"They"re well out, by now." She silently added, They"d better d.a.m.n well be. She glanced at Duster; the girl didn"t seem even slightly concerned at what remained of her thin clothing. She followed Jewel.
It was the first time they would run this way, Jewel in the lead and Duster her shadow. Jewel caught the image as it flew by, as real for a moment as the walls, the curved steps, the threat of fire. She wanted to turn and touch Duster then, to fix her firmly in the here and now, but she didn"t dare. If Duster was nonchalant in appearance, she was-she had to be-approached with care.
And care took time.
They made their way down the steps, sent the metal bucket clattering in a spin, and grabbed the mop. Or rather, Jewel did. Duster"s brows rose into the tangle of her hair, but she said nothing.
They left the kitchen; Jewel led them, not back into the hall that ran to the grand-well, almost grand-foyer, but rather, into the dining room. It was empty, and it wasn"t exactly dirty; there were no dishes here, and the chairs looked new. But the ceiling was patchy with water damage and poor paint; the makeover, such as it was, was simple and dirty.
There were doors from the dining room that led to the foyer, and doors that led to the sitting room. Carver started toward the foyer, and Jewel shouted his name. When he looked back, she shook her head. "Touch the d.a.m.n door," she said, her voice low.
He touched the handle instead, and cursed loudly. "Good call." He would have said more, but the mansion spoke for him; it cracked.
"That"ll be the stairs," Jewel said grimly. "Come on. Sitting room."
Duster bridled and stopped just short of the closed doors. Jewel knew why. "It"s day," she told Duster. "Morning. If the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who visited are anywhere, they"re up in their expensive homes in the high holdings; they won"t be waiting for you there." She saw, instantly, that this was exactly the wrong thing to say.
Wrong, but necessary. She pushed the doors open, and hoped that Duster would follow her. Not trust her, not precisely; saving her life hadn"t earned that. If anything would.
Because in a life like this, salvation could be just another trick. Had they not all been about the same age, had Finch not been with them, Jewel wasn"t certain how it would have played out.
But the crack of timber was its own imperative, and Duster, last through the doors, entered the sitting room.
This room was a fine room. The care that hadn"t been taken elsewhere had been concentrated here. The carpets were new, and thick, a dark, deep red that reminded Jewel of Rath"s wine. There was a low, plain table that gleamed; it was unmarked by anything but a silver vase that was, at the moment, empty. There were cabinets that rested against the far wall, and behind the clear panes of diamond-shaped gla.s.s, bottles of different shapes and sizes, and cut crystal gla.s.ses that she almost stopped to pocket. They"d break, or she would have.
The chairs were also fine; the wood, dark and oiled, the velvet armrests and the rounded padding on the chairback a match for the carpet they were trampling. And beyond them, beyond the new mantel that girded an old fireplace, beyond the framed paintings that hung above it, curtains that were edged in gold. They were drawn.
Carver shifted the weight of the maps into one arm, and shoved those curtains apart, exposing the full height of windows in a bay that stood some six feet above the flower beds beneath the window. At least the beds weren"t fancy; they were mostly-like the rest of the grounds-composed of weeds.
Jewel hefted the mop in her hands, and began to break gla.s.s.
"Chair would be better," Duster offered.
"We can"t lift them," Jewel replied tersely.
Duster tried. "Good point." She looked around for something else, disappeared, and came back wielding what could only be called bra.s.s sticks. "For the fire," Duster said. "But they"ll do."
Jewel nodded. They lifted their chosen weapons-bra.s.s and wood-and swung them wherever they could reach.
Gla.s.s flew in shards, falling outward. The sharp edges that remained in the frame were struck again and again by bra.s.s rods.
Jewel looked at Finch and Carver; they both had boots. So did she. Only Duster, barefoot, risked shredding skin against what remained of the windows.
But bleeding was far less painful-and deadly-than fire. "You ready?" Jewel asked her.
She nodded.
"Finch?"
Finch looked at all of them, her eyes wide. Then she moved toward the window, map still in arms, and her eyes widened. "I see Rath!" she shouted.
"Anything else?"
"His friends. Some of them. But, Jay . . ."
"They"re not alone."
She shook her head. Her face was white.
And Duster came to stand beside Finch; she was a good four inches taller, and if her face was bruised and her hair was clumpy, she looked, for a moment, more regal somehow. Certainly more dangerous. Her eyes followed Finch"s gaze, and her lips thinned.
"They"re not going to make it," Duster said softly. "And if we join them, we"re not going to make it either. There"s a back way-"
"There isn"t," Jewel replied grimly. "There"s a lot of fire, and the joists on the second floor have fallen." She paused, and added, "The fire started at the back end of the building on the second floor; it"s spreading now."
Duster raised a brow. "You saw this when we weren"t looking?"
"Something like that." She pushed her way past Finch and looked out of the gla.s.sless frame. The weeds were burning, but they didn"t burn for long; they were wet. Everything outside was, except for the man who wore fire like a cloak. Mage, she thought, and swallowed.
"He hasn"t seen us," Carver said quietly.
"Do you see Arann?"
Finch shook her head. "Duster-your feet-"
"Better than fire," Duster said curtly. "Can you climb out on your own?"
Finch nodded. The two looked at each other for a moment, and then Finch whispered something Jewel couldn"t hear. Duster cuffed the younger girl in the side of the head, but not so hard that it was meant to actually hurt.
She looked up, met Jewel"s eyes, and offered her a crooked smile. "I"ve always had a weakness for birds," she offered with a shrug.
And before she could really think, Jewel said, "Why did they keep you alive?" It was entirely the wrong question. And it was the only question that mattered. Jewel knew this with more certainty than almost anything else at the moment.
"Long story," Duster replied. But her expression had stiffened, and her eyes had gone that shade of wary that hinted at upcoming lies.
"Right. Story later." Jewel looked at the men who were battling their way back down the path. The mage didn"t press them; he threw fire, and Rath seemed to split it in two with the wave of his hand.
No, she thought, squinting, not his hand. He was carrying a dagger. And from the look of it, not a normal one either. Some of Harald"s men had made the fence, and the gate that lay slanting from old hinges. She half expected the gate to slam shut, but it didn"t.
Still, she now knew why the doors had closed so suddenly, sealing them in.
"Stay close to the mansion," Jewel told them all, as she grabbed a handful of curtain and laid it against the window frame, protecting her hands. She raised herself up to the window, and then swung her legs over the other side, falling into the beds beneath it. They were mostly flat weed, but that was better than the mud they would otherwise have been.
She turned, looked up, and lifted her hands. "Throw the maps down first," she said, sparing a backward glance over her shoulder. Fire had always mesmerized her.
But a faceful of map was a good antidote; it completely blanketed her head. She heard a m.u.f.fled snicker as Carver dropped down beside her, and managed to lift the map enough to catch the expression that accompanied it. But he retrieved the map and rolled it back into something that could be carried; it looked like a really tattered rug. He then looked up as Finch threw the next two down. He was more agile than Jewel; she had to admit that.
Finch came next, and almost right behind her, Duster. Suspiciously right behind; Jewel wondered, watching them as they fell, if Duster had pushed her. As if she could hear the question, Duster looked up and met her gaze; she held it briefly, and broke it with a shrug.
Fair enough. Had Jewel been the one left behind, she"d"ve pushed.
Duster"s feet went from white with a few red streaks, to brown in the s.p.a.ce of a few steps; the air here was cold, but not enough to freeze ground. And, on the bright side, if they stayed here much longer, they"d be warming their hands over the city"s biggest bonfire.
She looked down the side of the building, past the steps that led to doors that would probably never open again. There was no sign of Arann or the rest of her-her friends. Charges. Whatever.
He"d been given instructions; she hoped he"d followed them. If he had, he"d be well quit of the grounds, with Rath and his friends between him and the only thing left that was a danger.
She couldn"t understand why the man kept his distance; he followed, but he followed at the exact pace that Rath retreated, no more. She could see Rath"s face, could see the narrowed movement of his eyes, the occasional movement of his hands. The dagger, there.
It was cutting the flame. Where fire struck its edge, it split, shunted to either side of Rath. And Rath remained where he was as Harald"s men retreated farther. One had a crossbow, but nothing to put in it. The others? Swords, but not useful ones. She wondered about that.
And wondered how long Rath would last. He wasn"t tired yet. But the mage who followed him? She could see his back, and only his back, but she knew he was enjoying this. To him it was a game.
"Carver," she said, and held out her hand.
He placed his dagger hilt into her palm, and she looked at it as if it were rain-worms. "What am I supposed to do with this?" she asked.
"Girls," he said, taking it back, "are weird. What did you want?"
"A map."
"Which one?"
"Any one. I don"t care which. And I want you to take everyone else over-there." She gestured broadly to the right. "Get to the fence, if you can. Get to the gate. There"s no way it"s closing any time soon."
"What are you going to do?"
"Help Rath," she said grimly, taking one of the maps they had worked so hard to pull down from the great rooms above.
"You"re going to help him with one of those?"
"Probably only one of these," she said. She tried to project confidence; it was one of Rath"s constant refrains. "My guess?"
He was staring at her; she could almost see his other eye as the wind kicked his hair back. "Guess?"
"Dagger"s not going to do much good if those men are holding their swords."
"It"s better than nothing."
"No," she said quietly. "It"s exactly nothing."
"This one of your-"
"Shut up, Carver."
He saluted. Sort of. More important? He caught Finch by the arm and began to lead her away. She held the other two maps; he couldn"t take her hand. But Duster drifted behind them more slowly; she was watching Jewel.
And Jewel knew better than to give orders to Duster. Maybe one day. If ever.
Well, let her watch.
Rath was not yet tiring. But yet was a precarious word on which to balance survival. Had he been in any other fight, he would have taken a position at the rear-it was one of the tangible benefits of being the one to hire men, rather than the other way around. This confrontation, however, differed in a single important way from any other he had chosen to engage in: He had in his possession the only effective weapon which could be wielded against this flame-robed, black-eyed man. To run was not only to court death, but to wed it. And to stand behind a row of men whose weapons were of little use was to surrender them needlessly.
Rath had never prided himself on his ability to lead; nor indeed had he any desire to rule or command. He had been content, if not to follow, then at least to choose his own path. The Patriarch of Handernesse-his grandfather-had believed in a way that was in parts visceral and in parts paternal, the adage about power and responsibility.
In some measure, Rath found, he must have absorbed the lectures he had cared so little for. Tiring, he retreated, his attention upon two things: the man whose fire he split, and the men whose lives he had endangered. He wondered, briefly, if Andrei would make an appearance; it would be welcome, but it was not to be looked for.
And in the end, it did not come.
What came instead, what he did not realize he dreaded until the precise moment he saw her clearly, was Jewel Markess. And she carried, of all things, a small rug that she set flapping in the wind, held as it was by small hands. Small fists.
He bit back the warning that rose behind clenched teeth, and his skill was such that he, unlike Jewel, could see her without betraying her presence. But it was harder than he would have either expected or predicted; she was not yet eleven. And she was not, he realized, a child. Not truly.
She moved toward the man who burned, unerringly; the damp gra.s.s smoldered in his wake, and smoke managed to wend its way above the sodden ground as he pa.s.sed over it, blanketing it with flame. She couldn"t see his eyes, Rath realized. But see them or no, she had to understand the danger; there weren"t many men who could walk in raiment of fire, and of those, very few who would have dared the Laws of the Empire to do so.
And yet . . . and yet he saw what she intended, and it evoked a sharp sense of pride; it had to be sharp, to cut through the fear.
No dagger in hand, no weapon that could harm him, she approached him, and at the last moment, her legs almost trembling, she tossed the carpet up, and up again, controlling-but barely-its fall.
It fell over the eyes, the face, the shoulders; it fell and began to darken slowly as the fire consumed it.
And it bought Rath the time he needed.
Gone was caution, gone retreat; he lunged forward the moment the rug billowed down, moving as his enemy sensed its fall, the immediacy of a shadow he did not control.
Rath risked the dubious caress of flame and fire, for fire gouted, wild, released in a circular blast that traveled outward in a thick, dense ring of heat and death.
Jewel was gone before it struck her, but only barely; he could see her retreat as he stepped in, lunging through the fire itself with the dagger"s blade, cutting a literal path in a substance that should have given inches of steel no purchase.
The tip of the dagger broke robe and skin, moving slowly through both, as if they were illusory, something fitted awkwardly over stone or steel. He put his shoulder into the single thrust he was given as the creature raised his arms; he saw golden light flare when the dagger at last bit home.
More than that, he left to fate; he released the hilt and leaped back, disarmed. He made the dubious safety of the gate, the hinges listing slightly with Harald"s weight.
The Northerner"s face was dark with blood, and his nose would bear a scar for the day"s work. But it was still attached to his face. He offered Rath a grim smile, a dark smile, as he held the gate open. "Didn"t think you were going to make it," he said, nodding genially.
Rath shrugged. It was all he could offer for the moment; his attention was upon the grounds. "Where," he asked, without looking, "are the other children?"
"Well past the fence to the east," Harald replied. "One of mine is with them; they don"t like it much, but I don"t think they"ve run." He paused, and then added, "I think your mage has run out of flame."
Rath nodded.
"That"s a brave girl you"ve got there," Harald said with grudging approval. "And not a stupid one either. I thought she"d take the boy"s knife."
"I"d have cut off her hand myself if she"d done anything that idiotic."
Harald raised a brow. The patch that rested below it had been slit in the blow that had almost dislodged the man"s nose, and the socket that had once contained an eye lay exposed. It didn"t make the Northern face look much more threatening than it already appeared. "She"s off by the far window," he added.
Rath nodded. "Finch is with her."