The servants’ stair took Kiri to their quarters on the ground floor. The hall was narrow and the doors dark and unfinished. The bunkrooms opened off the hallway without doors or locks. The people she passed gave her odd looks; she didn’t belong here. Kiri tried to ignore them with the haughty air of a better class of person who had things to do.
Having no idea which way would actually lead outside, Kiri worked her way down hallways in a likely direction. Eventually, she saw a man throw open a wide door onto a gray street. The smell hit her before she reached it. Kiri emerged into a passage she’d never been down before, tucked between the tall wall of the Academy’s main hall and the white stone of the many-storied Justice building. At least, the stones were white higher up on the wall. Near street level they, and everything else, were covered in grime. The street was barely wide enough for a single horsecart if the driver was very careful, and very dark with the two buildings casting it deep into shadow. It might get a little light at high noon in the right season, but other than that would always lay in shadow. Kiri picked up her dress a little to make sure it wouldn’t drag in the muck as she stepped gingerly along the street. At least the only traffic to contend with here was pedestrian. Anyone with a cart would understandably avoid this way if at all possible due to the uneven stones and narrowness. The street sloped from both sides to a gutter in the middle and it was a mercy that it did since it would otherwise have been swimming in filth.
Kiri did not follow any one person, since they would be bound to notice her. As she had in the servants hall, she stuck out here as just the wrong class of person, too well-dressed and clean to belong here. Instead she noted who looked the most ragged and desperate and went the same way as them until she saw someone who looked even worse. After a few turns she was in a decidedly bad part of the city. It had taken a turn for the worse when she went through the high wall that surrounded the city proper. Here in the outer ring that fell outside of the official limits of Laed, none of the buildings were stone. Some were cob with crumbling plaster showing the bits of straw, others were of old and often rotting wood. The gutter was no longer draining properly, and the street was getting mucky enough that Kiri had trouble finding any clean places to set her feet as she walked. Also, she had gone beyond just sticking out. Children stared at her openly, and adults snuck many glances at her.
It was beginning to get dark. A clean but raggedly dressed man stepped out into the street with a lit lantern and Kiri thought this was a good opportunity. Everyone’s eyes would naturally be drawn to the light. She quickly ducked into a deep shadow between two buildings and yanked off her dress. She hung it on a protruding beam of wood and hoped it would still be there when she returned. Now dressed as the Firebrand, she sprang up lightly and caught the edge of the roof. Her elbows creaked a little as she hauled herself up from the lack of exercise since the last time she ran across roofs as the Firebrand.
Taking up position in a comfortable but ready-for-action crouch, Kiri scanned the street to see if anyone had noticed her bizarre actions. The man carrying his lantern was some way away. No one seemed to be looking at her.
Kiri crawled on hands and feet along the roof and leap-frogged to the next building. In this way, she made her way along the street until she reached an area where the buildings were no longer worthy of the name. This was exactly what she had been looking for. She couldn’t imagine the Thief Lord collecting any protection money in a sorry place like this, but had no doubt that a place so full of desperate people would have its own criminal element, likely the down-and-dirty type she could fight easiest and best.
Kiri shifted onto her belly and settled in to wait, and to watch. Within twenty minutes of the time she stopped, twilight had gone and with it most of the people. This was not, apparently, the sort of place that had a nightlife. She searched for any signs of unsavory activity, but everyone seemed to have retreated into their sorry shacks. Kiri jumped when a sudden pounding disturbed the night, the sound of a hand knocking hard on wood. It sounded again and Kiri oriented to the sound. Having located it, she dropped to the street because it would be faster to get around that way, and the streets were so empty it seemed unlikely she would be spotted. The pounding stopped abruptly as she neared it, and she heard a woman speaking shrilly. She had trouble making out the words. The narrow walkway she was creeping along opened into a sort of yard circled by ten or so little shacks. One stood open. A middle aged woman with a frantic expression blocked the doorway, barely visible behind the group of men clustered around her home. There were five of them, and they all looked large and intimidating. Kiri quickly dropped back into the shadows to give herself a chance to assess the situation before she decided how to act.
One of the men spoke, but he held his voice so low that it sounded like a rumble. Kiri still couldn’t make out any words. He took a menacing step toward the woman, and Kiri tensed, closing her hand into a fist.
“You can’t!” The woman said. She raised an arm as if to push him away, and he caught it in his broad hand. Kiri lurched forward but was startled into inaction as a skinny boy, lanky and smooth-faced as if he had only just grown into being taller than his mother, pushed around her from inside the house and planted himself between her and her assailant.
“No, no!” he cried, his voice breaking at the end. “I’m going. Don’t hurt her! I’m going.”
The man immediately released the woman, and she fell back, rubbing her forearm. The boy looked back at her over his shoulder and murmured something. She replied just as quietly. Kiri didn’t know what they were saying, but she thought now that she had some idea of what was going on. She didn’t unclench her fist, but shook it just a little as it heated. This boy was not leaving because he wanted to.
The woman backed into the house and slowly closed the door. The man at the front of the group immediately seized the boy’s arm and yanked him away from his home. Kiri decided her moment had come. Unfortunately, she was nearest to the side of the group with the boy, and she didn’t want to hurt him. So she swung her arm upward as she opened her hand, letting a ball of white sparking fire fly from her hand, over the men. It burst in the yard behind them. The three furthest from Kiri were immediately knocked to the ground.
“They’ll be fine,” Kiri said, hoping it was true. This was her first time to try this particular trick on people, but it hadn’t seemed to do much damage to vegetation. “That is, if you let the boy go.”
“Who are you?” The man gripping the boy’s arm called at Kiri, squinting into the shadows where she was still half-hidden. “Who is this boy to you?”
“I am the Firebrand,” Kiri said. “And that boy whom you will release is one of my people. I will protect everyone in Laedinland.” She glanced around as she noticed many of the doors of the neighboring shacks, which had been tightly closed when the boy left his home, were now cracked open as their occupants watched her.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The man guffawed. “Everyone?” he asked, and laughed again. But he let go of the boy’s arm. “Have your way, Firebrand. Let’s go boys.” He shoved one of the fallen men, who were indeed beginning to stir, with the toe of his boot. The others, stumbling as they rose, followed him out of the yard. Kiri stepped towards the boy while she watched them leave. To her surprise he did not look grateful. His brow was furrowed and his lips pressed into a thin, angry line.
“Why did you do that?” he demanded. “And then you challenged him? Are you a fool?”
“What?” Kiri spluttered. “I saved you!”
“They’ll just be back,” he said. “And this time they’ll be angry. They’re never going to leave my mother alone now.”
Kiri stared at him, biting her lip. She wasn’t used to being scolded by the people she saved but it would probably be a good idea to listen to this boy. He had to know more about Laed than she did, even if he was just a kid. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll take care of it. Go back inside.”
“No way, you’ll make it worse again,” he pointed a finger at her, like a scolding schoolmaster. “I’m coming with you.”
“What’s your name?” Kiri asked. “Wait, coming with me where?”
“Colin,” he answered. “I’m coming with you to fix this with them right now.”
“Well, then, Colin, they’re getting away. I have to go now if I’m going to do this.”
He grinned. “Then you don’t have any time to argue with me.”
Kiri decided he was right. She shook her head, but didn’t argue anymore. She sprang up onto the roof of a shack and almost immediately spotted the fleeing gang. It had to be them, because not only was there hardly anyone out and about, but also many of them were still limping. She then ran across the roof in their direction and dropped down, immediately setting off in a loping run. Colin fell in beside her; he’d managed to keep up despite her acrobatics. Impressive.
The gang had enough of a head start that Kiri and Colin didn’t catch them up until they stopped at one of the few stone buildings in the area. Although it was stone and should have been sturdier than the others, it was falling apart. The door that Kiri spotted the gang slipping into was rotting off its hinges.
Kiri stopped Colin from proceeding with a hand against his chest.
“Come on!” he said. “We’ve got to follow them!”
“Just a moment,” she answered. “First tell me what is even going on here.”
“What do you mean?” he said. “You stopped the rounds, now we’re following them to…” he stopped. “To, um, do that thing you do? Threaten them? How are you going to stop them from hurting my family?”
Kiri waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll take care of that.” she said. “Why were the, um, rounds, taking you?”
Colin looked at her out of the corner of his eye, as though he couldn’t believe she was actually this stupid. “They aren’t the Rounds. They were making the Rounds. They are the Outsiders.” He looked at her with raised eyebrows, waiting for this to click with her. When it obviously meant nothing to her, he shook his head slowly. “They run half the slum. The Rounds are how they recruit.”
“So join or your family will get hurt?” Kiri asked. “How do they get any loyalty like that?”
Colin shrugged. “I didn’t want to join,” he said. “But I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing. If I’m a member no one else would dare hurt my family.”
“You want to walk in there and join now?” Kiri asked.
“Not now,” Colin said. “They won’t be happy with me now. That’s your fault, by the way.”
“Right.” Kiri nodded. “Then let’s do this.”
There wasn’t a lookout as far as Kiri could tell, but she still stuck to the shadows and made sure Colin did too as they approached the building. The door hung enough off its hinges to leave a gap allowing her to peek in. The room was large, with a low ceiling. On the far side was a cluster of furniture: tables, chairs, and a couple of cots. Two lamps sat on the table, their twin circles of light reaching about two-thirds of the way to the door. The Outsiders were gathered around the table. Most of them seemed to be beginning a card game. They were not likely to notice her coming in the door. The one man whose chair was oriented toward the door was leaning back and smoking. Kiri would have to keep an eye on him.
Moving slowly, Kiri managed to slip through the door through a barely-opened crack. She beckoned for Colin to follow her. They slipped along the edge of the wall, where the shadows were deep, closing about a third of the distance between the door and the card table. She wanted to make an impressive entrance, in just the right way. Kiri put a hand on Colin’s shoulder, hoping that he would understand that she wanted him to stay put against the wall until called upon. Heat built in her clenched fist.
Kiri took four long strides into the circles of lamplight. The man who was smoking saw her; the feet of his chair abruptly fell back to the ground with a thud. Before he had the chance to raise the alarm, Kiri opened her hand and laid a line of fire into the wood floor between the men and herself and Colin.
“I have a few more words for you,” Kiri said. “No more Rounds. Find a new way to recruit.” She beckoned to Colin, who ran forward to stand with her. “And don’t try to recruit or punish this one or his family. He’s under my protection.” She flicked her gaze down at the boy, who nodded emphatically.
The gang’s slack-jawed surprise gave Kiri a satisfied swagger. She couldn’t resist a parting line. “You better put that out before it burns the whole building down,” she told them as she turned and strode away, keeping her back straight and stiff, and not hurrying. She didn’t want them to think she was afraid of turning her back on them. As she had hoped would happen, it wasn’t until she and Colin were walking out the door that she heard the Outsiders surge forward and begin stomping out the fire.
Colin was grinning at her. “That was perfect! They’re never going to bother me, not now!”
Kiri tried to smile back. All of her happiness seemed to have gone to him, leaving none behind for her. She couldn’t help the sick fear that clenched her stomach. She couldn’t help feeling that she had not saved Colin, but hurt him, that by claiming him as hers she had painted a target on him. It hadn’t worked well for people before, being associated with the Firebrand. Hadn’t she decided not to make any more friends?
She walked Colin home in silence, shushing him when he tried to talk. When they reached the yard in front of his house she waved him in and watched from the top of his neighbor’s shack while his mother greeted him, crying, at the door. He gestured up at Kiri, and his mother beckoned for her to come down. But Kiri turned her back and ran off along the rooftops. The gate had been closed sometime while she was out, so the option of walking back through it was gone. She was forced to leave her dress behind so that she could get back over it. It was scary to try it, such a formidable wall clearly was not meant to be crossed, but she found the wall easy enough to climb. If any of the guards saw her, a thin black shape scaling the wall alone, they dismissed it as their imagination.