Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 35 of 57

Damian's students could take a hit now. But he still did not know how many killers were coming. Rolo brought the answer at dusk. She dropped through the temple's high window and landed light on the worn floor. "A rider came from the city," she said. "He carried the dead man's mark." She held up a folded scrap. "They know your face. They're sending men." Damian took the scrap. "How many?" Rolo shook her head. "That's the trouble. Nobody saw a count." Damian spread a map on the stone. His students gathered close under the tall arches. If he guessed low, he would post too few defenders and they would be overrun. If he guessed high, he would spread them thin and leave the gate open. Either wrong guess got someone killed. "We need eyes," Damian said. He went to the window and whistled. His raven dropped from the dark and settled on his wrist. "Follow the east road. Count the horses." He threw the bird up, and it climbed into the gray sky. The raven returned an hour later. It landed hard and would not settle. Damian read its panic. "Many," he said. "More than two. More than four." He looked at his students. The small girl gripped her wooden blade. The tall boy stood straighter than he used to. "We can't count them," Damian said. "So we don't fight them in the open. We make them come to us one at a time." He placed them in the narrow doorway of the stone hall. Only one man could pass at a time. Rolo climbed to the beams above with her knives. "You hold the door," Damian told the students. "I break whoever comes through. You finish what I miss." The girl nodded. The boy set his feet the way Damian had taught him. The marked men came at midnight. Seven of them, torches in hand. They crowded the doorway and lost their numbers there. Damian met the first with the flat of his runed blade and folded him. The second stumbled over the first. Rolo dropped a knife from the beams and dropped a man to his knees. The tall boy caught a wrist and turned a blade aside. The small girl swept a leg. One by one, the seven became nothing. The doorway had made them fight Damian's fight. The last man reached into his coat and drew a bundle of darts, tips slick with green poison. Damian saw the color and knew the sting. He struck before the man could throw. The bundle fell and scattered across the floor. The man dropped beside it. Damian stood in the ruined doorway, breathing hard. His students stood too, bruised and alive. Seven had come and seven had fallen. But Rolo picked up the dead rider's scrap and turned it over. "This mark isn't the city's," she said. "Someone else knows where you sleep now."