Masquerades - Kate Novak [58]
"She may have a point, Alias," Dragonbait said.
The swordswoman succumbed to Olive's logic. Privately, however, she suspected she might actually find a fruitless evening of hunting in the rain more enjoyable than biding out in a warehouse with a gang of halflings.
*****
Alias and Dragonbait met Olive shortly after sunset at the gates to Lady Nettel's castle. The family sheds were located in a shallow vale between castles Thalavar and Ssemm. Olive, however, led Alias and Dragonbait outside the city walls to the Thalavar stockyards. There, in a horse pen beside the city wall, sheltered from view by a
copse of trees, was a secret tunnel leading beneath the city wall. The halfling guided them through the tunnel to a ladder that climbed up into the warehouse inside the city walls, where the wine was being stored.
The building was a windowless fortress of solid stone walls and a clay tile roof. There was one door large enough for a wagon and a smaller one for people, both bolted shut. The only other way in, aside from the trapdoor in the floor that led to the secret tunnel, was through one of the five skylights used for ventilation. These were covered with hinged doors, also bolted shut.
The Thalavar halflings were all hidden behind crates stacked in the loft overhead. Olive and Alias took up a position beside the cribs holding the wine barrels, while Dragonbait paced the perimeter of the shed, both upstairs and down, checking on the halflings stationed about and using his shen sight on the walls around them. Then they waited.
Alias wrapped her cloak around her. For a summer evening the air was cool, and cooler still inside the warehouse, like an outpost on the edge of the Negative Material Plane. By the light of the hooded lantern beside her, the swordswoman could see her own breath. She was beginning to think it might have been warmer out in the rain; it certainly would be less boring. She lost track of time in the dark, but it seemed as if she'd been here for hours.
"Apricot?" Olive offered. The sweet, pungent aroma of the dried fruit rose from the sticky paper bag she held out. Alias waved her hand to refuse the fruit. Already tonight Olive had consumed numerous bags of various comestibles, including hazelnuts, Moonshae chestnuts in syrup, candied cherries, pears, carrots, mushrooms of Brost, golden raisins from Berdusk, and a bag of what looked like chocolate-covered spiders.
Alias steamed. "This could be a colossal waste of time. We don't even know they're coming."
"Day're cummin'," Olive mumbled through a mouthful of apricot. When she had swallowed, she reiterated, "They're coming. This shipment's worth a small fortune.
The Night Masks won't be able to resist. They're compulsive about their vengeance-"
Something thumped somewhere overhead.
"Alias!" Dragonbait called out in Saurial. "They're climbing to the roof."
Alias translated for Olive, who pocketed her apricots and whispered a warning to the other halflings to put out their lights and take their places. Hooded lanterns all about the warehouse went dark.
Alias slipped behind a stack of crates by the wagon door. Olive had disappeared into the darkness. The warehouse felt colder in the dark and, oddly enough, closer, as if ghosts were pressing in around them.
In a minute Alias could hear feet scraping across the tiles above. She couldn't estimate from the sound how many thieves there were, but one of them was heavy-footed and not very agile, stomping up the roof, sliding down, then stomping back up again. Alias wondered if they'd brought an ogre for a backup.
Next came the sounds of nails popping and wood cracking as thieves armed with crow bars made short work prying the skylight doors from their hinges. A more artful crew, Alias thought, might have found a way to slide