by Ari Marmell
Widdershins ran, first plowing through the crowd with all the grace of a runaway yak, then, once she'd calmed, more nimbly, dancing around people rather than knocking them aside. The Guardsmen gradually fell behind, and Widdershins burst from the mob and bolted for the nearest alley. All she needed was to get out of their sight for a handful of seconds and they'd never see her again.
Olgun screamed at her as she rounded the corner, but for once, even the great Widdershins's feline reflexes weren't fast enough. Something whistled from the shadows of the alleyway, crashing hard into her stomach. The thief doubled up, the agony a blade stabbing through her. She heard a strangled cry echoing from the darkened alleyway, and only faintly recognized the voice as her own. She found herself on her hands and knees in the garbage, violently retching up the contents of her stomach.
Vomit, she realized with a dull horror, mingled with blood.
A thoughtful look on his face, Brock materialized from the alley, his hammer swinging casually in a one-handed grip. “Oh, that doesn't look good for you, Widdershins,” he commented, poking with one booted toe at the unpleasant mess she'd heaved up. “I think you may have ruptured something.”
“Brock…,” Widdershins croaked through filth-encrusted lips, glaring with pain-deadened eyes.
“Are you upset, Widdershins? You're speaking in Chicken again.” A look of rage twisted the enforcer's face just before he kicked his victim in the stomach, the force of the blow lifting her from the ground.
Widdershins screamed. Her stomach felt as though she'd swallowed a brimming mug of molten iron, and she spat up another mouthful of bile-tinged blood even as she landed, shoulder first, on the cobblestones. Unable to act, to think, she curled into a tight ball around the pain, gasping, lacking breath even to fuel the anguished sobs that racked her chest and throat.
“Hurts, doesn't it?” Brock continued conversationally, idly spinning the hammer. “A lot?” He smiled abruptly. “Maybe even more than being kicked—twice—in the pomegranates? More than having a damn staircase dropped on your head? Well, I'll do you a favor. I'll make the hurting stop.”
“Can't…” Widdershins gulped several mouthfuls of air, trying to focus. “Can't…kill me…”
“Oh, can't I? Everyone knows your reputation for acting before you think, you stupid little bitch! No one'll doubt it when I say that you attacked me first.”
“Olgun…,” she coughed, unable to whisper.
“Olgun?” Brock squinted. “Who the hell is Olgun? And why should I care if he believes me?”
“Help…” Another cough, another mouthful of brackish blood. Widdershins spit it out, nauseated at the metallic taste, the slimy feel as it oozed over her tongue and between her teeth. It splattered across the cobblestones in a thin red spray, dotting Brock's shoes.
“That was rude,” he told her. “A guy might start to think you didn't care for him.”
Widdershins wasn't listening. She lay huddled and shaking, and struggled to bite back a sob of relief as she felt the familiar tingling in the air around her, felt the deity's divine touch. The pain, a roaring blaze, dimmed to a low flame—still intense, still agonizing, but no longer crippling. She wouldn't be dancing any time soon, but at least she wasn't bleeding to death internally. Her stomach muscles spasmed as Olgun set to right several bits that had been ripped apart by Brock's brutal assault. She tried not to cringe at the feel of things shifting around inside her. Olgun had saved her…partially.
She'd have to finish the job herself.
“Brock…,” she croaked again.
“Yes?” the larger man asked pleasantly, stepping closer so he might hear. “Something you want to say before this is all over?”
“You're an idiot.” Fighting past the agony that permeated her body, Widdershins punched upward, aiming at the same target that had worked so well the last time.
The blow landed between the man's legs with a loud clang. Widdershins bit her tongue to keep from crying out. Her fist throbbed, and one of her fingers had gone numb. The man was wearing a bloody codpiece under his pants!
Brock laughed, a vicious, ugly sound. “Anything else?” he asked.
Ignoring the tremor in her hands, Widdershins reached out with a strength Brock could never have expected, yanked the hammer from startled fingers, and let it fall heavily on his left foot.
Brock's high-pitched scream wasn't nearly enough to drown out the cracking of bone.
The huge enforcer collapsed, clutching at his shattered limb, even as Widdershins rose. She swayed, her stomach throbbing, as the adrenaline slowly faded from her limbs. Olgun had healed her as best he could, but without a few days of rest, she had nothing left to give.
Well, almost nothing. She had one last thing to take care of before she passed out, or collapsed, or whatever it was she was about to do. Widdershins was no murderer, never had been; but she couldn't let Brock come after her again, not knowing what he would do to her. Her arms trembling with the effort, sweat beading on her forehead, she raised the hammer in both hands. Her stomach heaved once more, and not just with the pain of her wound, but she ignored it as best she could, fully prepared to remove Brock from her life in the most final way imaginable.
“Don't move!”
Widdershins's fingers went slack, and the hammer fell to the street with a dull clatter. Her face pale, the thief stared over her shoulder.
Flintlocks drawn, the pursuing Guardsmen stepped into the alley. The first shifted to the side, bash-bang aimed unerringly at her chest, while the other yanked a pair of manacles from his belt.
“Widdershins,” the second man, dark-haired and thick-bearded, intoned as he approached. “By order of Major Julien Bouniard, you are under arrest on suspicion of thievery.” He glanced over at the fallen lump of quivering flesh that was Brock. “And assault,” he added smugly.
Oh, no. No way. She wasn't about to go back to gaol. Not like this, not just because Bouniard was paranoid, and certainly not for defending herself against that towering slab of filth!
“Olgun,” she began, focusing on the flintlocks. “I think that…that…”
The alley danced maniacally, the pain in her gut flared once more, and Widdershins collapsed, unconscious, to the cobblestones.
They watched, concealed in the shadows of a broken window above, as the two guards moved in, one kneeling by each of the fallen figures. Heavy manacles clattered shut around the thief's limbs. “Hey,” the man at her side called to the other. “She's pretty bad off. I'm going to need your help carrying her so we don't make it worse.”
“Who cares if we make it worse? She's just a—”
“You explain that to Major Bouniard.”
A soft grumble. “What about this one?”
“He in any danger?”
“Doesn't look like it. Not with her gone, anyway. He'll be walking funny for a while, though.”
“Then we'll send someone back to check on him after we get her squared away.”
“All right.”
With a level of care that at least somewhat belied his cavalier attitude, the second constable aided the first in lifting Widdershins, keeping her fairly level. Slowly, carefully, they made their way from the alley and back toward the horses they'd left behind.
A few minutes more, to make sure the Guardsmen were well and truly gone, that any incidental sounds would be lost to the dull roar of the crowded streets beyond. Only then, when they were certain, did Pockmark and Scarface emerge into the open—the former still limping, and both of them sporting bruises, unhealed abrasions, and stubborn splinters.
“We could've taken them,” Pockmark insisted as they hurried to the knoll of quivering flesh that was their boss.
“Murdered two of the Guard? Without explicit orders from the taskmaster or the Shrouded Lord? I don't bloody think—”
“You're godsdamned right you don't!” Brock's voice was muffled by garbage and road dirt, tinged with hysteria. “You should've killed them! You should've killed all of them!
”
“Are you all right, Brock?” Scarface asked as he knelt in an unconscious echo of the constable who had been here moments before.
In answer, Brock managed to push through the pain long enough to reach out and smack the other man across the face hard enough to make his beard stand on end. Then, once the fellow had managed to pick himself off the ground, “Help me up, you moron.”
It actually required both men to heft the colossus, and even then it was a struggle that left all three puffing and panting, but once he was upright, Scarface alone was able to support him.
“You,” Brock ordered through pale, clenched jaws. “Get out there and find those guards. They can't have gotten far carrying the little bitch.”
“Uh…,” Pockmark began.
“I'm not telling you to attack them in the middle of the crowd, damn it! Just follow them, find out which prison they stick her in. Then meet us back at the guild, so we can do some planning.” He was already turning away, practically dragging the man on whom he was leaning. “Widdershins isn't getting out of gaol alive.”
FOUR YEARS AGO:
The men and boys awaiting atop the roof were, to the last, disreputable—and given the sorts of people Adrienne was accustomed to dealing with, that was saying something. They were neither the fiercest nor the filthiest with whom Adrienne had ever dealt, not by any stretch, but something about them set warning bells to chiming in the back of her mind.
Perhaps the naked blades that had greeted her when she'd first clambered on the rooftop had something to do with it.
“Adrienne,” Pierre continued his introductions, oblivious to her discomfort, “these are my friends. This is Joseph; that one's—”
Joseph, powerfully built, with a thick head of autumn-red hair, approached with unkind purpose. His black trousers and tunic—they all, Adrienne couldn't help but note, wore black trousers and tunic—hissed as he walked, conspiratorial whispers of cloth on cloth. At his side hung a curved knife that only barely failed to qualify as a sword (and probably resented it).
Adrienne flinched, but it was Pierre, not herself, on whom Joseph advanced. His fists clenched on Pierre's tunic and lifted him clear off his feet with only a modicum of strain. The young man's face paled and his boots kicked helplessly, inches from the roof.
“First off, you little turd,” Joseph growled, “no names. Your little whore doesn't need to know who we are.”
Adrienne bristled, her face flushing, but Pierre nodded his, understanding as best he could. “Got it,” he croaked. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Next time you want to bring someone in on one of our projects, you ask first!” Joseph shook him until his face purpled and his teeth clacked together like castanets.
The whisper of steel on leather heralded the touch of a rapier against Joseph's throat. Standing very still, his arms steady despite Pierre's dangling weight, Joseph turned his head as far as he could without tensing his neck against the blade.
“Let him go,” Adrienne commanded, trying to infuse her voice with a confidence she didn't feel, and at the moment couldn't even remember. “I mean it. Put him down.”
“You draw one drop of blood with that, girl, you and your boyfriend die on this roof. You know that, right?”
Adrienne had begun to sweat profusely—the pommel had already grown sticky with it—but she kept the fear from her voice. “You won't see it, though.”
Joseph stared, and Adrienne stared back. No less steel-hard or razor-sharp than the rapier itself was the glare that bound them, one to the other.
Finally, without expression, Joseph dropped Pierre, with an audible thump and a whoosh of breath, to the roof. His own face a strange alloy of embarrassment and gratitude, Pierre struggled to his feet and scurried across the stone to stand beside her.
“Thank you,” Adrienne breathed.
“You're welcome,” Joseph replied formally, gingerly pushing the blade away from his throat with a forefinger. And then he laughed, hard, bent double with breath-stealing guffaws.
“Gods and demons, Pierre!” he exclaimed once he finally had the breath to do so. “You sure know how to pick them, don't you!” His laughter gradually depreciated into a faint chuckling, then faded into the night. “All right, you're both in. Let's do this.”
“Wonderful!” Pierre exclaimed, all traces of injured pride vanished from his expression. “Thank you, Joseph. You won't be disappointed.”
Adrienne's jaw fell slack.
“I better not be,” Joseph warned. “All right, everyone gather round. I don't plan to say this more than once.”
A dozen footsteps crunched across the rooftop, drowning out Pierre's gasp as something yanked on his sleeve, practically ripping it from his arm. He spun, hands rising to defend himself.
“Gods, Adrienne, you scared the—”
“What is wrong with you?!” she demanded in a strained, almost painful whisper. “After what he just did, we should be getting the hell out of here!”
Pierre shrugged, perplexed. “He was just a little upset, Adrienne. He's fine now.”
“Upset?! Pierre, the man picked you up and shook you like a cat!”
“That's just his way. He doesn't mean anything by it.”
“And they drew blades on me!”
“Well, you surprised them, that's all.”
Fire blazed in the girl's features. “And he called me a whore!”
“But that was before he knew you, my sweet. Come, Adrienne, there's no call for this. Stop being unreasonable, and let's join the others before we miss what he's got to say.”
And with that, Pierre strode across the roof, his companion's incredulous gaze following behind. Adrienne shook her head, sheathed her rapier, and gave more than a moment's thought to leaving the whole lot of them here to play while she went and found something less deranged to occupy her. Dodging runaway wagons, perhaps, or throwing horse droppings at City Guardsmen.
She'd do no such thing, of course, and heaved a heartfelt sigh when she admitted she'd do no such thing. Muttering darkly, her feet dragging, she shuffled over and took her place in the circle of conspirators.
“So desperately glad you could join us, Adrienne,” Joseph snipped as she pushed between Pierre and the man beside him, an unwholesome fellow with brittle blond hair who bore a strong resemblance to a scarecrow.
“Stuff it sideways and clench, Joseph.”
Pierre gaped, horrified, but the other thieves laughed uproariously, Joseph louder than any. “Oh, I like her a lot,” he told the rooftop at large. “I may have to make you a regular on my jobs, Adrienne.”
“What say you tell us what this one is before you worry about dragging me into the next, yes?”
“Fair enough.” Joseph cleared his throat, taking in each and every face that looked eagerly (or, in one case, not so eagerly) back at him. “As some of you know, I've been cultivating friendships, and spreading the occasional bribes, among the servants of certain—”
“Let's skip the foreplay,” the scarecrow demanded in a voice rather like a cheese grater running across gravel. “No disrespect or nothing, but there's not any of us gives a rat's ass how you got the information. What'd you find out?”
“You, Anton,” Joseph rumbled, “are a boor.”
“Long as you make me a rich boor, I can live with it. Spill.”
“Well, since you asked so politely, it appears that Alexandre Delacroix was unavoidably detained on a recent business trip to Guillerne. Now, due to other business commitments here in Davillon, he's rushed his trip back. You know, pushing the horses, traveling into the night, that sort of thing.”
“And?” Pierre asked, his voice excited—and, Adrienne couldn't help but sneer, more than a touch sycophantic.
“And,” Joseph continued, “according to the messengers who came ahead, he should be arriving in town tonight. In about, oh, an hour or so.
“Which gives us,” he added to the silent circle around him, “just enough time to get ourselves out of town
and hit the carriage before it comes within sight of the city wall.”
Adrienne had obviously never met Alexandre Delacroix—neither she nor anyone else on that roof, save perhaps Pierre when he was much younger, would ever have been in any position to do so—but few citizens of Davillon, regardless of social class, hadn't heard of him. Delacroix was an aristocrat's aristocrat, the sort of fellow whose horses and hounds were richer than most people. If his ilk ever mingled with Adrienne's type, it was only because Davillon didn't have enough streets to keep them from crossing each other's paths.
As she'd heard it, or at least as she vaguely remembered hearing it, House Delacroix was one of the city's oldest, with a rather storied history to boot. For some years, the House had lain in shambles, its fortunes shattered by a series of bad investments, and the whispers that it would soon be banished from the aristocracy had been so prevalent that even Adrienne had heard them. And then, scarcely more than a year ago, the Delacroix fortunes had turned just as swiftly as they'd gone bad, until Alexandre Delacroix was once again among the wealthiest of the city's nobles.
Unsurprisingly, given this history, the aristocrat made a habit of overseeing his House's businesses personally—it was just such a journey from which he was now returning—and would doubtless carry with him a great deal of coin. His guards would be worn out by the lengthy pilgrimage, exhausted by the rushed march home. And by striking beyond sight of the walls, the bandits could ensure that no detachment of the City Guard might come to his aid.
It was a solid plan, so far as it went, but it left one question unanswered, one Adrienne found herself reluctant to ask.
What was to happen to Delacroix and his retainers? Adrienne Satti had been a thief for much of her life, but while she'd shed blood on occasion when forced to defend herself, she had never murdered anyone.
But though her lips parted and the question hovered, tantalizing with a feather light touch upon the tip of her tongue, she never gave it breath. And as the band of thieves climbed down the rickety stairs and crept toward one of the many refuse hatches in the city walls, visions of gold marks consumed all other thoughts, filling her head until there was no room left for the question.