Cythen was no slut, and she'd hurt him if he treated her that way. She was no lady, either- not with her clothes half-gone and covered with dirt. Still, he wasn't about to set her back on the streets-at least not until she had a good meal. After quickly wiping his hand on his hip, Wale-grin took hers.
She had a firm grip, not man-strong but strong enough to wield a sword. Trying to make it seem natural, Walegrin raised his other arm for the embrace and was saved from the deed itself by a thumping, shouting commotion on the stairs outside.
Thrusher was flat against the wall. Walegrin had a knife out of its forearm sheath and just enough time to see Cythen remove a nasty assassin's blade from somewhere in her skirt before the door burst open.
"They've taken her!"
The light from the torch on the landing blinded Walegrin to the details of the scene before him. There was a central figure, huge and yelling; writhing attachments to it, also yelling and presumably his guards, and finally Thrusher, leaping out of the darkness to wrap lethal arms around the neck of the unsubdued invader. The dark hulk groaned. It fell back, squeezing Thrusher against the wall. It twisted, freeing its right arm, then calmly peeled someone off its left side and threw him into the eaves.
"Walegrin!" it bellowed. "They've taken her!"
Cythen was crouched on the balls of her feet, beneath the giant's notice but not Walegrin's. She was ready to strike when he laid a hand on her shoulder. She relaxed.
"Dubro?" Walegrin asked cautiously.
"They've taken her!" The smith's pain was not physical, but it was real nonetheless. Walegrin did not need to ask who had been taken, though he could not imagine how they had gotten past the smith in the first place.
"Tell me slowly: Who took her? How long ago? Why?"
The smith drew a shuddering breath and mastered himself. "It was just past sundown, a beggar-lad came up. He said there'd been an accident on the wharf. 'Lyra bid me help if I could, so I followed the lad. I lost him almost at once^ there was nothing on the wharf-" he paused, taking Walegrin's wrist in a bone crushing grip.
"It was a trap?" Walegrin suggested, grateful for the gauntlet that protected his wrists from the full power of Dubro's despair.
The smith nodded slowly. "She was gone!"
"She hadn't simply followed you and gotten lost-or gone to visit the other S'danzo?"
A deep-pitched groan forced its way out of Dubro's throat. "No-no. T'was all torn about. She fought, but she was gone-without her shawl. Walegrin, she goes nowhere without her shawl."
"She might have escaped to hide somewhere?"
"I've searched-else I'd have been here sooner," the smith explained, shifting his grip from Walegrin's wrist to his less-protected shoulder. "I roused all the S'danzo-and they searched with me. We found her shoe behind the farmer's stall by the river, but nothing else. I went home to look for signs." Dubro shook Walegrin for emphasis. "I found this!"
He withdrew an object from his pouch and held it so close that Walegrin couldn't see it. A measure of calm returned to the smith, he released Walegrin and let him study the object. It was a metal gauntlet boss, engraved and distinctive enough to identify its wearer, should he be found. But Walegrin did not recognize it. He handed it to Thrusher.
"Do you recognize it?" he asked.
"No-"
Cythen took the boss from Thrusher's hands. "Stepson-" she said with both fear and anger. "See here, the lightning emerging from the clouds? Only they wear such designs."
"You have a plan?" Dubro demanded.
It wasn't only Dubro waiting for a plan. With the mention of the Stepsons, Cubert had re-entered the room, and Cythen was warm for blood; the hawkmasks all had reasons for vengeance. Even Thrusher, still rubbing his sore head, acted as if this were a challenge that must be answered. Walegrin tucked the boss in his belt-pouch.
"We know it was a Stepson, but we don't know who," Walegrin said, though he suspected the one who had overturned Illyra's table earlier. "We don't have time to run them all to ground, and I don't think Tempus would let us. Still, if we had a Stepson hostage or two ourselves, it would be easier-"
"I'll go with Thrusher. I know where they're at at this hour," Cubert asserted. Cythen nodded agreement.
"Remember, a dead Stepson won't do us any good. So if you must kill one, hide the body well-dammit."
"It'll be a pleasure," Cubert grinned.
"See that they get their swords," Walegrin said as Thrusher led the ex-hawkmasks from the room. He was alone with Dubro. "Now, you and I will search the back streets-and hope we find nothing."
Dubro agreed. For one generally reckoned no smarter than the hammer he used, Dubro moved well through the darkness, leading Walegrin rather than being led. The latter had expected him to be a massive hinderence and had kept him apart from the rest, but Dubro knew blind alleys and exposed basements that no-one else suspected.
At length they emerged from the Maze to the stinking structures of the chamel houses. Butchers worked there, gravediggers and undertakers as well. Slippery mounds of rotting flesh and bones stretched, undisturbed, down to the river. The gulls and the dogs avoided this place, though the shadows of huge rats could be seen scurrying over the filth. They had found Rezzel here that morning-and left her here. For a moment Walegrin thought he saw Illyra lying out there-but no, it was just another jumble of bones, glowing with decay.
"She'd come here every so often," Dubro said softly. "You'd know why, wouldn't you?"
"Dubro-you don't think I-"
"No, she trusted you and she's not wrong in such things. It's just, if she were frightened, if she thought she had no place else to go-she might come here."
"Let's go back to the bazaar. Maybe her people have found something. If not, well-I'll gather my men and whatever they've found in the morning. We'll deal with Tempus from there." Dubro nodded and led the way, carefully, around the eerily glowing things lying on the mud.
Moonflower, who was as large among women as Dubro was among men, sat awkwardly at Illy-ra's table when they entered the little rooms behind the awning. "She is alive," the immense woman said, rearranging Illyra's cards.
"Walegrin has a plan to get her back from the Stepsons," Dubro said. Between them they almost filled the room. -
Moonflower got off the creaking stool and approached Walegrin, a predatory curiosity in her eyes. "Walegrin-you've grown up!"
She wasn't tall; no taller than Cythen, but she was built like a mountain. She wore layers of colorful clothes, more layers and colors than the eye cared to record. Yet she could move quickly to trap Walegrin before he reached the door.
"You will rescue her?"
"I didn't think you S'danzo cared about her," Walegrin snarled.
"She breaks little rules and pays a little price-but not like this. You think of the mother. She broke the big rules and paid the big price. But wouldn't we all like to break the big rules? She paid with her life-but we remember her here," Moonflower pressed a beefy hand over her heart. "You go and bring her back, now. I'll stay with this one." She stepped aside and pushed Walegrin back into the night. She probably wasn't very strong, but at her weight she didn't need to be.
Alone in the bazaar, Walegrin remembered what Illyra had said about the S'danzo. They were two societies, men and women, and their purposes were not the same. It had been the S'danzo men who had dismembered his father-and S'danzo men who had cursed him. But it was the S'danzo women who had the power, the sight-