Asher would teach him this lesson, though the dead had little need of such things.
A northerly wind blew out the ranger’s green cloak as he navigated the broken roof and patches of slick ice. Without any great speed behind him, leaping to the next building required a lot of strength from his legs but leap he did. His arms stretched over the lip of the next roof and his hands scrabbled for purchase while his feet slipped against the wall.
The assassin was already jumping down to the next building, taking advantage of the city’s sloping architecture. Asher heaved himself up and quickly put one foot in front of the other, renewing the chase. Approaching the other end of the roof, he caught a flash of steel hurtling up towards him. He twisted his shoulders, narrowly evading it, before he even processed the fact that it was a throwing dagger.
With a growl in his throat, Asher pushed off from the roof and landed on the next. The angled tiles were slippery, forcing him to edge around the sides to catch up with the agile Arakesh. Again, the assassin was already crossing the gap to a church tower and disappearing down the other side. It spurred the ranger on but, in his haste, it compromised his footing. First, his right leg went over the lip, swiftly followed by his left leg. In the blink of an eye he was hanging from the very edge by his fingers alone.
Whether the assassin had noticed or not, the younger man was now scaling down the side of the church, making for the street below. Once he hit the ground he could disappear down any number of alleys or inside a house or shop. Having not seen his face properly, there was every chance the assassin could walk past the ranger and he wouldn’t recognise him.
He couldn’t let that happen.
Falling into the mindset of a predator, Asher prepared himself to do whatever was necessary to catch his prey. That began with falling.
Keeping himself close to the wall, the ranger dropped down and gripped the windowsill on the next floor down. His fingerless gloves lent him extra grip, but he could already feel himself slipping. He had the briefest of moments to look at the ground where he discovered an abandoned cart. It wouldn’t exactly cushion his fall, but it took some of the remaining distance out of the fall.
He kept any yelp to himself and crashed down onto the centre of the cart. The wood cracked beneath him, threatening to drop him further, but it held long enough for him to groan and roll off the side. As his feet touched down, so too did the assassin twenty feet away.
There was nothing to be said, only more running. The Arakesh darted down the alley immediately in front of him. Asher rounded the corner a moment later and ducked just in time to avoid the helmet being thrown back at him. By the time his focus returned, the young assassin was barging his way through someone’s door. There was a scream from inside, followed by a clatter of debris, before the ranger darted in behind him.
A cleaver cut through the air and dug into the door’s wooden frame, an inch from Asher’s head. The ranger shouted a vague apology to the owners, both huddled in the far corner of the kitchen, and ran through and up their stairs in pursuit. The assassin kicked in another door, crossed the small room, and forced his way through a pair of shutters. A brief fall brought him crashing back onto the street.
Asher landed only seconds later. He tucked his legs up, absorbing some of the impact, and rolled away until he was able to jump up to his feet again. Ignoring the pain in his knees, the ranger propelled himself after the Arakesh. A young couple walked out in front of the assassin and he pushed his way through the pair, knocking the man to the ground. Having been slowed down, the killer charged through another door in the hope of putting enough obstacles between them that he might escape.
What he didn’t know, however, was that Asher had been trained to track and capture his targets in the maze-like districts of Karath and Tregaran. Of course, that was seventy years ago or more.
Following the screams and yells of the new intrusion, he chased the Arakesh inside. There was a woman crouched over her husband, who was nursing a cut on his head, and a small boy cowering under the table. The child pointed at the next room but didn’t dare come out from under the table. Asher nodded his appreciation and held his hands out to calm the parents, making it clear that he was only in their house to get the intruder.
The next room was dark, illuminated by a single gleam of light from the shutters. Where most might have been tempted to squint into the shadows, Asher observed the motes floating in the shaft of light. They were moving fast, their direction suggesting that something large had recently run to the right side of the room. Confident, the ranger planted a solid boot on the end of the dining table, shoving it into the shadows.
The sound of it impacting the assassin’s head was satisfying.
Knocked back from his hiding position, the young Arakesh swiped at the sundries on the table. Asher raised his hands and protected his face from the projectiles, but the assassin used his moment of blindness to roll across the table top and swing a kick into the side of the ranger’s head. The next thing Asher knew, he was collapsing through several shelves on the wall, bringing down plates and decorations.
It was the sound of steel sliding from leather that sharpened his focus. Aware of the assassin’s general position, Asher launched his foot in that direction. He caught him in the
