It all weighs the same in the end. Failing to stop one leads to a ripple like a stone thrown into water. One action—endless possible consequences.
People harmed by Markham’s late night side tended to spiral down terrible paths. An ill turn following another leading to a dark road with no end in sight.
And I could stop it.
I exhaled, tucking my weight and diving towards the ledge. The roof banged against the dark leather around my waist, promising bruises in the morning despite the padding. I ignored the aches and closed my fingers around the wall’s lip. My body sailed past the edge as momentum carried me onward. I grimaced as my battered torso stretched for a brief moment before I twisted and arced down. The balls of my feet touched down against the building’s side as I hung in place.
The scene below was one all too common for the city. A woman—human—scurried through the narrow passage of worn stone and remnants of evening’s rain. Her feet beat like mine had across the ground, drawing the occasional sharp snap as she hammered her away ahead. The green cloak over her shoulders looked to be of an expensive make. It was good wool that the tailor had somehow found a way to dye the color and depths of a rich forest.
Wealthy. The thought echoed through my mind as I took in the rest of her.
Something flickered along her neck, catching the scant bits of candle lights lining the odd balcony through the way. A garland of white stones, each just a fraction smaller than a man’s eye, ran along her throat. Gemstones. I confess I didn’t know what sort.
Two men trawled at the beginning of the alley, unperturbed their quarry had gotten so far ahead of them.
A look down the way revealed why. The passage stopped. Dead end. Aptly named.
The woman stopped, exhaling loud enough in frustration and panic to course through the alley. She turned and whipped her head to stare at the slowly approaching duo. Another look over her shoulder, more out of fear than logic, reminded her of her predicament.
The men quickened their pace, tired of simple pleasure in watching her run herself into an inescapable situation. One of the man had made a habit of not skipping any meals, plump and squat. He reminded me of wooden dolls with wide bases that wobbled back and forth. He had a nose that had been blunted several times by no accident. His lips were thick and fleshy, pulling awkwardly to one side as he chewed on something. A toad of a man.
His partner strolled alongside him as an antithesis to him. Long of limb and face, grizzled and carved of driftwood. He reminded me of the underfed and feral dogs lurking through parts of the city. Dark featured with narrow and intelligent eyes. Scraggly patches of hair grew at the sides of his face with no hope of properly filling in. A long tail of hair hung from the back of his head, thinning like the rest along his skull. Someone had pulled and pinched his face at birth it seemed. The reedy man took a pair of lengthy strides, putting him paces ahead of his companion.
I released my hold and sank soundlessly through the air. Another lip, this one belonging to the base of a window, crossed my path. I clung to it, tightening the muscles through my legs and back as I tried to hold myself in place without slamming into the wall.
A sliver of metal flicked into view with a metallic snap, glinting for a moment.
The knife wouldn’t be much threat. That all depended on the man wielding it.
The dog-faced thug carried his weight more to one side than normal. His left seemed to absorb more of the impact behind each step.
The toad’s face scrunched up and he turned to the side, racking his throat to spit hard. He made the sound again as he snuffled. His color paled for the briefest of instances. He breathed laboriously.
I smiled. This would be over soon enough.
My fingers loosened and I sank again, grabbing hold of an aged wooden poll. I held to it with all the strength I could. Fatigue and pain gnawed at the small muscles in my hands. I banished them both, setting my jaw hard to take my attention away from the sensations. Another wooden beam stood across the alley from me, closer to the where the men would pass under.
I waited, stilling my breath.
Patience—a skill, a virtue that one needed to truly thrive in the city. But it was part a lie. Waiting, deliberating instead of acting could get one killed here. Sometimes you needed to act faster than you could think.
I gritted my teeth and swallowed the urge to swoop down and throttle the men.
Their pace quickened and they passed under me.
I sprang again, my lithe form and dense muscles shooting me towards the beam with ease. My surge brought me to it in an instant. I wrapped my arms around it, momentum driving me into a dervish as I whirled to reposition myself. The leather and cloth over my hands allowed me to slip down a few hand lengths with ease.
The woman at the end of the alley didn’t linger in place. She must have decided it wiser—safer—to walk towards the men in hopes of slipping by. To distract them for long enough to let her get past and break into a run.
I’d seen it before.
And I’d watched it fail every time.
I readied myself for what had become second nature by now, tensing against the poll.
The woman made it several feet before the pair of men. She clutched her hands to her chest as she stepped faster.
The men moved a pace apart from each other, giving her the ability to pass between them. That’s when it’d happen.
I leapt, crashing into the slender hound of a man. The collision knocked him off balance and buckled his weak leg. He fell flat, flailing as I bounced back to a stand. No wasted movements. My fist snapped out, connecting with the toad-faced cretin’s throat.
The woman screamed.
It rattled me, worming through my sensitive ears like thunder and breaking glass—metal dragged against rough stone. I winced through it and shoved my palms into the portly man’s eyes. He staggered back, hacking violently as he pawed at his face. I didn’t relent and stormed forwards to drive the heel of a boot into his sternum.
The blow struck with a heavy whoompf that drove him back until he stumbled head over heels.
I spun and dove. My body crashed with the reedy cutthroat’s, limbs tangling as we wrestled for control. He carried more strength than I would have guessed for someone with his lanky build. My cloak spread wide as I took his wrists in my hands, bearing down on him. As my weight brought his arms closer to his chest, I released the hold, twisting to drive the edge of my elbow into his skull.
His head snapped back. The crown of his skull struck the concrete, his eyes losing clarity as the strength left his arms.
I pushed off him, bounding back to my feet as the squat toad of a man barreled into me. Dull aches built in my ribs from where he bashed his fists. He swung wildly, letting his bulk and charge do the work in forcing me back. I spread my feet and leaned into him, using all of my body to keep from toppling. He pushed me back another foot until I pivoted, upsetting his balance. He stumbled past me as I lunged to snap my knee towards the side of his skull. The blow connected with the force of a hammer, sending him staggering to the side. I leapt and brought my elbow overhead.
He turned in time to see me, eyes going wide as I brought the joint down against his temple. The strength left his legs. He crumpled into a heap like his friend.
The temptation to slit his throat and be done welled inside me. It morphed into the heat of a bed of coals, resting deep within the hollow of my stomach, threatening to set me afire and burn their way out of me. But that wasn’t my place.
I am no man’s judge.
They did that enough to my kind.
And I wasn’t their executioner.
I turned to face the young woman.
Our eyes met and she sucked in a breath. One of her hands went to her mouth, covering it as she recoiled.
I knew why. The hard yellow-gold of my eyes marked me plain and clear as the sort of creature most unwelcome in Markham. Even in the darkest of nights.
“Your mouth…your teeth.” She bared
her own canines in what looked like an unconscious gesture. Catching herself in the act, she promptly shut her mouth. The woman reached out to me gingerly with a hand, pausing an inch from my face as if close contact would burn her.
I reached up and unfastened my cowl. It fell, bringing my full features into clarity for her to see. My visage didn’t inspire calmness and reassurance to those inhabiting Markham. The tapered ears, long and coming to a point like knives, and my elongated incisors marked me well as an elf. The fact my skin brought a truer definition to the word, “dark,” was the last and most obvious piece anyone needed to know to label me.
Umbra elves were the lowest class of inhabitants in the city—most of the “civilized” world in fact.
She finally brought her fingers against the flesh of my cheeks, brushing them gently before pulling back. Her mouth worked soundlessly for the space of several breaths. “You saved me.”
A simple statement, carrying no end of weight behind it however. I knew the question that lingered under what she had said. She was silently asking, “Why?”
A question of three parts in truth: Why did I save her? Why would an elf, my kind in particular, bother at all? And what would happen now that I had?
Two words were all it took to put her concerns to rest. “Why not?” I turned, drawing my hood overhead as I moved away from her.
“Because,” she said. It was a good point. None of my kind should have made the effort given the treatment we’d received among the human population. She knew it as well. My actions had shaken some her beliefs, and now caught in the midst of sorting through them, she needed a clarity I couldn’t offer.
I ignored the comment, listening to the sounds of something hard and flat against stone. Footsteps. Hard-soled boots. The constabulary were on their way. My eyes turned to the windows lining the alley. Someone had taken note of the altercation and sent word to the authorities. I had an idea of who would round the corner at the alley’s opening.
“The man coming ahead is a good one. A member of the constabulary I happen to trust. His name is Inspector Cardinane. Tell him what happened...leaving out the finer details about me, if you’d be so kind.” I didn’t need to turn around to know she was nodding along.
“I will.”
“Good. Now turn around to make sure our sleeping friends aren’t close to waking back up. I’m sure you’d rather not have to deal with that again.” I knew the effect my words would have on her and broke into a run as she shifted away from me.
“What?”
I disregarded her absent comment, throwing myself at the beam I’d jumped from earlier, mantling it to spring to the nearest window sill. Hauling my body up from there was trivial and second nature by now. I’d made my way to the roof of the building opposite from where I’d first spotted the scene unfolding. A last look down showed me the young woman eyeing the spot I’d been before she’d turned around.
Her attention moved to scanning the rooftops.
I melted away into the shadows before her eyes could fix on me. My mind turned back to the issue I’d buried to help her, the children. It had taken me longer than I would have liked to deal with the thugs, but if I hurried, I could make it to where I needed to be before losing my opportunity.
I burst into a full sprint, spurred by the thought. The edge of roof offered a better lip for me to jump off in my effort to reach the next building. I repeated the process for several buildings, falling into the act with a cold and practiced familiarity.
A faint row of shimmering pulled my attention, drawing it to the Emthe River. Its surface carried motes of crystalline light, almost as if it had been littered with thousands of flecks of glass, each catching scant bits of the moon’s own radiance. Though, knowing the locale and the area’s history, it was likely the case.
Markham had no need of a shining veneer. She wore herself open and proud of every scar, gritty mark, and whatever stains had marred her. The city made no false illusions as to what you’d find inside her. A place of unvarnished truth from the moment you entered.
Well, some truths at least. Every place like this carried its fair share of lies. Though, it was obvious it would from the beginning as well. The problem rested in knowing what those falsehoods were, and who they belonged to.
A difficult thing. And equally dangerous.
But then, so was I.
I moved my way to the edge of the last building on the dock and kept my eyes to the walkway below.
The usual sort of men and women moved about: Shirtless deck hands and laborers, thick with slabs of muscle built up from years of heavy toiling. A few strumpets, clothed in old pieces, all artfully arranged to show the most enticing bits of their curves and skin. Their swaying walk only served to accentuate their best features. Late night merchants, wearing ensembles of total black, lined with silver cords over their left shoulders.
The latter signified their certifications and license to trade under the rules and protection of the guilds within Markham and the wider world.
An ordinary crowd for my city. At least at first glance. Several buildings down, something else happened far out of the norm.
A trio of men, working noticeably too hard not to be seen, wrestled with a fourth figure within their collective grips. The last of the people fought back from under a black tarp. They barely came up past the mens’ abdomens.
A child. It explained the ease with which the trio handled the diminutive person.
The group dragged and shoved the smaller form along, heading toward a warehouse half a dozen buildings from where I sat perched.
I raced into action, taking a short leap onto the roof of the next structure, giving thanks at the close proximity the constructions shared along the dock. The low lighting through the area was a boon. I made my way over to the top of the storage house with ease, skulking over to the nearest lip to peer over.
The men passed below, pulling open the large wooden doors and entering.
I exhaled and turned to scan the roof. The rough and corrugated tiling gave me firm purchase to walk, but a single misstep could crack one of the pieces, generating a loud enough sound to draw unwanted attention in the quiet night. I positioned my feet with my toes pointing out toward my shoulders and walked in an odd gait. It muffled the noise of my steps and helped me realign where and how the bulk of my weight would come down.
My search along the roof revealed a balcony hanging ten feet below me, running most of the length of the warehouse’s right side. No lights shone through the glass windows set into the mortared and irregular stones comprising the wall beneath me. I eased myself down, taking care not to hang too long before the clear panes. No raucous thud emanated from my impact as I landed on the wooden platform. One board did creak under the pressure, letting up as fast as it had made the noise.
I sucked in a breath through my teeth. No disgruntled sounds came from within the building. I remained undetected…for now. My face pressed against the panes of glass as I looked inside.
Torches burned from holders throughout the area. A variety of barrels and crates filled the place, stacked high enough to obscure sections of the room.
Good. Plenty to work with. As always, my city provided.
I brushed aside my cloak and reached into one of the small leather pouches fastened tight to my body. My fingers slipped into it, retrieving a slender sliver of braided steel wire. Threading it through the space between the window and where it met the wooden lip was simple. I pulled the flexible strip of metal along until it caught the latch. Another series of short tugs and twists forced a satisfying click.
I pried the window open, taking care to not elicit the odd squeak old and ill-cared for hinges and joints made at times. It slipped upward in silence. The pane’s weight rested on one of my shoulders as I propped it in place, sliding through the space. I let the glass come back to a gentle close, knowing that should a gust of wind kick up, it would betray my entry and roll through the open room.
The closest stack of
crates towered high enough to reach a few feet below the wooden platform I stood on.
Voices grumbled through the warehouse loud enough to catch my attention.
I shut my eyes, tuning myself to the words with as much care as I could muster.
“—do with these pissants?”
“Not our worry. We get paid and—”
“That’s all, honestly. Coin spends the same no matter what ya do for it.”
“Kids’ll start talking with others. Take note their chums go missing.”
One of the speakers snorted. “Mine doesn’t take note for anything but when supper’s on and when to shit. Even forgets that last one proper at times.”
The trio laughed in unison.
“This feller will fetch us something decent. That’s all—hey, stop it you little pisser!”
A pained whimper sounded through the warehouse.
I hadn’t heard the strike. But a noise like that only came from a young one being beaten. My teeth grated against each other as I descended onto the topmost create and worked my way down.
“Just gag the kid and be done with it. Bind and leave him here. They’ll come and take him how and where they do. Not for us to bother with.”
A pair of voices murmured something that sounded like agreement.
The child screamed incoherently, grunts of exertion peppering the shout. His clamor cut off suddenly as if the trio’s threat had been carried out.
My ears picked up nothing in the way of the mumbling associated with a gagged man. Had they rendered the child unconscious?
“Stuff’ll drop an ox with a whiff. Shitter will be out for set of days,” said one of the voices.
I grimaced at that. I’d suspected the kidnappers had been drugging children with a sedative to keep them quiet. Moving about with reluctant children was no quiet task, especially if you were not their parents. One of my hands went instinctually to a pouch along my waist, fingering the flap. A possible counter to the solution rested inside. That all depended on if my guesses were correct on what substance was being used.
I made my way closer to the ground, staying a dozen feet above it on a row of poorly stacked crates. A single improper shift of weight would bring the whole set crashing down with thunderous noise I couldn’t afford. My hand moved to another pouch, and I thumbed it open. Cold spears of metal pressed against my fingertips. I plucked several free, looking to the space between where I crouched and another formation of crated. A flick of my wrist sent the nails clattering against the nearest box before tumbling to the ground.
Parallel Worlds- the Heroes Within Page 10
