‘Leave me alone!”
Jimmy’s head snapped toward the sound. Down a dim alley he saw four men fighting over a struggling shape. See, he thought smugly, there’s where an organization like the Mockers comes in handy. In Krondor such an unseemly situation would never occur. Any freelance thief would know better than to contest a prize with a Mocker and two groups of Mockers would simply take the loot and let the Day-or Nightmaster sort it out. This was uncivilized. And it was not even dark yet!
For just an instant a last, golden ray of sunshine struck the face of the victim, turned toward the end of the alley where Jimmy was standing. His heart seemed to stop and his breath caught in his throat. Then she turned her head and the light was gone, leaving the alley darker than before and Jimmy in a state of paralysis.
It can’t be! he thought.
It was impossible, yet . . . In that last flash of daylight he’d have sworn that he saw the face of the Princess Anita. But she was safely on her way to the far coast. What would she be doing, alone, here in Land’s End?
The girl made a cry of pain, galvanizing the young thief into action.
He’d passed a box of ashes by the steps of a house just a step away; he grabbed a handful and rubbed it on his face, then pulled the hood of his cloak over his head as far as it would go and ran back to the alley. Jimmy yanked out his sword and with a blood-curdling yell rushed at the heaving, shoving group at the end of the alley.
‘At ‘em boys!’ Jimmy bellowed. ‘No quarter!’
Up to now it had been hard words and harder clubs, and one man waving a dirk without using it, but the introduction of an edged weapon and the possibility of more attackers threw the four thief-takers into confusion for a crucial moment. Jimmy slashed out at waist level and the men let go of the girl and jumped back.
Whereupon Jimmy grabbed her tunic and pulled. She was older than he was, he judged quickly, but no taller. And a game lass, he thought; on her feet in a second to follow him out of the alley. He let go of her and slid his rapier back into its sheath, leading her toward that box of ash.
It hadn’t taken the four men long to recover from his unplanned attack, or to realize that there were no ‘boys’ intent on giving ‘no quarter’, and they were soon hot on Jimmy’s heels. He suspected that they might happily let the girl go free in order to pummel him into the cobbles. It was sad, but he often had that effect on people.
When they reached the house with the ashes Jimmy picked up the box, spun round and flung the contents into the air right in his pursuers’ faces. They fell back, cursing and coughing. With dexterity bordering on the supernatural, he again drew his blade and delivered a few well-placed nicks and cuts to the four men, who tried to fend off the much longer blade with clubs and a single dirk. Jimmy had only a few weeks’ practice with the blade, but his teacher had been Prince Arutha, and more, Jimmy was faster than most experienced swordsmen. The men tried to fan out and approach from two sides. For their efforts they received some nasty cuts on the arms and hands from Jimmy’s much longer blade. Jimmy laid about, his blade hissing as it cut air, and each time it made contact, an attacker yelped in pain and fell back. Then the leader of the group, the man with the black moustache, tried to leap in, and Jimmy cut him deep across the shoulder. One of the men turned and fled, and in a moment, the rout was on, the attackers beating a hasty retreat; the price of the girl and the boy wasn’t worth bleeding to death.
Jimmy grabbed the girl’s hand and led her through the narrow space between two houses. It was barely wide enough for him and in a few steps his cloak was strangling him where it had caught on the rough surface somewhere behind him. He managed to get a hand up to release the clasp and with the girl’s help dislodged it.
‘They won’t be able to follow us through here,’ he said.
‘What’s to stop them from going back down the alley and coming around?’ the girl asked. She had a low, husky voice, and she asked very sensible questions.
Jimmy liked that, but she didn’t sound like the Princess, meaning he’d probably interfered with something that was none of his business. Ah, well. Win some, lose some, he thought philosophically. Perhaps there was something here he could turn to his advantage. And if it was a madness, it was a noble madness.
When they came out behind the house, Jimmy looked around and traced a path to the rooftops. The roofs were different here in Land’s End, slightly steeper and mostly tiled, but not impassable; the walls had more stone and less brick and half-timbering, but his fingers were strong and his toes nimble.
‘Can you climb?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said shortly.
‘Then follow every move I make,’ he ordered.