'Knucklebones!' shouted the barbarian as he ran, sword held in two hands. 'Duck!'
The thief heard and obeyed, letting go of the cape and jerking her blade from the prongs of the sai. The blonde saw the danger and tried to drop and scrunch behind Knucklebones herself, but the thief flicked her dagger upright, and the assassin flinched back.
Sunbright's sword slammed her across the midriff, cutting her to the spine.
The warrior heaved the heavy trunk off his blade and the assassin crumpled in two halves. Blood had exploded out, fanning over Sunbright's arms and Knucklebones's back as she skittered away. But Sunbright noticed none of it, for he'd seen, in what he now knew to be moonlight, who cowered in the window niche.
Hurodon. The spoiled brat who'd instigated all this.
Hands outthrust, the fop had only time to wail, 'Don't! I can pay!'
'Aye, that you can!'
Sunbright caught him by the shirt front and yanked him upright. Slamming the young man against the wall, he dropped Harvester to tear the dandy's coin-heavy purse off his belt.
'You'll pay!' the barbarian roared. 'Live by the purse, die by the purse!'
With one hand he grabbed the fop's chin, digging iron fingers into his cheeks. Hurodon opened his mouth to scream, and Sunbright rammed the velvet purse into his mouth. He choked and gagged, but the barbarian drove the purse farther in with a heavy fist that also broke teeth. Without a single glance, Sunbright hurled the brat out the window, arms and legs flailing like a doll. A thud and a tearing noise came from below, then nothing.
Knucklebones peered out the window while wiping blood off her face. Hurodon hung, impaled like a bale of hay, across the upright spears of a wrought iron fence.
'That was stupid,' she mumbled, spitting blood off her lips. 'That purse could've-'
'Some things,' Sunbright cut her off, 'you can't buy.'
Grabbing their weapons, Knucklebones led them out of the building and onto the street. They conversed in whispers as they slid down more alleys, always tending downhill.
'How'd you kill that assassin in the stairwell?'
'Traction to mount the inside wall. Smokepuff to distract him.'
'Those are cantras?'
'Yes,' she snorted in disgust. 'Children learn them in the cradle.'
He kept close behind her in the black alleys. 'Don't run away from me again. We have to stick together, to protect one another.'
'Don't tell me what to do, groundhog, or how to fight!' she hissed. 'Your noble barbarian tactics don't work in the city, country mouse!'
That remark panged Sunbright, for Greenwillow had often called him that. 'If we separate we'll be run down and killed.'
'If we stick together we all die, you idiot! Only a fool stays to fight. You wouldn't last two days without help.'
'I know,' he said contritely. 'That's why I don't want to separate from you.'
'Why?' she asked, flicking him a sidelong glance. 'What's it to you?'
'I-you remind me of someone.'
'Pandem's Pardon!' she sniped, then spat, 'Now I remind him of someone! Who, your mother? Forget what you learned down on the dirt. There are no hero's legends here, no last stands for honor and glory. It's run and hide and steal and don't die!'
Angrily she trotted ahead, and Sunbright was hard put to keep up. He gasped to himself, 'Perhaps this is no legend, but there's something noble in you, little Knucklebones…'
Soon Knucklebones led Sunbright onto a low bridge where she scanned in both directions, then vaulted over the edge. They landed in shallow water with a gravelly bottom. Sunbright had seen such streams before and had assumed that someone somewhere set up a magical pump to collect water and let it trickle downhill through the city. There was no end to the enchantments here, but he wondered that the archwizards believed they could exploit magic endlessly.
Under the bridge was a culvert. A grate jammed with trash was welded across it, or so it looked until Knucklebones pronounced 'Wash-ti!' and sprung the fake welds loose with a cantra. Passing within the culvert, she signaled that Sunbright should muscle the heavy grate back in place, but suddenly froze him with a firm hand. Advancing, she knelt and sniffed along the walls above the water trickle, then ordered them back out.
'There's a wet dog smell. Dogs don't run wild down below… we poison them.' She paused, sniffing again, then continued, 'It must be guard dogs. That's why we haven't seen any city guards in the streets. They're all down below.'
'What?' Sunbright asked. He was amazed she could know so much from the slightest clues. 'Will the children be safe?'
'Aye. Sleeping Gunn uses a warren of false lofts between warehouses at the docks…'
She chewed her lip, thinking.
'Hurodon's bribery can't affect the whole constabulary, can it?' Sunbright asked. 'He couldn't have bought them all!'
'I don't know… they've done this in the past, used everything they have in one or two days to sweep the sewers and tunnels. The city council orders it, though they're beholden to Karsus…'
She backed from the culvert, ankle deep in cold water, with bare feet. For the first time, Sunbright saw her tremble with fatigue and hunger as her nose tracked back and forth. Clearly, she was stumped.
He started to say, 'Perhaps it's time we-'
Dogs barked, not far off. Two of them in tandem. Men and women shouted. Knucklebones stiffened, her single eye bright, and began to pick along the stream to hide their scent. Sunbright went too, but he saw that the stream soon ducked under a street, an underpass too low to crawl through. At least for him. Knucklebones could probably squirm through a mouse hole.
At the barrier, Knucklebones hopped nimbly up to street level. But the dogs' baying was louder, and now they saw activity, for a yellow glow from the east heralded dawn. As Sunbright gaped, the street globes began to fade.
'We could return to Castle Karsus,' he suggested, 'hide in Candlemas's room.'
'Not by day. Perhaps the docks.'
She started downhill again, but Sunbright snagged her thin arm. Tired, she didn't shrug him off.
'What?'
'The ground. We can rest there, repair. Think what to do next.'
'Think about what?' she flared. 'You think too much. There's survival and nothing else, you great oaf! What do you expect of me, that I aspire to own a house, servants, a coach-and-four? I'd trade your thinking and plans for a warm beer!'
Sunbright let the baying of dogs answer for him.
Knucklebones sighed; a shudder traveled through her whole body. 'Very well,' she conceded. 'Try it.'
The barbarian moved off between buildings and knelt. From inside his fire tin he extracted a lock of wiry hair, struck flint and steel, and dropped the hair into the flame to flare and turn to ash.
'Ouch!'
Candlemas slapped the back of his head. A horsefly or bee had stung him-then he realized. Sunbright's signal: the burning of his hair. A call for help.
'Good thing I follow up on my promises,' muttered the mage. 'I might be stodgy and boring, but I can deliver when asked…'
He'd spent the last few hours asking questions and searching, searching, searching. Karsus's mansions were so huge no one knew them entirely, and there were constant rumors of secret rooms harboring a harem of elven women, a treasure trove including the emperor's crown, a dragon skeleton complete even to its teeth, and blue platforms that could transport one to other worlds.
Perhaps those things existed, but all Candlemas found were rooms of dusty, old-fashioned furniture, chests of
