Desperately he pulled the hill-man into the aisle and then realised it was pointless. If the conspirators came this way they would see the blood. He was alone in the warehouse, surrounded by an unknown number of foes, and a pair of fiends steeped in the darkest sorcery. It was time to get out.
He let go of the dying man, smacked him on the back of the head with the knife hilt as he fell, and then raced as fast as he could down the aisle, taking a sharp right to get out of direct line of sight as soon as he could. Behind him he could hear Zarahel’s voice, shouting; “Craymorne, are you drunk. The bastard’s drunk and passed out there. Get up! We’ve got to get going.”
There was a moment of quiet and Rik knew that the realisation that Craymorne was not drunk was sinking into Zarahel’s mind. He looked up, oriented himself on the skylight and headed towards it, throwing stealth to the winds, knowing it was useless now, and his only defence was speed.
“Intruders!” he heard Zarahel bellow. “Arm yourselves and search this place. We’ve got a killer on the loose in here.”
From the distance came confused shouts and the sound of running men. He raced through the gloom. Was this the aisle he wanted? Was this the one? Shadowy figures raced along the edge of the warehouse. He froze for a moment to let them pass and then rushed towards the island of sacks he had used earlier.
A glance upward showed the skylight above him. He reached up and pulled himself onto the pile of sacks, bounding up them as quickly as possible, trusting to the towering islands of stuff all around him to keep him out of line of sight for as long as possible. Below him lanterns moved and hill-men shouted to each other.
He scrambled to the top terrace of sacking and looked across. The bale from which he had leapt earlier had fallen leaving him a greater distance to leap to get to the next one. Under the circumstances, he did not have much choice. He sprang. For a moment, he felt the long drop below him, and then his feet landed on the bale. It tottered and began to shift under his weight, causing him to fall forward. He was right on the corner, and his own momentum was going to carry him to his doom. Ahead of him he could see the dangling rope.
He had only one chance and he took it, springing directly forward into thin air. He reached out to grasp the rope. He had a sickening view of the floor and the lanterns a long way below him.
For a heartbeat, he was certain that the fall would kill him. He clutched the rope and began to slip. Friction burned his fingers. He was certain he was going to run out of rope. There was a sudden sickening jar as his grip stopped his descent.
The rope swung sideways, pendulum fashion but he did not fall. He held on grimly, waiting for the momentum to die so he could climb upwards to the relative safety of the roof. All it would take would be for one of those men down there to look up and see his silhouette against the skylight. It seemed all but impossible that one of them had not done so already. It surely was only a matter of moments.
The swinging stopped. Barely able to maintain a grip with his blistered fingers he pulled himself up hand over hand. It seemed to take forever. He heaved himself up through the skylight wriggling desperately, certain that he would get stuck.
A moment later he was up and out on the slates, sliding forward, face first towards the edge of the roof. He pushed forward and down with his rope-burned hands, hoping to slow himself. Slates were driven up and away in front of him like a wave, tumbling towards the ground. The pain in his hands was excruciating but he managed to stop himself by hooking his toes over the edge of the skylight. After a few seconds of frantic scrambling for grip he oriented himself and hauled up the line. He quickly hooked the grapnel over the edge of the skylight and then began to lower himself to the ground below.
He hit the ground after what seemed hours of painful climbing. His hands burned. A figure stepped from the gloom, and Rik reached for his pistol.
“It’s me,” said Leon. “What the hell is going on? You look like you’ve been working in an abattoir.”
“Had some trouble inside. Give me my costume and try and get that bloody rope.”
Leon handed him his mask and robe and Rik swiftly donned it. As he did so Leon worked the grapnel free. What a fiasco, Rik thought.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get the hell away from here before someone comes looking for us.”
They ran as fast as they could in their heavy robes and masks back towards the music and dancing of the Solace masquerade. Suddenly, in his mind’s eye, Rik saw the face of the man he had stabbed and the look the man had given him as the life went out of him. He felt a little sick, as he sometimes did after killing at close quarters, but he pushed the thought away. There would be time enough to dwell on things after they had made their escape.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Zarahel raced around the warehouse. Who had the intruder been, he wondered, and where had he gone? All the doors were secured. No one had come or gone that way, of that he was absolutely certain.
Was it possible that Craymorne had been killed by one of his own people? Perhaps some old score was being paid off. The hill-men were touchy enough and given to feuding. No one knew that better than he. Or had some other faction managed to infiltrate his force? Were Bertragh’s men to be trusted? Was the factor himself?
He paused and scratched one of his blisters. They were getting bigger. He glanced at his bodyguards assembled in the loading area of the warehouse. They were angry and they were scared. They held their weapons ready. Like all true hill-tribe warriors, they were killers born and bred but none of them showed any signs of being the murderer. There was no blood on anybody’s clothing that he could see.
Craymorne had bled profusely and some of it would have gotten on to his killer. Zarahel’s well trained eye picked up no sign of that. That meant the killer was still at large. He ordered the men to split into groups and search the place again. Another thought occurred to him, looking at the location where the body had been found. It was very close to the counting house door.
Had the killer been listening there, and had Craymorne found him? The thought that someone might know about his plans rocked Zarahel. More than that, the speed and silence of the killing argued for the work of a professional. Perhaps the assassin was a member of the Scarlet Lotus society or another of the Realm’s secret police.
Perhaps this was the work of the Brotherhood of the Wyvern who always opposed the Basilisk when they could. If word reached the wrong ears, there would be big trouble indeed. Perhaps he could work a divination to find out what had gone on here, but that would take time, and if the killer was a professional he would be warded. Anyway, he had got everything he had come here for. The books were his.
He came to a quick decision. The situation here was untenable. He turned to Bertragh.
“Get everything you need to travel. We are leaving here. Now!”
The merchant did not look at all surprised. He merely nodded his head. He had obviously come to the same conclusion. Zarahel’s respect for him increased. Bertragh was not young. He lived a very comfortable life here, yet he was prepared to give it up at a moment’s notice in the service of the Brotherhood. It was what he had sworn to do, of course, but nonetheless Zarahel was impressed. He had known much younger, fitter men who would not have been quite so quick to accept the new realities of the situation. Of course, Bertragh also realised what would happen to him if they were betrayed to the authorities.
It meant abandoning those men who had gone into the city in search of revenge but it served the fools right. Word could be got to them later. Marla would see to that. If they were caught and put to the question, there was nothing they could tell the Inquisition. They were not privy to the Brotherhood’s true plans, let alone his own. It was time to cut his losses and leave.