A Discourse in Steel (21 page)

More crashes from inside. Shouts.

“Get going,” he said to her, to all of them.

Veraal nodded and he and his men shepherded Tesha, Kiir, Lis, and Gadd down the street. His men covered their retreat and advance with crossbows. Kiir blew Nix kisses while they moved away, the wind tousling her red hair.

“I think I could die happy right now,” Nix said, watching Kiir and Tesha move away from him.

From within the wagon, Rose moaned softly.

“That makes one of us then,” Mere said through the canvas. “Now drive this fakkin' wagon.”

“Aye,” Egil said, and whickered at the mule.

It pricked up its ears, lifted its head, and started off. The wagon creaked and rattled and groaned and Nix figured it could be heard all the way to the Meander.

Tables lay
on their sides, blocking the windows.

“They were ready for us,” Trelgin said.

“Were,” Rusk said, because the common room was now dark and empty. Varn and Mors darted up the stairs, kicked in doors, shouted for anyone there to come out. Varn's voice carried down the stairs.

“There's no one up here!”

“These boys ain't stupid,” Trelgin said.

Rusk heard the roll of wagon wheels over the cobblestones of Tannery Row.

“Maybe a whisker slow, though,” he said, and sprinted for the back door. “Come on!”

He bounded over the bar and through the back door and through a storage room, his men hard on his heels. He burst through another back door to the fenced grounds behind the inn. A gate was thrown open and he ran through it, out onto Tannery Row. A covered wagon rumbled down the street, heading west.

“That's them! Shoot the mule!”

“Shite,” Nix
said, standing on the driver's bench and watching behind them. The dying street torches of Tannery Row provided scant light, but they provided enough. Nix saw a half dozen or more shadowy figures run through the Tunnel's gate and sprint down the street after them, closing the distance with the slow-moving wagon. One of them stopped to take aim.

“Lay flat back there!” Nix said to Rose and Mere. “Crossbows!”

A bolt whistled wide of the wagon.

“How many?” Egil asked.

“Eight, I think,” Nix said. “Maybe nine. They hit the mule and we're done.”

With Rose and the Upright Man unable to move, they'd never escape on foot.

Egil slapped the reins on the mule. “Hyah!”

The wagon lurched, nearly dislodging Nix, as the mule picked up its pace.

“Hyah, mule! Hyah!”

Another bolt whistled past. The mule snorted. The wagon bounced and jostled over Dur Follin's streets.

Under Nix's feet, Channis groaned.

“Why does everything have to happen at once?” Nix muttered.

He balanced himself, took aim with the crossbow as best he could in the bouncing wagon, and let fly. He didn't drop any of the men, but he heard them shout in alarm, so he must have come close enough for them to hear the bolt.

He turned around and sat on the bench to recock the crossbow. Channis groaned again.

“Stick to the paved streets, yeah?” he said to Egil. “We don't want to get stuck in the slop.”

“Aye,” Egil said. “Hyah!”

The mule showed more grit than they'd expected. It was no cavalry charger, but it moved at a good trot and showed no signs of fatigue.

Channis hissed, the sound vaguely bestial. His hand twitched.

“Keep your eye on him,” Nix said, nodding at the Upright Man.

Nix stood up on the bench, legs bent, looked back, and took aim. The men hadn't closed any more distance with the wagon. The mule was holding its own and the guildsmen would tire before the mule.

“A little more from that mule and we'll outrun them!” Nix said over his shoulder.

“Hyah!” Egil said, and slapped the reins. The mule snorted, put its head down, and picked up its gait. Nix feared the pace would cause them to throw a wheel or snap an axle but they had no choice.

The twang of a crossbow sounded from the back of the wagon—Mere firing out the back. The men responded with more shouts of alarm. Nix fired again, eliciting more curses but hitting nothing. The pursuers reloaded as best they could on the run, firing mid-sprint. For several blocks it went that way, the men sprinting after, firing when they could, Nix and Mere returning fire, Nix praying to gods he didn't trust that a bolt wouldn't find a home in the mule's hide.

“Stubborn fakkers, I'll give them that!” Nix said, reloading.

Egil had to slow the wagon to take a turn onto the Serpentine and the pursuers gained some ground. A crossbow bolt whistled past Nix's ear.

“You shooting at us or the damned mule,” he muttered. He settled his aim, picked one of the closing figures, and released, grinning as his target stumbled and fell to the road. The pursuers shouted, cursed, slowed.

Having rounded the turn, Egil goaded the mule back up to speed and they started to outdistance their pursuers. The men slowed further and finally halted, several of them turning back to help their fallen man. Nix watched until they were out of sight, then turned and sat back on the bench.

“We lost them,” Nix said to Mere and Egil.

“We're not out of the city yet,” Egil said. “Mere, you all right?”

“I'm all right,” she answered through the wagon's cover.

“I'm thinking one of the fish gates, Egil,” Nix said. “Any of them. We get through, we steal a boat, we're off. Mere, you have to get us through the Night Watch.”

“I know,” she said.

“How's Rose?” Nix asked.

“The same.”

Rusk and
Trelgin and the men stood in the street over Mors, hands on their knees, gasping. Mors clutched his shoulder where a crossbow bolt had winged him.

“Shallow,” he said, pressing on the bleeding wound. “Nothing to it.”

Trelgin glared at Rusk. “I thought we agreed no shots. We could hit the Upright Man by mistake.”

Rusk could only hope. “We can't stop them with curses, Trelgin. If the Man's conscious, he'd know enough to lay low. And if he's not conscious, he's flat in that wagon. The shots were rightly taken. If we'd dropped that mule, we'd have them.”

Trelgin and his men stood on one side of Mors, Rusk and his men on the other, both groups eyeing each other darkly, things unsaid hanging in the air between them.

“What now, then,
Seventh Blade
?” Trelgin asked, making the title an insult, spraying spit in the process.

“You notice the direction they're heading?” Rusk asked.

Trelgin's droopy expression fell further. Rusk delighted in making the man feel a fool.

“The docks,” Rusk said. “The Meander. My guess, they're piking for a boat. We've got eyes out there, yeah? Then let's move.” He looked at Mors. “You good to keep up?”

Varn lifted the bald mouse to his feet.

“I'm good,” Mors said.

They'd lost
their pursuers, but Egil didn't slow. The rickety wagon made more noise than a street festival, but speed seemed more important than stealth. The mule was lathered, chest heaving, but it kept up the pace.

The streets widened and smoothed as they moved west through the city. Of course, moving west brought them back toward the guildhouse, so Nix stayed on edge, crossbow at the ready. He expected dozens of guildsmen to stream out of every alley.

He glanced down at Channis. The guildmaster's eyes were open and now both were as black as the moonless night sky, split only by yellow vertical slits. Channis stared unblinking up at the stars, his expression slack. He had a vacancy to him that Nix found unnerving. Nix nudged him with his toe but Channis made no response. Even so, Nix leaned down and showed Channis a dagger.

“Move or speak and you die. Hells, irritate me and you may die. I'm in a mood.”

Channis made no sign he'd heard or understood.

“He's awake?” Egil asked, his eyes scanning the road ahead, the alleys, the rooftops. The Archbridge came into view as they moved west, its stone arch rising above the cityscape.

“Sort of,” Nix said. He stripped off his cloak and covered Channis with it. “Not sure if he's much more than alive, though.”

Egil slowed the wagon as they approached the short wall that blocked off the piers and docks from the rest of Dur Follin. The smell of fish and earth and organic decay thickened the air.

Three gates—the fish gates, as most of Dur Follin called them; the tax gates, as fishermen called them—dotted the wall at intervals, allowing passage into the rest of the city. Only one of them would be manned at this hour. The others would be locked shut. During the day fishermen who wanted to bring their catch to the fish market on Mandin's Way had to come through one of the fish gates and pay their tax. The Lord Mayor was nothing if not an excellent revenuer.

Beyond the wall and gates were piers and docks and berths of all sizes, some new, most old and rickety, and beyond them, the dark, slow, eternal waters of the Meander. Barrels, sacks, crates, and other cargo sat in stacks and piles here and there on the docks. Boats bobbed in the water beside piers. Most were the small, wide fishing boats common in Dur Follin, but a few one- and two-masted shallow-hulled sailing ships were tied off here and there. Glowing lanterns hung on dock posts and boat prows. To the left were the municipal docks, where the city's meager navy tied off. Two tall, three-masted carracks creaked in the water there. Even at the late hour, a few sailors staggered along the pier, arm in arm, while others worked in the rigging or on the deck of their ships. Normally the docks were thronged with sailors, merchants, and fishermen, but the in-between hour had caught the wharves in a quiet moment. Nix was glad for it.

The road they rolled led toward the northernmost fish gate, the only one lit with lanterns, and so the only one currently manned with watchmen. The wooden gate was closed and latched, of course, and two members of the Watch, their orange tabards visible at a distance, emerged from the small guard shelter built into the wall. Both stretched and stifled yawns as they stepped onto the street. Any guard posted to the Night Watch was either new or had somehow run afoul of their sergeant. The men looked young to Nix, so probably the former. They stepped before the gate and awaited the wagon, blades sheathed, questions in their tired eyes.

“Ready, Mere?” Nix said through the canvas.

“Yes.”

Nix put on his best false smile as the wagon pulled to a halt. He put a boot on Channis.

“Goodeve,” he said to the watchmen.

A watchman moved to either side of the wagon, hands on their blades. The one, tall and thin, had a receding chin and looked barely old enough to shave. The other, similarly young, wore an oversized helm, had a thin mustache and beard, and shifted nervously on his feet. Both had crossbows slung over their backs.

“Goodeve,” the thin one said. His voice was nasal. “Odd hour to be driving the streets.”

“Aye,” said the other.

Mere's mental voice sounded in Nix's head.

They're delivering netting. The wagon is filled with netting.

“Aye, indeed. Apologies for the hour,” Nix said. He jerked a thumb at the rear of the wagon. “We're delivering netting. Needed to get here well before dawn.”

The watchman near Nix opened his mouth but said nothing, merely stood there with his jaw open, waiting for words to fill it. He blinked and his arms went slack at his side. His gaze went vacant.

It's important that the netting gets through. The wagon is filled with netting.

“It's important that we get this through right now,” Nix said. “For the morning launch. You understand.”

The man blinked, closed his mouth, nodded slowly. Nix thought that would be that and the guards would let them pass, but the young watchman's gaze cleared and fell to Nix's blades, the crossbow, Egil's hammers, the brown smears of blood covering Egil's arms. A question entered his eyes and his brow furrowed with it. He reached for his blade.

Not your concern,
Nix heard from Mere.
Not your concern. Not your concern.

“This?” Nix said, putting a hand on his falchion. “Hardly know how to use it, but you can't be too careful, yeah?”

Not your concern,
Mere projected.
Let them through. Not your concern. Let them through.

“We're really in a hurry,” Nix said. “If you could just let us through…”

The vacancy in the man's eyes uncomfortably reminded Nix of the look in Channis's eyes. The watchman slowly lifted a hand and put a finger to his nose. It came away bloody.

“Let them through,” he said, his voice a monotone. “Let them through, Eston.”

“Aye,” said the other man in a similar monotone. “Not our concern.”

A line of blood ran from his nose down to his thin mustache and into his mouth. He seemed not to notice. He turned, plodded to the gate, unlatched it, and swung it open.

“Obliged,” Nix said with a nod, as they started forward.

The guard opened his mouth to speak but instead gave a surprised gasp, pitched sidewise, and fell flat on his face in the street. A crossbow bolt stuck from his back.

Nix cursed, followed its trajectory back in the direction from which it had come, and saw two men running down the Serpentine toward them, both with crossbows in hand.

“Go, Egil!” Nix said, and leaped off the wagon.

“Where are you going?” Egil called.

“Just go!”

Egil snapped the reins and the wagon rumbled through the wooden gate. Merelda parted the cover in the rear of the wagon, leaned out, and took aim. She, too, had a line of blood running down from her nose.

“You all right?” Nix asked her.

She ignored him and fired past him at the onrushing men. She hit neither, but they must have heard the shot streak past them, for they cursed and separated, but kept on charging. Nix grabbed a fistful of the young watchman's tabard and pulled him through the gate after the wagon.