Chương 5

Law 3 is not cowardice. It is wisdom. Harker ran.

"After him!" He wasn't sure who was shouting, but it didn't matter. If any of them caught Harker, it would be the end. He scrambled down the street, hugging tight to the wall of Garon's shop. The moment he felt the second dip in the masonry he jerked left, sliding between the buildings along a narrow cleft he knew to be there. It was almost too narrow—he'd grown some since he'd last attempted this path—but Harker slipped by the chimney stack jutting across his way just in time to feel his skin tighten in warning.

He threw himself forward, skinning his palms against cobbles just as an iron dart hit the bricks by his head. Jagged chunks rained down on him.

"Depths! Missed him!" Jeren snarled.

"We can't fit! Go around!" Stumbling into the adjoining street, Harker ignored the blood welling from a cut across the back of his scalp. Shallow laceration. Profuse bleeding. Low chance of concussion. He crossed the street on wobbly legs, into another darkened alley between homes. He knew it was a dead-end, where the row of homes ran up against the tiered retaining walls leading up the valley. Yet there was always a way out. He just had to find it. There. A drainpipe stretched up the side of one home.

It was more than enough for him. He hauled himself up, his muscles immediately burning from his efforts as a litany of treatment rattled through his mind. Clean with sterilized water. Mix yarrow root into a paste with fennel. Apply to the scalp with a spinweave bandage for ideal treatment. Hand over hand he ascended as fast as he could—yet Harker was nothing if not cursed. His pursuers might cling to the Surface of the Sea, same as him, but they could actually draw their Water. He wasn't fast enough.

"He's climbing!" A whistling impact tore into the building beside him, missing again by the barest of margins. Harker didn't slow, but he did look back. Down at the mouth of the alley, Kaz and Mert stood, barely panting as if they hadn't just sprinted around half a block. At their head was Jeren, red in the face as he lowered his hand.

"My Mari is gonna die because of you! Face me like a man, Knack!"

"I'd rather not!" Harker pulled himself higher. One. For all the Vinell's strength, their Earthfist couldn't do anything to him at a distance. It was Jeren's Accuracy Talent that was the real threat, even if it took time to manifest. Two. Harker never stopped climbing, though his arms ached and his head was swimming. Jeren just had to collect Water into his hand and pick up another rock. Three. He was so close to the roof, but the idiots weren't moving. Jeren whipped his hand up. Fou— Harker released his grip.

A second shot sliced into the drainpipe, splitting the thick metal with a brief shower of sparks. Harker seized the pipe again, groaning as the strain tore at his shoulders. Bastard's Current is faster than I remember! Harker dug his new boots into the wall and just about lunged up the final few feet. He swung over the lip of the roof well before Jeren could muster another shot. He collapsed onto the roof, surrounded by the fluttering linens someone had forgotten to take down from the line.

"Get back here, Harker!" Harker stayed there on the tiles, trying to master his breathing.

"I'll…get right on that."

"You! Follow him up there!"

"I can't climb that!" Kaz protested.

"Do it anyway!" Time to move. Harker's left side was bruised, but he shoved through it, ignoring the splotch of red he left behind on the tiles. Fully broken ribs. Alternate cold and warm compresses. Recommend bed rest and supplement with willow bark tea. The drainpipe shook, creaking ominously as Kaz started climbing. Harker staggered to his feet, his mind racing. He needed a path out, but he wasn't fast enough to get away from them on flat ground. His legs were no match for Water-infused muscles.

What Harker needed was a distraction. Just over the rooftops, another block over, he saw Goody Molluc leaning out of her window with a candle. No doubt inspecting— The inn. Harker took off. Pain lanced at him, but he shoved it back as best he could. Hope gave him energy enough to ignore his flagging limbs and labored breathing, and Harker leaped across the rooftop tiles as the evening finally darkened into night. Stolen novel; please report.

"Stop runnin'!" Kaz shouted as he crested the drainpipe.

"It'll just make it worse when we catch ya!"

"That," Harker panted, struggling over the peak of the roof four houses down.

"Is not a good incentive for stopping!" He scrabbled across rooftops, peak after peak, while behind him Kaz thundered in pursuit. The man was strong and fast, but he was graceless; each stop cracked roofing tiles, sending them sliding off the eaves and fouling the idiot's footing. Ahead, the street bent back toward the river, with Whitlock's inn no more than three buildings down. The only problem was he was on the wrong side of the street. He'd have to get down and cross—unless he did something stupid.

Harker hopped across a bank of chimneys, landing with a pained grunt. He pulled a small knife from his belt, the blade no longer than the palm of his hand, and ducked beneath a lengthy clothes line. He slashed at one end and wrapped his arm around it. He jumped. The rope burned against his palm and wrist, and Harker couldn't breathe as he swung down the side of the house. The line dipped low, its far end snapping taut against the wooden pole that secured it, but it held.

He swung fast, feet tucked, as he arced across the narrow street—right toward the inn. Harker let go, tucking his shoulder as he landed in a heavy roll onto the porch roof. The hard clay tiles drove the breath from his lungs and a lance of agony through his broken ribs. He floundered, the tiles too slick for purchase, and headed straight for the edge. Knife still in hand, Harker jammed it anywhere—everywhere—cracking the tiles and blunting the tip of the blade before it caught.

He wrenched to a stop, his shoulder screaming as his feet dangled over thin air.

"Where is he?" Distant as it was, Jeren's voice carried in the dark. He and Mert rounded the corner, brows drawn and eyes searching the rooftops along the opposite side of the street. Harker pressed himself flat and remained as still as he could—if they passed by, he could evade them entirely.

"There!" Kaz shouted. Already climbing down from an opposing rooftop, the Vinell could see Harker all too clearly. Jeren and Mert sped up. Depths! With rapidly draining strength, Harker lifted himself up and flipped over, freeing the satchel at his hip. He reached into it, rustling around for a long moment. I hate to waste this… Below, the hounds were still tied to their posts, as if the hunters planned on a late-night excursion. Dangerous. Impractical. Perfect.

His fingers closed around one of two sachets of wargrass and he dropped it off the roof, right into the smoldering coals. Smoke billowed as the bag and its contents caught flame. The howling started immediately. Fresh wargrass was bad enough for any animal with sensitive noses, but burn it and the effect amplified tenfold. The hounds pulled at their reins, paws tearing terrible grooves through the cobbles and posts as they bellowed and whimpered in turns.

Harker retreated, scooting back from the edge as Jeren and Mert reached the hounds. They broke free, reins snapping beneath their frenzied strength, and the boys leapt out of the way. Harker met Jeren's eyes. He snarled, his Talent unfurling around the dart in his palm—just as the inn's door's slammed open.

"What's going on out here?" The hunters rushed out in a knot, their white cloaks billowing, exposing their fine armor and finer weaponry. Jeren's Talent fizzled out, his face pale.

"Your dogs went crazy," Mert said between howls.

"Got in our way!" One the hunters closed the distance faster than Harker could track. He loomed over Mert.

"What did you do?"

"I didn't do nothin'!" The hounds'll be fine, he reminded himself. The smoke was an irritant, effective at driving away all sorts of creatures, but it only lasted so long as they breathed it in. Based on the escalating volume below, Jeren and the twins might see far lasting damage. Quietly as he could, Harker crawled onto the upper roof and across the inn's peak. Between the hounds and arguing Vinell's, he could've stood up and run for all the hunter's would notice.

Still, making new enemies without reason was the height of folly. Law 1A — Show Nothing. Best to vanish. In seconds, he was gone. The sounds of howling brought Adhira to the window. From the second story of the home they were renting, she had a clear vantage across the river. There, fine hounds were racing down the street, chased by men in pale cloaks shouting at the tops of their lungs.

"It seems those hunters are haranguing some poor farm boys," Sejal said from across the room. Adhira glanced at her sideways. The woman wasn't even looking.

"What did they do?"

"Do you think me a Sixth Depth to peer across such vast distances?" Her guardian snorted, her hands not so much as faltering as she knit. Adhira pursed her lips. The yarn abomination was growing again.

"I simply believe in your Talent, Sejal."

"Then believe me when I say that you need to rest." The woman put the knitting down and fixed her ward with a saltsteel glare.

"You will gain nothing by driving yourself to ruin." One would think long exposure to her moods would fade their effect. Adhira turned away, just as lightning split the sky. Rain descended in sudden waves, driving the hunters back toward their inn and scattering the folks away from the Charterstones in the square. The only ones that remained were the orange-robed Keepers; they spread their arms and lifted their faces as the rain beat against their fingerbells and drums.

The Chartermark ceremony was over, whether the Vale liked it or not.

"The sense of this treasure is a vague one," Sejal said at last. She'd resumed her knitting.

"At best, I can feel the ripples of the initial wave. They are greatly faded since its breaking."

"All the more reason to move faster." Exasperation bled through Adhira's throat.

"What troubles you about that?"

"All of this troubles me. For instance, the fact that we are here on this uncivilized northern isle, instead of the Hollow Hold, greatly concerns me."

"I would have already left the Hold. This would have ensured that." Adhira held up her arm which, sans armor, faintly gleamed under the effect of her Chartermark.

"Yes, and you would have been that much closer to your Travelspire and the completion of your Ordeals—""Enough," Adhira growled. They'd had this argument too many times to entertain it now.

"Fine. Then consider what those hunters and whomever hired them will do when they discover your identity."

"They won't."

"You cannot control that, and your mother cannot protect you here—""I do not need her protection." Adhira clenched the window sill. The wood splintered.

"It doesn't matter. She cannot protect me in the Spires either. Without this artifact, I will be dead within the year."" Iyeshi…"

"No. Do not deny it." Adhira released the sill. With a flourish, she pulled on her stormcloak.

"Come. If the hunters have not yet found it, then we must search all the harder."

"Again? We've only just returned to town. This storm—" Adhira didn't bother to reply. She was already six steps out the door when Sejal joined her.