Behind him he heard soft footsteps. The sound of bare feet slapping against charred timber. Only for a moment, before the sound stopped and he was left in silence again. Silence so profound-and so rare in the clamoring city. It sounded like a roaring in his ears.
He turned slowly on his heel, scanning the empty door frames on every side, the twisting little roads that curled between the buildings. He longed to get his back against something solid. There was a brick building up ahead, or at least the husk of one. Its roof was gone and one wall had come down. The other three still stood, however, and if he could get inside them, at least he would not have to worry about being attacked from behind. He hurried forward, his lantern held high-and then a noise from quite close by stopped him in his tracks.
One of the watchers had stepped out into the street behind him. He heard its feet splashing in a puddle. This time, however, it did not rush off as he turned to see it. This time it held its ground.
Even before he completed his turn his hand was on the hilt of his knife. He hesitated to draw, however, when he saw the creature he faced. It was a child, a girl no more than seven years old. She wore a stained shift of homespun and had rags wrapped around her feet in place of shoes. She also had a hammer clutched before her in both hands. Her eyes stayed on his face and they did not blink.
Malden spread his own hands wide, showing her they were empty. He took a step toward her, and when she did not flee, he took another. He reached down toward her – and suddenly the street was full of ragged children. They seemed to emerge from the mist as if generated spontaneously from the cold and the damp, like fungus from a rotting log. They were of both sexes, and varied in apparent age, but were dressed all alike in torn shirts and tunics too big for their skinny frames. And they all held makeshift weapons. One had a carpenter’s saw. Another held a cobbler’s awl. Bits of wood with protruding nails. A length of iron chain. One of them, a boy older than the rest, had a woodsman’s hatchet that he held down against his thigh as if he knew how to use it.
A gang of orphans, Malden thought. A band of urchins joined together in their poverty to waylay any traveler foolish enough to come here by night. A ragged little army. There were dozens of them, and though he was certain he could best even the older boy in a fair fight, he could see in their eyes they held no concept of fairness or justice, such things as impossible and mythical in their experience as the continents the sages claimed lay beyond the sea. They would be on him in a heap, slashing and hitting and pounding and mauling him until he was dead. They would offer no quarter or mercy.
They were waiting for him to make the first move. To try to run, or fight. Not because they were afraid to attack, but because they wanted him to make some mistake, to calculate the odds incorrectly. They would take advantage of whatever weakness he showed and make short work of him.
Malden licked his lips and turned slowly this way and that, looking for an opening. There was no way out, it seemed. Unless… unless there was another reason for their silent waiting, for their constant unblinking stares.
“You want some password or sign,” he said, “but all I have is this.” He reached inside his cloak. They moved toward him, closing the circle they formed around him. They were ready to attack at the first sign of aggression. But he was not reaching for his bodkin. Instead his nimble fingers reached into his purse and drew out the scrap of parchment that had beckoned him to this dreadful place at this beastly time. He unfolded it carefully-the old paper cracked down the middle but he held the pieces together-and showed them the message he had received: This house is ONE OF OURS, and its owner under my protection. At next Witching Hour come ALONE to the Ashes hard by Westwall-or you’re DEAD before next Dawn.
“I found it tacked to the windowsill of a house I was in the process of burgling. This is what you want to see, yes?”
Could they read it? he wondered? But no, of course they couldn’t. It was foolish to think these children had ever been tutored or given even religious education. And yet they seemed entranced by the brief missive. Ah, he thought. They recognize the signature, a crude drawing of a heart transfixed by a key.
He did not know what that sign meant, not for certain, but its power on these children was intriguing. One by one they came close and touched the paper, as superstitious merchants will sometimes touch a statue of the Lady before sitting down to some tricky negotiation. When they had seen the sign for themselves and perhaps decided it was no forgery, they filed away, back into the darkness. All except the girl with the hammer, the first one he’d seen. She still held his eyes with her own. When they two were alone again, she finally broke his gaze and started walking toward the brick ruin he’d thought to shelter in. She led him right up to a doorway and then gestured inside with one hand. Then she made a perfect curtsy and ran off to join the others.
Clearly this was the place. Holding the scrap of parchment before him like a talisman, Malden stepped through the door.
Chapter Two
I nside the ruined building three old men dressed in rags sat on a long wooden box. Two of them had long white beards, while the other was bald and clean-shaven. Age had withered their muscles but their eyes glinted with cunning-no dotards, these. Malden had the sense there was a great deal more to them than what he saw.
He nodded to the men but did not speak yet. First he studied the interior of the building-its fallen and shattered roof beams, the piles of scorched plaster in the corners. The floor was covered in a thick layer of debris. There did not seem to be anywhere an assassin could hide, though between the lack of light and the tendrils of mist that coiled around his lantern, it was hard to be sure.
“What if I had brought the city watch with me?” Malden asked, because he felt there was no need for polite small talk. He had, after all, been threatened with death.
The bald man smiled wickedly. “We would not be here. You would have never found this place. And before morning your throat would be slit.”
Malden nodded in understanding. “This isn’t a bad setup. The children out there keep an eye on the place for you, right? Make sure nobody gets in uninvited. I’m guessing that even now if I tried something, you’d be ready for it.”
One of the whitebeards raised a long, crooked finger and pointed into the air. With his eyes, Malden followed the direction of the finger until he could just see a spire looming out of the mist two blocks away. Most likely it had been the steeple of the local church, made of stone, so it survived the fire. While he was staring through the gloom, something whistled past his cheek and slammed into a charred wooden plank behind him. He glanced sideways and saw the shaft of an arrow there, still quivering. The arrow was as long as his arm and it had struck the wood so hard the iron point was completely embedded.
For a while after that Malden did not breathe. His lungs clamped shut and every muscle in his body went rigid. He waited patiently for the next arrow, the one that would find his guts or his throat. But it did not come.
He understood rationally what had happened, and why. The arrow was a message-a reminder that here not all was what it seemed, and that he was still in mortal danger. It was not a reminder he’d truly needed.
“I’ll pay you the courtesy of noticing you didn’t flinch,” the whitebeard said. “That’s good, lad. Very good.”
Malden gave him a brief bow, once he could move and breathe again. “I think I understand where I am. I’m not sure who you three are, but I assume you aren’t the ones I’m supposed to meet. Yet you can show me the way to my meeting. You’re the guardians of the doorway, yes? And more than that, certainly.”
The bald one touched his chest. “I am called ’Levenfingers. These,” he said, gesturing at the whitebeards, “are Loophole and Lockjaw.”
“Well met,” Malden said. “Wait. Wait… I’ve heard of him, of Loophole. It was a little before my time, but they still tell the story up in the Stink. If you’re the same man, then you got that name when you robbed the garrison house up by the palace. Is it true that you climbed in through an arrow slit, fifty feet up the curtain wall?”
Loophole wheezed as he laughed. “Another time, I’ll tell ye all, if you wish. Assuming you survive tonight.”
Malden nodded. “I’d be honored. And you-’Levenfingers-how’d you come by that name, if I might ask?”
“I was the king of the pickpockets in my day,” the bald man said with obvious pride. “They used to say no man with ten fingers could be so dab at it, so I must have eleven.” He held up his hands, which were gnarled and spotted with age but otherwise perfectly normal. “Just a nickname.”
