by Ed Greenwood
"Let me go," she said at last, preceding and following those words with swallowing that had to be painful.
"And have you gut me with that knife you've been trying to reach? Or its cousin, hidden somewhere else about you? Not likely."
"My quarrel is not with you, sir. I'm …being pursued."
"I am aware of that," The Masked said dryly. "I'm also aware that you've led your pursuers here, to me-and awakened me from a rather pleasant slumber that I'm in sore need of. It might be wise to be more persuasive."
"It might be wise to let me go. Those men are out here in the night with their spears and lanterns not because of me, but because of you. You've not been subtle enough in your dealings, whatever they may be. There's a Lord Investigator come from Canorate to hunt you-because these dolts of Halidon have grown suspicious of you."
The Masked tightened his grip a little, to remind the halfling that she was in no position to afford scorn. Nor to try for her knife again.
"Keep your hand well away from your hilt-any of your hilts," he warned softly. "And just how is it that you know this?"
"I listen at windows," she hissed, eyes flashing fury. "They were speaking of your dealings with Escolarr Tarlmond."
"Have they found him, then?"
"Was he lost? They said nothing of seeking him, only you. Tonight. And I warn you, that investigator is both smart and a winterstone-cold bastard."
"So," The Masked told her flatly, "am I." When that drew no reaction, he asked, "I take it the warehouse below us is surrounded and being searched?"
"You take it correctly," the halfling hissed. "They'll probably be out on this roof after us very soon now."
"So my easiest play would be to open that hatch you came up through and toss you down to them."
She tried to struggle, jerking and arching suddenly, seeking to slip out of his grasp with her small size, but The Masked had been expecting that, and tightened his grip cruelly. "Stop trying to get yourself killed, and give me a good reason to do otherwise," he snapped, and relaxed his grip enough to let her breathe again.
The halfling panted for air, managing to gasp swiftly, "I'll pay you to hide me, to get me away from the bloodcoats!"
"Oh? How much?"
"Ten silver weights," she spat.
They locked gazes for a long time, as the shouts grew louder.
Then The Masked nodded. "A paltry price for a paltry deed. I accept. With one condition."
The roof-hatch squealed open.
"What?" Tantaerra hissed.
"Draw steel on me or threaten me-just once-and my fee rises tenfold," The Masked told her.
She nodded. "I accept."
"Good. Keep low."
∗ ∗ ∗
The masked man let go of Tantaerra and rolled to pluck up something from the roof on his far side.
It was a stone block the size of her head. He hefted it, waited, and as a soldier's head appeared under the raised hatch, threw it. Hard.
Tantaerra winced at the dull thud of the helm crumpling, followed by a brief rattling that might have been teeth. The Masked was already clambering over her in deft haste to grab hold of his lolling-headed victim. He hauled on that head, dragging limp arms and shoulders up through the hatch far enough to let him hook the man's sword-baldric through the hatch handle.
Then he shoved hatch and Molthuni back down, jamming the corpse in the narrow hole, and clambered back past her. "Come."
Rubbing her throat, Tantaerra followed him. To the other end of the warehouse roof, where a ventilator thrust up into the night sky. There was a long spar tied to it, hanging down off the roof.
"Where did this-?"
"I put it here," The Masked interrupted her. "If you're in the habit of spewing questions, kindly hold them for a better time."
Behind them, there were dull boomings from the hatch, then a louder, sharper one as someone slammed the butt-end of a spear against the roof from the loft below. Then a lot more of those louder, sharper booms.
Tantaerra wrestled her attention back from them to the man she'd just hired. Rather than moving the spar to serve as a bridge to the roof of the next warehouse, he had hooked an arm around the ventilator and clawed a flint striker from his belt.
Tantaerra saw an end of twine hanging out of the ventilator, swallowed the question she'd been about to ask, and joined him, holding her dagger against the twine so he could use the striker against it.
With a nod of thanks, he set to work. Three tries produced sparks, and they almost banged heads together blowing into flame. And then the twine was well and truly alight.
"Now we hurry," The Masked told his client, swinging the spar.
"I'll go first," she told him. "I'm a lot lighter. I can tie its other end to the ventilator on yon roof."
"With what?"
She slapped at her belt. The Masked peered, and saw that its buckle was a clip, and the belt itself was dark cord wrapped around and around a trim halfling waist until its wearer looked a lot fatter than she truly was.
"Go first," he agreed, "O Princess of Thieves."
"I'm not-bah!" She waved away the rest of her protest and set off across the spar, hugging it with her arms and hiking her behind into the air so she could run along it. A shout and a hurled spear told them they'd been seen, but the spear came nowhere near the halfling, and its ascent didn't make her falter; she was across in the time it took The Masked, holding the spar steady, to look behind him once. Spear tips were bursting up through the roof back by the hatch, but the unseen soldiers below seemed to lack time and space enough to shift crates so as to let them thrust up hard anywhere else along the roof slope. Which was rather fortunate. The first wisps of smoke were drifting up out of the ventilator now, and the shouts from beneath the roof shifted into startlement and fear …
∗ ∗ ∗
The halfling was up by the next building's ventilator, unwinding cord from around herself with the grace of a dancer. The Masked set about untying the knot at his end of the spar, so they could haul it along with them to the next roof.
More spears sailed up out of the night, to clang and clatter on the roofs well below them both and fall back into the night. It took practice to throw a spear up high with any accuracy, and it seemed this backcountry garrison hadn't done much high-hurling.
Then his new client was beckoning him with a wave, and flattening herself down on the spar to steady it as he'd done for her.
Not that she weighed much more than a sturdy dog, mind you. The Masked threw a last look at the loop of untied rope around his ventilator, shrugged, and started across, crawling and trying not to kick or do anything that might set the spar to sliding down the roof. This was no hero-ballad; he'd not be walking away from a fall from this height.
More shouts, and more spears-but flames were leaping up behind him, now, and the shouting inside that warehouse was turning to screams.
Down below, more soldiers were running. There'd be crossbows, soon.
The spar started shifting when he was still more than an arm's reach from the roof he was heading for, but he simply abandoned all caution in favor of haste, clawing his way onto the roof before it dumped him. The halfling, Desna be praised, was clinging grimly to her end of the spar and the ventilator, straining to slow or stop its shift, and hissing an impressive stream of curses.
"My thanks," he told her, joining her. "Let's get this untied; we'll need it to get to the next roof."
"Now we're even," she replied, as they clawed at her cord together.
"Oh?"
"Taking down those three bloodcoats on the road yonder, so I could run past," she said, pointing with her chin.
The Masked looked down at her. "What are you talking about?"
The halfling looked confused. "You mean that wasn't you?"
The Masked felt a sinking feeling deep in his gut. "Describe him." The words came out sharper than he'd intended.
Taken aback, the halfling said, "I didn't get a good look, but he's got brow
n eyes. Why-do you know him?"
All too well, The Masked thought grimly. That is, presuming his suspicions were correct. But explaining would only complicate matters. Instead, he said, "Lots of men have brown eyes. Come on and help me with my striker again."
A sudden smile lit up her face. "You didn't!"
"Yes, and the next warehouse, too. When my neck is concerned, I don't stint on diversions. If I hadn't needed them, I'd just have left them, not burnt all this down behind me. As it is, though, I've no hesitation at all in destroying Halidon's shipping district."
His client was grinning widely now. "I'm no thief, sir, but you …you are something of an army all by yourself."
"You hired well, then."
"So," he asked the halfling, "what should I call you?"
Her grin turned impish. "'Princess' will do."
The Masked gave her a long, steady look.
She merely shrugged. "And what should I call you?"
"The Masked," he told her simply.
That earned him a long and steady look from her. Facing it squarely, he added, "It's what I've become. The name I had before is no longer important. To anyone."
Behind them, with a sudden crackling roar, the roof of the first warehouse erupted in flame. Tongues that roared at the stars, bright gold but greenish around the edges.
Greenish. Oils, tree oils. There must have been jars inside some of those crates in the loft.
The Masked looked at his client, and the halfling princess looked back.
Then in unspoken accord they turned and hurried to get to the next roof. Those flames would die down again, but right now they were more than enough light to aim crossbows by-and the soldiers who'd been searching that warehouse had already spilled back out into the night to point, and trot, and throw more spears.
As badly as ever, but he'd only prepared one more fire, and Halidon wasn't so large that they could lose themselves in its warehouses, even if none of them had been burning.
"This is ten silver weights I'm really going to earn," The Masked told his client grimly, as he braced himself atop the spar so she could set off along it.
"I'm afraid so," was all she said, as she embraced the spar and started her run.
Halfway across, a spear laid open the left side of her breeches as it snarled past, and she yelped-but kept right on going.
The Masked winced. He was a much larger target.
Behind him, the ventilator they'd just left was spewing smoke already.
Yes, he was going to be earning this fee the hard way.
∗ ∗ ∗
The masked man started across the spar before she'd had time to set herself and steady it, almost before she was off it and onto the new roof.
Of course, it started to slip and slide, rattling down the roof he was busily departing, and not a halfling on Golarion could have held the spar once it started. Tantaerra only just had time to loop the cord lashed to the spar around the ventilator and under itself, then around her waist. She flung herself down and set her feet against the rusting metal-gods, but this warehouse was much older than the other two, roof and ventilator and all.
The cord tightened cruelly around her as the spar slid off the roof and her body took his entire weight.
"Urrhh," she told the stars, clenching her teeth. Gods, do not let him get feathered with arrows now, and leave me helpless, tethered to a dangling dead man, while cruel bloodcoats clamber up to drag me down before that ice-hearted Lord Investigator …
The cord tugged, then slackened, then tugged again. Which meant he was climbing, or kicking, or clawing his way up onto the roof.
Her left haunch smarted where that spear had laid it open, but it was a shallow cut, a mere slice. She was more worried about her breeches-or rather, the likelihood that they'd tear further, laying bare more of her leg, and letting all the world see her anklet, where she carried her coins. Wrapped and tied, so each was held apart to prevent telltale clinking …but anyone who'd seen a coin-anklet knew what they were at a glance.
She'd better pay her rescuer his ten silver weights soon, and lighten the load enough that she could shift the anklet to her other leg, safely out of sight again. She'd better-
"Agghh!" she groaned, as the cord tightened so much it felt like it was cutting her in half. She fought to breathe, fought to …
Suddenly there was no weight at all on the cord, and she heard the crash and hollow ringing bounce of the spar striking the ground far below.
"Masked man?" she called out fearfully.
"Here, Halfling Princess," came a snarl from just below her on the roof. "Thank you for my life. Again."
"Nine silver weights?" she asked hopefully.
"You've not paid me yet," he reminded her, clambering past. "This is all on promise."
"Not empty promise," she replied, rolling free of what was left of her cord-he'd sliced through it, near the edge of the roof-in time to see him at the ventilator with his flint. She hastened to join him.
They'd just kindled a tiny flame on the third twine when the night around them pulsed brighter.
The roof of the second warehouse didn't go up with quite the roar of the first, but the two blazes together had all Halidon awake now, and the north end of the village brightly lit for everyone to stare at.
Tantaerra peered around. There was barely a breeze, but what little there was came out of the forest heading northeast, carrying the smoke away from Halidon. And offering two escapees on a roof no concealment at all.
The flames were bright enough to show her all the watching folk, the soldiers foremost among them, surrounding the warehouses. There was no way for them to get to the forest, nor to the caravan, sequestered down at the south end of the village in a guarded paddock.
She watched the glow of the flaming twine inside the ventilator and said suddenly, "We're going to die up here, aren't we?"
The masked head turned toward her. "How you doubt me, Halfling Princess! How can I collect my fee if we die on this rooftop?"
"Oh? You've magic that can whisk us away, I suppose?"
"Hah. Hardly. This is no ballad or fireside tale, princess."
"I'm no princess," she snarled. "My name is Tantaerra Loroeva Klazra, and I was a slave in Canorate." She pointed at the ground down beside the barracks. "And that is the investigator I was warning you about. Recovered from the pepper I put into his eyes, and giving the orders for the noose tightening around us both now. In a savage mood, by the looks of him."
"You took down Osturr the Hound with a handful of pepper?" The masked man chuckled. "Ah, but you furnish steadily better entertainment, Prin-Lady Klazra."
"Tantaerra," Tantaerra corrected sharply, "masked man."
"Since we're such good friends now," he chuckled, "I am Tarram Armistrade. Or was." He clambered along the roof past her. "Come. We have a hatch to use. In some haste."
"We're going down into the waiting arms of-?"
"They'll be very busy, very soon. No fear; we'll wait until the right moment."
The hatch lifted readily under the masked man's hand; he'd evidently prepared it from below, earlier. He bundled her through it like a rebellious child and almost bowled her over coming through it on top of her.
"Why the haste?" she panted, stumbling aside in near-darkness as she realized her cord had been left behind-and wished it hadn't. "If we're going to be waiting …and am I permitted to know what we're waiting for?"
At that moment, the world began to roar.
The floor heaved, the far wall of the warehouse slammed inward as if punched by a god's fist, and every barrel, crate, and shipping-crock in the place hurtled into the air and started to come right at Tantaerra Loroeva Klazra.
She was flying through the air too, she realized dazedly, and there was a curious ringing silence in her ears, even as she watched boards tear into splinters and doors blow open into the night and a huge wall of roiling flame come raging through that broken end wall toward her.
This must be why The
Masked had been in such haste to get down off the roof …and must also be what he'd been waiting for …
Something in the middle warehouse he'd known about, something that could erupt in a blast like the fury of the very gods.
She couldn't see him anywhere, couldn't-
She struck something then, something solid and meaty that had boots she'd seen before-his boots, this Tarram Armistrade-that was folding up around her, his arms reaching to cradle her. She felt him strike something, something that gave way, and then they were falling past splinters and a rebounding door, out into darkness, and there were bloodcoats looming above them, and spears…
Then that raging flame followed them out through the doorway and raced over them, and bloodcoats were tumbling, spears spinning away on their own into the night. They were bouncing, and skidding, and bouncing again.
Then tumbling, head over heels in dirt amid ruined fences and over the sprawled bodies of fallen bloodcoats as the ringing silence started to fade.
Tantaerra could see thousands of embers and dark shards in the sky, fountaining up against the stars as her own tumblings slowed, and she heard something deep-voiced behind her ear that might have been The Masked groaning or cursing …and then at last she came to rest, on her back and staring up at all the fragments tumbling down now out of the sky, crashing and spattering and tlinging off the ground and buildings and roofs around her.
Was she hurt?
She couldn't feel a thing, just the solid reassurance of the ground under her, but something-no, someone-was rising from behind her. The Masked.
He took her in his arms and started to stumble away, her world yawing and bouncing crazily now, and as if from far away she heard his voice.
"I trust you found that worth waiting for, Tantaerra?"
She tried to move her lips to frame a reply, but found no words, and he was too busy to listen anyway. Busy heading for an old and solid-looking stone building, plunging through its open front door, and swinging her onto one shoulder to free his other hand to backhand a startled-looking old man in a robe, knocking him to the floor. The Masked trotted past the blinking, protesting priest and a fitful-looking fire in a round hearth in the center of the floor, and into a deeper, darker archway.