8. Hailstorm of Iron and Timber
Hailstorm of Iron and Timber
As we wove through the narrow alleyways, the uneven cobblestones echoed loudly beneath my feet.
The night folded in around us, tightening with every step I took away from my old life.
My knuckles went white as I clung to myself, afraid I’d come apart if I loosened my grip.
Whatever fragile hope I’d found at that window was long gone, carried off on the same foreign breeze that now pressed against my skin.
I didn’t know how to move through this world, and I had the sinking feeling that ignorance would be my undoing.
And the ways I could come undone were multiplying by the minute.
Griffon glanced back at me. Crates and rubbish crowded every corner, reeking of damp and rot.
Sweat beaded on my brow. I tried to breathe slowly, but it was useless.
Every shadow seemed like it could hide a hundred ways this could go wrong.
The end of the alley came into view. Light spilled from the lamps along the main thoroughfare just ahead.
He turned his head again, his gaze flicking back toward me, clearly distracted by my spiraling and the less-than-reassuring soundtrack of my panic breathing.
Just as he broke from the shadow into the oil lamp’s glow, he suddenly froze mid-step.
“Oof—” I walked into his back, my nose smacking into the leather of his overcoat.
“Stop,” he hissed. He’d planted himself halfway around the corner, shoulders wide, shadow stretching across the brick wall.
Blunt force trauma to the face seemed to snap me out of my anxiety. What in the…
That’s when I heard them. Men. Somewhere on the street in front of him. Their shouts of both alarm and victory at his appearance filtered into the dark alley where I stood.
He blocked my view. As quickly as my curiosity flared and pushed me to peek around his shoulder, I stopped. He was blocking me on purpose. Because as much as I was unable to see them, they hadn’t seen me either.
Raising a hand to his face, he angled his head down and whispered, “Go back to the fire escape. Climb to the roof.”
I retreated—one step. Then two. Only then did he move forward, emerging into the streetlight.
“Koel,” he said to someone I couldn’t see.
The tracker.
Curiosity pulled me up short, the need to know humming under my skin. Then I shook my head. Idiot. Curiosity killed the cat.
I stepped back further. Such a wildly inaccurate saying in Volantia. Cats hadn’t lasted long in a kingdom that worshipped birds.
Focus, Wren. And get moving.
I forced my eyes from the corner back to the alley. Fire escape… What even was that? Balconies jutted from the building above, ladders linking them all the way to the roof. It was either terrible architecture or…that was it.
Rushing to the ladder, I began to climb. The rusty metal was abrasive under my hands. I ducked through the opening to the first balcony and realized with a start that I would have to walk in front of an open window.
Jeers from around the corner drove me past the wavering curtain and up the metal staircase between balconies. The rickety structure swayed beneath my boots as I climbed, step by step, until I reached the ladder to the top. I clambered over the parapet.
Gravel crunched under my boots in the near darkness as I pushed through clotheslines, avoided potted plants, and swerved around chimneys to get to the edge where I could see the street below.
In the deep shadows and the intermittent light of the oil lamps, Griffon faced off with seven men.
Seven! Blades clashed and men shouted. He seemed unperturbed as he glanced down the street during a brief pause, his mouth lifting into a slight smile.
A lamp came to life in an apartment window across the street. Then another.
This seemed so much worse than running away so you didn’t get in trouble for being out of bed. Those were actual weapons. Did they plan to capture Griffon and take him back to his assignment? Or did they plan to kill him?
The fight had moved further down the street from where it had begun.
Glancing up and over the rooftops, I realized tonight’s itinerary would include a bit of amateur acrobatics.
Running to the short wall separating the adjacent building, I leapt, missed the elegance entirely, and muscled my way over with a graceless scramble before dashing across to the next.
It was as if Griffon kept pushing them further and further away.
The residential buildings began tapering off into an area of small factories and storage structures. The next structure was a warehouse under construction and, unfortunately, two meters shorter than the four-story tenements I’d been crossing.
I eased onto the roof’s edge and rolled onto my belly, sliding down to soften the drop.
Graceful landings apparently required practice because the brick scraped my ribs as gravity took over, and I slid faster than intended, hitting the warehouse roof hard enough to knock the breath from me.
My legs folded as I stumbled into a scatter of loose bricks, pain flaring through my thigh and elbow on impact.
I pushed myself up, wincing, and clambered over piles of debris: scattered tools, buckets, ropes, and a wheelbarrow heaped with bricks.
A safe refuge if you ignored the unstable architecture and impressive array of tetanus risks.
I leaned over the crumbling parapet to find scaffolding running along most of the facade facing the street.
Griffon and the men were down below, while a small cluster of night-clothed onlookers had gathered across the street, peering curiously at the commotion.
Griffon’s eyes were bright with the exhilaration of the battle as he grinned and beckoned his next opponents to attack.
His movements were deliberate, precise, and incredibly fast, each one the result of practiced skill and instinctive talent.
With speed unmatched by the men engaging him, he had both short swords swinging as he blocked the blows of two soldiers in royal blue and green tunics.
He swung and spun to parry another blow coming from his left.
Clearly, he knew how to wield all the weapons strapped across his body.
It was nice to know that at least one of us was competent.
The way the men moved mesmerized me. The guards at the Citadel had weapons, but I’d never seen them used. It was like a dance. A sweaty, brutal dance to the syncopated, choppy beats of grunting and metal striking metal.
And through it all, I noticed that Griffon never went on the offensive. He defended himself and returned the attack, but never struck a soldier unless they attacked first. It was as if he were holding back. Even toying with them.
Of the seven men I saw on the first rooftop, five were still upright and engaging Griffon.
Those were the queen’s men. All of them wore the blue and green of the House of Pavo, except one.
He wore black like Griffon. But where Griffon had light hair, the other had dark.
So dark that he would disappear and reappear again as he moved in and out of the gas lamps’ glow.
The man in black, whom I assumed was Koel, taunted Griffon with words I couldn't hear from where I hid.
With two hands on the pommel, he swung his longsword, his eyes gleaming in challenge.
That lower hand was what I kept coming back to.
Four fingers and a smooth, pale stump, working the leather grip in small, deliberate adjustments.
Bracketed by a dark, trimmed beard, his lips curled into a smirk, the corners twitching with amusement, even as Griffon parried his strike and languidly sidestepped as though he were sparring rather than fighting for his life.
Three charged Griffon at once. He blocked the blows, but they soon backed him against a stack of lumber.
Griffon then used the wood as a step to propel himself off the ground into a spinning kick that took a soldier to the ground.
Dodging the thrust of another’s sword, he took a broad step to the right.
The move was odd.
It shook me out of my fascination. By moving to the right, he was now pinned between the scaffolding and his opponents. If he had gone straight back, he’d have eliminated the risk of being cornered. Then he leapt onto the boards stretched over the first level of supports.
It clicked. He led them down the street to the scaffolding. Apparently, I was the only one winging it tonight because that’s the way he planned to get to the roof. Oh, he was clever. Irritable, but clever.
It was hard to see what was going on from this angle, as the fight was moving onto the scaffolding. Koel leapt onto a support, jabbing his sword through a cross brace. His frustrated grunt made it apparent that his blade hadn’t found its mark.
“Running, Griffon?” Koel called with a scowl as he jabbed again. It seemed the man's face couldn't decide whether the world was a joke or a disappointment. If he wasn't smirking, he was scowling. “That's new. You used to at least have the stomach to finish what you started.”
I frowned. Whatever history existed between these two, it had teeth.
“All this for a stupid boy?”
Stupid boy? Rude. And inaccurate, but mostly rude. I’d be offended if I weren’t so busy trying not to die.
“You were her finest work,” he taunted. “And now look at you.”
This time, Koel jerked back, narrowly avoiding the point of a blade as it came precariously close to his shoulder. The man cursed and swung, eyes flicking up at the scaffolding as he searched for a better grip.
I ducked behind the crumbling parapet, heart thudding, trying to disappear into the shadows.
“You know she'll want you alive, Griffon,” Koel called after him, his voice settling into something almost conversational. “And once she has you back, there won't be enough of you left to run.”