"Ah," said The Masked flatly, losing some of his boisterous persona. "And perhaps you could tell us exactly what standing with House Mereir entails?"
"Of course," the warrior replied. "This-" He made a very brief and swift gesture with three fingers. "-signals you are of Mereir. Whereas this-" He made a far different curving, slicing gesture. "-is the mark of Telcanor. You must not do business with anyone of Telcanor, and aren't to consort with them or even converse with them. Be aware that Braganzans know who stands with whom, and will be watching you to make sure-"
The Mereir recruiter broke off abruptly as someone struck him from behind-one of his own armsmen, toppling like a felled tree. The others were also falling, some struggling to use their handbows, bolts peppering the low ceiling beams as they collapsed.
The Masked flung himself aside, seeking the floor with enthusiasm. The hail of handbow bolts that had felled the Mereirs hummed into the room like a swarm of angry hornets.
Tantaerra dove under the bed, snatching at the chamber pot to swing it around behind her like a shield, because the roof outside the windows had abruptly become a savage battlefield of struggling men. A rude interruption no doubt supplied by a force loyal to House Telcanor, who seemed to well outnumber the Mereirs.
That window wouldn't hold for long. Tantaerra hastily wormed her way forward and found herself nose to nose with The Masked-at about the same moment the window shattered with a deafening crack, wooden frame and all. Two men, wrapped around each other and furiously stabbing with already blood-drenched daggers, fell through it into the room.
"Let's get out of here!" Tantaerra hissed.
"Trying to stay alive long enough to do that," the masked man replied cheerfully, watching men of Telcanor stream along the passage and into the room, stabbing down viciously at the Mereirs underfoot. "Our way out'll have to be the roof, unless-"
A charging warrior of Telcanor reached down to gut him, forcing The Masked to thrust a hasty boot low into the man's belly and loft him helplessly forward into a wall. The resulting room-shaking crash abruptly cut short the Telcanor's rising cry.
Tantaerra viciously smashed another warrior's ankles out from under him with the chamber pot, precipitating a helpless fall into the edge of the bed, ending in another mighty crash as both bed and the head that struck it collapsed. "Battle rages," she murmured. "As usual."
A Mereir-or was it a Telcanor? — swung a sword at her with a snarl, and she sprang aside and into a panting whirlwind of ducking and dodging amid the brawling mayhem as sword after sword thrust at her.
The room seemed to be full of more men than it should be able to hold, even with the bed down and broken and the window a gaping hole out into the night. There was a lot of sharp steel, blood everywhere, and soldier after soldier going down. Which meant she and The Masked might soon be the only targets left.
Tantaerra flung herself across the room to where The Masked was taking down Telcanors with deft efficiency.
"You promised to hide me," she reminded him, slamming the chamber pot down on the foot of one assailant. "Well, look at all these brawlers! I want my ten silver weights back!"
The only reply she got was a short, derisive laugh as The Masked fenced with one warrior and tripped the man clutching his chamber-pot-injured foot into a fall that made the Telcanor's head bounce off the floor right in front of Tantaerra. Gleefully she landed on that head and helped it to bounce several times.
The Masked shoved the warrior he'd been crossing blades with back over the one Tantaerra had just rendered senseless, then spun to pluck her up under one arm and bounded to the window. Or rather, to where the window had been.
Shouts arose from Telcanors who saw the incipient escape, but the men in their way out on the roof were too busy grappling and stabbing each to intercept the masked man ducking through them.
The Masked shouldered one aside, knocked another sprawling, and sprinted up the gently sloping roof into the night. The adjacent roof was lower and an easy leap, but his landing was thunderous, and caused muffled crashes in the unseen rooms beneath him-as well as a certain sagging unsteadiness under his boots.
The Masked hastily relocated to the ridge-run of this older and less sturdy roof, where he set down a cursing, spitting Tantaerra and hissed, "Lead the way!"
Still snarling protests at being snatched up like a toy or pet, Tantaerra found a drainpipe that seemed sturdy enough to support a man-at least briefly-and swarmed down it.
Ahead of her was a great dark stretch of Braganza, probably empty building after empty building, and although she very much wanted to keep to the roofs and so avoid Watchguard patrols, she just couldn't see well enough to safely judge distances and the slope and condition of roof tiles-especially with a larger, heavier human lumbering in her wake.
"Seek dark places," she murmured. Of course, the thief's maxim wasn't just advice to someone wanting to hide-it was also a lure to make those trying to hide stray within reach of deadlier creatures who dwelt in the darkest places.
"But then," The Masked murmured in her ear, "perhaps we are two of those deadlier creatures, hmm?"
Tantaerra gasped, not realizing she'd spoken aloud.
They left the drainpipe behind and sprinted along a dark and unfamiliar alley. On all sides, crashes from nearby rooftops marked the heavy-booted landings of pursuing warriors.
They fled into the darkness, The Masked letting Tantaerra choose their route. Despite the ever-nearer footfalls behind them, she slowed enough to make her hastening quiet. More or less running blind, she avoided any lights she could, and tried hard not to let the unfolding choices of streets and turns force her into circling back toward Harl's Hearth.
"Patrol," The Masked panted abruptly, dragging her back from a corner she'd been about to duck around.
Tantaerra's temper flared-if he knew Braganza so well, why wasn't he leading? — but she set her teeth, kept silent, and chose another way, this one a narrower, reeking back alley.
Behind them, a sudden shout marked one of their Telcanor chasers blundering into the midst of the Watchswords on patrol. The ringing clang of clashing swords arose, then more shouts.
The alley opened out into a street that lacked unpleasant smells, but seemed full of heaps of lumber, building stones, and not-yet-erected scaffolds. "Seemed" because it was too dark to see anything properly.
Thanks to the Prince-Archbanker's endless construction, entire blocks of Braganza were evidently sprawling mazes of mostly empty buildings. Which if they weren't guarded or patrolled, probably served as temporary lairs for local thieves, fugitives-and perhaps exhausted builders, or visitors who didn't want to declare for Mereir or Telcanor.
All of this lumber and stone should be guarded, and Tantaerra reached out a hand to tap The Masked's thigh in warning.
He bent to murmur into her ear, "There'll be night-guards at either end of a stretch of this street, likely. I think we just waded through their privy."
"So?" she muttered back.
"Shall we hide among some of these builders' heaps, and see if some of our pursuers find the guards for us?"
Not such a bad idea. She seemed to have chosen her hireling well.
"We shall," Tantaerra told him. "Choose our hiding place."
Without word or hesitation The Masked turned left, felt his way past a long heap of roof slates and a row of barrels, then found a hard-trampled path that hooked around behind the barrels and ended in a little area with a table and some upended half-buckets obviously serving as chairs. There was a faint smell of spilled wine and strong cheese.