Stardeep_ The Dungeons - Bruce R. Cordell [16]
Raidon feinted and stepped back, then again. The staff wielder advanced, encouraged by Raidon's backpedaling, jabbing with the probing end of the long wooden rod. When the man tried to push him off the walkway's edge, Raidon wove the end of the daito around the advancing pole, allowing the end to push into his space, but avoiding its tip. He hooked the staff and pulled, stepping to the side. The staff and its wielder flew off the three-story walkway.
He couldn't afford the time to watch the result of his maneuver. He dashed into his lodge, on guard for other Golden Swords. But the only one present was Huang. What was left of him.
He had never liked Huang, but he regretted the man's end. His lodge mate was staked to the wall, his extremities removed by a hatchet, which lay on the floot amid the awful mess. Raidon pulled his focus even further from his body to avoid reacting. Time was too precious to mourn Huang, or lose the tea he'd consumed to nausea.
Everything was in shambles, but Raidon found the pack he'd secreted behind the wall panel undisturbed. He'd prepared it a few tendays ago, in case his petition was granted and he penetrated the Nine Golden Swords compound. That hadn't happened; fate had stepped in and delivered his target early. The pack contained some food, a small tea kettle and four cups, an expensive packet of loose Long Jing tea, a pouch of coins, a change of clothing. Next to the pack was a delicate cedar box. He stuffed that into the bag, too.
What lay inside the box was more precious to him than the daito.
He left the room, his feet leaving behind a few bloody prints.
Five men pounded up the stairway, heavy swords unsheathed. They reached the second floor as Raidon watched. The monk tightened the packs straps holding it to his back, held the daito straight out with one hand, then flipped off the edge of the walkway not far from where he'd pushed Huang's tormentor. Unlike the bloody-handed hatchet wielder, who still lay groaning, his limbs painfully askew, Raidon dropped in a series of graceful rolls, one hand free to catch, slow, and moderate his fall. He landed none the worse for wear and sprinted north, toward Waihun Road.
The men in the lead saw him, yelled, and turned to dash back the way they'd come, but the men below, who hadn't seen Raidon jump down, suddenly became obstacles to those higher up who reversed course.
Raidon left them all behind. He plunged into the cloaking anonymity of the crowd.
The monk passed into the gloriously decorated Shou Gate. The grand sttucture marked the most widely used route between the Shou community and the greatei city of Telflamm that hosted the foreign district. Elaborate lamps sculpted to resemble golden dragons lit the way. Raidon had played near the gate, against the directives of his mother and father, as a child. Pretending to be some silk-draped trader arriving from mysterious eastern lands had been his favorite diversion.
As the gate fell behind his carefully measured steps, he wondered if he'd ever see it again.
The streets of greater Telflamm were different from Shou Town. Alien. He recognized many Shou walking the streets, but the smells, the markets, the structures, even the people, Shou and non-Shou alike-everything was atypical of the streets just blocks away. He wondered why the Shou Towners kept themselves apart from the natives of the lands they now called home. Afraid of losing their traditions? Unhappy with the culture of the indigents? Western traditions were somewhat known to Raidon. He suspected he was about to become intimately familiar with many things formerly unknown.
As he walked, he decided against the docks-it was the first place he'd thought of to flee Telflamm. The Nine Golden Swords would hit on the same strategy. So he hurried down the cobblestone streets in the opposite direction. Hisdestination was the trade road that passed southeast out of the city. Perhaps he could sign onto a caravan heading to Two Stars. He'd always wanted to make that trip. It would be his coming-of-age journey,