“I said , turn around and keep your hands where I can see them!” the Patrolman shouted.
She locked eyes with Erik. “Drop.”
Narra spun and launched the knife from her hand. She dropped to the alley floor only a second later than Erik. She heard the thunk of her knife entering the man’s chest, and then he thumped to the floor, his pistol clattering across the ground.
“Rick!” a second Patrolman gasped.
Narra was on her feet a second later, tearing across the alley with another knife in hand.
The Patrolman took a step back, ripping his sword from its sheath. Narra ducked below the blade and slammed her knife into his stomach. She used her momentum to spin behind him and get a jab next to his spine.
The man yelped and spun, gasping in pain and clutching his wounded abdomen in his free hand. And yet, even as blood dripped between his fingers, and he stumbled from the pain, he still held his weapon up to face her. Narra raised an eyebrow. She liked his courage, but he still had to die.
A thunk surprised her into stepping back, and then the last of the two Patrolmen slammed into the ground. He didn’t move.
Narra looked up in shock to see Erik still in his fighting stance, hand extended where he’d thrown his knife. They both caught their breath, staring each other down. Erik had only ever killed once before that she knew of. It had been just after they found the initiates all dead and were trying to escape. Two Patrolmen had come to the back of the casino, and Erik had accidentally killed one of them in the fight for their freedom.
And now he’d killed again. Pain flashed across his face.
“Erik,” she said softly. She lunged across the two dead bodies to meet him halfway down the alley. “Are you okay?”
He nodded grimly. “Yeah.”
Narra inspected his face, trying to read him. He looked shocked and torn by his actions, but there was something else there. Acceptance, maybe.
“We should keep going,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”
He was right. She wished he wasn’t. She wished she could take a minute to make sure Erik was really okay. If he wasn’t, she wanted to be there for him and comfort him. But there wasn’t time.
“Okay,” Narra said reluctantly. She sighed and followed Erik to the end of the alley.
They were far more careful crossing the next block. They paused at every corner and peered into every alley and down every street. Only once did another pair of Patrolmen cross their path. Luckily, Narra and Erik were able to avoid them.
Crouching in an alley a short sprint across the street from the clock tower, Narra marvelled at the architecture. It was constructed from stone, but painted with some kind of bronze that chipped in places and gave it a worn look. The top of the tower speared the sky with a black metal flagpole, though no colors swayed in the breeze from its tip.
This far from Varek Square, all was quiet. The sounds of the crowd were a distant mumble, the wind nearly drowning them out.
Narra shivered as the cold breeze wormed inside her hood. She gripped the edges and drew it tighter. “I don’t see anyone else.”
Erik inspected the shuttered windows of the tower. “Me neither.”
“Should we try scaling the opposite side of the building?” Narra asked. They could use their grappling hooks and fly up to one of the windows easily enough. As long as the shutters weren’t locked, it shouldn’t be a problem.
“No, the sniper might hear our hooks scraping the stone.”
Narra inspected the windowsills and then the roof’s steeple. He was right. If they aimed at a window the sound of metal on rock might alert their prey. The same went for if metal on metal clanged from the roof.
“The front door it is,” Narra said.
They checked the road one last time before dashing across the street. Narra led the way, heart pounding in her ears as she slid to a stop in front of the wooden entrance.
Before trying the handle, she pressed her ear against the door and listened. The soft drip of water echoed inside, but other than that, she heard nothing.
“All clear,” she whispered.
Erik nodded. He tried the handle, and frowned. “Locked.”
Her comrade pulled his lock pick set from a pouch on his hip and crouched at eyelevel with the lock. He pushed the picks inside and leaned close to the handle until she heard a faint click .
He returned his picks to his pocket and gently pressed down on the handle’s release before easing the door inward.
Narra held her breath as the door opened. It squealed ever so slightly, the hinges probably rusted and worn with age. Then Erik slipped inside, and she was quick to follow. With the door closed quietly behind them, they faced the inside of the clock tower.
The bottom floor was a single room. It spanned the entire width of the tower, and had a staircase wrapping around the right side. The wooden stairs spun up to the second floor. The wooden slats were so thin she could see through them.
Wind whistled through the tower overhead.
They did a quick inspection of the floor before they went to the stairs. Narra tested each step for the groan of wood. If it so much as creaked, she took her weight off and tried a different part of the stair.
It was slow going, but after five minutes they finally made it to the second floor. Narra’s heart raced and nervous sweat drenched her spine. If it were any other day, she’d have no problem with the patience that stealth required. But today was another story. They had maybe twenty minutes left to get upstairs, kill the sniper, and get to the square.
It wasn’t much time, and they both knew it. Erik darted worried glances as they made their way to the next set of stairs. The second floor was full of old crates that were mostly empty. The few that weren’t held old clock parts and large gears for the clock’s innards.
The old clock tower had been decommissioned when she was young, as it always told time wrong. When it was three in the afternoon by the clock’s hands, it was actually five at night. But no matter how many times they adjusted the clock’s hands, or fiddled with its insides, it still refused to tell time as it was.
It had amused her greatly when she was young. She’d always complain to her father that if even the clock tower didn’t want her to go to bed yet, then why should she? Narra smiled at the memory, one of the few good ones she had from her childhood.
The murmur of voices made her snap back to reality. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the mumbling was unmistakable.
Narra shot Erik a look. Their sniper wasn’t alone.
Erik nodded. He’d heard it too. That’d make things a whole lot more difficult, depending on where the two men were stationed on the top floor. Were they both at the sniper window? Or was one elsewhere? If they spoke to one another, they couldn’t be far apart.
Narra cursed their bad luck and started up the stairs to the third floor. Erik grabbed her cloak to stop her. She shot him a look over her shoulder, and he raised his eyebrows meaningfully. They both knew they couldn’t have a conversation about this right now. They just had to go up and find out. There was no time to reassess. This was the plan. Like it or not.
She narrowed her eyes at Erik and yanked her cloak out of his grip. She glanced upstairs to show him what she wanted to say. They had to keep moving .
Erik sighed and shook his head before nodding for her to continue.
Narra walked up the stairs, trying to be quick despite the old steps.
The further they climbed into the tower, the louder the voices got. Narra was thankful there were only two. One seemed slightly closer than the other, while the one she assumed was the sniper, kept having his voice lost to the wind, as if he was facing outside.
When they were halfway up the fourth flight of stairs, Narra began craning her neck to see around the turns. The top staircase was the narrowest, and it’d give them deeper shadows to hide in, and hopefully inspect the situation without being seen.
They’d already faced one Patrolman
with a gun, she wasn’t about to face another if she could help it. All she needed to do was get them in her sights and she could launch a dagger at each. They just had to stay quiet long enough to get to them.
Narra took a deep breath to calm herself and her breathing. She had to be ready for anything, and being ready to fight meant staying rational. She couldn’t lose her head to her adrenaline, no matter how fast her heart was intent on racing.
“Ten minutes until the main event,” the closest one said. The floor creaked above Narra’s head, and dust drifted down from between the wide slats of wood.
She looked up, and pointed at the ceiling. Erik nodded and withdrew a dagger. She followed suit, clutching a throwing knife in her clammy hand.
“About time,” the sniper said. Something creaked overhead as the man shifted. “I think the princess is being a little paranoid.”
“Yeah,” the other agreed. “No one is going to come at her from the rooftops.”
Narra flashed Erik a sly smile. That was exactly what Marina was afraid of. She knew that Narra could fly down at any moment and shove a knife through the princess’ heart.
“Exactly,” the sniper said.
Daylight filtered in through the slats, growing bright until she could see the end of the stairs. A railing wrapped the open part of the top, and the other side was framed by the wall of the tower.
The floor creaked as one of the Patrolmen stepped across the floor and leaned his back against the railing. He was so close that Narra could smell the sweat on him. She wrinkled her nose, and crouched low to hide in the stairwell. All she had to do was climb a few more steps, and reach up to slit his throat. He’d be dead before his partner even realized it.
Narra glanced back at Erik and motioned her plan with her hands. Erik’s gaze grew hard and his shoulders stiffened, but he nodded.
With her friend’s blessing, she looked back up at the Patrolman and crept higher until she could peer out into the fourth floor of the clock tower.
On the right side of the room was the marble face of the clock, inverted with light streaming around the edges lined with gears. The bronze metal work continued across the wall, and around most of the space, curving below a small set of steps up to the sniper windows above the clock.
The sniper leaned a knee on a stool, and his elbow on the window frame. A strap wrapped around his torso, holding the rifle to his body in case he dropped it. He aimed down the barrel inspecting the city below.
“All clear,” the sniper sighed.
“What else do you expect?” the man closest to her grumbled.
Narra took a steadying breath. While the sniper’s gaze remained out the window, she crept up the final couple steps, and leapt onto the landing. Gripping the railing in one hand, and her knife in the other she stepped across the edge of the floor and grabbed the man’s hair, yanking his head back to expose his throat.
He yelped as she brought her knife down, sliding a clean line across his neck.
The sniper looked back and his eyes widened.
“Now!” Narra barked .
Erik lunged up the stairs onto the fourth floor and threw his dagger at the sniper.
The Patrolman was quick enough to lean inside, bringing his rifle with him. Erik’s dagger sliced open the man’s bicep, but he continued to raise the barrel of his weapon, aiming directly at Erik.
Emperor’s ancestors. If he got a shot off with that, Patrolmen would come running.
Narra yanked a knife from her belt and threw it. It slammed into his shoulder, right where his right arm met his torso.
The sniper cried out, and his arm went limp. The rifle fell from his grip, and dangled against his waist.
Erik jumped up the short staircase to the window, and the sniper kicked the stool, sending it flying. Erik raised his arm to block it, but the sniper lunged after it, sword in hand and a growl on his lips.
Narra leapt up the steps and pulled another knife from her hip. She let it loose, and it thunked into his skull.
The sniper’s body went limp mid lunge, and Erik was forced to catch the body on its way down. He stumbled back, barely staying on his feet under what had to be two hundred pounds.
“Shit!” Erik hissed.
Narra raced forward and helped him lower the body to the ground. “He’s dead,” she said. Thank Srah .
Erik dusted himself off. “You think?”
She sighed and shook her head. “I’m just glad we did it without that rifle going off.”
Erik looked at the gun strapped to the sniper’s chest. Blood blossomed around the knife in his shoulder, soaking into his dark blue cotton uniform, and turning the fabric violet.
“That would have been bad,” Erik said.
Narra and Erik collected their knives, quickly wiping them off on rags before returning them to their rightful places. “We should go,” she said.
Erik nodded.
This wasn’t over yet.
T hey reached the edge of the crowd with no trouble, slipping in with the tide of citizens looking to witness this unusual occasion. A royal hadn’t been hung since Emperor Zaneth, and before that, she couldn’t remember who the last had been.
Narra met Erik’s gaze and they gave each other a swift nod goodbye before separating. She joined the crowd, slipping between townspeople dressed in everything from rags to the finest of autumn coats. People of every class wanted to see the princesses hung. It disgusted her in ways she couldn’t quite describe.
How could people want to see the death of another before their eyes? The princesses hadn’t done anything to them. Was it their desire for revenge against those they thought killed their emperor? Maybe, but she doubted it. The people of Rova had been through centuries of bloodthirsty rulers in the past. They were a people of war and violence. Maybe they always would be.
Narra made her way to the front of the stage. It was slow going in the thick throng of what had to be nearly two hundred people. She squeezed through grumbling clusters of the upper class and finally stopped a few feet away from the palace guards protecting the stage. She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart and quickly adjusted her hood. It was still tight around her head, but she couldn’t be too careful.
The murmur of the crowd quieted suddenly, and Narra looked up at the stage in time to see Marina walking up the back steps to stand by her throne. A priest dressed in regal white robes trimmed in gold, held the princess’ hand, helping her up the steps before gently releasing her. He gave a tiny bow before stepping aside.
Marina pushed forward, the loud clack of her heels on wood the only sound besides the wind. She stopped by the podium at the center of the stage and scanned the crowd.
Narra lowered her chin instinctively, allowing her hood to cover her face completely.
“Citizens of Rova City,” Marina began. Her voice was unlike the innocent one Narra had heard when they’d first met. Instead, it rung with a power Narra didn’t associate with the soon-to-be empress. “It is a dark day for our empire, that much is certain, but even in the darkness brought on by my own blood—” Marina’s voice faltered, and she almost choked on her words. “—we will not falter. Justice will be had today. Justice for myself and for my family, but most importantly, for all of you.”
Narra couldn’t resist rolling her eyes. What a load of shit.
“Before we bring out the prisoners, let us bow our heads in prayer.” Marina stepped back from the podium, allowing the priest to take her place.
The new High Priest raised his chin at the crowd, and held his hands out at his sides. He watched until the majority of the people lowered their chins in reverence before he began. “Bless us, God of Light, Lord of Sun, King of Empires, for the darkness in this world is all too real, and we as your flock, can easily succumb to the temptation of it.”
Narra’s lips twitched in a smile. If only they knew the god they called a man, a god, a lord and a king, was actually a woman. The Goddess Srah didn’t look over these people. She didn’t listen
to their fears and desires. She was the handmaiden of the Duchess of the Wells. Narra doubted that Srah cared much about Rova at all. If she did, she wouldn’t live on an entirely different continent.
The High Priest went on for a good five minutes about the sins and misgivings of humanity, asking Srah repeatedly to bless them all and deliver them from the temptations of darkness.
“Oh mighty Srah, please protect us from the wrath of Ashra, and cleanse our city so we might rise up again as a united empire.” The priest finished his sermon and stepped away. He nodded politely to Marina, who flashed him a tiny smile.
If Narra was any farther away, she might not have caught the look of disdain in Marina’s eyes—but she was, and she did. Marina didn’t believe in this religious crap anymore than Narra did.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise as the crowd once again murmured around her.
Marina stepped back up to the podium just as Narra heard movement behind the stage. “Thank you, High Priest Brennan, for gracing us with your words. Now please lead us in the Song of Fallen Kings.”
Again, she stepped back, and the priest stepped to the edge of the stage, instead of up to the podium. He raised his arms out to his sides and tilted his head up to the sky as if expecting a great beam of light to shine upon him.
The whispers ceased around her as the song began. Everyone around her echoed back his words about sinful emperors, and the end of the Time of Kings. A shiver descended her spine, and cold pressed against her chest.
It was all so cult-like. She’d expect something like this from Ashra and her minions, but not from the Church of Srah.
Heavy footfalls hit the back stairs of the stage, and the two Kolarova princesses were forced to climb up to their demise. Both were gagged by a white cloth wrapped around their heads and jammed between their teeth. While Elena’s dark eyes flashed with rage, Raeleen’s were filled with tears.
Narra’s heart twinged unexpectedly. She knew how it felt to walk up those steps and stand before a noose. She even knew what it felt like to have the thick rope tighten against the base of her skull and see her life flash before her eyes as the floor dropped from beneath her.
Clockwork Thief Box Set Page 55
