sleeve, he reached for the door handle and turned it quietly. As he pushed it open Anyi came into view. She was leaning over Gol, a blade catching the light of the night lamps, poised ready to strike. He felt his heart lurch in alarm and disbelief.
“What...?” he began. At the sound, Anyi turned to look at him with the enviable speed of youth.
It was not Anyi.
Just as quickly, not-Anyi’s attention moved back to Gol and the knife stabbed downwards, but hands rose to grab the assassin’s wrist and stop it. Gol surged up off the bed. Cery was through the door by then, but checked his stride as a new thought overrode his intention to stop the woman.
He turned to see that another struggle was underway over at the second makeshift bed, only this time it was the intruder who was pressed to the mattress, holding back the hands that held a knife hovering just above his chest. Cery felt a surge of pride for his daughter. She must have woken in time to catch the assassin, and turned his attack against him.
But her face was stretched in a grimace of effort as she tried to force the knife down. Despite the assassin’s small size, the muscles of his wrists and neck were well developed. Anyi would not win this trial of brute force. Her advantage was her speed. He took a step toward her.
“Get out of here, Cery,” Gol barked.
Anyi’s arms were forced back as her concentration was broken. She sprang out of reach of the assassin. He leapt off the bed and dropped into a fighting stance, whipping out a long, thin knife from within a sleeve. But he did not advance on her. His gaze moved to Cery.
Cery had no intention of leaving the fight to Anyi and Gol. He might one day have to abandon Gol, but this was not that day. He would never abandon his daughter.
He had slipped his other arm into the coat sleeve automatically. Now he stepped backwards and feigned fear, while reaching into the pockets, and wriggled his hands into the wrist straps of his favourite weapons: two knives, the sheaths fastened inside the pockets so that the blades would be bare and ready when Cery drew them out.
The assassin leapt toward Cery. Anyi sprang at him. Cery did too. It was not what the man expected. Nor did he expect the twin knives that trapped his own. Or the blade that, well aimed, slid through the soft flesh of his neck. He froze in surprise and horror.
Cery ducked away from the spray of blood as Anyi withdrew her knife, knocked the assassin’s knife from his hand, then finished him with a stab to the heart.
With Gol’s help, of course. Cery turned to see how his friend was faring and was relieved to see the female assassin lying in a growing pool of blood on the floor.
Gol looked at Cery and grinned. He was breathing hard.
“Soot. He came down the chimney into the house above.” She looked at the old stone stairs leading up to the basement door speculatively.
Cery’s mood soured. However the pair had got in, or found them in the first place, this was no longer a safe hiding place. He scowled down at the dead assassins, considering the last few people he might call on for help, and how they might reach them.
A small gasp came from the doorway. He turned to see Cadia, wrapped only in a sheet, staring wide-eyed at the dead assassins. She shuddered, but as she looked at him her dismay turned to disappointment.
“I guess you won’t be staying another night, then?”
Cery shook his head. “Sorry about the mess.”
She regarded the blood and bodies with a grimace, then frowned and peered up at the ceiling. Cery hadn’t heard anything, but Anyi had lifted her head at the same time. They all exchanged worried looks, not wanting to speak unless their suspicions were true.
He heard a faint creak, muffled by the floorboards above them.
As soundlessly as possible, Anyi and Gol grabbed their shoes, packs and the lamps and followed Cery into the other room, shutting the door behind them and lifting an old chest into place before it. Cadia stopped in the middle of the room, sighed and dropped the sheet so that she could get dressed. Both Anyi and Gol turned their backs quickly.
“What should I do?” Cadia whispered to Cery.
He picked up the rest of his clothes and Cadia’s bedroom lamp, and considered. “Follow us.”
She looked more ill than excited as they slipped through the trapdoor that led to the old Thieves’ Road. The passages here were filled with rubble and not entirely safe. This section of the underground network had been cut off from the rest when the king had rebuilt a nearby road and put new houses where the old slum homes had been. Though it was not quite within the borders of his territory, Cery had paid an old tunneller to dig a new access passage, but had left the old ways looking abandoned so that nobody would be tempted to use them if they did find them. It had been a handy place to hide things, like stolen goods and the occasional corpse.
He’d never planned to hide himself here, however. Cadia regarded the rubble-strewn passage with a mix of dismay and curiosity. Cery handed her the lamp and pointed in one direction.
“In a hundred paces or so you’ll see a grate high on the left wall. Beyond it is an alley between two houses. There’ll be grooves in the wall to help you climb up, and the grate should hinge inward. Go to one of your neighbours and tell them there are robbers in your house. If they find the bodies, say they’re the robbers and suggest one turned on the other.”
“What if they don’t find them?”
“Drag them into the passages and don’t let anyone into the cellar until the smell goes away.”
She looked even more ill, but nodded and straightened her back. He felt a pang of affection at her bravery, and hoped she wouldn’t run into more assassins, or be punished some other way for helping him. He stepped close and kissed her firmly.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “It’s been a pleasure.”
She smiled, her eyes sparkling for a moment.
“You be careful,” she told him.
“Always am. Now go.”
She hurried away. He couldn’t risk staying to watch her leave. Gol moved forward to lead the way and Anyi remained at the rear as they made their way through the crumbling passages. After several steps something slammed behind them. Cery stopped and looked back.
“Cadia?” Gol muttered. “The grille closing as she climbed up to the street?”
“It’s a long way for the sound to travel,” Cery said.
“That wasn’t the sound of a grate on bricks or stone,” Anyi whispered. “It was... something wooden.”
A rattle followed. The sound of disturbed bricks and stones. Cery felt a chill run down his back. “Go. Hurry. But quietly.”
Gol held his lamp high, but they could only manage breaking into a jog now and then with so much rubble on the passage floor. Cery bit back a curse more than once, regretting not tidying things up a little bit more. Then, after they’d continued along a straight section of tunnel, Gol cursed and skidded to a halt. Looking over the big man’s shoulder, Cery saw that the roof ahead had collapsed recently, leaving them in a dead end. He spun about and they hurried back toward the last junction they had passed.
Anyi sighed as they reached the turn. “We’re making tracks.”
Looking down, Cery saw footprints in the dust. The hope that the pursuit might follow the tracks down to the dead end was dashed as he realised that Gol’s now led down the side passage, leaving plenty of evidence they’d backtracked.
None came, however. Relief surged through him as they finally reached the connecting passage to the main part of the Thieves’ Road. Once again he regretted not anticipating the situation he was in: while he’d disguised the entry to the isolated tunnels, he’d made no effort to conceal the exit from anyone exploring within.
Once the door was closed behind them, they looked around at the cleaner, better-maintained passage they were standing in. There was nothing they could use to block the door and prevent their pursuers from leaving the
