David Mcintee - The Light of Heaven

The assassin's next order of business was simple survival.

He left the crossbow where it was, and slid out of the shooting cell. He slid down a ladder and exited from the thirty foot high beacon tower that dominated the eastern edge of North Cliff. A staircase wound its way up the outside, to allow a constant stream of wood to be taken up to the beacon itself, but the assassin doubted that even the Order of the Swords of Dawn knew that the interior still retained the ladders and scaffolding of the builders who had constructed it. They hadn't built a secret shooting cell intentionally, of course; it was simply a part of the internal support structure, which the builders once used to store materials during construction.

The opening he was using as a loophole to shoot out of was originally just mean to let light in so that, by means of mirrors, the builders inside could see what they were doing. Perhaps it had once also been used as a camera obscura, so that people manning the beacon could survey the horizon from inside. This use had been long since forgotten by most people.

Not looking back, he darted across to the drovers' road and began to walk briskly but calmly. Running would attract attention. By the castle the knights of the Swords were barging around, harried by one of their own Eminences as they set up a perimeter around the victim. The shouts of Ducal soldiers began to be taken up.

The assassin merely kept walking.

Every Knight of the Swords on the esplanade dashed towards the falling Eminence, Erak running at their head. The Ducal soldiers spread out, shoving the crowd back, while the honour guard ushered the bride and groom, and their families, back into the castle.

Erak grabbed the green robe of a Healer hesitating near the castle gate, clearly unsure whether to risk entering the killing ground for a patient, and shoved him forward.

"See to the Eminence!"

The Swords of Dawn were swarming out of every nook and cranny, but no-one seemed to know what had happened. Questions and counter-questions flew across the esplanade and within the castle courtyard. Erak himself only had one thought: where was the assassin?

The assassin was two streets away, and walking further. It had all gone perfectly, as far as he was concerned. Every man-at-arms he passed was rushing towards the castle, while the bowman, drab in his charcoal-coloured cloak and grey tunic and trews, walked slowly in the opposite direction.

He kept up this slow pace him though every fibre of his body wanted him to run. This way he looked like an over-fed celebrant who had left before anything untoward happened. Nothing could get in the way of his simple ruse now. Feeling genuinely in need of a touch of the celebration he deserved, he helped himself to a shot from a silver hip-flask. It was the good stuff, brought up and across the Anclas from Pontaine. It burned smoothly on the way down — and exploded more roughly into his front teeth when a fist smashed into them. The fist belonged to an athletic-looking knight from the Order of the Swords of Dawn.

The knight wore a tunic, gambeson, and trews bound tightly to what looked to be shapely legs. Greaves were strapped to the shins, and bracers to the forearms. Iron caressed the shoulders and torso, under a surplice bearing the crossed circle of the Final Faith. Staring out from under the helmet were a strange and arresting pair of eyes. One was clear sapphire blue, the other a striking almond flecked with gold.

The assassin froze for a moment, startled out of his confident walk.

"What the — "

Instinctively, he pushed past her and started to run. How could they have found him?

Gabriella DeZantez started to run, bolting after the fleeing man. Why was he reacting so strongly when he had only been breaking a local prohibition on drinking spirits? He wouldn't have gone to the gibbet for that. On the day of a Ducal wedding he'd have got away with having his booze poured away.

Her heart pounded, every other beat feeling as if it was being given a kick by the slam of her feet on the cobbles. The street ahead sloped down towards a shallow grey estuary. Boats bobbed up and down there, making a fence between the slope and the dark muddy pools. Falling snow curtained off the warehouses and docks on the southern side. The clunking of woodwork and distant calls of men floated, muffled, across to Gabriella, under the dark segments of a wooden pontoon bridge which loomed up close, before stretching into the grey void. Ahead, the fleeing man darted left, onto the bridge across to South Cliff and Gabriella followed. At the other end of the bridge, the man darted left, towards another street opening.

Behind her, she heard horses' hooves booming thunderously on the thick planking. Gabriella was baffled. Who were they chasing? She looked around and saw that several mounted Knights of the Swords had crossed the bridge. The horses heeled around, the leading knight waving to Gabriella. It was a lanky man named Markus. The tone of his hoarse shout convinced her that something major was afoot.

"Sister DeZantez! Have you seen anyone?"

"Just the man I'm chasing. Who are you chasing?"

"Someone put a quarrel through Eminence Rhodon!"

She had no reason to assume her fleeing drinker was the same man, but some sense told her that it was a good enough reason for him to run.

"My man went down Three-Tun Alley! You'll never get those horses through there!"

"Keep after him, and we'll set up a catchment area. Drive him towards us."

Gabriella threw herself back into a run, wishing she had a bow. It didn't have to be one of those Volonne-designed repeaters either, just something that would bring him down quickly.

She turned into the narrow opening her quarry had run into, and skidded down a near-vertical alley that was as much a sewer as an alleyway, before bursting forth onto a promenade fronted with food stalls.

A ruffian suddenly lunged out from the shadow of a hay-wain, slashing at her with a dagger.

Gabriella pivoted aside, drawing her pair of short swords in the same movement, and catching his wrist between them. His hand, still gripping his weapon, arced to one side, while the rest of him crashed back against the wagon under a heavy kick from her boot.

She didn't spare him another glance.

A few travellers and labourers ducked aside as she pushed past them to keep her quarry in sight. As the cold gulps of air burned her lungs, she saw the fugitive sprinting for the base of the south cliff itself, which gave this side of town its name. Gabriella wouldn't be surprised if her quarry started making for the Jolly Sailors, as most criminals seemed to these days. The Jollies was a veritable thieves' den, though none in Kalten called it such by name.

She stopped trying to work out his course; the Jollies was all she needed to know. Get into that rat-warren of rotgut tap-houses and flophouses, and he could disappear completely. Gabriella would have to keep her eyes and ears very much open.

The man's footfalls were audible enough for her to keep track of them, and she followed him through an alley barely wide enough for her shoulders to fit through. She burst out into an old yard filled with cluttered little workshops, huddling tight against the base of the cliff. The yard stank like the privy that people clearly used it as, and was surrounded on three sides by the old brickwork of some kind of warehouse, three storeys high. The fourth side was a row of plastered walls with narrow back doors to the shops.

Gabriella looked around. There was no sign of the man, but she could still hear his footsteps. Something clattered above her, drawing her gaze to the warehouse roof. She couldn't see anyone there, but there was a decaying zigzag of steps leading up the side of the warehouse.