Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

But they could not waste those precious arrows on dogs. And a wounded dog might howl. That wouldn’t do. They had to mount to the rooftops whenever the creatures stirred. Luckily the houses were low and ramshackle, and often abandoned. Four or five empty streets for every one where citizens clung together, fearful and poor, night watchmen armed with no more than sticks to keep the feral dogs and other, stranger animals at bay. Given a month Ott could have learned to mimic the sounds of these animals, and thus moved through Masalym with far greater ease. But they had only tonight. Had they been spotted already, though? Taken for dlomic criminals? Surely there were many such parasites, feasting on this carcass of a city.

Most of the houses were slate-roofed-easy to climb, hazardous to cross-but eventually Hercol beckoned, and sprinted to a flat-roofed building. It was the drainpipe he’d spotted: a solid iron thing. It bore his weight as he pulled himself up, hand over hand. Despite himself Ott had to smile as he watched Hercol’s fluid movements. Alyash had strength and utter fearlessness, and a mind like a steel trap. But Hercol had something more: blazing intuition, a welding together of thought and deed that was swifter even than Ott’s own. Such a masterful tool. And yet Hercol was not his to wield, ever again, for Arqual or any other cause. He’s wielding you, if anything, old man. Your hunting days are numbered.

When he crawled forward to the roof’s edge, Ott saw why Hercol had chosen it. Before them stretched a wide, dark road: the avenue up which the captives had been marched. Half a mile to the south the Chathrand towered over the quay. The lamps of the dlomic guard blazed on her topdeck.

“They’ve mounted the new foremast,” said Alyash. “There’s rigging on it too, by the hairy devil. They work fast.”

“The breach in the hull is surely repaired as well,” said Hercol. “No boarding her from below, then. And if we climb the scaffold they will spot us for certain. We will have to enter by one of the starboard hawse-holes.”

“Like rats,” said Ott, and smiled.

“I just hope your knife’s good and sharp,” muttered Alyash. “The splash-guard on the inside of those holes is made of walrus hide. You’re going to have a dandy job cutting through it while dangling from the cable.”

“My knife is sharp,” said Hercol, “and your plan is sound, of course, Master Ott. A direct approach would be suicide. But this way we have a chance.”

He calls me master! By the Night Gods, I taught him respect! He was not deceived, of course: there was hateful irony when Hercol spoke the word, even if he had never found another to replace it.

Sudden wings overhead. Ott rolled onto his back: Niriviel swept over them, cutting a turn that meant No enemies moving. “All clear,” said Ott. “Let’s get on with it, gentlemen.”

They climbed down, rounded the building, broke across the road. At once a door slammed off to their right. Well, Pitfire, they’d been seen. But recognized? Not likely. You open a door, you see figures running in deadly earnest, you slam it. Nine men in ten will hold their breath and hope the danger passes. Of course, these were not exactly men.

Keep running, keep cold. In the lead, Hercol reached the far side of the avenue and dived into a side street, ducked left at the first alley, then right into the next. This one was straight and long and amazingly narrow, three- and four-story row houses so close together that you could, at times, touch both walls at once. Mounds of refuse, scent of just-burned garbage, rodents squeaking and popping out of their way, fitful candlelight in scattered windows. They ran.

One block, two. No incidents. Then disaster-a dlomic woman’s shriek, half a dozen answering voices, rage and fear and shouted names. A cacophony of dogs’ howls, objects shattering near their heads. They flew into the fast sprint they had not yet asked of themselves, saw the vicious monkey-squirrels leaping across the alley through open windows ahead of them, then all around them, like crossfire, and then they were at the end of the alley, dashing over a ring road paved with old cobbles, and vaulting onto the eight-foot wall at the rim of the basin.

“The floor below is curved,” cried Hercol. “Drop! Drop and run!”

Cries from behind them; stones whizzing past their ears. They dropped, struck ground, rolled onto their feet. They were in the mile-wide basin into which the Chathrand had been lifted when she entered Masalym. It was a great stone bowl, half empty, with a disc of water at the center. They made for that disc, racing down the side of the bowl, then crouching and sliding, clowns and not killing machines when they hit the slippery slime-layer near the water’s edge. Once submerged they dived deep, so no ripple would betray them above. They rose together, breathed together, dived at the same time. Like my lads crossing the border at the River Narth, to kill the Sizzies in their sleep, thought the spymaster. We’re strong swimmers, and we know what we’re about. But beside the dlomu we’re slow as cows. If they catch us in the water we’re dead men. Stay deep, my boys, stay with me.

Stones and arrows fell around them. But they did swim deep, and none of the arrows found its mark, and Ott heard no sound of pursuit. With long, swift strokes they crossed the basin, until at last the curved floor met their feet once more. Out they crawled into the slime, three crocodiles, belly-sliding right to the foot of the stone gate across the Chathrand’s berth.

“Not here,” said Ott. “Too many eyes. We should climb out at the third berth, the abandoned one. Good cover there: it’s full of derelicts and weeds.”

Hercol nodded. The three men bent low and ran along the wall for some five hundred yards. No guard here, no lights. And the makeshift grappling hook bit on the third throw, bit and held tight: such splendid luck. Right up the wall Hercol climbed, forty feet, hand over fist. Alyash followed. When Ott’s turn came he found the two men hauling him up.

Red fury engulfed him. He glowered as he hooked a leg over the rim.

“I need no man’s help up a wall,” he said. “Do you think I’d be out here tonight if I doubted for my readiness to-Eh?”

The others were staring, transfixed. Ott sprang to his feet and looked in the same direction.

They were at the edge of the abandoned berth, some five hundred yards from the Chathrand. At their feet, three boats sat in dry dock in various stages of decay. Upon the largest, which was draped like some ghastly burial chamber with the moldered remains of her sails, dark figures were moving toward the bows.

Ott pulled the other men down into the weeds. The figures numbered ten. Eight of them wore black clothes, rather like the men watching ashore. They were dlomu, of course: the slight gleam of silver about the eyes proved that. All had light, thin swords, and three carried bows as well, with arrows already nocked.

The last two figures were bound at the wrists. One was a youth in a ragged shirt and trousers; the other wore a soldier’s mail. Both had dark leather sacks pulled over their heads.

The archers took up positions on the boat’s perimeter, studying the darkness. The others led the prisoners to one of the few remaining sections of rail and forced them to their knees.

“Bandits,” said Alyash, “settling scores. Come on, they’re the last ones we need to worry about.”

“Look again,” said Ott.

The archer at the stern of the vessel, having raised a hand to his neck, was holding oddly still. Hercol’s mouth fell open in the surprise. “Dead,” he declared with certainty, and even as he spoke the man pitched forward and toppled without a cry upon the stone below.

“What in the bottomless black Pits!” hissed Alyash.