House War - The Hidden City Part 46

Harald entered the room, looked about it for a minute and then pointed, with his sword, to the bed. Or rather, to the floor beneath it. Not empty, no. One eyebrow rose-oddly enough, the brow above the patch. Harald's way of asking a question.

Rath shook his head. "Leave the doors open," he said quietly. "We don't have the time to gather the occupants; that's not what we're here for."

He stepped back into the hall.

"If they're scared enough," Harald said quietly, "they won't leave."

"We can worry about that later."

Harald gave him an odd look. Rath shook his head in reply. It wasn't quite signing, but close enough; they'd been in fights before. The large, Northern man snapped an order. One of his men had picked up the crossbow.

From down the far end of the hall, men emerged. They were better armored than their dead compatriots, and two carried crossbows; the other four carried swords.

Six men. Harald's man shot down the length of the hall just before they charged.

Jewel's slow walk became a jog, and when she cleared the fence, she began to run. She couldn't say why, but she didn't need to; in her old life, it would only have gotten her in trouble. She didn't precisely forget about the others that followed; Carver kept pace with her, no matter how hers changed. But reaching the manor doors had become, in the brief span of minutes, urgent.

They knew it. Carver actually out paced her; his legs were longer, and it became apparent that he'd spent a lot of time on the run. From what or who didn't really matter. Arann was slower; he had Lefty and Finch in tow, and he meant to watch over them.

But when their gaze met briefly, Jewel understood that part of the reason he did it was for her. To free her from the worry and the fear. To let her think.

They made their way into the foyer just in time; the doors slammed shut at their backs with enough force to splinter the d.a.m.n wood. And just for good measure, the bolt dropped.

They all jumped and spun, and saw . . . nothing. Closed doors, that was all. Carver looked at Jewel. "Should we open them?"

She shook her head. "We can't," she told him quietly. Staring at the doors. At the faint orange light that now ringed them, burning nothing but vision.

"Why exactly did we want to be on the inside of the manor?"

Jewel looked up the stairs. A body lay perched on the flat above, his arm trailing blood down old carpet. "Up there," she told Carver.

Carver hesitated, and then nodded. But he let her lead the way, and as she took the steps, she slowed. Not because she felt danger, not precisely; she heard it. The sounds of swords clas.h.i.+ng. The sounds of running men. Orders, barked with so much edge they didn't sound like words anymore.

"Jay?"

"We need to get them out," she told him. She would have whispered had she the choice; she had to speak loudly enough for the words to carry.

Carver was smart; he didn't ask her who they were.

Four men down. One of Harald's; three of their enemy. Three were standing, and they held the hall. But they weren't terrified.

And they weren't good enough not to be. They faced seven armed men, and they fought, but they fought as if they were waiting. For reinforcements, Rath thought. The hall was wide enough that swordplay was possible; the ceilings were high enough that even Harald could swing his broadsword overhead. They could fight side by side without endangering each other.

Rath was good enough. He brought a fourth man down, and that left two. They backed down the hall, retreating rather than fleeing.

It was wrong. Something about it was wrong.

Jewel saw the first open door, and she ran for it; Carver made it there first. They had to cross the hall, had to step over a body, had to leave the safety of open steps and the promise of flight behind.

They also had to ignore the men in the hall yards away. Lefty froze; Arann caught him by the shoulder and dragged him into the room. He caught Finch as well, but they left the door open, and Arann was the wedge that would keep it that way.

Jay looked at herself in the mirror; saw her companions, Arann by the door where the sound of fighting was clearest. He didn't look out into the hall; he kept watch over Lefty and Finch. Carver whistled at the sight of the mirror, at his face in it; she kicked his ankle, and pointed to the bed.

But it was Jewel who got down on her hands and knees, as if she were a much younger child, and Jewel who crossed the wooden slats of bare floor until she reached its edge. It was Jewel who looked under the hanging folds of creased, blue counterpane-a color she would always despise after this day-and Jewel who lifted it high, exposing more floor and the child who had taken shelter beneath the bed.

He was curled up there, watching, and his eyes widened when he saw her face. There was enough shadow beneath the bed that she couldn't see all of him clearly. But he had no weapon. "I don't have time to explain," she told him, keeping her voice level with effort, "but you can't stay here."

His eyes widened further, and then narrowed. "You're new here," he said quietly.

"I'm not here," she answered. "Or not for long. We've come to get you out, but we don't have much time."

The boy covered his face with his hands.

She would have slapped him if she could have reached him. "We don't have-"

She heard shouting from the hall. Adult voices, raised in something that wasn't quite panic.

The boy shook his head. "They're here," he whispered, his face going pale. "They're-they're here."

Jewel said, "I know. We have friends," she added. "But we can't stay here long."

The boy shook his head again, and if the men outside weren't panicking, he was.

Before Jewel could shout-and she was close-Finch dropped to the ground. Finch who was smaller, slighter, quieter. She nudged her way past Jewel, almost pus.h.i.+ng her to one side. "I was here," she told the boy quietly. "I was here, and I got out."

Jewel saw the boy's face as his expression transformed it. "You were that girl-the one who ran-"

She nodded. "I came back."

He looked at her as if she were crazy. But fear of that kind of crazy was just a little bit less visceral. "How do I know-"

"Duster helped me," Finch said quietly, as if she had expected doubt.

The boy nodded slowly. Slowly, his face undergoing the contortions of confusion, hope, and a lot of fear. "She didn't get out," he whispered.

"I know. I-" The words failed her for a moment. "I couldn't wait for her. She told me to run."

What Jewel hadn't managed to do, Finch did; she talked the boy out from under his meager fortress. He unfolded slowly; Jewel thought he was her age, but his face was bruised, and his arms-where she could see them-were sc.r.a.ped raw. His hair had cobwebs in it; enough to add dust and a gray net to a dark brown mess. He was, she thought, a pretty boy. Not in the way that Carver was, though; there was no danger in it.

She had no room for anger. She had no room for it, but it crept in anyway, darkening her vision. He was wearing a thin tunic, thin pants-poor clothing for the weather. She could see where the cloth had been torn, and through it, could see his ribs, and the bruises that lay there like purple fingers.

"I'm Finch," Finch told the boy softly. "Finch. We won't leave you behind."

The boy swallowed. Jewel noted that he didn't give her-give them-his name. He was still counting the probable cost. It made him shake.

"Do you know where Duster is?"

And look away.

Two men joined the two who were injured and bleeding at the wrong end of the hall. They were good; Rath hadn't heard them move at all; hadn't been aware that they were coming. All of his instincts were honed, and if he wasn't as fast as he had been in his youth, his experience more than made up for it.

And all of that experience told him to run.

Were it not for the contents of the letter he'd sent, he would have. Because he'd seen men like this before, and not enough time had pa.s.sed to dampen the impact of recognition. They weren't afraid; they were smiling.

Cold smiles. Their eyes, in halls that were flooded with light at their backs, were dark and unblinking; they walked with a silent grace that Rath knew he had never possessed.

They carried swords.

"Harald!"

Harald grimaced. "Trouble," he said.

"Pull your men back."

"For two?"

"Do it."

A crossbow bolt flew between them and landed almost dead center; clearly, if Harald's men were too down on their luck-as they liked to put it when describing the habits that usually deprived them of whatever they'd earned in the s.h.i.+pping season-they'd enough experience with crossbows to know when to fire.

But if the aim was true, it was also instantly demoralizing; the man staggered back at the force of impact, but that was all he did. He didn't even bother to remove the bolt; it jutted out of his chest at right angles, an unspoken threat.

Arann called Jewel, and she nodded grimly. "More doors," she told them. "I can't open them all."

Carver, quiet until that moment, shrugged. "I can open half of them. Or at least as far down the hall as the fighting."

The fighting. Jewel drew a deep breath. Or tried. What she took in was shallow, like a gasp, a series of gasps. Rath was there.

She was here. It was the here she had to concentrate on. She slipped out of the room, Carver her shadow, and on to the next door. It was locked. Carver broke away, kneeling by the door opposite Jewel's. She wanted to watch him work; to judge-from the vantage of meager skill-how good he was. She didn't have time.

Not even to waste on a thought like that one; her hands were shaking so d.a.m.n much, Rath would have been Winter itself had he watched her work. But the lock clicked. She pushed the door wide, hoping to the h.e.l.ls there weren't any guards in it.

And there weren't. There was another boy, who looked up as she entered. He hadn't the sense to hide under the bed; he hadn't the sense to hide in the closet-because this room seemed to have one, tucked to one side and behind the long mirror.

In fact, he hadn't much sense left at all, to Jewel's eye. His stare was dull, almost disinterested. His clothing was clean, but also unseasonal; his feet were bare. His hands were thick hands, and his arms, thick as well; he was shorter than Arann, wider, his eyes a blue that no sky knows. Because when the sky was blue, it contained light, sun's light; there was none of it here.

He stood up from the bed as she watched him. The sounds of swords were closer, and there was no Arann blocking the door, nothing to keep it open. But even the sounds of shouting didn't seem to register on the boy's face; his jaw didn't tense. He said nothing, waiting.

As if this were his life, truly his life; as if all fighting had already been done, and everything lost in the attempt.

She'd heard the word "broken" before, even heard it used to refer to people, but she'd never seen it so clearly. Not even Lefty, who jumped at the sight of his own shadow, was broken like this; he still had fear to drive him.

And Arann to care for him.

Not even the fact that she didn't have to talk him out from under the bed was a comfort, here. The mirror that she looked into-and away from-was contained in the prominent bones of his cheeks, the squareness of his jaw; a dim little voice said, this could have been me.

She didn't even try to argue with it.

"We have to leave," she told him.

He nodded.

"We have to leave now."

He nodded again. When she left the room, he followed, moving slowly and carefully, avoiding eye contact with anything that wasn't the floor.

She looked across the hall, saw Carver emerge, dragging someone by the arm. A boy. Another boy. His hair was the color of dark carrots, and his face, pale, showed freckles, but no bruises. He looked bewildered, but not afraid. New here, she thought. Too new.

But why were they all boys?

Before she could ask, Carver said, "How many more, Jay?" And he looked down the hall. A man was reloading a crossbow. And cursing. In fact, a lot of men were cursing.

Without thinking, she answered the question. "Just one." And then stopped, as thought caught up with her mouth. Her eyes narrowed. But Carver was without guile; he had asked because he expected her to know.

He was pale, and he had his dagger firmly in the hand that wasn't dragging out the room's occupant. But he wasn't ready to run. She thought, then, that her Oma would have liked this strange boy.

Carver took him to Arann; Jewel's silent charge followed without a word. But Carver's? He looked down the hall, his green-brown eyes widening. He had flight in him.

"One more where?" Carver asked, and looked down the hall. There were six doors; they could probably reach two of them without risking limbs to the swordplay.

Jewel had reached Arann's side. She now turned to the first boy, the one Finch had rescued. "Which room is Duster in?" she asked him quietly.

"None of these," he replied.

The silent boy, the boy who had guttered eyes, seemed to hear the words at last, and he flinched.

Jewel had no right to judge him. And had she time, she would have let him be. He'd suffered enough.

But he had the answer, and she needed it.

"Where?" she asked him, more brusquely than she'd intended.

"Up," he whispered. And as he did, he pointed.

Down the hall. Toward the thick of the fighting. Jewel followed the direction and her eyes came to rest, briefly, on the two men who stood sentinel there, smiling in the face of Rath and Harald and their men.

She forgot how to breathe for a moment, and almost took a step back. But she forced herself to stand her ground, to say nothing. Because she was aware that all eyes were on her, and some of those eyes were almost vacant; she couldn't afford to fill them with fear.

Or terror.

She could not go through the men. None of them could. "Finch."

Finch was white. But she nodded. And pulled the boy's arm down, so that it rested, again, at his side. He didn't flinch when she touched him; he made no attempt to free his hand. And Finch, the smallest person here, held that hand as tightly as if it were all the money-or food-she possessed in a very unfriendly world. She had been so terrified of returning, she could barely take steps, but here, at last, she had found something that was worth holding onto. Someone who needed her.

It surprised Jay, and even above the din and her own growing agitation, it was a good surprise. A welcome surprise.

"There's another floor?"