Fall of the Tower 1

by Cecelia Isaac

  She knew they hadn't quite liked how quickly she'd become part of the inner circle, but that was past now. She'd proven her worth a hundred times. She may have savored sharing the work, but that didn't mean she stopped pulling her weight.

  Moon rested her head on her hands. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she let herself rest again. She could not say when the next time would be.

  ~*~

  Renat was wide awake. He had slept long but restlessly, knowing how important it would be to be in fighting shape, yet unable to relax. Business did not go on as usual. His crew were readying themselves. Learning what they needed to of the route, of Demon's Breath, of the guard, of the magicks, of Moon.

  He thought they were ready. This was Carnate after all, and a mix of blood and magic was familiar to them all.

  He hoped it could all be avoided. He hoped to catch Moon before she did anything foolish. But he couldn't plan on hope.

  Now they’d reached his least favorite part, the waiting. A well-made plan always had this anticipation, and yet he squirmed with all the aspects that could possibly go wrong.

  ~*~

  She didn't have to wait until the evening, of course, but such things were always better under the cover of darkness. It may also mean fewer people about, at least on the street. She'd yet to see Carnate's guard slip up.

  As the streets cleared after the after-supper walks most families or neighbors took together, she left her rooftop. She used the High Road until she reached the nearest set of stairs, and descended to the ground.

  She'd used the High Road to case locations in the past, but the guard were too smart to use a safe house that could be so easily accessed from above. She did not like the Road much anyway, since she could only travel as a human, and the ground was often uneven, or overgrown, or narrow. Things cats did not notice but which hindered her when she tried to move swiftly.

  On the ground again, she walked in a circle around the surrounding buildings, and finally the safe house. The front door shimmered with magic. That was probably supposed to be obvious, to warn off people like her. Many common folk had such charms, though a shimmer charm was leagues cheaper than an actual protective spell, so the shimmer hardly meant much.

  She'd seen four guards throughout the day come up to the roof to check it, and more had arrived during the day. That told her there was indeed an entryway on the roof, but she hoped not to have to go that far to get in.

  The building was made of baked clay, with decorative bricks inset at strategic locals. The wall was too sheer for a cat, but a human could do it. She plotted her course up the wall to a second-floor window in the alley to the left of the front entry. The sentry had just finished her sweep of the area, and so Moon did not waste time. She used the slight ridges created by the bricks as toe and fingerholds, scaling the eight feet or so up to the first windowsill.

  It was a typical Carnate window, a rectangle of clay set with wooden shutters. She pressed a forearm into the sill to keep her balance while she tugged at the shutter.

  Locked, naturally. And now was hardly the time to use force. But she wasn't sure the bricks were enough to get her to the roof.

  She listened, but did not hear any noises from inside. Heaving herself up further on the sill, Moon tried again, rapping the heel of her hand at the place where the latch should be.

  It snapped open, cracking the hinge of the shutter too.

  Cheap, she thought. She wasn't in the habit of questioning good luck though, and she pried the shutter open and slithered into the room.

  She rolled onto the ground and then quickly popped up again to bring in the shutters before the sentry made her next sweep.

  The room she'd entered was bare of all but a stool in the corner. There was, if not an air of neglect, then definitely of stagnation. Clearly the guard never lived in this place, just used it as a stopping point.

  She had disturbed a layer of dust near the window, but that was all. The room was square and directly opposite her was a wooden door, likely going to the hall.

  Moon listened at the door before opening it. She had to unlock it, but again, the lock was only a simple latch. Beyond was a hallway, with two other doors, a window at one end and a stairwell leading both up and down. The guard probably preferred this style to airier buildings, which were likely harder to secure.

  The whole floor was quiet as her room. She checked the doors of the other rooms. They were locked as well. A hooked wire and a string might have been enough to unlock them, but she suspected there wasn't much to see in either.

  The staircase up was the most dangerous moment in her estimation, for she did not want to be trapped in an enclosed space. After her stunt at the guardhouse, she could guess the guard was on high alert for invisibility spells.

  She wondered if she'd be better off just letting Renat and Loviva fight it out. Wouldn't that be a way to show what she thought of him, to vanish from Carnate forever, without a thought for his fate?

  But no, it would be better to save him from Loviva, and take down his biggest rival, and THEN walk away. Once he knew exactly what he was missing. As if she hadn't made Arrowhead what it was—

  She cut off the line of thought and swept the third floor. It was the same as the second. The roof, too, offered little. She walked the edges of the building and peered out. She could see the green arch of the High Road, and up the main street, and of course the tower, a black shadow against the dark night sky.

  There was not permanent sentry posted here, which she thought odd. Maybe they were waiting for the shipment to actually arrive before increasing security.

  She returned to the stairwell and took it all the way down, to the ground floor.

  Here, finally, was light and noise. Someone was cooking, and laughter came up the stairwell to her. She craned out from the stairwell to see. The ground floor had just one central room. A fireplace sat in the center, where a guard turned kebab sticks. Two of his fellows sat on stools, making conversation. Beyond them, the door to the back courtyard was open. Two guard stood smoking. They looked a little more alert than the three in the kitchen, but still at ease. The shipment was almost certainly not here yet.

  Five here meant there were still three missing, but she soon realized the room extended on the other side of the stairwell. There, two other guards stood. They were clearly bored. All were dressed and ready for a fight, with armor on and one or two visible spells activated. But there was no action to be had, and even the usual bored-guard activities of cleaning weapons seemed to have been played out.

  The front door opened, and Moon shrank back. The last guard entered.

  "All clear," she said, apparently to the guard making kebabs.

  He grunted in answer. Hardly the response of a high-ranked officer in the guard...

  Moon's eyes narrowed suddenly. She did not know all of the guards' uniforms, but she knew enough to see everyone here was the same low rank. The upper floors were poorly watched, and the atmosphere here was too relaxed.

  She realized the shipment was not coming here at all. This house was a ruse.

  Moon was more annoyed at herself than anything else. Why had she taken Loviva's intel, or Xavier's comments, at face value? She had no idea how Loviva had been tipped to this score. She probably had people in the guard bought off, same as the Arrowheads did, but who was to say the person was loyal, or well-informed?

  It hadn't been a total waste of time. She might now know more than Loviva, and that would give her a head start.

  The only problem was she wasn't sure where to go next. The guards might say something useful, but it was a small space, and crowded with bodies. She wasn't sure she'd be able to take the risk of staying in one spot.

  "Five minutes to sweep," the kebab-guard called to the two outside. They signaled a response.

  Shit.

  She had no question what that meant. Five minutes until they performed a short-range sweeping spell, which would tell them how many souls occupied an area. If she was still there
when the sweep happened, they would get back the number nine, and that would be a problem for her.

  Sweeps worked well in buildings like these. In an open space, an invisible person only needed to leave the area and then return once that spell stopped. Was the roof far enough away? How regularly were they going to do these sweeps?

  No, she wasn't going to find out. She decided she'd follow the next person who entered or left the building, and see where they went to report. Demon's Breath could stay staked out watching this place, she would already be on to the next.

  Before the guards could organize for the sweep, she was up the stairs and back to the original room she'd entered through. She locked the door, and through a stunt that required quite a bit of upper body strength, managed to get the shutters back into a reasonable position before letting go and dropping to the road once more.

  She loped away from the building before the spell could detect her.

  ~*~

  Renat prepared for a battle.

  He had been winning battles for over two years now, and though he hadn't had one in a while, he thought he could keep up the streak.

  He gathered a large crew. He did not know what to expect from Demon's Breath, but he did not feel Loviva was one for subtlety. That being said, even she must know the threat the guard posed.

  Renat did not consider the guard his enemy, any more than one might consider a cockroach an enemy. One might not like them, and it would be better not to have them around, but they were part of Carnate. Something to be planned around, to be avoided, to be dealt with when necessary.

  Plus, once the Hji came, many had joined the guard to fight for Carnate, and former smugglers had died on the wall just as easily as politicians’ children. So he had at least a grudging respect, despite the number of times he'd been at odds with them. Throughout the city, badly drawn Wanted posters with his face on them decorated the markets and street corners. Moon had taken up collecting them, particularly when a new batch was released. His name was known, as was Loviva's, even if their faces were not familiar yet. A wanted poster hung even now from the door, a furrowed brow on the left, a panther of similarly furrowed brow on the right.

  He tapped his vambraces. When he shifted, he could take everything with him and become a panther with no accoutrements. It took some concentration, but one could also leave pieces of clothing or armor out of the shift. It wasn't often done though, since what fit a human rarely also fit a cat, and it was a good way to lose items when they were inevitably shucked.

  The problem now was the lack of information. He guessed Moon did not have much, and he had only what he'd gotten out of Xavier – the location of the safe house, the planned route to the tower...it left more holes than he liked in a plan.

  Gawin pointed all this out again when he came to report that the crew was ready.

  "What do you recommend then, Gawin? We have to stop her." He meant both Moon and Loviva. "If we can't find Moon first, we'll have to wait for a commotion and follow it."

  "We're going to create the commotion bringing an army to the tower's door," Gawin noted.

  That was a good point. "We could split up."

  "How so?" his lieutenant asked.

  Renat considered. "Another way to stop Loviva, if she does get her hands on this weapon, would be to remove...other resources from her."

  Gawin understood immediately. "We should take her manor while her crew is out." A grin lit up his dusky face. "That would be perfect, sir. Just as she thinks she's on top..."

  "She'll have nowhere to go, holding the most wanted object in all of Carnate."

  "Exactly. And I can bet that manor has more things of value than something every sorcerer in Carnate will be hunting. She'll need someone to watch over her territory while she's in hiding."

  Renat laughed. "We're just the ones, Gawin! You pick your half of the crew. We'll plan your attack now. I don't want you walking into trouble when there's no one to back you up."

  They spent the next hour going over the details. They decided not to seize the manor, but rather get in and out, taking as much of value as possible. Renat wished he had Moon to ask about the interior, but he only had a location and a vague description once past the walls.

  He found himself wishing briefly for the ability to be in both places at once, and almost proposed they stagger the plans. But Loviva's base would be least well-guarded at the same time as her attack on the guard. They couldn't lose that opportunity.

  And besides, he had to choose to trust Gawin or not. He had to choose to trust his crew or not. The pang of his previous mistakes was still with him, and he resisted the urge to draw inward, to shut everyone out after he'd been hurt. That was just the opposite of how he needed to be, if he was truly to prove to Moon how sorry he was.

  The two groups split before dawn, two large prides mounting the High Road and heading in different directions.

  Now that he was on the move, Renat's anxieties calmed but he still felt hyper aware. Every breath of a sleeping Carnate citizen seemed to set him to grinding his teeth. The familiar ache behind his ears was only a dull throb this morning. His lieutenants stuck at his side. They had a dual job of protecting him, at least as much as was possible.

  Half of them left the High Road. Those who stayed began a wide sweep of the surrounding forks and paths of the road. The rest descended, shifting to human form to do the same casing on the ground below.

  Renat stood on human feet and checked up and down the road. It was a main thoroughfare, and he could see straight up to the tower. The garden that separated the tower from the rest of the city was nothing more than dark mounds at this hour.

  A man pushing a cart swung into view. He caught sight of Renat and froze.

  He was probably headed to the market, though who knew what he was selling eleven months into the siege. If it wasn't fruits and vegetables, it was probably illegal.

  This wasn't Renat's territory though, and he had no problem with the man's actions. He signaled to two of his crew to help the older man push the cart up the embankment and away.

  "Caught a glimpse of a few Demon's Breath, but I got away quick enough," said one of his crew as they reconvened.

  "So they are about," Renat mused. He scanned the tops of buildings and dark corners, but he'd seen no sign of them himself. "Let's head up. They may be watching us even now."

  They'd chosen a building up the street from the safe house and the wall, closer to the tower. Renat reasoned that even though they were out of the way of the action, they would be out from Loviva's radar.

  The crew who had swept the High Road reported back, and after that there wasn't much to do but lie in wait.

  Renat leaned against a lattice to keep a good view of the street when he heard a light commotion from behind him.

  He whipped around to see a furious Moon striding toward him as the crew was frozen in half-motion, unable to tell if they should stop her.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded.

  ~*~

  Moon spent the remainder of the night locating all of Loviva's crew, and trailing guards to and from the area. There wasn't much movement on the part of the guards as the night wore on, and eventually she slept fitfully.

  She'd awakened in the morning to the voices of Faruq and Azzi. She could remain invisible while she slept, it took no effort on her part to maintain, so they hadn't noticed her. She had followed them around and finally realized they were there with Renat, and they had come for Loviva.

  She trailed them until they led her to Renat's location. And then she'd been able to take it no longer, and had burst into sight in front of the crew.

  She could not read the look on Renat's face when he saw her. He was paler than he should have been, and wore an expression that told her he'd been deep in thought. But as he saw her his expression cleared to something unreadable.

  "Moon!"

  Before she could get another angry outburst out, he'd snapped his fingers and the crew had scattered t
o various positions, all far from the two of them.

  A strange command, given Renat thought she was working for the enemy.

  "You followed what I told you and now you're here to take the artefacts for yourself!" She heard herself accusing him, though part of her observed it made no sense. When did they start talking this way, flinging nonsense at each other?

  "I'm not." He'd calmed, and his expression had returned to his usual dark intensity. "I'm here to stop you."

  She stepped – forward, and into invisibility.

  "Face me and talk!" He yelled the words.

  "Why should I?" she asked. She had not moved from her position, just become invisible as a precaution at his rash words. Who did he think he was, to stop her?

  "Because I'm sorry," he said, with absolute sincerity.

  She froze. She hadn't realized how she'd needed to hear those words. How simple, and how powerful their effect on her, like a charm, freeing her. She sighed, and the pain of the last few days loosened the knot between her shoulder blades.

  He hadn't said more, but he was staring right at her.

  "What are you looking at?" she grouched.

  "I can see you," he said.

  She started.

  "Not you-you," he went on. "I can see a ripple in the air. A distortion or fuzziness. I've been able to tell where you are for a while now. If I watch you disappear, and know where to look."

  On another day this might have been cause for further discussion, but today she only had one thing on her mind.

  "What are you doing here?"

  Renat sighed, regretfully. "I never should have doubted you. I came to apologize. What we've been to each other...I never meant to get in the way of us. I meant...I said all the wrong things."

  ~*~

  He kept his eyes trained on the faint fuzziness. It was steady, which meant she was listening. For now. He did not know how to keep her next to him for all time. But he did not second-guess the words. They had been inseparable for two years, and he knew her. He set aside everything that had risen up in him when he'd seen her come from Loviva's lair. He reached back, to their courtship, to their many firsts, to their every joint success.