"Come on, dammit!" Shoka followed Chun and Wengadi up the narrow stairs, past wobbly balconies, past graffiti'ed erotic frescoes, and up and up to the topmost level, where a weak door gave on a dark little hole, someone's apartment, a stinking lot of clutter, a low ceiling with birds nesting in the rafters and a scant light coming through the roof tiles.
Damn mess. Some dirt poor grandmother made party to what could get her killed, if the soldiers came searching.
Reidi, for gods' sakes, look alive over there!
"Up," he said, and Jian and Wengadi scrambled to grab a plank that had served as a table, and braced it against the brickwork and climbed up to knock roof-tiles aside, letting a blinding light in from overhead.
Jian and Wengadi swung down from the low rafters. Then came the anxious part. "I'll do it!" Taizu said. "I don't weigh so much!"
"You don't know what you're aiming at," Shoka said. He slipped his sword, his kit and his blanket roll off, tossed the encumbrance out of the way, and with a deep breath and a rush, ran the slanted board to grab hold of the dusty rafters. From there he edged over to climb higher on the beams, and put his head out into the fading daylight, chest-level with the tiled roof.
"Those tiles are old!" Chun's voice came up to him. "Be careful!"
But he was looking out beyond the immediate prospect of the untidy camp spread out at the foot of the wall this roof sheltered—was looking beyond the camp's further, riverside wall, across the Hisei, where the bridge was, the distance-dimmed hills where Reidi ought to be... if Reidi was there at all.
And closer then, thirty feet below him, too close, with only head and shoulders above the tiles, to see the gate that let out near the bridge, or the tents up against the foot of the wall, but the further ones spread, between their mandated aisles for movement of troops and horses, in a tangle of overlapping guy-ropes and tent-edges, no neat, precise rows, but a motley city in canvas and goat-hide and whatever material and shape the mercenaries had brought with them or plundered.
Pirates and brigands, ensconced where the precise, pale tents of Imperial troops had been, for Imperial visitations; or more often, the stripes and bright colors of Lungan market, in the Empire's better, more tranquil years—a safe, enclosed bazaar where a few police and strong gates could mean an honest trade and a scarcity of cutpurses and thieves.
There was the muster of troops—a dark gathering around bright torches, lanterns, lit against the gathering night; banners; and the rostrum which Ghita would use. The procession had already passed. There were figures on the podium, small and glittering with gold.
He levered himself up gingerly, trusting his weight to old tiles and old wood.
"Damn fine view."
"Here!" Chun said from below. His bow came up, strung for him. He worked around to get his knee under him. Tile grated and slipped under his hip. He flattened and the slippage stopped.
"Captain?"
"Shut up! I'm all right." In a shaky voice, mindful of a thirty-foot drop and an enemy camp below. He eased up again, listened for the grating of tiles and carefully settled his weight on one knee, then drew a whole breath and leaned to take the two arrows that Chun passed up to him.
On his knees he could see the tents and the aisle below as well as the further quarters of the camp. Long shot. A fair amount of wind coming almost squarely at his back, a little off to his left shoulder. He took a good brace with his foot and his knee, then drew the bow, calculated his shot and arced it high into the camp. Ranging shot. He saw it drop nearly to the far wall, with wind and starting-height to help it. He did not need the second arrow,
"Come on!" he hissed at the dark opening beside him. As light flared, and a third arrow came up to him, this one with a blazing wrap about the point. Well-soaked: it fluttered and spat in the wind as he took it up and drew for a shot high and wide. Heavier point. It would drop more quickly. A trace of fire flew across the dusk, dimmer than the torches.
"Here!" Chun said.
Another arrow, and another, into the tents. As the first one blossomed into fire. In a too-tight jumble of canvas. In a good northerly breeze that would sweep fire to the far walls, and carry burning wisps of canvas swirling in the air, inside four high walls with a far distance between fires and the two water-wells.
He saw the troops scatter from the gathering, he heard the thin voices shout orders as smoke rolled up, lit from spreading fire. He kept shooting as long as arrows came up, trails of fire across the sky, till Chun clambered up to put his head through the opening and survey the spreading fire that glared off walls and off the smoke, soldiers running to save what they could of gear and personal belongings. They were mercenaries. Everything they owned was in those tents. But there were eight, nine points of fire in the camp, and two of them bracketed the gate. Horses screamed in panic. Riders fought to get them to the gate. He picked up an ordinary arrow and fired into a mass of running men below him.
"Get down, m'lord!" Chun pleaded with him.
About time, he thought. He moved to do that, and the tiles slipped, a grating slide toward the edge.
But a hand grabbed him as he slid, and hauled him down through the opening in a shower of tiles, onto a collapsing cushion of hands and bodies.
"Dammit!" Taizu yelled.
"We got him, we got him," Chun gasped, and Shoka fought his way to his knees amid the tangle, realized part of the difficulty was the bow he was still holding on to. He let it go, grabbed for a post and hauled his way to his feet. "I'm all right," he said. "Let's get out of here—" —as he grabbed his sword and his kit from under bits of tile. He reached again to get the bow, but Taizu grabbed it up, unstrung it, and wrapped that and the quiver in the mat that had concealed it, while Wengadi gathered up the flrepot and the rest of the evidence.
Down the stairs, past doors still shut; and out into the street again, down another lane.
And across the main thoroughfare, where people gathered in bewilderment, under a sky lit with fire and smoke.
People spotted them and scattered, fast.
But a rock hit Jian's shoulder.
"Damn!" Jian yelled.
"Down with the Regent!" someone shouted.
"Come on!" Shoka said as Chun started to turn around. "Get out of here!" He grabbed Chun and ran, as stones flew out of the dusk and rattled on the pavings around them.
Horsemen plunged around the corner ahead of them, soldiers coming pell mell from the riverside and the camp—
—looking for the source of the tiles and the fire, Shoka reckoned, and finding rebellion in full flower.
The street was suddenly empty back there except for rocks and bricks, the soldiers scattered in pursuit of rebels.
"We can't help them!" Shoka said. "They're on their own! Come on! Back to the Peony, get the horses!"
"Captain," the innkeeper panted, following them down into the stableyard. "I kept 'em f' you, ain't nothin' missin'—"
"Good," Shoka threw back over his shoulder. "Then you're safe. Get back inside, master innkeeper!"
"What's happenin'? What's happenin', what's burnin' uptown? Is there fightin'?"
"There will be, just lock your doors and stay out of it, man!"
Chun was hauling the tack out of the owner's kitchen-shed, and Waichen and Liang were already saddling, throwing blankets on horses stable-bound too long, stiff and fretful.
"I been friendly to the army!"
"Just shut up, innkeeper!" Shoka grabbed his own tack out of Chun's hands and turned and glared up. "Better start figuring out what side you belong to! They're crossing the bridge!"