Chapter 35. Bait

riel walked slowly forward after Nitaje vanished in a burst of black smoke.  Alone in the alley, her heart hammered in fear and she felt suddenly vulnerable.  Just keep walking, she told herself, annoyed that the assassin had chosen to use her as bait in some mysterious game.  She fingered her wand.  The assassin had said nothing about whether or not she should defend herself, only instructed her to continue forward.

Sidestepping a puddle of oily filth, her heels clacked noisily over the cobbles as she moved into deeper shadows and the alleys became more constricted.  Ragged tenements towered over her, their wood and plaster walls weathered and bronzed with a patina of filth.  A rat scurried out of her path, then meandered lazily along the line of a wall and at of the filth that caked the dull paving stones.

“Tyrians are so foolish,” said a voice behind her and she spun about coming eye to eye with a masked figure clad in form-fitting red leathers bedecked with knives.  She stepped away from the strange assassin and felt the prickling of blades against her back.

“You must have so little respect for the natives to walk so lightly in our midst,” the man continued, nodding so that her hands were seized and bound behind her back.  Uriel’s heart hammered in terror as they ran their hands over her body, disarming her and looking disappointed when the coin pouch Nitaje had given her turned up only two hundred coins.

“Where are your friends?” the assassin growled, shaking the meager purse at her, “I’ll want more than this before I’ll be convinced to let you go.”

“Kaineng.  My guild leader, Luther Mandrake, is there staying at the Eternal Peach,” she said meekly, repeating what Nitaje had asked her to say.

“You had better pray he has money,” their apparently leader snapped as she was spun around and surrounded by them.  They tied a dirty rag between her teeth and pushed her forward, laughing when she fell to her knees and had to be picked up.  Nitaje had not told her his intentions that morning and she had been ill-prepared for this encounter.  She quaked with fear, afraid that she had been sold out by the assassin.

They chattered in Canthan, fully aware that she could not understand a word they said as they drew her down another alley and through a battered door.  In the fetid darkness they found a rope ladder and she was slung unceremoniously over their leader’s shoulder and carried to the rooftop.  The assassin dropped Uriel and she sat blinking in the smoggy sunshine as the five other masked figures emerged onto the tiles, gazing around surreptitiously.  They did not tarry long and once more she was dragged to her feet as they moved lightly over the rooftops.

Now she was truly frightened for she saw no sign of Nitaje and could not imagine how he might have followed them.  Surely he would not abandon her to the thieves, not when she still owed so much money to the guild.  Her captors drew her through a gaping window and flung her carelessly into a corner of a filthy little room as they jumped in after her.

“Stay there,” the red clad one said brusquely as she tried to regain her feet.  The men chattered animatedly, casting glances through the gape of the window.   Closing her eyes, she prayed silently to Dwayna to be delivered to safety.  She was drawn back to her feet and she made a muffled cry as she was slung over the man’s shoulder again.  They had opened a hatch in the floor, the filth or perhaps some art of illusion having concealed it from view.  One of the assassins slipped through it and then she was passed down to him.  The hatch closed as the men gathered in the darkness below.  Once more she was slung over one of their shoulders as they felt their way forward in the lightless corridor.

A door was opened, casting a dusty shaft of light into the corridor.  Without warning she was tossed into the room like a sack of potatoes and the portal slammed behind her, leaving her alone in a cobweb entangled dormer infested with pigeons and their leavings.  Groaning with pain and giddy with fear, she rose trembling to her shins as the birds fluttered noisily around her.  She sweated in the sultry heat of late afternoon, the sun’s rays soaked up by the low rafters of the ceiling.  She shuffled awkwardly toward the window that the pigeons used for their messy egress and gasped, choking in terror as a blur of shadows erupted beside her.

“Well done,” Nitaje said icily, “Stay here.”

Uriel glared at him, wishing she could point out the very obvious fact that she was unlikely to go anywhere.  Another burst of shadow startled her and Kiku materialized dressed in dull midnight silks, a pair of vicious hooked daggers clutched in her hands.  Her eyes narrowed above her black mask as she gazed down upon Uriel.

“Stay here,” she snapped, repeating Nitaje’s unnecessary order as she stalked after him.  The two assassins pushed through the low door, closing it quietly behind them.  Uriel sighed in relief when they left, strangely heartened that they had arrived and knew where she was. 

Uriel backed into a corner away from the noisy pigeons and their mess. She worked the crude gag out of her mouth and rested wearily on her hams, unsuccessfully prizing her hands free from the cords.  Minutes ticked by, gathering into an hour.  What if Kiku and Nitaje had been slain?   She listened intently but the birds were much too loud in their comings and goings.

The door shuddered open and she jumped, her heart leaping into her throat.  Nitaje bore something roughly head-sized in a pale sack and blood soaked the cloth.  Kiku strode in behind him as he cast about, ensuring the room was safe for her first.  Without a word, the woman helped Uriel to her feet and sliced the cords around her wrists.

“I don’t want her endangered like this again,” Kiku grumbled at Nitaje, shooting him a dirty look as Uriel rubbed life back into her wrists.

Nitaje shrugged.

“They wouldn’t have killed her while they thought they could get money for her.  I thought it was a brilliant idea.  She didn’t have any idea what was going to happen so her fear was genuine enough to trick them.”

“She is an indentured servant, not an animal.  Show some decency,” Kiku turned her dark gaze upon Uriel and gestured toward the doorway, “Come, we’re done here. I’ll have words with you later, Nitaje.”

Uriel thought she detected a lighter pallor to Nitaje golden flesh and was gratified when some of the cockiness drained from his demeanor.

“How many bands has he removed to date?” Kiku asked her as she stormed along beside Uriel.  She did not answer immediately, however, for she was nauseated by the scenes of carnage that surrounded them as they headed down a square spiral of rough stairs.  The headless corpse of the red clad assassin lay in one doorway but dozens of his compatriots were variously strewn upon the floor or snagged on the banisters.  Blood darkened the walls, and Uriel realized, Kiku and Nitaje were also slashed with it.  The assassins strode past it as if they were walking lightly through a field of wildflowers on a summer day.

“Three,” she choked, stepping over a particularly badly mutilated corpse.

“I want twenty removed tonight,” Kiku snapped at Nitaje, “and if I find out you have been misusing her, I’ll personally discipline you.”

“What if she likes it?”

Kiku stopped suddenly and spun around.  With a loud crack she snapped Nitaje’s head back and he dropped without a sound to the stairs to join the other corpses.  Without a word, Kiku lifted the blood soaked bag he had been carrying and moved on ahead, expecting Uriel to follow.