The Hidden City (53 page)

But a faceful of map was a good antidote; it completely blanketed her head. She heard a muffled snicker as Carver dropped down beside her, and managed to lift the map enough to catch the expression that accompanied it. But he retrieved the map and rolled it back into something that could be carried; it looked like a really tattered rug. He then looked up as Finch threw the next two down. He was more agile than Jewel; she had to admit that.

Finch came next, and almost right behind her, Duster. Suspiciously right behind; Jewel wondered, watching them as they fell, if Duster had pushed her. As if she could hear the question, Duster looked up and met her gaze; she held it briefly, and broke it with a shrug.

Fair enough. Had Jewel been the one left behind, she'd've pushed.

Duster's feet went from white with a few red streaks, to brown in the space of a few steps; the air here was cold, but not enough to freeze ground. And, on the bright side, if they stayed here much longer, they'd be warming their hands over the city's biggest bonfire.

She looked down the side of the building, past the steps that led to doors that would probably never open again. There was no sign of Arann or the rest of her—her friends. Charges. Whatever.

He'd been given instructions; she hoped he'd followed them. If he had, he'd be well quit of the grounds, with Rath and his friends between him and the only thing left that was a danger.

She couldn't understand why the man kept his distance; he followed, but he followed at the exact pace that Rath retreated, no more. She could see Rath's face, could see the narrowed movement of his eyes, the occasional movement of his hands. The dagger, there.

It was
cutting
the flame. Where fire struck its edge, it split, shunted to either side of Rath. And Rath remained where he was as Harald's men retreated farther. One had a crossbow, but nothing to put in it. The others? Swords, but not useful ones. She wondered about that.

And wondered how long Rath would last. He wasn't tired yet. But the mage who followed him? She could see his back, and only his back, but she
knew
he was enjoying this. To him it was a game.

“Carver,” she said, and held out her hand.

He placed his dagger hilt into her palm, and she looked at it as if it were rain-worms. “What am I supposed to do with
this
?” she asked.

“Girls,” he said, taking it back, “are weird. What did you want?”

“A map.”

“Which one?”

“Any one. I don't care which. And I want you to take everyone else over—there.” She gestured broadly to the right. “Get to the fence, if you can. Get to the gate. There's no way it's closing any time soon.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Help Rath,” she said grimly, taking one of the maps they had worked so hard to pull down from the great rooms above.

“You're going to help him with one of those?”

“Probably only one of these,” she said. She tried to project confidence; it was one of Rath's constant refrains. “My guess?”

He was staring at her; she could almost see his other eye as the wind kicked his hair back. “Guess?”

“Dagger's not going to do much good if those men are holding their swords.”

“It's better than nothing.”

“No,” she said quietly. “It's exactly nothing.”

“This one of your—”

“Shut up, Carver.”

He saluted. Sort of. More important? He caught Finch by the arm and began to lead her away. She held the other two maps; he couldn't take her hand. But Duster drifted behind them more slowly; she was watching Jewel.

And Jewel knew better than to give orders to Duster. Maybe one day. If ever.

Well, let her watch.

 

Rath was not yet tiring. But yet was a precarious word on which to balance survival. Had he been in any other fight, he would have taken a position at the rear—it was one of the tangible benefits of being the one to hire men, rather than the other way around. This confrontation, however, differed in a single important way from any other he had chosen to engage in: He had in his possession the only effective weapon which could be wielded against this flame-robed, black-eyed man. To run was not only to court death, but to wed it. And to stand behind a row of men whose weapons were of little use was to surrender them needlessly.

Rath had never prided himself on his ability to lead; nor indeed had he any desire to rule or command. He had been content, if not to follow, then at least to choose his own path. The Patriarch of Handernesse—his grandfather—had believed in a way that was in parts visceral and in parts paternal, the adage about power and responsibility.

In some measure, Rath found, he must have absorbed the lectures he had cared so little for. Tiring, he retreated, his attention upon two things: the man whose fire he split, and the men whose lives he had endangered. He wondered, briefly, if Andrei would make an appearance; it would be welcome, but it was not to be looked for.

And in the end, it did not come.

What came instead, what he did not realize he dreaded until the precise moment he saw her clearly, was Jewel Markess. And she carried, of all things, a small rug that she set flapping in the wind, held as it was by small hands. Small fists.

He bit back the warning that rose behind clenched teeth, and his skill was such that he, unlike Jewel, could see her without betraying her presence. But it was harder than he would have either expected or predicted; she was not yet eleven. And she was not, he realized, a child. Not truly.

She moved toward the man who burned, unerringly; the damp grass smoldered in his wake, and smoke managed to wend its way above the sodden ground as he passed over it, blanketing it with flame. She couldn't see his eyes, Rath realized. But see them or no, she had to understand the danger; there weren't many men who could walk in raiment of fire, and of those, very few who would have dared the Laws of the Empire to do so.

And yet . . . and yet he saw what she intended, and it evoked a sharp sense of pride; it had to be sharp, to cut through the fear.

No dagger in hand, no weapon that could harm him, she approached him, and at the last moment, her legs almost trembling, she tossed the carpet up, and up again, controlling—but barely—its fall.

It fell over the eyes, the face, the shoulders; it fell and began to darken slowly as the fire consumed it.

And it bought Rath the time he needed.

Gone was caution, gone retreat; he lunged forward the moment the rug billowed down, moving as his enemy sensed its fall, the immediacy of a shadow he did not control.

Rath risked the dubious caress of flame and fire, for fire gouted, wild, released in a circular blast that traveled outward in a thick, dense ring of heat and death.

Jewel was gone before it struck her, but only barely; he could see her retreat as he stepped in, lunging through the fire itself with the dagger's blade, cutting a literal path in a substance that should have given inches of steel no purchase.

The tip of the dagger broke robe and skin, moving slowly through both, as if they were illusory, something fitted awkwardly over stone or steel. He put his shoulder into the single thrust he was given as the creature raised his arms; he saw golden light flare when the dagger at last bit home.

More than that, he left to fate; he released the hilt and leaped back, disarmed. He made the dubious safety of the gate, the hinges listing slightly with Harald's weight.

The Northerner's face was dark with blood, and his nose would bear a scar for the day's work. But it was still attached to his face. He offered Rath a grim smile, a dark smile, as he held the gate open. “Didn't think you were going to make it,” he said, nodding genially.

Rath shrugged. It was all he could offer for the moment; his attention was upon the grounds. “Where,” he asked, without looking, “are the other children?”

“Well past the fence to the east,” Harald replied. “One of mine is with them; they don't like it much, but I don't think they've run.” He paused, and then added, “I think your mage has run out of flame.”

Rath nodded.

“That's a brave girl you've got there,” Harald said with grudging approval. “And not a stupid one either. I thought she'd take the boy's knife.”

“I'd have cut off her hand myself if she'd done anything that idiotic.”

Harald raised a brow. The patch that rested below it had been slit in the blow that had almost dislodged the man's nose, and the socket that had once contained an eye lay exposed. It didn't make the Northern face look much more threatening than it already appeared. “She's off by the far window,” he added.

Rath nodded. “Finch is with her.”

“Another girl as well. And a boy.”

“Good. I think it's about time to leave.”

“Well past, I'd say.”

But Rath lingered until Jewel had decided for herself that the danger was past. She spoke words that he didn't catch to her companions, and then walked slowly over to what should have been a corpse. She paused to look at what was left of her sole effective weapon. Frowning for a moment, she touched it with her toe, and then frowned more deeply.

What in the Hells was she doing?

He had his answer a moment later; she picked the damn thing up. Looked under it, as if for a hole in the ground, some escape route that the large, flame-robed man might have taken.

She found, instead, what was left of Rath's dagger, and she touched that with care. In fact, she wrapped her hand in the carpet, and picked it up by the hilt. Only then did she look up to see him, and when she met his eyes, she smiled weakly.

He nodded. He could manage that.

But words failed him for a few minutes longer, and in the space of those few minutes, she had assembled her den, and she had dragged it, motley odd thing that it was, down the broken stone that had, in grander days, once been a narrow road.

Carver carried two carpets, rolled and bent over his arms; Finch and the latest stranger walked hand in hand, and it was hard to tell which of the two—the slender, young Finch or the dark-haired, bruised stranger—was in command. Certainly, the new girl looked as if she should be vacant-eyed or terrified.

But as she approached and Rath could clearly see her expression, he revised that thought and then threw it out. She wasn't terrified.

“Jewel,” he said.

“Jay,” she replied, her voice a little on the low side.

“Jay, then.” He leaned in, so that his words only had to carry a very short distance, “that girl—I think it best that you leave her.”

“Her name's Duster,” Jewel told him quietly. She looked at Duster as she spoke. “I'm taking her with me.”

“She's—” He hesitated. He knew what he might say to another person—to almost any other person. But to Jewel? The words would have no meaning. What experience she'd had of life had been sheltered; if it had been marginal, it had been safe.

Duster? No.

“You can't trust her,” he told her instead.

“No,” Jewel replied gravely, surprising him. “I can't. Not yet. But I will.”

He let it go, then. He had no choice. “The others are waiting for you,” he said, standing back. “And I think you'll be more of a comfort than Harald will.”

She looked up at Harald's face and forced herself not to recoil—but Jewel's face was as expressive as it always was.

Harald, however, was not offended. He even smiled. It was meant to shock or scare. And because she was Rath's, she knew it, and it annoyed her instead.

“Duster?” Jewel said, touching the strange girl's shoulder with just the tip of a finger.

Duster turned to look at her. “I want to stay,” she said quietly.

“We can't.”

“I don't care if you stay. I want to watch it burn.”

Jewel frowned for a moment, as if trying to make a decision. “It doesn't matter. No one's in it.”

“I was.”

“Yes. You were. You aren't now. But if we stay and watch it burn, we'll be caught here.”

“By who?”

“Magisterians,” Jewel replied quietly. “If we're lucky.”

Duster stiffened. “And if we're not?”

“You tell me.”

They squared off, his Jewel and this orphan girl. And into their uncomfortable and unfriendly silence, Rath spoke. “Jay's right,” he said quietly. “The men you want aren't there. And if you stay here, and they find you, the loss of this building won't matter.

“You want to watch it burn? Watch it, then. But you'll probably never have a chance to make them pay.”

She was young. Had she been another ten years in the streets, she wouldn't have blinked. Wouldn't have been tempted by what he seemed to be offering.

This was vulnerability, of a type. But not a welcome one. She nodded slowly.

Rath turned and walked down the street, skirting the gates, his own gaze drawn to the fire that now raged in the open, broken windows. Mage fire, yes, and strong at that.

He frowned. “Jay,” he said, aware that the others listened. “What are those?”

She looked at him for a moment. “Maps,” she said at last.

Of the answers she could have given, this was not one he'd expected. “Maps?”

She nodded. And held out the one she carried. “I picked up your knife,” she added. “It's not very . . . practical.”

“Practical,” he replied, as he took it from her hand, noting its blackened metal, “is only in the doing. Remember that; just because someone looks rich, bored, and lazy doesn't mean they aren't dangerous.”