Linoor stirred in her bedroll on the second floor of the ancient Danetian inn, dreams of sugar still lingering on her lips. Her head ached from the welt atop her brow where the armored assassin had punched her. A cowardly attack, though effective if her current condition were any indication. Linoor’s shame flared again as she recalled being bested in single combat by a hired thug.
Brown blood stained the collar of her white undershirt to Linoor’s chagrin. In her post-sleep haze she thought of visiting the kitchens to clean the shirt before remembering the details of their situation. Barricaded within the inn, their only exit watched by armed sentries. Evening approached.
Sleep was much preferable to reality, especially if she could return to her dream of roasted almonds. Her mouth watered at the thought.
Instead, Linoor rose and adorned her gambeson before packing her bedroll and attaching it to her pack with a length of rope. She was alerted to someone approaching by footsteps on stone at the end of the hall. Her hand reflexively reached for her belt knife.
"Good, you're awake," Ysmena said as she appeared in the doorway. A second figure shadowed her, moving on silent feet. The urchin girl stared at Linoor over Ysmena’s shoulder.
"What of it?" Linoor asked.
"I need to borrow the window," Ysmena answered. Linoor had already checked it, but she moved aside to oblige the nobleling. Aside from the dangerous fifteen foot drop to the alley below, their assailants had also barricaded the stairway to the guardhouse on the wall at the end of the alley. The only exit was back into the street, into their waiting arrows.
"What do you think?" Ysmena asked Petra.
"Should work, prob," the girl answered. "Want me to getcha the door?"
"If you would be so kind," Ysmena replied with a wide smile as Petra ran on light feet back the way they came.
Linoor raised an inquiring eyebrow.
"The door?" She asked.
"While you were recuperating, I took it upon myself to formulate an escape plan. Yasha knows nobody else was doing it. Our conventional exits - the front door and the alley - are covered by the marauders outside, of which we are ill-equipped to confront. However…" Ysmena said as she broke into a wicked smile, "as far as I can tell, the rooftops are clear."
"You plan to break through to the roof? Surely the men outside would hear this," Linoor answered.
"No, the plan is to -" Ysmena was cut off by the Ivan man, Onep, entering the room while hefting a solid wooden door in his arms, followed closely by Petra, Elune, and Dal.
"Hey duelist lady, how's the head injury? You remember your name?" Dal asked from the rear.
"My name? Of course," Linoor answered quizzically.
"My God," Dal continued in exaggerated tones. "It's worse than I thought. She thinks her name is 'Of Course'..."
Elune giggled next to him at the childish joke, but the others ignored it. Ysmena began to give Onep instructions on how to position the door as she removed two silver disks from her pack.
"I bought these for a fortune from a traveling merchant in Deornis last year. It's where I got the idea to come out here. Turns out it was a good idea to bring them after all," Ysmena said as she pulled the two floats apart and twisted them into place. She now manipulated four silver disks, though only two sat in her hands as the other two floated in space a fixed length from their base with nothing but air between them.
Onep placed the door outside the window and angled it upward toward the roof of the building across the alley. Ysmena carefully maneuvered the floats into place such that the floating disk now rested atop the roof, whereas the base supported the underside of the door above the alley, creating a sort of floating drawbridge. It was an impressive innovation, and Linoor began to agree that it just might work.
Petra stood on the windowsill and placed a tentative foot on the door-bridge. As she leaned her weight against the floating wood, it slowly crept forward as the floats atop the roof searched for purchase to sustain the shifting weight beneath it. Eventually the creeping stopped, and Petra stood with both feet on the door, one hand back through the window as Ysmena held her for safety.
"It goes," Petra whispered back to an elated Ysmena and Elune. The three girls celebrated in muted glee as the other three watched in amusement.
"What of Violet and Ardenel?" Linoor asked. Last she had left Ardenel he was berating himself for leaving his father alive to send assassins after him. He was clearly not in the right mind, though she could hardly blame him.
"Violet is preparing Ardenel for the trip," Ysmena answered.
"She's sayin' his pain is psychic-some-addict,'' Petra attempted to clarify, making a twirling motion with her finger to her temple as she spoke. Linoor scratched her head in confusion, but nobody offered any additional detail.
As if on cue, the tall, violet-haired northerner entered the room with Ardenel, his arm slung across her shoulder for support.
“Oh, Linoor! How is your wound, honey? Does it pain you still?” Violet asked as she lugged the tanned nobleman into the room. Ardenel’s face was still crestfallen.
“It throbs if I turn too quickly, but otherwise I am well, thanks to you,” Linoor answered the motherly woman with a hint of a smile. The cut from the gauntlet on her brow was not especially deep, but it would have ruined much more than merely her collar if Violet had not been there to stitch her up. For that, Linoor was grateful.
“Remember that when you’re paying me, dear,” Violet quipped with a wink. “Now, Sir Venit, you’ll need to abandon this attitude of yours. You’ve some light bruising, but nothing a young strapping man can’t handle.”
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Ardenel silently nodded and leaned against the door jamb to brace his weight. He was a sorry sight. Linoor hoped the shock would wear off soon.
“Now then, if everyone is here, I’d like to get going as soon as possible,” Ysmena announced in a loud whisper. “Keep low against the roof and out of sight. Try not to silhouette yourself against the sky. The nearest exit is blocked, so, at least for a time, we will need to head deeper into the city if we wish to locate a viable point of egress.”
Linoor had to admit, the girl was a natural leader. Her idea was well-planned, and she was doing her best to put on a brave face. If they made it out of here alive, she would definitely get to know Ysmena better.
And, as guilty as it made her feel, it was nice to relieve herself of the pressure of leading the group for a time.
Ysmena nodded to the others and turned to the floating door, ascending it up to the roof of the adjacent building on all fours. Following close behind her was Elune, then Petra, then Dal, all following her example of using their hands and knees to carefully crawl up the precarious ramp.
Onep stepped up next and walked over the door in two confident steps. Show off.
To Linoor’s surprise, Ardenel advanced to the door and began crawling up without any additional encouragement. She wondered if he thought she’d leave him here otherwise. It made her feel a small pang of guilt because she had considered it.
Violet strode up to the make-shift ramp next, taking care not to bump her head against the top of the window frame. Before putting her weight on the door, she turned to Linoor and smiled.
“Do be careful, Linoor. I know you are brave, but a head injury is nothing to sniff at. Everyone needs help sometimes.”
Linoor nodded with a smile, but dropped it immediately as Violet turned to ascend. Some might have the luxury of a safety net, but she never had, even back in Capira. She had endured worse than a few scrapes and bruises on her own in the past, and today would not be any different.
After Violet finished her awkward, lanky climb atop the roof, Linoor made her way onto the floating door-bridge. Each step slightly shifted the precarious ramp as she made her way up, sending a flood of sweat through her palms as she stared down at the ground below. The wooden door happily lapped up the deluge that poured from her hands as she froze in place above the chasm. Death beckoned her from miles below, daring her to incorrectly shift her weight ever so slightly and flip the door, sending her careening into the open maw between the buildings.
Linoor’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the door, not daring to take another step.
“Scared of heights, are we?” Violet’s voice piped up from the roof ahead. “Just look at me, darling,” she whispered to Linoor calmly.
Linoor took a deep breath and stared ahead at Violet. She hadn’t noticed before, but even her eyes reflected a shimmering violet deep within the dark of her iris.
Methodically - and painfully slowly - Linoor lifted her limbs and forced herself to move forward, ignoring the valley below, until finally she made her way to the lip of the next building’s roof. She scrambled quickly over onto the flat stone of the building, thanking Yasha for the solid ground.
“Thank you,” she whispered to Violet.
“Don’t worry,” Violet said with a smile as she placed her hand on Linoor’s shoulder. “I won’t tell a soul.”
Linoor glanced backward toward the waiting assailants, but couldn’t see them over the roof of the inn behind her. They were perfectly hidden, just as Ysmena had planned. As she turned back around, Linoor realized she and Violet had fallen behind the rest of the group. The roofs of the buildings ahead of them were conjoined, allowing the rest of them to walk gingerly across the stone deeper into the city, hidden from anyone in the streets below.
Raising herself from her shaky knees, Linoor moved in a crouch with Violet along the rooftops toward the rest of the waiting group.
“Keep your eyes out for entrances like the one we came through,” Ysmena whispered to everyone as soon as Linoor arrived. “Hopefully there is more than one gate into this town.”
The group crossed a dozen more roofs before Linoor’s wired muscles finally began to relax. They were now out of earshot of the assailants, and, hopefully, it would be some time before they stormed the empty inn and discovered their makeshift escape.
Riverstop was much larger than she had envisioned after her first visit, when she and Ardenel had beelined along the town’s main avenue straight from the entrance to the central square in front of Riverstop Keep, attracting wandering Greys along their route. Here, on the outskirts near the wall, all was quiet. The buildings seemed to be smaller individual homes that ran in neat lines down long, criss-crossing side streets.
Up ahead, Ysmena stopped at a crumbling wall at the edge of a building. They had reached the end of this stretch of homes. Only a street lay in front of them now.
Everyone remained silent as Ysmena began the cautious climb down the rubble. Though they were probably far enough away from the armored men that a few words would not attract attention, nobody wanted to be the first to break the silence and risk it.
That is, until Ysmena’s foot broke through the wooden floor of the second story, sending her falling into the darkness of the room below with a yelp.
“Ysmena!” Petra quickly called in a loud whisper as she poked her head through the hole in the floor. Even from the roof, Linoor could tell it was too dark to see anything within. “Answer me!” Petra called again, a little louder this time. To her right, Linoor noticed Dal wince at the volume. Everyone was still on edge.
“I’m goin’ down there,” Petra said to the others resolutely.
“Wait, Petra -” Violet said, attempting to admonish her, but she was cut off by Petra slipping through the hole into the dark.
Linoor climbed down the crumbling wall to meet the rest of the group above the dark hole. Only blackness could be seen through the wooden floor. Everyone around seemed to hold their breath as they waited for word from Petra or Ysmena to break the tense silence.
Linoor walked to the edge of the rubble on the second story and looked down, noticing a glassless window on the ground floor just beneath her that seemed to look into the room they had fallen through. After motioning for the others to follow her, she carefully and quietly made her way through the rubble to the ground just in front of the window.
As she peered into the darkness, Linoor thought she could make out the outline of a figure within. She cupped her eyes against the evening sun and squinted to get a better view, but it must have somehow made her vision worse. The single outline now became two, and two became four, until she saw dozens of outlines of heads and shoulders lining the black room. A trick of the light?
Suddenly, Petra’s visage appeared in the window for just a moment before she leapt through it, showering the onlookers with splintered wood from the shattered muntin bars. Ysmena hurled herself through the opening just after, her eyes wide with fear.
“Run!” She screamed, instantly dissipating the heavy silence in the air as she pulled Petra to her feet next to her. “Greys!”
Linoor turned her head to the window just in time to see two Greys in leather armor pulling themselves up into the frame. Her hand shot to her hilt before she realized the dozens of outlines she had noticed before had now lined up behind to chase them through the window. From behind her, the sound of splintered wood rang out across the street as more armed Greys poured out of another wooden home.
Shit!
She broke into a run behind Ysmena and Petra, leading the group further into town toward Riverstop Keep, a growing horde of Greys nipping at their heels.