House War - The Hidden City Part 45

And she wondered how she would feel if somehow she'd succeeded; if it would haunt her. Wondered if today was the day she'd have her answer, and regret her question.

The streets widened out as they followed Finch's directions-directions that were becoming quieter and more hesitant with each step she took. She was reduced, in the end, to pointing, and her mute nod, her mute shake of the head, should have caused pity.

In Jewel, it caused the beginning of something like anger-except that it grew, and grew, and grew. Someone else had brought Finch along these streets. Someone else had given her to the men from whom she'd barely escaped.

Jewel reached out and caught Finch by the hand. Finch's hands were shaking-it was cold and damp-almost as much as Jewel's. But not, Jewel thought, for the same reason.

The buildings they pa.s.sed grew wider, although they were still tall. Fences began to line the street, but they were a legacy of older times; they were broken in places, and rusted in others, and whole sections leaned in toward the ground. Although the streets were wide, they could barely be called streets in places; there had been stone laid here, once upon a time-but it had cracked, and whole patches of weeds, which had summered and grown, stood waist-high where carriage and wagon wheels had failed to crush them. Rainfall made patches of mud, where stones had been pulled up or removed entirely, and in those patches, deeper puddles had been formed by the fall of heavy feet.

This much she expected, although she skirted the edges, mindful of the fact that she now held onto Finch.

The buildings began to flatten, sometimes literally, but more often figuratively; the fences in one or two areas were, if not new, then at least kept up. Not that the grounds-such as they were-beyond those fences were cared for in the same way; there, with no wagons and no running children to squash them down, they looked like a wild harvest, some city version of farmer's fields gone bad.

Still, there were trees that had grown up on either side of the road, and no one had yet been enterprising enough to cut them down for Winter wood. She wondered at that; they wouldn't have survived for long in the holding where Jewel had spent almost all of her life. They were not so tall or grand as the trees that marked the Common, but then again, no trees were-and no one with half a wit about them tried to take an ax to those trees.

She looked at Rath.

Rath looked at Finch, and Finch swallowed.

He lifted a hand, and the movement rippled backward, as the men who followed came to a slow halt, fanning out in the street. Across from the fence that was in pa.s.sable repair were houses tightly packed together; small houses, with narrow fronts and even narrower stairs.

They seemed almost fine, to Jewel, but not compared to the large house that hid behind gates and weeds, rising above them in the distance.

"Here?" Rath asked.

Finch managed a nod.

Rath looked at the man with the eye patch, who frowned a moment, as if he were thinking. Then he nodded.

"Jay."

Jewel looked up at Rath.

"We're about to take out the gatekeeper, if there is one. You will stay back with your friends until we've entered the building. Is that understood?"

She nodded.

"Carver," he continued.

Carver's nod was a lot stiffer. It was also really minimal.

"We cannot be entirely certain that all of the men we're looking for are in that building. They may well reside in the smaller residences across the street."

Carver nodded again. Slow nod, and measured.

"You've said you know how to use that dagger. I trust you meant it. If you need to use it, you'll know. Watch that row," he added. "If more than one man comes out, it is not the right time." He turned to Arann, met his gaze, and then offered him a nod.

"Jay."

"We'll wait."

"Good."

The man with the eye patch lifted an arm; it was a signal. Without another word, Rath and his friends drifted down the street, following the line of the fence until it came to a gate. If the gate was locked, it didn't seem to matter; they opened it somehow and then charged out of the street.

There should have been yells, or horns, or something; there was only the sound of armor and heavy feet. Even breath didn't make much sound, although she could see it rise like a thin, thin mist, in their wake.

"Where did you find him?" Carver asked her, after they had gone.

She shrugged. "In the streets. On the way to the Common."

"I wouldn't have gone near him."

"I was hungry."

"Begging?"

She snorted. "What do you think?"

He laughed. But she saw that his eyes were on the thin houses that stood too close to the street; that they flickered over the shuttered single windows that stood beneath their steep, peaked rooftops. "I've never been hungry enough to try to steal anything from someone like him."

She shrugged again; she wasn't proud of what she'd done, but it didn't shame her completely. "I knew he didn't need the money. He wasn't going to starve if he lost it."

"And that mattered?"

"To me. Then. It probably wouldn't have made as much of a difference in the Winter, though."

Lefty said, loudly enough to be heard, "Liar."

She glared at him.

And then, before she could speak, she heard what she'd been waiting for. What she hadn't known she'd been waiting for.

The loud cries of men. They all froze then, their words lost a moment to fear.

To Rath's surprise, there had been no guard at the gate. Perhaps the early hour worked to their advantage, in this; the clientele that were attracted to a building such as this were no doubt men who traveled at night, and by magelight; they were not poor men.

The building was not new, and it was not well maintained, except in the loosest sense of the word. It was, clearly, occupied. At one point, perhaps two centuries ago, it had been a very fine building. Now, it possessed the squalor of all fallen things, grace turned on its edge, its dingy glory a reminder that all things of value must fade.

Not a welcome reminder. Never that.

The doors were not as old as the building itself; nor, Rath thought, were the shutters that graced several windows that had once held gla.s.s. The walk from the gates to the steps that led up to the door was also newer, and it had been laid out in haste, or by incompetent craftsmen. The steps, however, were solid stone, and if they sloped in the middle, they were not obviously cracked or broken.

They bore the weight of armored men, and they were wide enough that those men could fan out at different heights. They wanted to be as close to the building as possible; some of the windows weren't barred, and the most obvious defense-the crossbow-was probably lying beside some sleeping thug's bed. None of Harald's men relied on crossbows, probably because they couldn't afford them.

The doors were locked. Rath thought they were probably barred as well, and from the inside. He took the time to pick the lock, and tried the door to confirm his suspicion; it didn't take long.

"Can we break it down?" one of Harald's men asked.

Harald cuffed him across the side of the head. "Only if we use your thick skull as a battering ram." He looked back at Rath. "Left or right?"

Rath considered the two large windows-real windows-that fronted the manor. These, too, seemed newly added. He could see the drape of drawn curtains, and between these, a glimpse of something that resembled a parlor. Not even a poorly appointed one at that.

"Left," Rath said quietly.

Harald shrugged.

The windows themselves were not level with the ground; they were level with the height of the stairs, whose gentle slope was deceptive.

"Sorn!"

A long-haired man-braided hair, no fool-stepped up; he was carrying a club. A large club. Harald knelt, cupping his hands together. "Darren."

Another man, with drawn sword; he sheathed his weapon with a grimace. Rath knelt, facing Harald, his hands also cupped. He grunted at the weight he was forced to bear; he'd gotten used to Jewel and she was probably a quarter the size.

"Get the door unbarred," Harald snapped. "If you can. We'll come up by the window until the door's open."

They hoisted the men at the same time, and gla.s.s broke, cracking rather than shattering. Three times, the club hit the window; the third time, and the panes fell, forced inward by the strength of the blow.

Good d.a.m.n gla.s.s, Rath thought. If he'd had any doubts, they were gone with the windows. This was the place.

Sorn and Darren disappeared, and two more of Harald's men stepped up, sheathing their weapons. They were through the remnants of the window when the first cries were sounded.

The doors swung open, and Rath and Harald almost collided in their race to be through them before they swung again. If their purpose here could be considered-in Jewel's quaint usage of the word-good, their intent was more practical; they wanted to take advantage of sleeping, unprepared men, and they wanted to do it quickly. Harald's Northern ancestry did not carry with it the complicated rules of Northern engagements in battle. Or perhaps he considered this less a battle, and more an extermination of vermin. It was hard, with Harald, to be certain.

Rath didn't have that problem. There was no honor to be had in fighting; there was no honor to be found in killing. Having made the decision, there was the simple fact of the thing. That and the imperative of survival.

He was in the foyer-and it was the ghost of what had once been impressive; there was no ma.s.sive chandelier to light it, no pristine carpets to cover it; instead, there was faded paint, faded wood, and a grand, twisting staircase that rose to the flat of the second floor.

It was there that Harald's men headed, and it was there that they were met. Rath, behind them by seconds, saw what he'd feared: a crossbow. He took in the man who wielded it only after. Saw that he was poorly dressed, and unarmored; that his face was shadowed by what might one day be a beard, and his eyes were wide.

But the bow was steady in his hands as he swung it down.

Rath's hand dropped to his leg and he drew a throwing knife; he leaped up the stairs, thankful for the vanity of their width, their open climb, and threw the dagger.

It struck the man's shoulder, and the man cried out; the bow wavered and the string tw.a.n.ged. The bolt flew wide. Reloading was not an option. After a few seconds, neither was breathing. Rath didn't stop to check the fallen man; if he wasn't dead, he was no longer a threat.

"Jay," Arann said quietly, when the cries had died into stillness and Jay had begun to walk the length of the fence.

She turned and looked back at him without speaking.

"Rath told us to wait."

She nodded, but she looked to Finch. "How many?" She asked quietly. The wrong type of quiet.

Finch stared at her for a moment, drawing her tunic more tightly around her. "I don't know."

"You had a chance. To run. Someone gave you the chance."

"Duster," she said quietly. You said you didn't know her name. But if Finch remembered the lie at all, it didn't show. "She told me her name was Duster."

"She was the only one?"

Finch shook her head. "I didn't see many others," she added, eyes sc.r.a.ping the road.

"How many did you see?"

She shook her head almost violently. "I heard them. I don't know how many."

Jewel looked at Arann again, and then swung round to Carver. "We have to go," she said at last, and pointed to the mansion.

He hesitated. His dagger was a simple, flat blade, and rain fell like mist in the streets, threatening steel with rust. He finally said, "You sure?"

She nodded.

"How sure?"

"Just . . . sure."

"I'm in." He looked at Arann, and then at Lefty and Finch. "Maybe you two should stay-"

Lefty stepped closer to Arann, which shouldn't have been possible.

Finch said nothing. She looked at them slowly. "You can't fight them," she said quietly. "They'll kill you all."

"We're not alone here," Jewel snapped. "Rath's in there. With his friends. Who all have swords. It's not our job to fight; it's our job to find." She hesitated again and then spit out a curse in bitter Torra. "We don't have time, Finch. Arann, you stay with Lefty and Finch. I'll take Carver."

But Lefty caught Arann's sleeve, dragging his arm down; Arann bent to the side and Lefty said something in his ear. It had been a week since he'd been this spooked, this word-shy. Jewel hated to see it.

But she understood that here, Arann was the source of comfort; she waited.

Arann unbent. "We go together," he said quietly. He looked at Finch. Looked down at Finch. "Stay with me," he told her.

She was pale as light on water. But she nodded.

Jewel began to move.

Rath was, by nature, a suspicious man.

There were four bodies in the hall in a handful of minutes, none of them his. None of them Harald's either; the morning was not kind to the men who dwelled here. Nor should it be.

But . . . it felt wrong. Too easy. He walked to the first closed door in a wide hall, and tried to open it; it was locked.

The lock was a pathetic one; Rath could have picked it in his sleep. But putting his weapon down was harder than he would have liked, even surrounded by Harald's men. He bent, retrieved lockpicks, and opened the lock. Then he motioned them away from the door, and, turning the lock, threw it open, hunching down.

The room looked empty.

There was a bed to one side, a small dresser, and, incongruous here, a large, rectangular mirror. The mirror was new; the silvered gla.s.s hadn't tarnished or yellowed. It was also clean.