The rope swung sideways, pendulum fashion but he did not fall. He held on grimly, waiting for the momentum to die so he could climb upwards to the relative safety of the roof. All it would take would be for one of those men down there to look up and see his silhouette against the skylight. It seemed all but impossible that one of them had not done so already. It surely was only a matter of moments.
The swinging stopped. Barely able to maintain a grip with his blistered fingers he pulled himself up hand over hand. It seemed to take forever. He heaved himself up through the skylight wriggling desperately, certain that he would get stuck.
A moment later he was up and out on the slates, sliding forward, face first towards the edge of the roof. He pushed forward and down with his rope-burned hands, hoping to slow himself. Slates were driven up and away in front of him like a wave, tumbling towards the ground. The pain in his hands was excruciating but he managed to stop himself by hooking his toes over the edge of the skylight. After a few seconds of frantic scrambling for grip he oriented himself and hauled up the line. He quickly hooked the grapnel over the edge of the skylight and then began to lower himself to the ground below.
He hit the ground after what seemed hours of painful climbing. His hands burned. A figure stepped from the gloom, and Rik reached for his pistol.
“It’s me,” said Leon. “What the hell is going on? You look like you’ve been working in an abattoir.”
“Had some trouble inside. Give me my costume and try and get that bloody rope.”
Leon handed him his mask and robe and Rik swiftly donned it. As he did so Leon worked the grapnel free. What a fiasco, Rik thought.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get the hell away from here before someone comes looking for us.”
They ran as fast as they could in their heavy robes and masks back towards the music and dancing of the Solace masquerade. Suddenly, in his mind’s eye, Rik saw the face of the man he had stabbed and the look the man had given him as the life went out of him. He felt a little sick, as he sometimes did after killing at close quarters, but he pushed the thought away. There would be time enough to dwell on things after they had made their escape.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Zarahel raced around the warehouse. Who had the intruder been, he wondered, and where had he gone? All the doors were secured. No one had come or gone that way, of that he was absolutely certain.
Was it possible that Craymorne had been killed by one of his own people? Perhaps some old score was being paid off. The hill-men were touchy enough and given to feuding. No one knew that better than he. Or had some other faction managed to infiltrate his force? Were Bertragh’s men to be trusted? Was the factor himself?
He paused and scratched one of his blisters. They were getting bigger. He glanced at his bodyguards assembled in the loading area of the warehouse. They were angry and they were scared. They held their weapons ready. Like all true hill-tribe warriors, they were killers born and bred but none of them showed any signs of being the murderer. There was no blood on anybody’s clothing that he could see.
Craymorne had bled profusely and some of it would have gotten on to his killer. Zarahel’s well trained eye picked up no sign of that. That meant the killer was still at large. He ordered the men to split into groups and search the place again. Another thought occurred to him, looking at the location where the body had been found. It was very close to the counting house door.
Had the killer been listening there, and had Craymorne found him? The thought that someone might know about his plans rocked Zarahel. More than that, the speed and silence of the killing argued for the work of a professional. Perhaps the assassin was a member of the Scarlet Lotus society or another of the Realm’s secret police.
Perhaps this was the work of the Brotherhood of the Wyvern who always opposed the Basilisk when they could. If word reached the wrong ears, there would be big trouble indeed. Perhaps he could work a divination to find out what had gone on here, but that would take time, and if the killer was a professional he would be warded. Anyway, he had got everything he had come here for. The books were his.
He came to a quick decision. The situation here was untenable. He turned to Bertragh.
“Get everything you need to travel. We are leaving here. Now!”
The merchant did not look at all surprised. He merely nodded his head. He had obviously come to the same conclusion. Zarahel’s respect for him increased. Bertragh was not young. He lived a very comfortable life here, yet he was prepared to give it up at a moment’s notice in the service of the Brotherhood. It was what he had sworn to do, of course, but nonetheless Zarahel was impressed. He had known much younger, fitter men who would not have been quite so quick to accept the new realities of the situation. Of course, Bertragh also realised what would happen to him if they were betrayed to the authorities.
It meant abandoning those men who had gone into the city in search of revenge but it served the fools right. Word could be got to them later. Marla would see to that. If they were caught and put to the question, there was nothing they could tell the Inquisition. They were not privy to the Brotherhood’s true plans, let alone his own. It was time to cut his losses and leave.
Having made the decision, Zarahel was immediately prepared to live with it and the consequences. Still, he would have given a lot of gold to know who the intruder was, and still more to be in a position to cut the man’s tongue out or introduce him to his pet.
Rik entered Mama Horne’s and looked around for Rena. She was nowhere to be seen. He felt a flicker of disappointment. Still, it was probably for the best. He had disposed of his blood-soaked tunic on the way here, and washed his face and hands in a rain-barrel, but he wanted time to look in a mirror and check he had left no more tell-tale marks of his night’s activities. And he wanted to get his hands cleaned and bandaged too.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, he saw Weasel and the Barbarian coming across the room towards him.
“Where have you been?” asked Weasel. “We were starting to wonder if some hill-man was cutting your private parts off with his knife.”
“Personal business,” said Rik. He reinforced the warnings to silence he had given Leon on the way back, with a look. Weasel noticed it and shrugged.
“You’ll never guess who came in,” said the Barbarian.
“I’m not even going to try. Why not tell me?”
“Only half our bloody junior officers, is all,” said Weasel.
“Exalted? Here?”
“Aye. They’re slumming on Solace night.”
“Can’t say as I blame them,” said the Barbarian.
“Who is it?”
“Sardec. Jazeray. Marcus. Paulus. Wankers, the lot of them.”
“It would be a shame if anything happened to them,” said Rik.
“Now don’t even think that,” said Weasel. “There’s things that have been done here tonight that would not bear the slightest investigation by the powers that be.”
You don’t know the half of that, thought Rik. He wondered whether he should tell his comrades about what he had overheard. He was not at all sure. There was really not a lot they could do about it. They could not run and tell the authorities without giving away what they had been up to. The most sensible course of action was simply to shut up and stay shut up.
Part of his mind gibbered about the possibility of Uran Ultar being raised. He tried to tell himself that there was no chance of that. Zarahel was a human, not a Terrarch. There was no way he could perform the necessary sorcery even if he did possess the books.
But the man himself had thought differently shrieked the fear-filled part of his mind. Rik shook his head. He did not want to be here if the demon god was unleashed. He did not want to visit the dungeons of the Inquisition either. Why could he not have left well enough alone, he wondered? Why had he bothered to preserve those
