City of Masks (19 page)

“Get him. If he talks we’re all dead!”

No further incentive was needed, and soon the piled lumber was crawling with black-clothed figures.

Shouts coming from ahead alerted him that some had run around the shed to enter from the other side, a problem, since that was the way Marick had intended to escape. Pausing for breath, he crouched low to avoid another arrow that, like the first, merely killed a few shingles. He looked up and grinned, for his enemies had shown him the best way out. With a dangerous leap across the gap, Marick reached the tallest pile of lumber. In moments, he was lying on his back and kicking at the roof. When he’d made a big enough hole, he reversed his efforts and kicked downward, shifting the top of the pile over and onto at least one of his pursuers, whose cry of dismay was cut off by an avalanche of oak.

Marick ran along the roofline of the shed, teetering until he got to the middle and slid down the slope. He swung over the edge of the roof, held onto the jutting eaves until he could will himself to let go. The drop was bad enough, but he knew to roll when he hit the ground, and came up more or less functional.

He whirled around. They had not found him yet, but soon would. He had no wish to meet that monster with the axe face-to-face, since the meeting would likely be a short one and end with him in two parts: a bodiless head and a headless body, neither of which would suit him. Where could he go that they wouldn’t look? After a moment that seemed as long as a season, he slapped his forehead, yelped when the newest slivers were driven deeper, and ran into the station. If what he needed was still here, he might make it back to the Banehall to prove his story. He found the place deserted. From the shouts outside, they were still searching around and inside the shed.

He ran past the Bane’s tower and stopped. There, the corner he couldn’t see into before. He skidded into it. The space held an archery target with the arrows already pulled out and a stack of weapons pushed to one side. Yes! In the angle of the wall there was a tree stump cut low for a seat and on it was a small stone box. He picked it up and hugged it to his chest, just as he heard running feet announcing the return of his murderous hosts.

He peeked around the corner and dodged back as an arrow zipped by. Unhospitable, he decided, but like a good guest he now had a gift to bring to the festivities. Marick opened the box he held, revealing the rough, pebble-shaped demon jewel within. The cries of anger turned to groans, and he stepped out of his hiding place, protected by the circle of fear that now surrounded him. With the box held high and the lid raised, Marick felt the effect the same as the others, but he was a Bane after all, and demon jewels were nothing new to him.

“A shame you all took off your masks,” he squeaked, though none appeared to hear him. “I must be going now. You know a Bane is always busy, but I hope we meet again some day, Shirin. Perhaps if I ever pass the King’s prison I’ll stop by and say hello!”

Stiff-legged, he walked past all the crouched and writhing figures on the ground, until he came to the gate. One figure stood there, not the axe man, for he was as blasted as the rest, but a woman, one Marick recognized.

“You,” Shirin said. She was gripping her spear so hard the wood squeaked, yet she stayed, standing, in his path.

“Me,” replied Marick. He waved the box at her.

The point of her weapon trembled like a leaf in the wind, but if she didn’t attack, neither did she fall down.

Marick was forced to edge around her, feeling the heat of her gaze track him like shooting stars. He knew she would be the first after him and backed away, trying to keep them frozen with the jewel for as long as possible, for the moment they were free, they would put on their masks and run him down.

When Shirin shook herself and started running, so did he.

Marick kept to the road, depending on speed to make it to the fields and maybe lose himself in the work crews. He briefly debated dropping the jewel on the road and hoping it would delay them, but realized that they would probably be wearing their masks by now and would be able to bypass that particular obstacle, especially if they had another silkstone box. He closed the one in his arms and ran all the faster. He needed no demon fear to spur him on. Human fear was enough. The oaks and ash trees turned to apples before he heard any sound of pursuit. Now was the time to dodge into the fruit trees, swerving between cherries and pears and hoping that they hid him long enough for Marick to reach the fields unseen.

He didn’t. An arrow cut the leaves off a branch next to him, and a shout went up from the frustrated archer.

“He’s here! I almost got him.”

Almost doesn’t help anyone, my friend
, Marick thought, and laughed as he remembered Dorict’s jibe. His own life had revolved around “almosts” since he was a child running on the rooftops of Old Torrick and stealing his suppers. He had been the best thief in the city, uncatchable, save by the Torrick Banehall, and he had escaped even that prison within a year to come to Shirath.

He would not be caught again.

He changed the pattern of his weaving to confound the next arrow, and the next, until he broke out into the fields and groaned. No one was nearby.

He took a breath and sprinted for the nearest crew, a group of weeding women, half a league away. He hoped he was as fleet as the vegetable seller in Garet’s story, for the noise of the pursuing Masks was getting louder.

He was nearly there when the first arrow hit the ground ten feet in front of him. He swerved, the wrong way as it turned out, for his leg spouted fire, and he looked down to see a black arrow, the needle point dripping blood, sticking through the fabric of his tattered pants.

Keep running
, Marick told himself,
or you’ll be caught. It’s painful but not crippling, not yet
. The women in the work party were shouting and pointing, and one went running off towards a Bane riding a horse several fields away.

“Leave the boy alone!” a stout woman shouted, and picked up a stone from a pile on the edge of the furrows and threw it at the Masks.

It fell woefully short, but Marick appreciated the impulse, especially when the rest of the women copied her. A cry from behind him told the Bane that somebody found their target.

“Keep running, lad,” the first woman shouted at him as he passed. “We’ll hold them back!”

She picked up her hoe and swung it at the nearest pursuer, who raised his bow, arrow nocked.

“No!” Shirin cried out. She batted the bow aside, and the arrow wobbled harmlessly into the air.

“They aren’t our enemies. Circle around, get the boy!”

The Masks tried to disengage from the field workers, but found it difficult as stones and hoes rained down on them. Bruised and pursued, at least until the women stopped, they took after Marick again, trying to cut the lead the Bane had achieved.

The pain in Marick’s leg grew from a burning to little lightning shocks at each step. He made for the Fourteenth Ward’s outer gate, for he had come out of the orchards to the east of where he had entered. The gate was open, and he ran through under the startled gaze of the guards.

“Bandits, robbers, murderers!” Marick shouted, but he had little hope the two could keep out the mob chasing him.

He found an alley to hide in and examined his leg. The arrow had pierced through the outer edge of his thigh. Marick tore off a strip of his tunic, wishing he was wearing something cleaner. With the small knife hidden in his vest, he cut his trousers between the two holes and pulled out the arrow.

That he didn’t faint was proof of Heaven’s regard, for the pain was worse than anything he had ever felt before. He tied the strip of tunic around his leg and tossed the arrow under a doorstep. After a moment’s appreciation of his agony, he considered his next move.

The problem was that there were enough people wanting to kill him to sweep every alley in this Ward. He looked up at the rooftops and then down at his leg. He would have to try. His youth had been spent above the city of his birth, looking down on the fools and villains who thought themselves better than a little thief and beggar. He had proved them wrong often enough, and now he had to do it again or die.

The courtyard provided stairs, and he climbed as fast as he could. The bandage helped, as did the cries of the Masks when they found his blood in the alley. On the rooftop, he looked towards the inner wall. It was at least ten buildings away. He would never make it.

This made him grin, then laugh, then start running. He cleared the narrow space between the first two buildings, landing in a painful roll but getting up again and running faster. So he went, from building to building, while some of the Masks ran below and two tried to copy his rooftop progress.

A long cry and painful thump sounded behind him, and he turned to see only one Mask left, and he was clinging to the edge of the roof, legs dangling in the air. Marick bowed and kept going, jumping the next building and avoiding the arrow that was shot up from below. The next gap was impossible to jump as the facing building was a story higher than the one he was on, so he looked at the distance across the street instead. After a moment, he grabbed a plank from a half-built summer shelter, a rough construction of poles, plank flooring, and colorful awnings. It bounced on his shoulder as he ran to the edge. Sticking the end of it under a water tower, he waved at his pursuers and ran out to the end, using the spring in the wood to bounce up and out. He cleared the wide street and fell onto a rooftop to the west. Shaken, he staggered to his feet and looked back. The remaining Mask on the rooftop was waving and shouting, trying to signal his change of direction to his friends below. Marick grinned. If it wasn’t for the pain in his leg, he might actually have enjoyed this chase.

A deep breath and then running again. There was a gap ahead that was narrow enough to take him to his goal. After the jump, he climbed the ladder of a water tower, then pulled the ladder up and set it again. In a moment, he stood on the wall between the two Wards.

Now he had to rest for a moment. He retied the bandage and was shocked to see it soaked with blood. Another torn strip served to reinforce it, but he wished he was in the Banehall, being tended to by Banerict and fussed over by Vinir. Cheered by that thought, he looked over the wall into the Fifteenth Ward below. He had been there but a day ago, getting a cabbage thrown at his head by old Reebat. He balanced on the wall and pulled up the ladder, then stopped.

Tottering on the top of the wall, death by Masks on one side and death by gravity on the other, he began to dance, despite his leg, capering about in an ecstatic vision of how he was going to fool them all.

He hopped along the top of the wall until he found a place he could let down the ladder and slip into the nearest lane. Now was the difficult part. He twisted his torn pants around until his bandage was covered, and concentrated on walking as normally as possible. This slow pace grated on his nerves, for he knew the Masks would be searching for a way to follow him, even if it meant going all the way around to the Fifteenth Ward’s inner gate.

At last he came to Reebat’s hole-in-the-wall shop. Besides vegetables and dubious meats, she sold used clothing and small articles, providing a useful enough service that the Ward ignored her horrible personality.

“You again!” the old woman cried when Marick entered the shop. She rose off her stool and looked about for another missile.

By the time she had settled on a chipped flowerpot, Marick had taken out the silkstone box and held it up in front of her watery eyes.

“Easy there, grandmother! I need your help. I’ve got to hide this, and you’re the only one I trust.”

Reebat looked at the box suspiciously, weighing the pot in one hand.

“What is it?” she asked.

Marick made an exaggerated shushing motion of a finger across his lips.

“Shhh, I can’t tell you, though you’d faint if you knew how valuable it was. Now, I need you to keep this for me, for say an hour, and I need a cart to get me away from here, something I can hide in. When I sell it, I can pay you very well indeed.”

The old woman put down the flowerpot and rubbed the hairs of her chin. The light in her eyes was not kindled by generosity or simple human kindness.

Marick smothered a grin. The hook was set. Now to pull in the line.

“Listen mistress, there’s some after me that want this back. If you can get your son to take me across the bridge and away from them, I’ll cut you in for, say, five percent.”

“Fifty percent!” Reebat screeched. She looked around for where she had set the pot.

“Ten, no more!” Marick shouted, and so it went until thirty percent was agreed upon, and Reebat called her son to come out from the back room.

“Get the cart and pile some clothes on this wretch. Take him to, where are you going, scamp?”

Her son, whose name Marick didn’t know, nor even if he had a name, nodded. He was a florid, middle-aged man who rarely came out of the back room where he sorted the flotsam and jetsam that came into the shop. Now that Marick thought upon it, he probably didn’t need a name.

The Bane presented Reebat the box. “The Fifth Ward, Grandmother. Now, I must warn you not to open this while I’m gone. If there’s any trouble on the way, I’ll come right back and retrieve it, at the agreed upon split. Otherwise, I’ll get it tomorrow, and we’ll divvy up the profits then. On your life, don’t open it. Agreed?”