foully smothering blanket, staying limp, and keeping up the ruse that he was as completely unconscious as that blow to the head should have rendered him. This was the hardest part of the plan — to literally do nothing while his captor carried him off, and hope that Alberich could keep up with them. They only had to get to their goal, which might or might not be Londer's warehouse. Alberich had to stay with them while remaining unseen.
Not the easiest task in the world; Skif had shadowed enough people in his life to know how hard it really was.
He'd have to get the bowl off his head, too, at some point in the near future, or they'd figure out he wasn't what he seemed and he wasn't unconscious. Definitely before he got unwrapped, or he'd be in a far more uncomfortable position than he was now. So as the man jogged along, Skif worked his hands, a little at a time, up toward his head.
The blanket smelled of so many things, all of them horrid, that he hated to think of what had happened in it and to it. It wasn't so much a blanket as a heavy tarpaulin of something less scratchy than wool. Was it sailcloth? It could be. He wasn't so tightly wrapped up in it that he couldn't move. He'd been “sleeping” with his arms up against his chest, so he shouldn't have too far to work them to get his hands on that bowl…
He was glad he hadn't eaten much, since his head and torso were dangling upside down along his captor's back, the stench of the blanket was appalling, and the man's shoulder essentially hit him in the gut with every step. If there was a better recipe for nausea, he didn't know it. He'd have been sick if he hadn't been cautious about not eating much beforehand.
Bit by bit, he worked his arms higher, moving them only with the motion of the man who carried him, slowly working his hands up through the canvas towards the bowl. Then, at long last, with the tips of his fingers, he touched it.
With a sigh of relief, he pushed with his fingertips and ducked his head at the same time as the man stumbled. The bowl came off his head and fell off into the folds of the blanket. He was rid of it, and now he could —
— not relax, certainly. But wait, be still, try to ignore the reek of the blanket, and remember the next part of the plan.
He wished he could see. Hellfires, I wish I could breathe!
But if Londer's warehouse was the goal, it couldn't be very much longer. Alberich was supposed to have scouted the place during the day, so he'd be familiar with the outside, at least. Skif just wished that the Weaponsmaster was as good at roof walking as he was — if only they could have switched parts —
Don't worry about your partner. If he says he can do something, and you've got no cause to think otherwise, then let him do his job and concentrate on yours.
Well, that was easy to say, and hard to do, when it all came down to cases.
It seemed forever before the men stopped, and when they did, Skif was gritting his teeth so hard he thought they might splinter with the tension. They knocked on the door, quite softly, in a pattern of three, two, and five.
The door creaked open. “Got 'nother one?” said a voice in a harsh whisper, with accents of surprise. “Tha's third'un tonight!”
“Pickin's is good,” said the man to Skif's right, as the one carrying him grunted. “Got'r eyes on two more prime 'uns, so le's get this'un settled.”
“Boss'll be right happy,” said the doorkeeper, as the men moved forward and closed the door behind them.
“Tha's th'ideer,” grunted the man with Skif.
They moved more slowly now, and to Skif's dismay there was a fair amount of opening and closing of doors, and direction changes down passages. This place must be a veritable warren! How was Alberich supposed to find him in all of this if he got inside?
Descending a staircase? There's a cellar to this place? There isn't supposed to be a cellar here!
Skif was in something of a panic, because part of the emergency plan figured in the Companions coming in as well as Alberich, and the Companions were not going to be able to get down a narrow, steep set of stairs into a cellar.
