Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 11 of 57

They rode east until the walls came into view. A palisade rose from a low rise, gray against the fading light. Damian pulled his horse behind a stand of trees. Men stood on a platform above the gate. Each wore a dark band on his arm. The mark. Damian counted six of them before Rolo touched his wrist and drew him lower. Rolo studied the guards a long time. Then her face changed. She sat back, quiet, her usual quickness gone. "What is it?" Damian asked. "The two by the gate." She kept her voice low. "I know them. They ran the knife act. They came to my circus with those iron coins and pulled the best throwers away." She swallowed. "They tried to pull me too. I said no and I ran. That's why I left." Damian looked at her. The girl who read every road, who never stopped moving, sat still as stone. "They'd know your face," he said. "They'd know it." She met his eyes. "If they see me, they see you. I'm not intelligence anymore. I'm a liability." The words hung between them. Damian understood the danger. Rolo had carried him this far. Now the same past that made her useful could burn them both. If those men recognized her at the gate, the whole approach was dead. Damian thought of every way to hide her. A hood. A wide path around the walls. None of it held. The road ran straight to the gate. There was no other way in. "Then we don't hide it," Rolo said. She had reached the same wall he had. "We use it." "Use it how?" "They wanted a thrower. A runaway who finally came back." She wiped her palms on her patched jacket. "I walk up. I tell them I'm done running. I say I brought them a buyer for a fine sword. That's you." Damian's stomach turned. "They could take you the moment you speak." "They could." She stood before he could stop her. "But they want me more than they fear me. I know these men. Let me spend what I am before it spends us." He caught her sleeve. For a breath he wanted to forbid it. Then he let go. She was right, and he would not waste her by refusing. Rolo walked into the open. She raised both hands and called up to the platform. The two men by the gate went stiff. One leaned to the other, then laughed. He waved her forward. She glanced back once. Then she passed through the gate and was gone. Damian crouched in the trees, alone. His only guide had walked into the enemy's walls to buy him a door. Now he had to wait, and trust that the door would open from the inside before it closed on her.