“How long will it work for?”
“Half a bell. Long enough, if I don’t trigger it until I have to.” She chewed her lip. “This is a little mad, you know?”
“Mad times call for mad plans,” Farideh said. “I’ll get the pin. But you don’t use it on me, or anyone else on our side. And after, you have to answer to the Harpers all the same.”
“If I’m alive,” Tharra said. Farideh kneeled and untied her bindings. “Doesn’t work well on you anyway. People tell you you’re stubborn?”
“Constantly,” Farideh said. She grasped the other woman’s hand and stood. “Come on.”
“What are you planning to tell Antama out there?” Tharra asked.
“Nothing. We’re in a hurry,” Farideh said, and she pulled enough Hells magic through her brand to make a slit in the fabric of the planes, and stepped through the slat-board wall to reappear in the alley beyond.
“Did you choose the least concealable weapon available on purpose?” Khochen teased Havilar as they crept through the alleys between huts. “No,” Havilar said irritably. “I chose it because I’m good at it.”
“You were good at it before you chose it?” Khochen asked cheekily. “There’s a tale I long to hear.” Beside her, the scout, Ebros, chuckled softly.
Havilar scowled. “Do you have any idea of where we’re headed?”
“The same way everyone else is headed,” Khochen said. “Where there are people, there are answers.”
“Where there are people,” Havilar said, “there’s usually someone who wants to start a fight.”
Khochen looked back and smiled. “Don’t worry, little tiefling. You have me.”
Havilar gripped Devilslayer and started to retort that she did not need some puny thief with her blades in her boots to rescue her, and anyway Havilar had a solid half foot on Khochen. But her reply was cut off by sudden shouting from behind them.
“Well, well-not in the Hells after all.” Havilar turned and caught the chain of a shadar-kai guard on the haft of her glaive, the bladed end slicing inches from her face.
The guard’s companions-a woman with enormous arms and a heavy broadsword strapped to her back and a wiry fellow with a pair of curved knives-shouted after the chainmaster. “He doesn’t want you ruined,” the man said to Havilar. “Even though he won’t be happy to find you again. Come quietly, and we’ll kill your companions quick.”
The woman grinned. “No watching for you this time.”
Havilar didn’t stop to wonder what that meant-whoever he was, he could go to the Abyss before she’d follow karshoji shadar-kai anywhere. As the chainmaster yanked the chain free of her weapon, she followed the pull, swinging the weight of the glaive toward his face. As he pulled back, she shifted and pulled the butt of the glaive up and into his right wrist. He pulled back farther, eyes dancing, favoring his injury. The chain snaked along the ground, catching in the sticky mud. Havilar stomped onto the weapon, grinding the blades down into the muck, before leaping back off. The chainmaster hauled hard on the lodged chain and caught the point of Havilar’s glaive in his gut for the hesitation.
Ebros’s arrow hit the swordswoman in the chest and pierced her leather armor. She grinned horribly and pulled the arrow free, barbs and all. A second arrow hit the smaller man as he tried to maneuver around his allies in the narrow passage. Khochen darted past in the corner of Havilar’s eye and with a flash of steel blocked the swordswoman’s dagger on her own blade, then jabbed her dagger up under the woman’s arm.
The chainmaster gave Havilar a terrible grin as he straightened. Havilar matched it-daughter of Clanless Mehen, wielder of Devilslayer. The glaive as good as her right hand.
The chain flashed up and encircled her right forearm, biting into her bracer. She let go of half her grip and moved with the tug to punch the shadar-kai in the base of the throat. That stunned him and she yanked hard on the chain, pulling it from his grip.
Step, shift, turn the blade-she sliced the glaive deeply across the shadarkai’s belly, ripping under the leather jack. His eyes widened and he lunged at her. Havilar moved with him, turning to hook the glaive behind him as he passed, and pulling him forward hard enough to trip him. She planted the blade of her weapon in his back and the air went out of the shadar-kai in a horrible, wet gasp.
Khochen scrambled back from the shadar-kai with the broadsword on her back, the alley still too narrow to draw such a weapon. But Khochen was keen enough with her daggers that it hardly mattered. Bleeding from many cuts, the shadar-kai advanced, taking her own blood from the Harper as she did.
Havilar narrowed her eyes and brought the butt of the glaive up into the guard’s bare wrist, smacking it hard enough to make her grip loose. Slide the haft up and nick the blade-the dagger flew from the shadar-kai’s grasp. The startled guard looked to Havilar, then froze.
Ebros’s arrow protruded from the shadar-kai’s left eye. She dropped to her knees and tripped over on the fallen chain. “Well shot!” Khochen gasped.
Ebros nodded, shaking, and trained his next arrow on the man between Havilar and Khochen’s blades. But the wiry shadar-kai took quick stock of the situation fell backward, into the shadows, and disappeared.
“Running for reinforcements,” Khochen panted. “Damn.” She rubbed her wounded shoulder and looked back at Havilar. “What was that shadar-kai talking about?”
“He thought I was Fari,” Havilar said, feeling her stomach twist into knots. “We have to go.”
“ Ilharess-iblithin sun,” Phalar cursed for at least the fifth time. A heavy sheen of sweat stood out on his ebony skin, even in the cool air-low as the sun was, it still irritated the drow. Dahl hadn’t discovered what Oota had traded him. When he’d asked, Phalar had chuckled in an unpleasant manner and cleaned his nails with the tip of Dahl’s dagger.
He wasn’t so relaxed now. “Let’s go already.”
“Go ahead,” Hamdir said, standing over the drow with a cloak as a shield against the sun. “Run out into the daylight and knock on the gates.”
“I could hit them from here,” Armas said, with a familiar eagerness. He flexed his hands and blew out a nervous breath. “I could definitely hit them from here.” Phalar chuckled.
“Wait,” Dahl said. The force of Phalar’s god seemed to grip Dahl even more firmly this time, and dressed once more in the stolen uniform, Dahl had a hard time waiting for the guards to pass by before he rushed out to unlock the gate with a ritual. They needed to time it perfectly-there was no speeding the ritual, after all, no matter how sure Dahl felt in that moment that he could make it happen.
If the same effect took hold of Oota, it wasn’t obvious-she rocked on her feet, tense and ready, but she counted the beats of the guards’ footsteps under her breath and kept her hands on her belt and off the stolen sword she wore tied there. She did not look at Tharra, crouched beside her and wearing the black kerchief and apron-but then no one did. Farideh had turned up with Tharra as they were easing Phalar out of the shelters, past the crowds heading in, and even if Dahl had to admit he greatly preferred this plan to Farideh’s last one, he wasn’t going to pretend he liked it.
One more pass, Dahl thought, when the guards reached their farthest stations. . Dahl drummed his fingers against the blue silk cover of Farideh’s ritual book, the pouches of components dangling from his wrist. He was so consumed by the plan, by forcing himself to run through the ritual instead of falling prey to Phalar’s powers, that he completely missed the fact that they were being approached until Oota turned, axe high, and nearly took Lord Vescaras Ammakyl’s head off.
“Hold!” Dahl hissed to Vescaras as much as Oota. He stepped around the half-orc and saw Brin and a red-haired elf behind Vescaras. “Gods’ books, where did you come from?”
Vescaras raised an eyebrow, but lowered his rapier. “Good to see you’re well. Your sendings were clear enough-no need to follow up and waste resources.”