"Hold on," Sefris interrupted. A sudden suspicion took hold of her. It was ridiculous, of course. The world was full of archers, and even if it wasn't, no one but a magician or highly trained monk could have survived the fall from the top story of Aeron's tower. Still, she had to ask. "This woman. Was she a good shot?"
The blonde cocked her head as if puzzled by the question, but answered willingly enough, "She never missed."
"Describe her."
"Tall and slim, with curly brown hair chopped off short. She had on leather armor, and when she went into the shed, and the lamplight caught her, I saw it was dyed green."
Sefris felt astonished. She'd never been more certain of a kill, yet she had no doubt it was Miri the thrall had seen. Somehow, the guide was still alive and had joined forces with Aeron. If Sefris had examined the Red Axe corpses and recognized the arrow punctures for what they were, she might have suspected sooner.
Yet what sense did it make? She assumed Aeron's goal was to put so much pressure on Kesk that the tanarukk would be willing to undertake a fair exchange of Nicos for The Black Bouquet in order to put an end to the harassment. Miri presumably still wanted to deliver the formulary to whoever had bought it from Lord Quwen. How, then, could they possibly work together?
When the answer came to Sefris, she couldn't help smiling a fleeting but genuine smile, because it solved her problem. She didn't need to scour the city looking for Aeron. She knew where he'd turn up sooner or later.
Her companion cringed from the momentary change in her expression.
"What is it?" whimpered the thrall.
"It's fine." Sefris rose. "You told me what I needed to hear."
"Are you leaving?" asked the blonde. "You said you'd help me. Please, take pity on me."
"No," Sefris said. "Shar teaches that nothing in the world deserves our pity, neither others nor ourselves."
Still, what she was about to do would be mercy, the only true mercy any being ever received. It was the thrall's good fortune that her deliverer didn't want her repeating their conversation to the Red Axes.
All it took was a simple front snap kick. The ball of Sefris's foot slammed into the blonde's delicate chin, breaking her neck. She was dead before her yellow-haired head touched the floor.
Despite the ease with which she'd managed it, Sefris found the kill particularly satisfying. She wasn't sure why.
CHAPTER 13
Aeron peered at the crack between the wide double doors, then lightly pressed one of them with his palm.
"Can you open it?" Miri whispered.
She looked odd, and it wasn't the olive pigment they'd both smeared on their skin to make themselves resemble half-orcs. He couldn't see the color amid the darkness of the narrow cul-de-sac. Rather, it was the absence of a bow, quiver, and her distinctively dyed armor, which had seemed as much a part of her as her hands and feet.
"No," he said. "It doesn't have a lock for me to pick, just a bar on the other side. However, the place does have a skylight."
He prowled along the warehouse wall, looking at a spot where the brick was cracked and pitted enough to provide some decent handholds. When he found it, he swarmed upward onto the slanted roof, where a night breeze wafted. The cool air felt strange on his newly shaved chin.
It was easy to work a knife between the skylight and frame and pop the latch. The hard part would come after he slipped through. It was a thirty-foot drop to the floor. He'd had good luck lately surviving long falls relatively unscathed-it was about the only good fortune he'd enjoyed-but it would be mad to risk another unnecessarily.
In other circumstances, he would have lowered a rope, but even if he'd had one, he wouldn't have been able to leave it hanging down for someone to discover. So he gripped the protruding underside of a rafter. Clinging by the sheer strength of his fingers, Aeron inched along it until he could swing himself over the railing onto the loft that ran around the walls.
He found the long hooked pole used to manipulate the skylight and swung it closed then skulked down the stairs. The warehouse was more empty than otherwise, a testimony to Imrys Skaltahar's ability to move stolen goods quickly, but stacks of crates sat here and there, providing places to hide.
Aeron unbarred the door, and re-secured it once Miri slipped inside.
"How in Fury's Heart does this Skaltahar scoundrel get in and out?" she asked, peering warily around the interior of the building.
"I imagine he has a private tunnel connecting the warehouse to the Hungry Haunting."
She considered a pile of boxes shrouded with a drop cloth, then gave him an inquiring glance. He nodded, and they crouched down behind it. After that, they had nothing to do but wait.
It wore on his nerves, and maybe on hers as well, because eventually she whispered, "Nothing's happening."
"It will. Here in Oeble, thieves move loot through the Underways whenever possible, but some things are just too big and heavy to drag around below ground. They have to go through the streets, and the Red Axes make a delivery to Imrys around this time every fifth day."
"How do you know?"
Aeron just grinned.
"All right," she said, "but are you certain they won't postpone it? After all, they're looking for you, and trying to protect all their various enterprises, too. If the halflings are raiding them as promised, they should be feeling all the more inclined to pull in and stay safe."
"You'd think. But a gang chieftain like Kesk has to keep his operation running and the coin flowing, if only because otherwise it would make him look weak. He can't afford that. He's got rival organizations, the Gray Blades, and ambitious underlings all eager to strike at him if they think they see an opening."
"That makes sense, I suppose." She was silent for a time then said, "Was I completely foolish, hoping Ombert would help us just because it's the right thing to do? He said you rogues have a code."
"It's not the same kind your guild evidently holds to. It doesn't say you have to put your own hand on the chopping block to help out somebody else. It just says outlaws are supposed to deal fairly with one another." He smiled ruefully and added, "Even so, we break the rules when it suits us."
"I'd be ashamed to tell people my name if I were content to live like that."
He wasn't sure she'd aimed the barb specifically at him, but even so, it stung.
"You're so sure you know right from wrong," he said, "but you work for this Lord Quwen, and according to Ombert, the bastard loves war. Maybe he's going to use the gold he makes off the Bouquet to launch another campaign against his neighbors."
"He's not! He told me himself, it's to provide food and shelter for folk in need, just as, here in Oeble, the book will give a good many laborers a chance to live both comfortably and honestly."
He grinned and asked, "Do you believe everything people tell you?"
She glared, but before she could retort, a hitherto concealed trapdoor in the plank floor swung upward, and she had the good sense to fall absolutely silent.
A lantern in one hand and a scimitar hanging at his hip, Imrys Skaltahar climbed into view and closed the hatch. Oeble's preeminent receiver of stolen goods was a square-built man with dark, watchful eyes. Time had stolen much of his hair, etched lines in his face, and begun to tug the flesh under his jaw into dewlaps, but he still had the lithe tread of the young bravo he'd started out as. He was simply but well dressed in an indigo buffin tunic and leather breeches.