The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [92]
"Death to all barons" was burned across "Death to all wizards," and there were names and cryptic symbols; Sarasper hadn't time to notice more before they reached another tunnellike passage, low under the overhanging building, where they had to scuttle along bent double. A dart hissed out of the darkness to strike, quivering, in a rotting wooden beam that was sagging down from the building; rats scurried toward it, in case it was something to eat.
Craer snarled, "My curse will find you!" but did not slow down to do so; panting, the healer caught up to him just as the passage ended on the lip of a stinking pit choked with kitchen offal, spoiled food, and human waste. The procurer ignored a forlorn figure stirring the fly-swarming mess with a stick in hopes of finding something, and ran along the edge of the midden to another slimy set of stone steps.
Sarasper rolled his eyes and followed. Their way led through several more noisome passages and stairs that the healer would have termed near-sewers had Craer tarried long enough to listen, and skirted a dozen or more open middens, before the procurer was forced to halt for a little local traffic.
It occurred when a gasping Sarasper judged they'd climbed a little more than half the way back up to the Wavefyre (which stood two streets over on the seaward side of the ridge that southern Sirlptar was built on), when they came to a space where refuse abounded and five twisting back lanes met.
Two men rose from behind mounds of rotting, rat-infested waste when the procurer and the healer were crossing the moot. Men with leather armor under their rags, who bore long, well-used knives in their hands, and wore unpleasant smiles.
"Give, friend, and live," one of them directed Sarasper, beckoning for the still-steaming sack.
"You've been to the Window," the other purred, hefting his knives menacingly. "Yield the sack."
Craer plucked up a handful of slimy, fly-haloed fruit and threw it almost casually into the face of the nearest man, then tripped him as he staggered back, shouting.
The second man rushed forward to stab and hack at the procurer, snarling curses, but Craer lured him back into a refuse mound and then sprang all around him slashing-until the slipping, sliding knife man was streaming blood from half a dozen gashes and was starting to gasp and go pale.
Then Craer plucked up a length of rusting pipe from the rubble and swung it in a great arc from his knees right around until he'd turned, shoulders and all, to cleave air. Somewhere in the midst of that swing he struck the man's arm, and a knife went clanging and whirling away. The man staggered, clutching at his hand-and the backswing of the pipe met the side of his head. He fell on his face, in silence.
The other man was snarling vicious curses as he wiped streaming eyes, but Craer smiled at him across the steaming sack and warned, "Back off, friend, and live."
The man glared at the grinning procurer, eyed the food and the knife that had appeared like spell's work in Craer's hand-and was now poised for throwing-and then ducked away down an alley.
"By the Three!" Sarasper gasped. "That was… too… cl- Craer? Craer!"
The procurer uncurled out of a nearby window with three bottles of wine splayed in one hand and grinned at his comrade. "Look what just fell into my hands! Folk are so careless about where they leave things! Can I keep them?"
"For about an hour, I'd say," the healer replied in very dry tones, jerking his head in an insistent "move on!" gesture. "Try to leave a little for the rest of us to drink, eh?"
They hastened up streets that were more flights of steps than anything else, and plunged into one of the gatherings where merchants met to trade odd ends of goods, settle debts, and plan