The Demon Horsemen (28 page)

‘And I will meet that cost,’ said Law, ignoring Word’s angry glance.

‘Then it is decided,’ said Shadow with a grim smile. ‘When the storm is broken and my brother’s brief effort at heroics has been terminated, we will end this farce with the Ranu once and for all.’

Word went to argue, but Shadow held up a warning hand and said, ‘I am the king and I have spoken. I will not be contradicted.’

I
t was what she knew best—preparing for the swift and lethal strike. Lying on her stomach on the river bank, ignoring the rain seeping into her clothes, Swift studied the lights scattered through the township. Inheritor’s spies had located Shadow in the Shepherd’s Rest tavern, guarded by fifty of the best-trained palace guards. A pale slice of moon appeared between the clouds and briefly washed the river silver. The rain had eased since the wild storm of the previous night, coming in waves now rather than as a constant downpour, but travel on foot from the rebels’ camp to Princestown had been slippery and slow, the only compensation being that the enemy were struggling with the same difficulties.

Assassinations in the city were easier, Swift thought. The prey could be isolated, led into a trap, caught out in an unfamiliar place. Her target this time was in his self-made lair; he had no intention of emerging and she had no time to coax him out. Instead, she had to get past his traps and guards and strike where he least expected to be taken: in the heart of his sanctuary. The move was bold—it was madness—but time was against her. Shadow’s assassins were still hunting
Inheritor and the weather would eventually clear enough to allow the usurper to renew his attack on Inheritor’s inadequate army. If she could strike now, she could stop the slaughter.

The key to her success would be the men she’d trained as assassins for Inheritor’s army. They were to stage an attack against the Seers, who were lodged a street away from Shadow’s residence, to distract attention from Shadow. The alarm they caused would be her signal to strike. But first she had to get into a viable position—somehow.

Voices alerted her to approaching soldiers. She slid her knife from its sheath, her fingers caressing its familiar leather handle, and waited. Four shadows sloshed through the puddles on the narrow roadway, trailing miserable horses in their wake. A fifth shadow trudged behind the party, his peacemaker slung loosely across his shoulders.
Barely old enough to carry it
, she assessed as she measured his build and decided his uniform would fit. She tightened her grip on her knife and rose silently out of the darkness.

In the end, she decided the red overcoat, feathered hat and long-barrelled peacemaker slung over her shoulder were enough to carry off her disguise, and hoped the darkness and steady rain would hide her softer boots and the hem of her black trousers from attentive eyes. Walking through the enemy camp was unnerving and it took all her self-control to act casually, as though she was meant to be there; but few men looked at her, and those who did dismissed her as just another tired soldier trudging back to his tent. She entered the town unchallenged and her confidence grew. Now she understood why Inheritor’s spies were able to bring information so easily out of Shadow’s camp. The security was lax. But when she turned a corner into the
main thoroughfare the circumstances dramatically changed. The street was well lit and lined with armed soldiers, and barricades had been erected to prevent anyone moving around freely. The only access into the portion of street where the Shepherd’s Rest was located was through a narrow checkpoint guarded at each end by five soldiers. There was no point trying to bluff passage. She would have to resort to her training to get closer to Shadow. A smile creased her lips. She wanted a challenge.

The catch eased apart. She slid her knife back into its soft leather sheath before she opened the wooden shutters and climbed through the window. Crouching in the darkness, she listened, aware of the light spilling around the outline of the door into the adjoining room. Voices rose and fell.

‘I put three pennies out there.’

‘Bullshit you did!’

‘He did, Handgrip. I saw it. Those three.’

‘I didn’t see it.’

‘Play your card, Handgrip.’

She crept across the room to the door. Four men playing cards, she estimated. She moved to the bed in the room and felt it—a single bed with a crumpled blanket. She crept back to the door, slipped out of the wet overcoat, sat against the wall on the hinge side, put her knife on her lap and waited. Her only concern now was that the card game ended before her fellows staged the fake assassination attack.

The scrape of boots startled her and she tensed as the door creaked open. She must have dozed. Dangerous. Lantern light spilled into the room and she rose silently. In one motion she pushed the door closed and stabbed the astonished victim, once, twice, her hand snapping across
his mouth to stifle his groan. The lantern tumbled from his hand and he crumpled, not quite dead, but she plunged the knife into him a third time, deep under his sternum and into the heart. He stared at her, his contorted and shocked face exaggerated by the shadows from the guttering lantern, before his head fell to the side.

She waited in breathless anticipation until she was satisfied no one had heard the body or the lantern fall, then she cleaned her knife on the dead soldier’s red tunic and went to the door. She eased it open to reveal a dark room. The card game had ended, but she hadn’t heard the others leave. Not good at all.
I’m losing it
, she mused. She retrieved the lantern, which luckily hadn’t been extinguished or broken in the fall, and entered the room.

Using the lantern light to assess the structure of the room and the beams holding the roof in place, she planned her approach. She sheathed her knife, extinguished the lantern, and climbed a cupboard to reach the first beam. She’d chosen the two-roomed cottage because it abutted the tavern, like an annexe, and its steeply pitched bark shingle roof sat beneath a window into the tavern’s second storey. It was the only indirect entry she had found in her long and careful reconnoitre of the Shepherd’s Rest.

It was still drizzling outside as she used her knife to pry a few shingles loose, taking care not to let them fall or slide down the slippery roof. When the hole was large enough, she squeezed through, the soft cold rain stinging her face, and perched precariously on the roof peak. The street was still lit and she could see the manned checkpoints. The treacherously wet roof threatened to escape from under her as she reached for the tavern window’s broad wooden sill, and it took her three attempts before she could get a reliable grip and haul herself up to peer through the shutter slats.

The room was dully lit with a low-burning lantern, and a woman lay in the bed. She hadn’t expected to find a woman in Shadow’s retinue, and her presence in the room was an added complication. Swift eased back onto the roof peak to consider what to do.

She prised loose four more shingles and piled them one on top of the other with those she’d already removed to form a wobbly platform, which she climbed onto to bring her shoulders up to the sill’s height. She adjusted her balance as the shingles threatened to collapse, knowing they would slide off the roof the moment she left them and determined that they would fall into the dark and empty yard behind the cottage. There was a good chance no one would hear or see them fall on that side, especially in the rain. From this moment, there was an absolute risk of being caught. She could only work quickly, and her heart was racing with the possibilities.

She tapped four times on the shutter and waited. The woman in the bed didn’t move. She tapped again, repeating the rhythm, and watched. This time the woman raised her head and stared at the window, her blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders. Slowly she eased out of bed, still staring at the window, grabbed a blanket to cover herself and came across the room. Swift took a firm grip on the broad wooden sill. The woman paused at the shutter. Then she unlatched it and opened it slowly. With all her strength and agility Swift vaulted in a fluid motion through the window, scraping her arms and sides against the wooden frame. Her head struck the terrified woman in the face, and as the woman fell she smashed her elbow against her larynx. The woman flailed her arms in desperation as she gasped for air through her crushed windpipe, but Swift covered her mouth and slashed her throat before she could scream. With cat-like skill, she rolled to her feet
and moved to the door as her victim’s blood flowed across the floorboards.

Beyond the door the tavern was quiet. Swift looked back at the spread-eagled woman, blonde hair flared around her head, surrounded by a widening pool of blood.
Who were you?
she pondered, then dismissed the thought as sentimental. She rolled the body under the bed, then threw the woman’s discarded clothes over the blood. It was probably an unnecessary caution, but someone might come into the room before the alarm was sounded, and habit made her cover all possibilities.

She sat on the bed and doused the lantern.

The alarm came quicker than she had anticipated. Men yelled in the street and doors slammed inside the building. Shots cracked in the distance. The chase was on. Then, to her surprise, the door swung open and a man stood silhouetted against the hallway lantern light. She lay flat on the bed, knife ready.

‘Lin,’ a voice whispered. ‘Are you all right?’ The man approached. ‘Where’s your lantern?’ The question was followed by a curse and ‘Your clothes are everywhere!’ He sat on the bed and reached for Swift, saying, ‘Lin, wake up, there’s—’

Swift struck. Once. Twice. The man grunted and started to yell, but her fist smashed against his mouth and he toppled off the bed. She dropped onto him and stabbed and stabbed until he stopped struggling.

Breath coming in rapid gasps, she rose and went to the door. The immediate hallway was empty, but she heard boots clomping on the floorboards and shadows skewed across the walls. Soldiers appeared at the top of the stairs. She shut the door. Quickly, almost tripping on the second body, she went to the lantern and tried to light it, but it refused to spark. Someone knocked and a voice called, ‘Your Highness?’

Swift ran to the window. As she climbed out into the rain, the door swung open and light flooded the room. She dropped to the cottage roof peak, her foot caught on a loose shingle and she tumbled backwards, slid down the wet roof and plunged into the garden. Her right ankle exploded in pain as she landed and she collapsed, clutching her leg. ‘Always something,’ she gasped and swore.

Chase couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that he was being trailed. As he moved through the city streets and lanes in the shadows of early evening, weaving towards the Northern Quarter, the feeling increased. The rain kept the streets empty except for the Ranu soldiers huddled in doorways and under makeshift awnings who barely glanced at him. Instead of stopping everyone and demanding to know every intricate detail like the Kerwyn City Watch habitually did, the Ranu acted as if they trusted everyone. The empty streets suited Chase’s purpose perfectly—if only he didn’t feel as though he was under surveillance.

Several times he stepped into alcoves and alleys and waited to see if he could catch anyone following him, but no one appeared to be. He was glad of it; he was weaponless and his slight frame wasn’t likely to intimidate anyone. In the end he assumed his jumpiness was simply his apprehension at returning to the city while it was under Ranu occupation.

He was astonished at the damage in the Northern Quarter, especially close to the palace. The Ranu presence increased dramatically there, and the soldiers’ attitude changed. They were alert, as he’d expect of soldiers occupying enemy territory, and evenly spaced to guard the wall and gates. He made a prudent choice and veered away from the roads leading to the palace, taking a more circuitous route
to his destination: a house with grey slate roof tiles and a dolphin fountain.

The house appeared relatively unchanged in the fading light—abandoned, but not damaged by the Ranu bombardment. He waited patiently, observing the street and the surrounding buildings for signs of someone keeping an eye on the Joker’s house, but the area was dark, quiet and secure. When he tried the front door it was locked. He went to the rear, which overlooked the ocean and the Joker’s private dock at the base of the cliff, but the doors there were locked too and the windows shuttered. Satisfied that no one was in the building, he shinned up a drainage pipe onto the balcony and forced open a window into a bedroom.

The musty smell of disuse permeated the building. The sun had already gone and the interior was dark so he had to move through the room partly by feel, partly by guessing. He hoped to find a lantern on a cabinet or shelf, but couldn’t locate one, and when he felt the wire-lightning switch by the door he didn’t want to risk switching it on.
I should have come better prepared
, he reprimanded himself. Nothing seemed out of place in the room; it was as if the house’s occupants had just stepped out and would return soon. Chase wondered if the Joker had left when the Ranu began their invasion, then remembered that she was more likely to have been arrested by Shadow when he learned who had brought the canvas bag to his brother. The Joker’s empire had collapsed and, he thought, strangely enough it was because of something unrelated to her drug trade. He felt sorry for Crystal Merchant. She had seemed nice enough, despite her initial disbelief of his story, and no one deserved to have enemies like Shadow and the Seers.

He left the bedroom and carefully descended the stairs. Beneath this house was a labyrinth of tunnels and
he knew one led directly to the palace. He crept through the common room and down the next flight of stairs to the servant quarters, wary in case anyone was still hiding there from the Ranu. After a long and frustrating search in the darkness he found an old lantern. He was sure that he heard a noise in the rooms overhead, like a board squeaking, but nothing stirred while he waited patiently in silence. Satisfied he was alone, he lit the lantern, located the door to the staircase that dropped into the underground network and descended.

The tunnel was well constructed and shored by solid beams, but he was conscious of the small piles of earth along the way, probably shaken loose by the Ranu bombardment. He came to a section that had partially collapsed and had to squeeze through a tight gap. Loose earth trickled from the curved ceiling, making him less assured of the tunnel’s stability.