Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 12 of 57

Damian crouched in the trees, watching the gate. Rolo had been gone too long. Then he heard hooves on the road behind him. He turned. A rider from the way station came hard up the slope. The man leaned low, whipping his horse. Damian knew that face. It was the shopkeeper who had sold his enemy a fresh horse a day before. Now the man rode to warn the fortress that the sword buyer at the gate was no buyer. He was a hunter. If the rider reached the walls, the men on the platform would learn the truth. They would seize Rolo. They would come for him with all six blades. Damian had one chance, and it was closing with every stride of that horse. He could not outrun a rider on foot. He could not draw the runed sword in the open without giving himself away to the platform. So he stepped into the road and became the buyer he pretended to be. He leaned on nothing, then remembered the walking cane strapped to his pack. He pulled it free. A fine gentleman's cane, polished wood, the sort a rich man carried. He held it across the road and raised his other hand. "You there," Damian called. "I'm lost. Is this the fortress road?" The rider slowed, confused by the calm question. He did not know Damian's face. He saw only a well-dressed man with a cane. That pause was all Damian needed. He gripped the cane's carved handle and twisted. The shaft came apart at its false seam. Inside lay a thin blade, hidden by the maker for a traveler's quiet defense. The rider understood too late. He reached for the horn at his belt. Damian sprang. He swept the hidden blade across the horse's path, and the animal shied and reared. The rider spilled sideways into the dirt. The horn rolled from his hand. Damian pinned him with a knee and pressed the thin blade to his throat. "Not a sound," Damian said. The man went still. Damian tore a strip from the fallen robe and bound his mouth, then his wrists. He dragged him behind the trees and tied him to a trunk. The warning would never reach the walls. Damian caught his breath. His true weapon, the runed blade with its blue stone, still hung at his hip, untouched and unseen. The cane had done what a legend could not. Quiet work, for a quiet moment. Then the fortress gate groaned open. Rolo stepped out, a wide grin on her face, and waved him forward. The door had opened from the inside. But Damian looked down at the bound rider and understood. The way station had noticed him. His enemy's network knew a hunter was moving on their walls. He was inside now, and the walls were watching.