It's not that far from home," he added. Arann swayed. Rath slid an arm under the boy's arm, taking care not to put weight against his side, against the ribs.

Together, slowly, they began to walk away, leaving the dead behind.

It took hours to get back home. But if it had taken days, Jewel would have spent them gladly. Some words were curled on the wrong side of her throat; her throat was thick with them, and she couldn't speak. She wanted to tell Rath something, but one look at his face made it clear that whatever it was-and she honestly didn't know-it would have to wait. Maybe a day. Maybe forever.

Lefty was hers to watch, for the moment. Arann had told him to listen to Jewel, and he had always done what Arann told him to do. She knew it, and was oddly comforted by the knowledge.

Money was not a problem. Not yet. Not for months yet.

A doctor, on the other hand, was. The thirty-fifth holding was not exactly a popular place for doctors, because no one who was living in it had money, and doctors didn't work for free.

The Priests and Priestesses of the Mother did, but the nearest temple was over two holdings away, and the Priests didn't like to leave. They were happy enough to see you if you came to them-but getting to them when you could barely walk and could breathe even less easily, was a bit of a challenge. Jewel knew it all.

But she didn't care. Arann managed the stairs down to the apartment. He managed to lean against the wall while Rath opened up the bolts and the locks that separated home from the rest of the world. He managed to stumble in, Rath balancing his growing weight. He even managed to smile at Lefty, and had there not been so much red in that smile, Lefty might have taken comfort from it.

Jewel took command instead. She opened the door to her room, threw everything that was on the floor to one side or the other in unceremonious haste, and flattened her bedroll. It was a Rath castoff; he'd obliquely offered to buy her a bed when she'd managed not to get herself thrown out of his life in three months. Where "when" was a lot like "if."

"Careful here," Rath told her, as Arann's knees collapsed. Arann's weight was suspended for a moment between them, and Rath's brow rose slightly when Jewel managed to both stagger and hold up.

Arann's clothing-the clothing that was two years too small-had been torn; it was threadbare enough that sneezing would have done that. Jewel hesitated for just a moment, and then she began to unb.u.t.ton the s.h.i.+rt front as Rath very carefully lowered Arann to the ground. She couldn't quite remove it, and suspected that it would have to be cut away.

"Keep an eye on them," Rath told her quietly.

She nodded.

He made his way to the door, pa.s.sing Lefty, who failed to either acknowledge him or be acknowledged by him, and turned once he'd reached the frame. "Don't answer the door if anyone knocks. Unless," he added, voice heavy with sarcasm, "there are other friends you've failed to mention who might be in need of rescue."

"Just these two," she said, staring at Arann's closed eyes. The left one was almost swollen shut, bruise purpling to black; she couldn't remember what color his skin had been. Now, it was red, purple, black. "Lefty," she said, as she knelt on the creaking boards. "Get the bucket in the kitchen. There's a towel hanging on the far wall beside the cupboards-grab that, too."

Lefty did as she ordered because it was an order. "Don't touch anything else," she called out after him. "We can worry about food after we've cleaned Arann up."

From the look of Lefty, it would be a day or two before the thought of food occurred to him.

"Rath's gone for a doctor," she added. "He's got enough money. He'll find one stupid enough to come here."

And, she knew, he'd hate that. She wondered if it would mean they had to move again. Rath wanted no one to know where he lived, or how. Arann couldn't be moved without some kind of stretcher, and a couple of strong men to carry it. Either way, he'd opened himself up to discovery.

Because of Jewel.

And Jewel would care more later. Now, as Lefty returned, lugging the bucket, the rag of a towel thrown over his dirty shoulder, she knelt against the ground. Towel hit water; she wrung it out carefully, and just as carefully began to sponge Arann's face clear of dirt. Everything about her was gentle. She knew how to do this. Even four years ago, when she'd truly been a child, she could do this much. For her mother, when she was ill. Or her father. For her Oma, although her Oma complained constantly, words like a stream of thin smoke.

She took care not to press against his side-either left or right-or his chest; she took care not to apply pressure to his broken arm, although she did slowly remove the dirt there as well.

"What are you doing?" Lefty asked, sitting in her shadow. Staring at Arann.

"What?"

"You're humming."

"Was I?"

He nodded.

"I don't know," she said. "My Oma used to sing, sometimes. And sometimes she'd just hum."

"Who was she?"

"She-oh. You're not a Southerner. She was my grandmother. Oma. That's the Torra word for it."

"You knew your grandmother?"

She nodded. Didn't ask him if he'd known his; the question made it obvious.

"Arann knew his mother," Lefty said quietly. "I mean, really knew her. He liked her, I think."

"I liked mine, too."

Lefty said nothing else. He didn't offer to help her, either; instead, he stared at his hands. At his right hand, exposed, as it hovered above Arann's face.

"He'll be all right," she told him. And as she said the words, she smiled. Soft smile. Certain smile.

He wasn't stupid. Awkward, yes. Frightened, yes. But stupid? He could see her expression clearly, and she saw the line of his shoulders relax; saw his hand begin to tremble.