alleys. They've worked through the entire quarter riverside of our compound.'
'And the canal-side neighborhoods over by the temple,' he said.
'I'm sorry to say my lads have been forced to take hire building out that burned merchant's hall in Terta Square, that one they're turning into a fortified garrison headquarters. I heard them remark just last evening there are still neighborhoods over by the masons' courts with refugees hanging on in nooks and crannies. Eiya! It was better when those refugees weren't here, for they ate up the rations we need now, but it's a cursed terrible thing the army is doing-'
'Hush, my friend,' he said in a low voice, seeing the soldiers approach from her blind side. He went on loudly. 'I can't pay that ridiculous price, verea. I'm surprised you even suggest it!'
'For shame, Holy One! How can I feed my grandchildren if I can't sell my produce for a pair of vey, eh?'
The young men sauntered up behind her. 'Eh, look at those withered caul petals! My grandmother would have been too proud to demand coin for what she'd feed to her pigs.'
The old woman bent her head to hide the spark of anger.
Nekkar smiled blandly up at them. 'Greetings of the day, my nephews. A fine day, eh? The sun is very lively today, good weather ahead.'
'We've got our eye on you, uncle,' said the taller soldier. 'You can't trust those cursed envoys of Ilu, that's what Sergeant Tomash told us before he got reassigned. Always sneaking around, gossiping, getting into the business of others.'
'Where did you serve your apprenticeship, nephew?'
'Thinks he's got the right to ask, eh?' said the shorter to the taller, guffawing as at a merry joke. They sauntered over to a woman selling plums and took the nicest off her tray without paying.
'They call that 'tithing,'' muttered Gazara. 'Cursed thieves.'
'The young have sharp hearing,' he said mildly.
The soldiers glanced over and gestured as if to say, 'Don't think to escape us.'
'I thank you for the tidings, verea,' he added, knees popping as he straightened.
'Don't get into trouble, Holy One. We here in Stone Quarter rely on you for your honesty and good temper.'
'I wish there was more I could do. For now, we must keep our heads down and try to survive.'
No matter how much he wanted to go haring off toward the masons' courts immediately, he loitered in the market, purchasing three honey-sesame cakes and tucking them in his sleeve as he made his way along the main thoroughfare toward the square where he had faced interrogation ten days earlier. The army had swept up ransom and hostages, and departed, and Nekkar was cursed sure that the garrison left behind to guard Toskala were the worst of the lot, bullies and thieves who took whatever they fancied just because they had the power to do so.
A pair of soldiers — likely the same ones by their mismatched height — trailed him at a distance, but he knew the neighborhoods better than they did. Behind Astarda's Arch, he cut into a nook where, according to temple history, there had once stood an age-blackened statue of Kotaru the Thunderer, a relic of an earlier era. He heard the startled cries of the men tailing him and the patter of their footsteps as they raced down the street in pursuit. He hurried back the way he had come and made his way into the warren of alleys behind the masons' courts.
He surprised a couple of locals scavenging through canvas shelters still strung from walls. Crude pallets had been cut open. A ripped and muddied doll lay in the street — it seemed there must always be a doll torn from the grip of some poor sobbing child. A dead dog had gone rigid, feet pointing up; at least it did not yet stink. He hurried past, but heard a scrape and turned back. A ragged child had grasped the hind legs of the dog and was dragging it into the shadows.
'Child,' he said softly, holding out the honey-sesame cakes.
The child froze. Its posture, as rigid in its own way as the dog's, betrayed the intensity of its fear and hunger. For a few breaths, they watched each other. Then Nekkar allowed his gaze to probe the shadows. A half-closed-up drain was tucked away under the two-story building leaning out over the alley. A face wavered in the opening. He could not be sure these were the children of the murdered man whose pleas had gone unheard by all except Nekkar, but truly, it did not matter.
'That's one very dead dog, neh? Not even the firelings as in the tales could heal it, eh?'
The child quivered but did not let go of the legs.
'You're right to be cautious. You are protecting the ones hiding
in the drain. I'm an ostiary, not one of the soldiers. I've come at your father's request to take you to the temple, where you'll be safe.'
'We gotta wait 'til he come back,' said the child in a raspy voice. Impossible to say if this filthy scrap was male or female, and it was certainly no more than ten.
'Yes, truly you do, but aren't the little ones hungry?'
Its gaze flicked toward the shadows and away, fearful of giving up its secrets.
'I tell you what. You come with me now, and we'll wait at the temple until your father comes.'
The child relinquished its hold on the dog's legs. It scratched the rash blooming across its exposed neck. 'He said to wait.'
'And so you have. But he's had to go out of the city, and now he needs you to come with me to the temple. How long has it been since you've seen him?'
The child answered with a shrug.
'Meanwhile, the little ones are hungry. And need a bath. By the honor of Ilu, child, I promise to care for you.'
Aui! Let the child be not so stubborn!
The sag in its shoulders 'acknowledged its weary defeat. It turned to face the shadows and called. 'Heya! We're goin' to the Ilu temple and get fed.'
A smaller child crawled out from the hole, its body smeared with mud, followed by an even smaller child who wore only a scrap of linen tied over one shoulder, like a mockery of a cloak, and was therefore exposed as a boy- child. Both children were little more than sticks with joints that bent and eyes that blinked.
'You sure?' asked the middle one, who was clutching a bundle.
'You wanna eat this dog?' asked the eldest.
'We best hurry,' Nekkar said, 'lest soldiers come. They were here before, neh?'
'We hid,' said the eldest.
The middle one raised a hand. 'I hear them coming,' it whispered in a voice rubbed raw.
The eldest cocked its head as its eyes flared. 'We gotta hide, Holy One.'
Too late Nekkar heard the smack of footfalls and the conversational rise and fall of young male voices fading and growing as they turned an unseen corner that brought them closer.
'Hide,' he said.
He ducked down and slid on his belly through a stinking muck that slopped on his neck. The drain was stone on all sides, damp and fetid. The two little ones scrambled in behind, but the eldest darted back to grab at the dead dog.
Soldiers shouted. The child ran the other way to draw their attention away from the drain. They sprinted past, and their shouts of triumph told the rest of the tale. Then back they came, dragging the child, and the littlest one scrabbled out through the hole after his sibling and the middle one followed as his muddy foot slipped through Nekkar's grasp.
The hells! He was not so young and so fit as he had once been, and his tunic snagged and he had to rip it loose, gods-rotted nail! By the time he crawled out they were gone around the bend although he heard voices well enough:
'I knew we'd missed a few of these stinking roaches, eh!'
He hurried after them. As he bolted out from the alley into the street he ran straight into the soldiers who had been following him.
'Whew! You stink!' That was Shorter speaking with a cheerful grin. 'What, Holy One, you scavenging from what those refugees left behind? Aui! I thought better of an ostiary.'
'Them thinking they're better than us,' added Taller, grasping Nekkar with a cursed strong hand and towing him away from the direction in which the children had been taken. 'Yet they do tax and tithe and claim to be pure as new milk when they're just gods-rotted thieves without a scrap of shame, thinking it's owed to them.'
