The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [11]
Craer threw back his head and drew in a deep, soundless breath, shaking his shoulders and fingers to relax. Then he plunged his hands to his belt, drew his sodden tunic up to his armpits, and began to unwind what looked like ridged armor from around his midriff. It was a long, dark waxed cord, and it piled up in a coil by his feet with only the faintest of wet slitherings. As Hawkril watched, the procurer adjusted his wet gloves and went up the wall with the slow, deliberate ease of a master climber. He'd chosen a fluted column that ascended beside three tiers of balconies, and he moved up it like a slow shadow, as silent as Hawkril's held breath-past one balcony, then the second, onto the third. After a moment or two came the ripple along the cord that told the armaragor to start climbing.
Hawkril set booted feet against fluted stone, gathered a winding of rope around his arm, and grimly hauled himself toward the stars.
It was a long way in the bright moonlight to that third balcony, and Hawkril was breathing heavily when he crouched down beside Craer and made the double finger-tap that told his brother-in-arms that he was ready to proceed. The procurer put his mouth to Hawkril's ear and breathed, "I mislike the look of all these doors. A simple cord-and-bells would serve as a night alarm, with never a spell needed."
Hawkril looked at the row of balcony doors. They were little more than ornate metal frames set with glass, with closed draperies behind them forming an endless dark wall veiling all view of any treasures-or guards-within. He shrugged and muttered, "You're the procurer. Whither on, then?"
Craer pointed at a small, shuttered window along the wall, a good way out above a sheer drop. Hawkril rolled his eyes and then smiled, shrugged, and made a be-my-guest gesture. The thief surged along the balcony like a shadow in a hurry, bent double to keep below the height of its parapet, and without hesitation swarmed along the wall, finding holds with uncanny ease and in eerie silence.
Clinging to the wall with his fingertips, Craer reached the shutters and pulled ever so gently, first on one and then the other, only to find them both fastened firm. He glanced down for the first time, checking on what lay below, and then reached for the top of the shutters, clung, and slowly shifted his weight onto them.
If Hawkril hadn't been straining to hear the faint groan of protest from wood and hinges, he wouldn't have heard it. The procurer hung there like a patient spider for a moment, drawing a knife from a sheath along his forearm. Hawkril watched him run it up the crack where the shutters met with slow care-and then, as it lifted an unseen hook fastening within, saw the shutter Craer was still holding onto swing open under his weight, heading for a crash against the wall.
The procurer shifted during that brief journey so that his shoulders took the impact with waiting stones. Shutter and procurer shuddered together-the silence was uncanny-and Hawkril saw Craer grimace in pain before the procurer heaved, swung his legs up, and vanished into the tower.
In a torn and ravaged flowerbed that lay in full,