She eliminated the distance between them in two strides, casting the walking staff aside. It would only get in the way. Planting her left foot, she reached for him. His false smile fragmented into a snarl, and the icy glint of a blade was already half uncovered.
Viv jammed one forearm against his and brought her other hand looping up behind it, twisting sharply until the dagger spun away. From the corner of her eye, she spied the bloom of his cloak where his other arm was rising, doubtless with another knife at the ready. She brought her hand back to intercept it, curling the fabric in her fist to foul his strike. But his left foot kicked out, hooking around the heel of her damaged leg.
Before she’d been stabbed, it would’ve been like trying to move a mountain, but her knee folded, and she stumbled against him. She gave up all attempts at deflection and seized him around the middle with both arms as they fell, crushing him so flat against her that he’d not be able to bring a blade to bear.
Then they were on the ground in a spray of sand and a tangle of cloak, and the agony in her thigh burned bright again. Even so, she spun him over and straddled him, pressing his arms flat, ignoring the sizzle of pain all through her leg. She growled at him, and that smell assaulted her—cold and wrong and so familiar. Not precisely the same, but a cousin to something deadly, if only she had a moment to place it.
The man in gray bared his teeth at her in savage effort, and she felt his hand twisting, his fingers contorting. With his cloak flared to the side she could see a magestone belted to his hip, and her eyes widened as it glowed with heat. A sudden impact hammered into her, as though she’d slammed into a lake spread-eagled. Viv was blown back and across the street, smashing against the edge of the boardwalk.
Now she wished she had the staff.
This was the moment where hesitation meant the end of things. She felt the wound in her leg pull and tear, along with a rush of warm wetness as she scrambled to him on all fours. Before he could recover, Viv lunged for the magestone in his cloak. Her fingers caught in his belt and yanked as they both went over again. A satchel went flying from his shoulder and tumbled across the sand. When he struck the earth, she heard the breath blow out of him, but his hands were moving again, and she couldn’t get the belt off him.
“Stop movin’ that hand or this goes through your gods-damned throat,” came a sharp, high voice that Viv recognized.
She didn’t know if it was meant for her or the man in gray, but they both froze.
One of Gallina’s fists tangled in the man’s hood, and the other pressed a poniard against his Adam’s apple.
“Get the belt off him,” said the gnome, cool as you please. “Can’t have him castin’ again, can we?”
If someone had told Viv that morning that she’d be pleased to see Gallina, she would’ve questioned their sanity.
The man’s eyes remained fixed on Viv, wide and hateful. She grunted, shifting her weight away from the leg now oozing through her trousers, and managed to find the buckle on the thin magestone belt. Her thick fingers fumbled to open it, and she whipped it out from under him, the silver teardrop stone twinkling with flecks like mica.
Viv became dimly aware of their surroundings, as though she was emerging from a heavy mist. Figures gathered on the boardwalk. Fern must have been there, too.
Then another voice spoke, far from welcome.
“You’ll all stop, or it won’t be just one of you bleeding on my street,” said the tapenti. Iridia the Gatewarden circled them, her scaled hood flaring from temples to throat. She held her longsword effortlessly point down, but Viv recognized the capability in that grip.
The woman eyed all three of them, but her gaze lanced into Viv. Four more Gatewardens moved into view behind her, lanterns gleaming at their belts, hands on their undrawn weapons.
“I told you I liked it quiet.”
* * *
Viv’s third trip inside the fortress walls of Murk was the least auspicious of the bunch.
There was only a pair of cells in the old stone building the Gatewardens occupied. Viv and Gallina ended up in one, the man in gray in the other. They’d let Viv reclaim her walking staff for the long and exceptionally painful walk, during which her trouser leg became saturated with blood. Once they’d arrived, Iridia had plucked it from her hands and stowed it at the watch desk along with Gallina’s daggers and the stranger’s weapons, satchel, and magestone.
The ceilings were so low that Viv couldn’t stand fully upright, but at least there was a pair of cots. She sat gratefully on one with her leg extended, and her heartbeat echoed in booming waves throughout the wound.
Gallina stood clutching the bars and muttering under her breath.
Across the way, the man in gray sat with his hands clasped between his knees. They’d taken his cloak, and underneath it he wore a long, loose, gray shirt and ragged, colorless trousers. He gazed at the floor with a serene expression on his face.
The tapenti stood in the slim passageway between the cells and surveyed her captives with narrowed eyes, which gleamed a startling, luminous gold in the dim light.
“I’ll have word sent to Highlark you’re here,” she said to Viv. “Try not to bleed all over my cell until he arrives.” The tapenti made a disgusted sound deep in her throat. “I’m not interested in speaking with any of you at the moment. You can keep until tomorrow.”
“We gettin’ somethin’ to eat?” asked Gallina. “Gnomes got a high metabolism.”
Iridia’s eyes narrowed even further. “No.”
Then she swept out of the corridor. A young dwarf with a close-cropped beard settled at the watch desk and began whittling something with a pocketknife.
Gallina blew out a breath. “Well. This is a shit-show.”
Viv grimaced and examined her leg. She thought the bleeding was stopping but wondered how much worse she’d make things for herself if she did leak all over the cell. When she looked up, she found the gnome watching her expectantly. She sighed. “So. Uh, thank you.”
The girl’s face split into a wide smile. “Told you people like us gotta look out for each other.”
Viv couldn’t help a weary laugh. “Still angling for that recommendation, huh?”
“You brought it up, that’s all I’m sayin’. Besides, if I’m gonna starve in here overnight because you let this guy get the jump on you, I figure I earned it.”
“Get the jump on me?” Viv stared at her disbelievingly.
“How else do you figure you needed my help? Look at the size of you!” Gallina glanced over her shoulder at the cell opposite. “Hey, you got the jump on her, right?” she called.
The man in gray didn’t so much as twitch.
“Creepy bastard,” said Gallina.
Viv looked at the man. He hadn’t moved at all since he’d sat down. She imagined if she tossed a pebble at his forehead, it would bounce off like he was carved from stone.
She couldn’t smell him, not at this distance, but she could still remember the scent. Something like blood under snow, cold and dry and coppery. The forest east of Murk had been rank with something very like it. She’d had plenty of time to notice while she’d bled against a tree trunk.
“Who the hells are you?” she called to the man. Viv figured she had to try at least once.
No response.
Gallina hopped onto the other cot and lay back, folding her hands behind her head.
“Now that you don’t got a book to read, I guess we can get to know each other. Lot of hours ’til sundown. How ’bout Rackam’s crew, then? Wanna tell me about ’em?”
“Not really,” said Viv. Gallina really had saved her ass. That was the second time in the last ten days that she’d acted when she should’ve considered. What would Rackam say about her odds now?
She wondered if Highlark would show soon, or if she should tear her trouser leg up and inspect the wound herself.
Viv sighed resignedly. “But I guess I owe you. You already seem to know a lot about Rackam though, so I don’t know why you’re so keen.”