“Bilairy’s Balls,” Seregil muttered as he hurried up to where he’d last seen him and looked around. It was an intersection of sorts where two paths crossed amid a cluster of tumbledown shacks. Seregil checked both ways, but there was simply no sign of him, and no hope of tracking his footprints in the churned mud. The mist was turning to a downpour again and the damp was coming through his clothes.
“Lookin’ for someone, sweetness?” a scar-faced tough called to him from the open door of one of the sturdier- looking buildings. He was dressed in the remnants of worn cavalry leathers, with a long sword at his hip and a decidedly predatory look in his eye. A fat louse crawled out from under his stringy black hair onto his left cheek. He absently pinched it between thumbnail and finger and flicked it away.
“My father,” Seregil replied brusquely, pretending not to anticipate the man’s clear intention. “Old fellow with a patch and a limp?”
“Ain’t seen him,” the man drawled, leaving the doorway and coming a little closer. “You’re soaked through. Come on in and I’ll get you wetter.” He grabbed Seregil by the arm, trying to drag him into the hovel.
Seregil didn’t have time for this. Drawing his knife, he kneed the man in the balls, then took him by the hair as he fell to his knees and bent the man’s head sharply back as the would-be rapist groaned in pain. Pressing the edge of the blade to his throat just hard enough to break the skin, Seregil whispered, “I don’t need no wetting from you, you whoreson bastard.”
“Filthy bitch!” the man hissed. A trickle of blood crept
down his neck to stain the already dirty collar of the shirt he wore under his leather vest.
“Didn’t your ma teach you any manners?” Seregil asked, giving him a shake. “Come after me and I’ll cut your pox-ridden balls off and feed ’em to you. You hear me?”
“Yes!”
Knowing better than to take the man’s word for it, Seregil drew back his knife hand and punched him in the head hard enough to stun him. He fell face-first into the mud with a muffled grunt.
“You should cut the bastard’s throat while you have the chance,” a wretched-looking young woman whispered from inside the man’s shack. Her dress was little more than a rag, and she had a freshly blackened eye and a swollen lip.
Seregil pulled the man’s knife from his belt and tossed it at her feet. “I’d hurry, if I was you, dearie,” he told her, then turned back to his search, leaving the man to the woman’s doubtful mercy.
The old man was long gone by now. Angry at losing his mark, he cast around a little while longer, hoping to find him trading with someone else, but there was no sign of him.
“Bilairy’s hairy codpiece!” he muttered.
Then suddenly he spotted him again, standing talking to someone on the muddy path between two shanties, just visible through the rain.
Holding the mud-caked hem of his patched skirt up with one hand, Seregil slogged along clutching his shawl over his head with the other, as if looking for shelter. He was almost to the old man when suddenly Tall Fellow stepped out from behind a shack, sword drawn. His sodden hood hung around his face, but Seregil could make out the black kerchief masking his nose and mouth.
“Well now, who do we have here?” the tall man asked in an amused, raspy voice.
Seregil pulled the shawl closer around him, hoping his large kerchief hid his face well enough. “No one, sir. I was just-” Now and then the truth was the best tack to take. “I was hopin’ to talk with the old raven man.”
“And what raven man would that be?”
Seregil looked past Tall Fellow’s shoulder but the old man was gone.
“Now you’ve made me lose him!” Seregil whined. “Are you one of ’em, too? Can I make a trade with you?”
The masked man chuckled. “And if I am? What does a scrawny little thing like you have to trade?”
Seregil tightened his hands in the folds of his shawl. “Well, nothin’ really, except maybe a tumble…”
“Like you gave that man back there?” The man laughed darkly. “I can do without that kind of fun.”
Damnation, the bastard had seen him take down his would-be rapist. No wonder he wasn’t falling for the helpless beggar act.
“To the crows with you, then,” Seregil muttered. “I’ll find someone proper to trade with.”
“Now, don’t be hasty, dearie.” The man took a step closer, and Seregil could hear the unseen smile in his voice. “How’s about a lock of hair?” He drew a sword that had seen years of use. “I can cut it for you myself.”
“N-no,” Seregil said, taking a cautious step backward. As he’d feared, Tall Fellow advanced.
“Are you sure, my lovely? Just a few silken strands and I’ll give you something for luck.” But that sword said otherwise.
Seregil brought a hand up to his covered head. “I’m afraid you might cut off too much with that big blade of yours.”
The man raised the sword and Seregil took to his heels, holding up his skirt with one hand again and clutching the shawl with the other. The man caught the end of the latter and nearly pulled him over backward. Seregil let go of it and ran for all he was worth, ducking around a pony cart and leaping over a collection of pots an old woman had displayed on a sodden blanket. Behind him, he could hear the bastard shouting something about having been robbed, as if expecting someone here to give enough of a damn to stop Seregil. He pelted on, dignity a bit dented. The man had been playing with him, and he had the sinking feeling that he’d been sussed.
Once he was sure he’d thrown off pursuit he slowed and
held his skirts in a more womanly manner as he circled back through the cold mud to where he thought the old man might be; he’d managed to lose both shoes in his escape.
The rain was coming down in earnest now, driving people from the street. Splashing through ankle-deep puddles, he finally gave up and went to meet Alec in the Sea Market. Alec was waiting for him at the fountain, and his grin promised better news than Seregil had to share.
“The boy talked to you?” he asked as they set off through the downpour for the inn.
“Better than that.” Alec showed him a yellow rock crystal. “This is what the old man traded him.”
“Well done! How did you get it away from the boy?”
“I bought it off him for a few pennies. What about the old man?”
“I lost him.”
“You lost an old man?”
Seregil gave him a sour look. “There was a distraction. Several, actually.”
“What?”
“A near rape, and a big masked fellow with a sword who offered to cut my hair for me-somewhere below the chin. I think he might have been in league with the old man. A bodyguard, perhaps.”
“Probably a good idea in there. Masked, you say?”
“Yes. Not that I’d expect to find many honest men in that part of the Ring, but I’d bet a sester that the tall bastard was a professional.”
“The old man didn’t look like he could afford much in the way of protection.”
“The professional could be part of this raven tribe, with a different role to play. Considering the areas of the city they’ve been working, they may all go out with partners who stay out of sight until needed. And somehow I got the wind up him. I don’t often get noticed, tracking.”
“Maybe he’s a nightrunner, too.”
Seregil let out what started as a derisive snort but turned into a sneeze.
“What happened to your shawl?” asked Alec.
“Spoil of war.”
Alec untied his own and draped it over Seregil’s shoulders. Seregil didn’t argue; the woolen shawl was soaked, but still held in some warmth. He was chilled to the bone and depressed now that the excitement was over. Walking wasn’t quite enough to keep him warm.
Alec patted the stone in his wallet. “At least we have this to show Valerius and Thero. Maybe they can get something from it.”
“Hopefully.” As they splashed along, Seregil found himself thinking more of the tall man than the old one; something niggled at the back of his mind, but he wasn’t quite sure yet what it meant.
Atre crouched in the shadows inside a derelict shanty, stripping off the fake whiskers, wig, and putty nose. Using a clean corner of his sodden cloak, he rubbed at his face to get off the last of the cosmetics. He was nearly
