Obsidian Ridge - Jess Lebow [19]
"I wish I could see his face when he knows he's done for."
"Yeah, wouldn't that be something?" The man slapped his companion on the arm. "Hey, what would you say to him? You know, just before you did him in?"
"That's easy. I'd say-" Their words were drowned out by the sliding slaughterhouse door being pulled open as the two men walked inside.
Lifting the edge of a skylight, Mariko followed, slipping through the roof and lowering herself down onto one of the large framing beams.
Inside, the smell was nearly unbearable. There must have been two hundred pigs packed into the space below. They snorted and squealed, stepping on each other and pressing their snouts through the wooden slats.
The men continued through a small door on the other side of the slaughterhouse, leaving it ajar behind them. Mariko scampered across the beam to a post along the wall and scaled her way down to the floor. Crossing the room as fast as she could, she closed the distance, inching her way around a huge burned section of the floor.
Behind the door was a small room. There were no windows, and the men hadn't lit any torches or candles. The moonlight coming in from the skylights above illuminated only a small triangle of space on the floor of the room, revealing a plain brick wall maybe thirty paces beyond. She tried to listen for the men's voices, but the soft snuffling of two hundred pigs was simply drowning out all other noise.
Pressing her back against the wall, Mariko thought for a moment. She didn't know who was on the other side of that door or what they were doing. She was at the very least outnumbered two to one, maybe more. This wasn't a very smart idea. But the risks aside, if there was even a small chance that she could learn more about the planned assassination of her father-and if that information could help her keep him safe-then it was well worth the risk.
She had no choice. She was going to have to follow those men, and she was going to have to go quietly, hoping they wouldn't notice. If they did, well… she'd worry about that if and when it happened.
Slipping her dagger from its sheath on her boot, the princess squeezed its hilt. The worn leather wrapping felt comfortable in her hand. Taking a deep breath, she spun away from the wall and stepped through the open door.
Just inside, she could barely see anything. Except for the sliver of moonlight, the rest of the room was completely black. Mariko slipped into the far corner. Finding it unoccupied, she knelt down and peered into the darkness.
The beam of moonlight crossed the room in front of her. If anything in the darkness on the other side wanted to come at her, it was going to have to step through the light. That would give her all the warning she needed.
But, if there was something in the darkness closer to her…
Opening her eyes as wide as she could, she sat in place, tense, letting her eyes adjust. Nothing moved. Inside the office, the sounds of the pigs in the slaughterhouse were muffled, and she could hear a small scuffling sound coming from the other side of the room. It sounded like scratching- like fingernails on the wooden floor.
The noise started to grow, coming closer and becoming more frantic. Mariko lifted herself up into a lunge, holding her blade out to one side, ready to strike down anyone-or anything-that came into the light.
Scruff-scruff-scruff It was right in front of her. She could feel it vibrate through the floorboards, only a few feet away. Then something appeared in the pale moonlight.
Mariko squinted, unable to make out the shape at first. It was pointed, and moved very slowly, sort of undulating as it came further into view-a rat.
An ordinary wharf rat, just scrounging around the slaughterhouse for scraps.
The princess relaxed. She lowered her blade and let out a sigh. Her brow was covered in sweat, and she could hear her heart pound in her ears. Wiping off her face with her hand, she shook her head and chuckled, relieved that she hadn't just been backed into a corner by a band of underworld thugs.
Slam.
The sliver of moonlight