Haught was on his way - why, he had no idea, whether it was despair or ensorcelment. 'Wait,' he called to Haught, losing control of things, but he had lost that when he had come out here, blind-sotted as Moria at her worst. He let her draw him up the stone facing, among the pilings, chasing after Haught at the first, but then joining him in the open, where anyone might spy them.
There was the empty guard station, the pole standing vacant.
'They got him down,' Haught said.
'Someone did,' Mradhon muttered, looking about. He felt naked, exposed to view. The rain spattered away at the board surface of the bridge, a shadowed span leading through the dark to Downwind, to Ischade. A distant, solitary figure flitted like illusion at its other end, lost itself into Downwind, among its shuttered buildings. Here they stood, neither one place nor the other, neither in the Maze of Sanctuary nor in the Downwind, belonging now to no one.
And there was no hiding now.
Haught started across the bridge. Mradhon followed, with Moria beside him, and all he could think of now was how long it took to get across, to get out of this nakedness. Someone was coming their way, a shambling, raggedy figure. He clutched his cloak about him, gripped his sword as this beggar passed; he dared not look when the apparition had gone by, but Moria swung on his arm, feigning drunkenness like some doxy.
''Sjust a beggar,' she said in full voice, hanging on him, terrifying him with the noise. Haught spun half-about, turned again, and kept walking like some honest man with disreputable followers - but no honest man crossed the bridge.
'Beggar,' Moria whined, leaning on Mradhon's arm. He jerked at her and cursed, knowing this mentality, this bloody-minded humour that he had had beside him in the field, soldiers who got this affliction. Heroes all. Dead ones. Soon. 'Straighten up,' he said, knowing her, knowing her brother, knowing that this was a game both played. He twisted at her arm. 'You see your brother? You see what games won him?'
She grew quiet then. Subdued. She walked beside him at Haught's back, past the tall end-pilings that themselves bore nail-holes from the time that hawkmasks, not Stepsons, were the prey.
To the right, a huddle of blackened timbers, of tumbled brick, was the burned shell of a house. Haught went that way, entering the shadow of Downwind, and they came after, out of choices now.
Erato slipped back into shadow, his pulse beating double-time, for a shadow had passed that disturbed him. He felt a presence at his shoulder, where it belonged, but he trusted nothing now. He scanned the figure at near range, his heart still thumping away until he had (pretending calm) resolved his left-hand man still beside him, and not some further threat, some shape-changer, night walker. He had no taste for this witch-stalking. 'They're across,' the partner said.
'They're across. We're not the only ones moving. Get back along the bank. Get the squad in place. Get a message back to base.' Erato moved back along the alley, headed towards the river house.
It smelled of double-cross, the whole business. His partner jogged off, holding his cloak tight to him, muffling his armour. They kept well away from the grounds, wary of traps. This was the place to watch. Here. He was sure of that. He settled in then, watching the storm clouds lose themselves on the seaward horizon in the dark, down that split that divided Downwind from Sanctuary, poor from rich, that division no bridge could span. He had been smug once, had Erato, well-paid, well-armed as he was, convinced of his own skill, of the reputation that would keep challenges off his neck. And somewhere in Downwind that bluff was called, and they dared not go in, dared not pass the streets except by day had effectively lost nighttime access to their own base beyond the Downwind, the slaver's old estate, and relied more and more on the city command. And their enemies knew it.
It would be a long, cold wait. It eroded morale, that view of the bridge, the river, the Downwind. The realization came to him that he was sitting now in the same kind of position the bridge guard had been in, alone out here. Sounds came and went in the streets, rustled in the thin line of brush that rimmed the river-shore. Wild fears dawned on him, to wonder whether the others were there, whether those sounds masked murder, creepings through cover, throats cut, or worse, his comrades snatched away as Stilcho had gone. He wanted to call out, to ask the others were they safe; but that was craziness. He heard the rustling again near himself.
Some vermin creeping about; they grew rats large here on riverside. So he told himself. Something feeding on the garbage that swept down the sewers, the gutters, some choice tidbit brought down from the dwellings of the rich, to tempt the rats and snakes. And the fear grew and grew, so that he eased his sword from its sheath and crouched there with his back pressed to the stones and his eyes constantly scanning the dark that he had view of.
There was nothing anywhere but the splash of rain, the steady drip off eaves of buildings that still had eaves. Beside them, the shell, the timbers, the loose piles of brick.
One moved with a dull chink. Mradhon whirled about, saw a figure close against the wall, at the corner.
'Come,' Ischade said.
'Where's my brother?' Moria asked.
But the witch was gone around the corner.
Mradhon cursed beneath his breath, adding things as he went, as Haught did, as Moria stayed with them. There was no way of retreat, now, against the flow of things. The beggar on the bridge - someone was watching. The body was gone. There were likely Stepsons on the loose. He came round the corner, down the alley where once he had waited in ambush, where the three of them had, before the Stepsons had chosen to make a bonfire of the place, to use the clenched fist.
He knew this place. Knew it because he had lived here. They had. He knew the law here, how it worked apart from Kadakithis's law, from Molin Torchholder's, from any governance of Ranke. Law this side flowed from a place called Becho's. It flourished on the trade of vice, on things that went dear Across the Bridge, that most men never thought to sell, or never planned to. He remembered the smell of it, the reek that clung to clothes; the smell of Mama Becho's brew.
Haught stopped, for the witch had, waiting in their way, a tall shadow-shape; and a second had joined her.
'Now you earn your pay,' Ischade said, when they had come close. The dark surrounded them, buildings leaned close overhead where listeners could have heard, perhaps did hear, but Ischade seemed not to care. 'I have a matter to discuss. A man who certain folk want back, in whatever case. Mor-am knows. The second Stepson. Stilcho is his name.'
'Moruth,' Mradhon said.
'Oh, yes, Moruth has him. I do think this is the case. But Moruth will be reasonable, with me.'
'Wait,' Mradhon said, for she had moved to drift away again. This time she did wait, looked at him, faceless in the dark; and this time the question died stillborn. Why?
'Is there something?' she asked.
'What are we supposed to do - that you can't?'
'Why, to have mercy,' Ischade said. 'This man wants rescuing. That's your business.'
And she was off again, a shadow along the way.
'Becho's,' Mor-am said, all hoarse, keeping a safe distance from them. 'Follow me.'
But they knew the streets, every route that led to that place, that centre of this shell.
'No luck,' the man said, in the commander's doorway. 'Everything's gone underground. This time of night -'
There was disturbance beyond; the outer doorway opened, creating a draught that blew papers out of order. Dolon slammed his hand on to them to stop the fall. 'Get someone,' he said. 'I don't care -'