Demontech: Onslaught (6 page)

Spinner shoved his face into Haft’s and spoke low but sharply. “If a Jokapcul sees you, he’ll know you’re not one of them and will sound the alarm. Even if a Jokapcul doesn’t see you, the vendor will think you’re a traitor. Do you think he’ll give a traitor true information about the other side of the wall?”

Haft’s brow furrowed in thought. “I guess not,” he finally murmured.

“Right.” Spinner scanned the alleyway, looking for something else they could do. One of the two buildings flanking them was made of stone, the other of wood. Neither had a door or other opening into the alley into which they could step. Higher, though, perhaps twelve feet above the ground, wrought-iron fencing formed a faux balcony outside a small unshuttered window on the side of the stone building. No light came from within the window. Spinner craned his head back to look higher. The stone building was perhaps fifty feet high. If it had a flat roof that they could reach from inside the building, from the top of it they’d be able to see almost everything they’d have to face on the other side of the city wall.

“Stand here.” He positioned Haft under a corner of the wrought-iron fencing and, remembering what Haft had done to him when they were under the dock, vaulted without warning to his shoulders. One hand instantly found a fingerhold on the stone face of the building, the other wrapped around a picket of the wrought-iron fence. Under him, Haft collapsed from the unexpected maneuver and the sudden weight on his shoulders, but Spinner was already pulling himself up and finding toeholds on the wall. He yanked on the wrought iron to test that it was held securely enough to the wall to hold his weight. It gave slightly, but he saw that if he stepped softly it would probably hold his weight. He swung over the top of the faux balcony. The fencing was low, little more than a foot high, and the iron lathing was scarcely half a foot wide. The footing was cramped, but Spinner easily enough managed to hold his balance in the tight space.

“Hey!” Haft snapped.

“Shhh,” Spinner hushed at him. “You want someone to hear?”

Haft hushed. He looked up and saw what Spinner had in mind. He wondered how he was supposed to get up to the fencing. Then he put his hands on the wall, looked up, and concluded that he could find enough purchase for his fingertips and toes.

Spinner put his face close to the glazing and peered through. Inside, it was too dim to make anything out, but he saw no movement. His questing fingers found hinges along one side of the window and he swore about the outward-opening windows. He shuffled to the side of the balcony, away from the hinges. There, he stepped one foot over the side, found precarious purchase on the wall, and slid his other foot as close to the end as it would fit. Holding the wall with one hand, he pried at the edge of the window with his free hand. The hinges squealed but the window opened. Its bottom scraped across the top of the wrought-iron fencing. When the window was open far enough, he leaned into the opening and rolled through. As his foot came off the bottom of the balcony, he thought he felt the iron lathing shift, and he heard metal grating against stone.

For a brief moment Spinner froze. At first he heard nothing. Then he spun around, holding his staff at the ready as he heard a slam and a grunt and the squeal of tortured metal behind him.

Haft looked in through the bottom of the window. His arms were over the sill and hanging on tightly—it was obvious his body dangled outside. His face wore a silly grin. “The balcony broke,” he said.

Spinner snorted. “I ought to leave you there.” But he held his staff one-handed and grabbed Haft’s outstretched hand with the other and pulled him in. He cautiously peered outside. No one was looking into the alleyway. The faux balcony dangled from one end, the other end torn completely from the wall. He closed the window and turned back to examine the room.

It appeared to be some sort of office. It held a desk, a chair, and three high-topped clerk’s desks. Along the walls were shelves stuffed with ledgers and cabinets filled to bursting with papers. On one wall hung a map of New Bally. Various locations on the map were marked. The marks all seemed to indicate storehouses, merchants’ stores, and government buildings. The harbor was clearly drawn, with the docks and piers annotated. But other than indicating the routes of the highways, the map showed nothing of what lay beyond the city wall. There seemed to be nothing in the room that could help them get away.

While Spinner examined the map, Haft put his ear to the door. When he didn’t hear anything beyond it, he tried to open it. It was locked. Spinner joined him at the door.

“This is the only way out,” Haft said. He hefted his axe. “I’ll break it down.”

“Stop!” Spinner put his hand on Haft’s arm before he could swing at the door. “If the door is locked, it might be warded by a banshee.”

“The window wasn’t,” Haft answered, and again prepared to swing his axe.

“That doesn’t mean the door isn’t.”

Haft stepped back and looked at the walls all around the door. “No red-eye, no banshee,” he said.

Spinner quickly looked around the room again, this time for the telltale red-eye. “You’re right,” he reluctantly acknowledged.

Haft looked smug. It wasn’t often he spotted something important before Spinner did.

With almost no backswing, Haft slammed his blade into the door frame next to the lock. A shattered chunk of the frame fell out. He calmly grasped the handle and pulled. The door opened easily. The locking mechanism clunked to the floor. No banshee wailed its alarm. With a flourish, he bowed Spinner through the open door.

Spinner held his staff at the ready. He stepped halfway through the doorway and looked both ways. The door opened into a corridor that appeared to run the length of the building from front to back. No one was in evidence. He stood in the middle of the corridor and listened. He heard nothing from inside the building.

“Let’s find a way to the roof,” he said.

They glided silently through the building and up its stairs to the roof. The place felt eerily like it had been unpeopled for longer than human memory, though the lack of dust on the floor, except where it was caked thick in the corners, indicated it was occupied regularly and had been used recently. In the top floor of the building, ladder rungs built into the wall of a storage closet led them to a trapdoor in the ceiling.

Spinner climbed up and unlatched the trap. He eased the door up, looked out, and found the flat roof he’d hoped for. He climbed through and motioned Haft to follow. Together, they lay flat and breathed a sigh of relief at the clear, unoppressive air of the roof. But they only rested for a few seconds.

They looked about. A low wall stood above the front and two sides of the roof; the back had no barrier guarding against a sheer drop. To the back, toward the middle of the city, they could see roofs as high as or higher than the one they were on. Many of the roofs were flat. No guards stood watch on any of them. They saw only sky to the front and sides; nothing in those directions seemed to be higher than the building they were on. Staying below the level of the wall, they crept to the front and peered over. In the distance were close-packed trees that appeared to climb rising ground, but the restraining wall was too wide for them to see anything nearby.

“This is no good,” Haft muttered and stood up. “That’s better,” he said.

Spinner sat leaning against the wall and cringed at thought of the guards on the city wall seeing Haft.

Haft stood casually, as though he belonged there and had every right to be on that roof. He knew that someone who looks like he belongs is almost never challenged. Quick glances to the sides told him theirs was indeed the highest building along that stretch of the city wall. Looked up at from the street, he’d be silhouetted against the bright sky, and the observer would see his uniform shirt and probably not be able to make out his fair complexion and red hair.

“We might have a problem,” he said when he looked beyond the city wall.

“What?”

“Well, I don’t see a moat or palisades or any soldiers outside the wall, but the forest is almost a mile away. We wouldn’t be able to reach it before horsemen could run us down.”

“See, I told you we needed to find out what was on the other side of the wall before we went over it.”

Haft ignored that and continued observing the area. He saw how cluttered the military lane was, with shanties against the city wall and vendors’ stalls on its inner side. In some places the shanties and stalls almost completely blocked the lane, so no more than two people could pass at one time. The guards on the outer wall were at fifty-pace intervals for as far as he could see. A gate a quarter mile distant was guarded by at least a squad of Jokapcul soldiers who seemed to be carefully inspecting the slow procession of people, carts, and animals passing out. They allowed no one to enter the city. He was looking for a way over the wall when he heard a jangling of metal and a guttural halloo from the lane below.

Spinner, still below the restraining wall, realized a sergeant or officer saw Haft and was demanding to know what he was doing there. Spinner started looking for a fast way off the roof.

Haft managed not to flinch at the unexpected call. He pretended not to hear it and continued to look around.

The guttural halloo came again, with a sharpness of anger to it this time.

Haft continued casually looking around until his moving eyes seemed to naturally look down. He hoped he was right about the bright sky disguising his complexion and hair. He feigned surprise at finding someone standing below, calling to him. He could see the man was a sergeant from his uniform. Rectangular metal plates linked with iron hoops armored his shirt, and metal-studded gauntlets protected his hands and wrists almost up to the elbows. In place of the peaked cloth cap worn by more junior men, he wore a peaked helmet, slightly flattened front to back. Haft assumed the three black cloth stripes slashed across his chest were rank insignia. He wore a short sword on his belt.

The sergeant barked and growled and made gestures in the manner of all sergeants of all armies. It sounded and looked like he was asking what Haft was doing on top of that building and demanding that he come down. Evidently, this building was in his unit’s area and he knew he hadn’t stationed a guard on it.

Haft pointed to his ears and shrugged elaborately.

The sergeant bellowed something that had to be, “What do you mean, you can’t hear me?” He knew his voice was loud enough to be heard all the way from one end of a parade ground to the other.

Haft pantomimed being clouted on the ears and shrugged apologetically.

The sergeant snarled in disgust. He took a deep breath to calm himself then used a series of elaborate gestures that concluded with his finger sharply pointed to the ground at his feet.

Haft held out his hands and shook his head emphatically. He splayed three fingers on his left chest, mimicking the insignia the sergeant wore on his own—and fervently hoped he was right about it being rank insignia—then pointed to himself and, just as emphatically as the sergeant had pointed to the ground in front of him, pointed his finger at his own feet. My sergeant ordered me to stay here and not leave for any reason, his gestures said.

The sergeant huffed and puffed and went red in the face. Then he roared something. He gave Haft a last glare and stomped away down the military lane, the rings on his shirt jangling against the metal plates.

Haft watched him for a moment, then dropped down behind the wall. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to stay here any longer,” he said weakly. He was almost hyperventilating.

“You’re right for a change.”

Spinner led them scuttling back to the trapdoor. Inside, Spinner ducked into an empty room and opened his pack. He stripped off the stolen shirt and put his own back on.

“Change,” he ordered.

“Why?”

“If you’d been wearing your own uniform, you wouldn’t have been dumb enough to stand up where that sergeant could see you.”

“But if I hadn’t stood up I wouldn’t have been able to see what was out there.”

Spinner didn’t answer; he knew Haft was right about that. Still, he thought they’d be more cautious and therefore safer if they were dressed in their own uniforms.

Haft didn’t say so, but he agreed that caution was the better course of action—especially now that they knew what was on the other side of the wall—and also got out of the enemy shirt.

This time they explored their surroundings from the top floor of the building. A window on the side they’d come in from showed no one in the alleyway below. There were no windows on the other side of the building; the adjoining building shared that wall. A window to the rear was mere feet above a roof that abutted the rear of the building they were in. They saw less from the front than Haft had seen from the roof. Except . . .

Where they weren’t smack against each other, the shanties against the wall had middens between them. Some of the middens were more than half as high as a man was tall, and some were piled as mounds standing almost free of the city wall rather than sloped screelike against it. It might be possible for a man to hide behind them and not be seen from the lane.

“We could hide there until dark and then go over the wall,” Haft said, pointing at a midden that had space between it and the wall.

Spinner looked at it and grunted. “Unless a guard on the wall looked down. He’d be sure to see us.”

“We could pull the top of the midden down on us, to hide us from view.”

Spinner simply looked at him. He was repulsed by the idea of being covered with other peoples’ rubble, rubbish, and garbage. He said, “We’d make a lot of noise covering up now and getting uncovered again after dark. Someone would hear it and we’d be discovered.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

Spinner didn’t.

“Then let’s do it.” Haft led the way back down to the second floor office through which they’d gained entry to the building. Spinner followed, protesting Haft’s idea all the way but unable to come up with a better one of his own.