Only then did Widdershins notice the other man, standing behind Ivon—“in the lee of Ivon” would have been more apt—but ahead of the others. All she could make out was fancy clothing now gone shabby, hanging loosely from a dark-skinned body so hideously gaunt he might have inspired a skeleton to eat a loaf of bread.
And it was then she realized that what she'd mistaken for a faint ringing in her ears, perhaps caused by whatever substance they'd tossed into the smithy, was in fact this “Fingerbone,” sniggering constantly through a phlegm-coated throat.
“Now that we've been gentlemanly enough to present ourselves,” Ivon continued, “who the shit-soaked burbling hell are you?”
“Oh, yes. Very gentlemanly. Refined, even.” She still sounded as though she were speaking through an irate bullfrog, but at least her words were intelligible again. She gave brief thought to lying, decided there was no real point. “Widdershins.”
“Widder-what, now?”
“Widdershins. My name.”
“What the hell kind of name is ‘Widdershins’?”
She waved vaguely with one hand, allowing it to flop, appearing far more dazed and bleary than she truly was. “What kind of name is…um, is…?”
“Fingerbone,” the wall-snake-man sneered.
“Oh, no, I meant ‘Ivon.’” Shins offered him a pert little smile. “By the way, are you at all bothered by the fact that you just suffocated four of your own men in there? Almost makes one question your commitment to your people, yes?”
Ivon's sneer slipped and slid into a snarl. Fingers began tapping at the hilt of the weapon slung at his waist—not a hammer, as Brock had carried, but what appeared to be a massive chopping blade, as much forester's tool as armament. If the average dagger could expect to grow up into the average sword, this was the adult form of the standard kitchen cleaver.
“Isn't lethal.” Fingerbone swayed out from behind his presumed boss, his words the scratch and screech one might expect from a creature so corpse-like. Shins saw, now, that he dragged behind a decrepit wood wagon, clearly sized for a child's toy. Inside it sat a number of ceramic vessels, all similar to the one that had released the toxic powder. “Ugly, choking, tearing, gasping. But not killing.” He tittered—a high, ear-grating, brain-scratching sound. “Not killing.”
“Most of the time,” Ivon added. “Long as you're in good health. Any of my boys dead in there, well…Probably weren't all that useful anyway, were they?”
“That's why the ‘Thousand Crows,’ then? Left that many people behind?”
She hadn't been certain, of course—they could have been some other gang, having caught wind of her activity—but it had seemed a fairly safe bet. Especially given the peculiar magic of the smothering dust and whatever they'd done to the smithy door. When Ivon didn't correct her, she took that as confirmation enough.
“I'm going to ask you one time,” the gang leader said, all trace of false amity dropping away, fist now firmly clenched on his sword. “Then we're going to take you somewhere private and encourage you to be a little more forthcoming. Think a lot of my crows'd like it better the second way, but it's your call for another ten seconds. Why have you been asking around about us?”
Because my plan had been to locate and single out one of you—or knock a bunch of you silly, then single out someone who came looking for you—and follow him back to wherever it is you loiter to figure out if you're the ones poisoning the Delacroix fields, and if so, why. Which, while truthful, was not an answer that Widdershins felt would go over particularly well, or do her much good in the long run.
Seven-to-one odds, and she wasn't quite back to her best, yet. But she'd faced worse, and they couldn't possibly be expecting…
“No, we're not running!” she hissed in response to Olgun's hesitant query. “I want answers so I can get out of this stupid town! So…You ready?”
The god's answer was nervous, true, but also carried a strong sense of anticipation.
Widdershins tensed, gathering herself to move…
Fingerbone shrieked, something between a scream and a manic chortle. Just about as swiftly as Shins had ever seen anyone move (without divine assistance) he yanked a decanter from the wagon without even looking back at it and hurled the projectile her way.
Shins had no idea what had given her away—perhaps nothing, and the apparent madman was gifted with some lunatic insight—and for the nonce, it didn't remotely matter. Legs uncoiling like a goosed viper, she hurled herself aside just before the ceramic struck and shattered.
At the corners of her vision, as she rolled, she watched the filth-gray sludge begin to splash—and then to congeal and grow rigid, similar to hardening wax. She'd no way of knowing what the stuff was, but the effects were clear enough; had she been even a second slower, she'd be partly encased in it. Helpless. Likely for only a moment, until she broke her way free, but a moment with Ivon and his people was more than sufficient.
Now they were ready, knew she wasn't nearly as incapacitated as she should have been. Now the nearby doorways disgorged additional Crows, until they numbered almost thrice their starting strength. Now Ivon had his brutal chopper drawn and held aloft, and Fingerbone was already reaching for another pot.
“And then again,” she murmured, “we could run.”
The young thief took to her heels, through a city she didn't know, a pack of murderous thugs—and possibly one sorcerer—baying and clacking blades as they gave chase.
“All right, Olgun.” So far, Shins's breath came easily despite the sprint, but at a flat-out run such as this, even with the god's aid, it wouldn't be for long. “We need to pick a destination a tad bit more specific than ‘away,’ yes? ’Cause we, uh…I think we've reached ‘away,’ and those seams of britches appear to have the same destination in mind.”
Many of Aubier's roads were unnecessarily broad, the turns often gradual; a bad place in which to shake a pursuit, especially when those chasing her knew those streets far better than she. First Lourveaux, now this.
“Seriously, is there some patron god of footraces I was supposed to sacrifice to? Because if you can get me his name, I'll find him a goat. Or a virgin.
“Or a virgin goat.”
If there was such a deity, Olgun appeared not to know his name either.
Thus far, the almost impossible speeds at which she ran had kept her far ahead of the Thousand Crows, and she'd lost sight of many, but she'd never managed to shake them entirely. The fastest of them, Ivon included, always seemed to appear behind her just as she began to wonder if she was finally safe. At least they hadn't opened fire, but as silver linings went, that was a thin patina indeed. The streets were now almost deserted—from the hour, the presence of the Crows, or both, Shins couldn't say. She had little doubt that the moment the risk of civilian casualties (and thus official government attention) reached an acceptable threshold, she would start to hear the thunderous retort of flintlocks.
No allies. No refuge. No crowds in which to vanish. No idea where she ought to go, or how she would get there if she did.
She'd been in worse situations, certainly. But not recently.
Her feet ached from slapping so hard against the cold-hardened earth of the roadways. Her lungs were finally starting to burn. She was quite certain she must, by this point, smell much like a mendicant who had taken a vow against bathing. And was also a baboon.
Gods, if she could just get a minute to catch her breath, get her bearings…to think…
An image—crisp, clear, specific—flashed across her mind.
“Are you…sure?” she asked around ever-more-frequent gasps. “The buildings here…aren't as—”
Olgun was quite sure, a fact he expressed in no uncertain lack of words.
“All right. On three…”
Widdershins broke right, scarcely waiting for the familiar tingle of power before leaping for a second-story windowsill. From there she cleared a narrow alley to the next structure, grabbing hold of sloped shingles, vaulting u
p on the roof, and leaping once more. She found herself atop the building, staring out over a large swathe of Aubier illuminated primarily by lanterns and torches in the windows below.
Olgun had, indeed, been right. While Aubier was far more spread out than Lourveaux or Davillon, the particular sequence of blocks stretching out toward the northeast were near enough to one another that Widdershins could cross most of the gaps without difficulty.
For a few moments, at least, she had a clear path—one that Ivon and the Crows could not easily follow, one that should allow her to gain some distance even if she couldn't lose them completely.
“So what the frogs and fishes was that?” she demanded as she set off once more, keeping to a slower pace long enough for her breathing to steady. “That…stuff? That powder, and waxy gunk? I've never seen magic like that.”
And then, “It's not? So what is it?”
Again, Olgun proved unable to convey what he wanted to; Widdershins had the sense that he was trying to explain something he only barely understood, and for which she had no reference at all.
It was, however, a familiar confusion she sensed.
“Same as the blight, then?”
Uncertainty, but a sense of growing conviction.
“So, probably. All right, that's one question answered. Now we just have to live long enough to tell…”
Her voice trailed away, though her jaw continued to work, seemingly chewing on a new idea. Would that work? Were they her way out of this? Would they even still be there?
Well…Better than fleeing aimlessly.
Widdershins grinned shallowly, turned to face a little more east than north, and broke once more into a dead sprint.
“See? I told you they'd stay open late if we asked nicely.”
Cyrille sighed, though he maintained enough self-control to avoid visibly rolling his eyes at his sister. “That wasn't my point, though, Fifi.”
“Oh?” The young woman finally looked up from the ornate platter she was studying, part of the set they'd just purchased to replace a few dishes Marjolaine had smashed during the most recent of her many screaming arguments with Malgier. She was not, for a change, carrying her lantern; jaunts into town were among the few occasions where she traveled anywhere without the silly thing.
“We…we're Delacroix. They'd have stayed open for us whether we'd asked nicely or not. But it wasn't polite to ask it of them.”
Fifi's whole face was a rounded mask of bewilderment. “Why?”
A second sigh, even bigger than the first. Cyrille glanced around, met Jourdain's gaze; the old guard only shrugged. The rest of the soldiers either kept looking straight ahead—the more professional ones—or scarcely smothered snickers, directed either at Fifi or at Cyrille, depending on their own opinions regarding the proper use of aristocratic authority.
“Never mind, Fifi.”
“Oh, no, go ahead and explain, Cyrille.” Widdershins dropped to the street directly beside the two Delacroix siblings. “Gods know nobody else is ever going to do it, yes?”
The next minute or so was absolute chaos: weapons clearing sheaths, guards screaming at her, Cyrille and Jourdain shouting at the guards, Cyrille and Jourdain shouting at each other. It was almost funny.
Still, the thief kept only half her attention on the fracas, peering intently over and around the madly shifting guards, Olgun's vision augmenting her own.
And there they were. Glaring at her from the shadows of the nearby streets, Ivon and several of the Thousand Crows, lips twisted in frustrated fury. As she'd hoped, then—they outnumbered the guards, but the Crows weren't about to risk an open attack on a cadre of House soldiers.
Satisfied she was safe, at least for the moment, she returned her focus fully to those around her.
Um…Safe from the Crows, at any rate, she amended.
None of the blades or pistols were currently pointed directly at her, but neither had they been put away. All the guards were silent, now, glaring her way; the only voices left were Cyrille's and Jourdain's.
“If you two gentlemen could stop fighting over me for a bit, perhaps we can discuss this like rational adults?”
Two gaping jaws turned her way. She shrugged.
“At least similar to rational adults? I know I've met one or two at some point. I think I can fake it.”
“How do I know you're not here to harm Cyrille or Josephine?” Jourdain demanded, his mustache practically bristling.
“Um, because I didn't harm Cyrille or Josephine? Despite appearing right next to them in what would have to be the most salmon-headed assassination attempt in history?
“Besides, you know better than that, after the other night.”
“Do I?”
“Oh, of course you do!” Cyrille finally broke in. “Would all of you please put your damn swords away? She's not going to hurt anyone. And I'm assuming,” he added, “that this is important if she was willing to risk having to beat the stuffing out of the lot of you, so maybe we should hear her out?”
Widdershins smile was a weak one as resentment flickered over the faces of the armsmen. “Cyrille? Stop being on my side.”
He looked perplexed, perhaps even hurt, but Jourdain's irate façade cracked in a faint chuckle, despite his obvious strain to prevent it. A bit of tension fled from the assembled guards, breath coming easier, shoulders starting to relax…
“Is this the girl Mother got so angry at you for helping?” Fifi asked nervously.
Every one of the armsmen, Jourdain included, went rigid, exchanging swift glances before their gazes turned icy. Cyrille's shoulders visibly slumped.
“She has a point,” Jourdain told them, once again all business. “I really think we need to take this young woman to see Lady Delacroix.”
Boots and armor creaked as the guards shifted, ready to take hold of either Widdershins or their weapons, as needed. Shins tensed, unsure of what her next move should be but prepared to make it all the same.
“No.”
Widdershins gawped at Cyrille, and she very much was not the only one.
“You cannot countermand your mother's orders—” the elder guardsman began.
“I'm not. None of your orders were to take Widdershins prisoner—illegally, I might add. You were to find out what she's up to. I'd hazard a guess that hearing her out would tell us more of that than trying—and I do stress trying—to hold her against her will.”
“I'm starting to think he's not that dim after all,” Shins whispered to Olgun.
“Cyrille…” Jourdain tried again.
“We are going to get off the street,” the young Delacroix continued. “Perhaps to one of our properties in town. And we are going to discuss this…” He grinned sidelong at Widdershins. “…somewhat like rational adults.”
Jourdain's face had enough expressions for any four other men. The rest of the guards, and Josephine, just looked confused. Again. “I really think we need Lady Delacroix's instruction…” he muttered, as uncertain as Widdershins, at least, had ever heard him.
“Fine,” Cyrille snapped. “You need to go home, go. Take Fifi. Widdershins and I will talk.”
“I can't leave you in town unprotected!”
“Well, then, you seem to have a decision to make. Please do so quickly.”
Shins whispered so only her divine partner might hear, “I had no idea he had that in him. Seemed a little more like a puppy that first night, yes?”
And then, with a series of bewildered blinks, “Me? Don't be silly! Why the happy horses would he care about impressing me?”
Whatever answer Olgun might have offered, if any, was interrupted by the conclusion of the ongoing argument. Jourdain and half the guards would return to the manor with Fifi in tow; the others would accompany Cyrille. Confused as a bat in a bakery, Fifi watched her brother over her shoulder until the lot of them were out of sight.
“So, where are we going?” Widdershins asked brightly. “Hideout? Bolt-hole? Sanctum? I've always wanted to see a sanctum.
”
“Uh…No, I…That is, my family owns several properties in Aubier. We lease them to vendors or craftsman, for shops and apartments. Pretty sure there are a few who aren't using the apartments, so…”
“Oh. That'll do, I suppose. How come nobody ever has a sanctum?”
They passed several blocks, seemingly the only traffic in the road this late. The back of Widdershins's scalp itched, and she swore she saw Crows lurking everywhere, but no trouble manifested. The guards, clearly uncomfortable with the situation, remained silent, so it fell to Cyrille and Shins herself to hold the silence at bay—which she did by asking questions about Aubier at speeds that threatened to shake her lips loose from her face, and by occasionally allowing her native guide enough time to answer.
“…mostly run by the Houses working together,” he explained. “No real baron or mayor or anything. Just a reeve, and he's really more of a symbolic tradition. Most of the government is, well, us…”
“The castle? Pauvril. Castle Pauvril. Baronial seat when there was a baron, generations ago. Now, it's mostly left alone, except for the occasional ceremony or big house meeting…”
“No, not really growing anymore. We're still on some major trade routes, but not as many as we used to be, not since things got tense with Rannanti again. It's not going to wither anytime soon—well, assuming the damn blight doesn't spread—but we're all pretty sure Aubier's done expanding. It's one of the reasons competition between Houses has gotten fiercer lately…”
“Uh…We do have a lot of them, given Aubier's size. I guess because we are on trade routes, and because Aubier's sort of the cultural center of the Outer Hespelene. But I don't think there's actually two hundred and ninety-one of them.”
Twelve, Olgun corrected gleefully.
And so it went, until Cyrille suggested they had reached their destination. It wasn't much—a rough wooden building no different than any of the others nearby. Downstairs was a small shop, selling paper, parchment, and canvas; inks and paints; brushes and quills; anything to do with calligraphy, art, or otherwise leaving colorful stains on flimsy surfaces. Not a lot of demand for such things in any but the richest neighborhoods of Aubier, but apparently the proprietor had just enough custom from a handful of regulars to remain in business.