Crown of Renewal

by Elizabeth Moon

  Down there, he could see the door into the hall the boy had spoken of, shut as he’d expected, and the room off to his heart-hand, much like the one above but even darker. Another ramp continued down to the ground floor, and he heard voices from there, men’s voices, and vague distant noise that might be the crowd outside.

  He moved to the door of the hall, standing to one side, and applied a donkey’s ear. No sound … then a thin wail, as of a child. He eased the door open; it swung silently. No one was in the passage, much lighter from a window at the front, and showing two doors to one side and one to the other, just as Cedi had said.

  Arvid moved through, closing the door behind him. It would not be just one person in the room with the children … not merely the killer … they would need another one, at least. But two had left … and a lot of scared children, maybe tied up or shut in a closet …

  Go on.

  That voice. It steadied him now instead of shaking him to the core as it had at first. He reached for the bow to span it, and something pinched his arm. Gird? Probably. Maybe. He hoped. He reached for his throwing knife instead and felt a little warmth on the back of his neck.

  A burly man with thinning dark hair held a child down on a table, his hands around the child’s throat, squeezing. To one side, another man watched, lips pressed tight. Arvid’s throwing knife took the first man in the face, just missing his eye; the man gasped, letting go of the child’s neck, and grabbed for the knife hanging from his cheekbone. Arvid’s edged disk took the second in the neck with a left-hand throw; he was across the room to finish that one with a slash of his dagger, and then, as the man near the child turned with Arvid’s knife in his hand, Arvid moved in, grabbed the man’s elbow, and twisted, forcing him down and into the point of his dagger.

  He had expected the third man but not that he’d have a crossbow; the bolt sliced his ear and thunked into the wall behind him. He had nothing left to throw but a chair, and grabbed it up. Another bolt split the chair seat; Arvid rushed the man, pinning him against the far wall before he could span the bow a third time. All he could think—as the man whacked his ribs with the crossbow stock and opened his mouth to yell, and Arvid stuck the dagger in it, but the man didn’t die, not then—was how much noise they were making and how long it would be before the men downstairs noticed. Finally he wrestled the crossbow away from the man and hit him over the head with the stock, then yanked his dagger free and cut the man’s throat.

  The child. He whirled and saw a gaggle of children—all in blue shirts, barefoot, all wide-eyed but silent, watching him. One, sitting up on the table, had darkening bruises on his throat. Another was the red-haired girl the men upstairs had mentioned, the mark of a hand clear on her pale skin where someone had slapped her.

  “All of you?” Arvid asked. He felt breathless and off balance, and the stench of blood and death seemed unnaturally strong. He looked around the room. A pile of children’s shoes, of children’s small daggers. One of the children pointed down, under the table. Arvid leaned over to look and almost gagged. Three children lay there, obviously dead.

  “We have to go now,” he said. “Quiet and fast. Up the ramps to the top floor—there’s a way out.”

  “Can’t leave Gan and Suli and Tam,” one boy said. His brow wrinkled. “They need buryin’. Tam’s my brother.”

  “We don’t have time,” Arvid said. The sounds below had changed; they had to get away. “I can’t carry them and fight, and I can’t fight all those below by myself.”

  “We can take ’em,” the red-haired girl said.

  Arvid opened his mouth to protest but remembered—these were Girdish children. Brought up in the grange. Organized. “Who’s senior?” he asked.

  They all looked at one boy, the one who had already spoken. “Me, sir. I’m Vol. We can use the cloaks.”

  “Hurry,” Arvid said. “We need to move fast.”

  Faster than he thought, the children took cloaks off pegs on the wall, wrapped the bodies, and lifted them—two to each—and followed Arvid out of the room, down the hall. He opened the door; now he could hear the argument at the foot of the downward ramp.

  “Somethin’s happened up there.”

  “Goram found another one—maybe kid fought back—”

  “But it went on—”

  A loud boom. Thank Gird, the Girdish outside must have decided to ram the door. Yells from below; Arvid hoped all those men would move to defend the door.

  “I still say we should check on ’em—”

  “Come quietly,” Arvid said to the children behind him. They were quieter than he’d expected, moving across to the upward ramp and starting up; Arvid waved them on. To Vol he said, “I’m rear guard. You send them all the way up—the back window opens on a ledge—”

  Vol nodded. Arvid waited until all the children were past him, his crossbow spanned and a bolt in the groove. He closed the door behind him, then moved across to the ramp and backed up it slowly, listening. Definitely footsteps from below: the stubborn careful person he was going to have to kill. Maybe he’d go look in the front room first.

  On the next floor, the children clustered near the foot of the next upward ramp, waiting for him. He walked over to them. “Go on,” he said. “They’re following, but if you’re quick, you can make it. Window’s like a small door in the back wall. Climb out onto the ledge, follow it to the next roof—keep going until you find the outside steps down to an alley.”

  “By ourselves? What about you?”

  “You’re junior yeomen,” Arvid said. “You’ll do fine.” It was then he remembered the child—the younger child—hidden here on this floor. “There’s a child hidden here—I have to find him, bring him—”

  He turned away, back the way he’d come, listening to the voices below, now louder.

  “I don’t hear anything—”

  “Goram! Selis! What’s going on up here?” The footsteps diminished, heading down the hall, Arvid thought. He found the pile of sheepskins and leaned over. “Child? You need to come right now. They’re coming to search.”

  No answer. Had the child fallen asleep? He reached, and the pain in his side stabbed him. He felt something hot trickling down his side. “Damn.” He did not have time for this. He climbed over the stack and found the space behind empty. No child. No fleece to hide the child’s mage-bright hand. He felt around … only stacks of sheepskins or wool sacks.

  A yell from below—he couldn’t make out the words, but he understood the urgency. They’d found the dead men. They’d seen that the captive children were gone, and the only way out was up. And he was hurt and couldn’t find the other child.

  He could still make it out. He could help those children, hold back pursuit—but what about the scared younger child he’d left behind? Surely the child had just found himself another hiding place … and the pursuers would take the obvious route, up and out the window.

  With no one to guard those children’s backs … he could imagine the mage-hunters hurrying across the roofs after the children, catching up, maybe even pushing the children off, dropping them like sacks of wool onto the alley below …

  He had to move. The pain in his side was worse now, but he ignored it and rolled back out of the hole, over the fleeces. The yelling below intensified, but he heard no feet on the ramp yet. “Boy,” Arvid said in close to his normal voice. He could not remember the name. “Boy—”

  Cedi.

  “Cedi—listen—bad men are coming. I can get you out the top—with the other children—please, come out right now, come with me.” Silence in the loft, and below, voices arguing. “Them mages—”

  “That weren’t mages; that were knives. Some men—”

  “How’d they get in? There’s no way out—”

  “Broke through t’roof, maybe. Blood’s still wet; we can catch ’em—”

  “How many men? I’m not goin’ up there with nothing but a hauk and a dagger, and it might be a dozen—”

  “And where’s Bin and F
enis?”

  “Just one couldn’t have taken five men out—must be a lot of ’em—go down and get the others, Jamis.”

  “What about the door?”

  “Damn the stupid door—some gang’s already got the childer, and we need a way out ourselves! We can set a fire behind us.”

  Footsteps ran downward, and the muttering below continued. Arvid drew a breath that hurt more than the previous, and said again, “Cedi, please—let me help you out. The bad men will hunt for you and then burn the warehouse—”

  And if they burned the warehouse, the man he’d made a prisoner would burn to death in it, helpless under that wool sack. He should’ve killed him first.

  No.

  Have sense, Gird, Arvid thought. He’d have died fast and easy, and I wouldn’t have to worry about him now.

  Free him. Find the boy.

  Right. Before the men below came up all in a bunch, free one of them, find the boy, make it to the top floor and out the window and along the ledge and over the roofs …

  You’re wasting time.

  Arvid pressed a hand to his side and found the little hole in his leather jerkin where something narrow had gone in. He walked around the end of the wool-sack piles, past the dead body, toward what he hoped was the right canted pile under which he’d stowed a prisoner. Had he really put the wool sack on top of the man that crookedly?

  And something landed on his head and skidded down his front, claws pricking through his clothes. That damned cat! It hit the floor with a slight thump. Arvid grabbed the end of the wool sack and pulled … something tugged back. He gave a strong yank, gasping as the pain hit him again, and uncovered not only his prisoner but the boy Cedi.

  “What—never mind. Cedi, come on. Help me get him out.”

  “Bad man!” Cedi said. “Want Da!” In better light here, he looked less like an innocent, scared child and more like a boy who would pull cats’ tails and lie about it.

  “Cedi, more bad men will be coming upstairs any minute. We need to go up and get out and across the roof.”

  “You could kill him.” The boy’s eyes gleamed.

  “I could, but I won’t.” Arvid leaned over and pulled the man onto his back. “You—don’t even try to talk. You’re alive by Gird’s direct command.” He cut the thongs binding the man’s feet. “Get up.” He yanked on the man’s shoulder.

  “Don’t want him!” Cedi said, pushing the man back down. “He wants me dead.”

  “Stop that,” Arvid said, yanking on the man’s shoulder again. Cedi’s hand, he saw, was now glowing brightly, and the man’s eyes widened. “Gird wants him alive for no reason I can understand, but we have to give him a chance to get away when his friends start the fire.”

  The man stood now, a little unsteadily at first, looking back and forth from Arvid’s face to the boy’s hand.

  “Walk,” Arvid said. “That way—” He pushed; the man stumbled forward. “Come along, Cedi.” The boy reached up and grabbed his cloak. The cat, he was not happy to see, marched in front of them, tail high.

  They made it to the upward ramp; the man stopped, shook his head. Arvid pushed him. “Walk or I’ll stick you. I don’t trust your killer friends to set you free in time to escape the fire they’re planning—” A faint smell of smoke came from below, followed by the sound of running feet. “Hurry!” Arvid said. “Cedi—let go of my cloak and run up!” The boy took off up the ramp; the cat ran after him. The man resisted. “Have it your way, blockhead,” Arvid said. He kicked the man behind the knee and swung him around at the same time; the man fell full length and rolled down the ramp. Arvid hurried up to the top floor, the pain in his side growing with every step. Once there, he found the little door open and the older boy, Vol, helping Cedi through. The other children were already well away.

  “Go!” Arvid said. “I’ll try to hold them back as long as I can.”

  Vol nodded, and both boys started along the ledge to the next-door roof. Arvid looked at the ledge. Not wide enough to stand and fight on. Could he wedge the door shut from outside? Would the lock catch if he shut it partway? He spanned his crossbow while thinking about it and set one of the grooved bolts ready. He could hear the men coming up the stairs—not running, but in a group.

  He dragged some of the broken chairs and other debris over to the head of the ramp, forming a partial barricade, and threw everything he could grab down the ramp. Maybe they’d think a group of men were still up here from the noise.

  The smoke smell intensified; the ramps were a giant chimney. Arvid coughed and realized he couldn’t make a stand there. He clambered out the low door onto the ledge and edged carefully along to the neighboring roof, then climbed to its peak and lay down on the far slope, resting the crossbow on the ridge. He hadn’t seen the children on roofs anywhere; he hoped they’d made it to the stairway several buildings away. He took in lungfuls of fresh air; he hadn’t been able to wedge the door, and smoke oozed out around the edges.

  He heard yells and thumps from inside the warehouse, and then the door opened. Arvid planted a bolt in the first man onto the ledge; the man staggered and fell off into the gap between the warehouse and the old wall. Two men tried to push through the door at once, coughing violently; one shoved the other hard, and that man fell crookedly onto the ledge and rolled off. Arvid saw no reason to reward selfishness and shot the one who’d pushed when he was halfway out. One of those inside pushed the body the rest of the way out.

  How many were there? The report they’d gotten said only “a gang of men” had attacked the grange. Arvid felt in his cloak pockets—he had only three bolts left. He glanced behind. Could he make it over the next roof before they got to him? Maybe.

  He slithered down the slope, pushed himself up, and hopped to the next roof—with a fast glance at the one he’d just left—and went up the slope at an angle. As he neared the top, a bolt skittered on the roof slates, just missing his foot. Once over the ridge, he crawled along then back up to the ridgeline. Nothing on his roof. Nothing showing on the other … no, a head, but looking back, not toward him. He ducked, waited, dared another look. A man crawling awkwardly over the ridgeline of that roof, an unspanned crossbow in one hand. Arvid waited until the man looked up, saw him, and opened his mouth, then put a bolt in his neck. The man dropped; his hand convulsed on the crossbow but then opened, and the crossbow rattled down the slates to the gutter between the buildings.

  Two more crossbows appeared, and blind-aimed bolts whizzed past Arvid. Next were three dropping shots he could avoid only by looking up and moving quickly to one side. Not safe at all.

  Fire bells were ringing now, and the noise in the market square grew. Fire crews would try to save the adjoining buildings … which meant someone would be coming up to the roofs, Arvid hoped. Except—they would not expect armed enemies … would they? He pulled out his next to last bolt. It felt sticky. He looked at the tip—red, sticky blood.

  Arvid laughed to himself. He’d been wounded with his own bolt—it must have been when the man hit him with the crossbow stock, and the bolt had cut a hole in its pocket, then his clothes, and … hadn’t penetrated very far. Knowing the pain wasn’t a deep wound cheered him up even as another bolt dropped onto the slates less than an armspan from his face, bounced up and then off his back. He dared a look over … Sure enough, someone was on the near side of the next roof. Arvid shot him, then quickly spanned the bow and set his last bolt in. The bolts shot at him had all rolled down the roof, and he slithered down to see if he they were still useful. Crawling along the valley, however, left him unable to watch for more trouble and in a bad position—he grabbed two bolts and scuttled up to cross the next roof.

  He was almost to the ridgeline when a bolt struck the back of his thigh. He knew at once that it was deep and dangerous; the pain made him gasp, and his leg didn’t function. He dragged it upward, got his hands onto the ridge, and pulled himself over even as another bolt grazed his hip. Though he tried to hold himself to the ridge, he lost his grip
and slid down to the trough between the buildings. One of the bolts lay in the gutter; he wondered if he’d have time to use it.

  At least the children had gotten away. Surely by now they were safe, with adults to defend them. He hoped.

  Arvid had time to question his own intelligence—he could have brought a helper along, at least as far as the roofs, and he could have brought more crossbow bolts. He lay awkwardly on his side, braced on an elbow to shoot the first one who appeared.

  Then he heard someone coming up the roof behind him. They couldn’t have gotten around him in that brief time he was tumbling, could they? And why would they bother? They would have seen the bolt hit; they’d have known he was disabled.

  “Gird’s COW!” came the cry, along with the sound of more feet on the slates.

  “They’ve got crossbows!,” Arvid yelled. “Beware!”

  “So do we! Yeomen! Volley!”

  That had to be a Marshal. Which Marshal? Arvid tried to think whose voice that was. Cedfer? Machlin? Dimod? One of his pursuers showed a head; bolts from behind him whizzed toward it. He saved his last bolt, thinking this could not possibly end well.

  Then three yeomen with crossbows rolled over the ridge behind him and down into the valley between the roofs. “You’re hurt,” one said. Arvid recognized him as from his own grange but another drill group. He could not think of the man’s name.

  “Yes,” Arvid said. “I can’t pull the bolt out.”

  “And you’re pale as new cheese.”

  “Probably.” Arvid refrained from suggesting that telling a wounded person he looked bled out was no help. His vision was blurring now; he blinked hard twice and told himself to wake up and stay alert.

  “We’ll get this sorted,” the man said. More supporters now rolled or slid gracelessly down the near slope of the roof and into the valley; a Marshal came over to Arvid.

  “How bad?”