Prince Nera Mossveil's Arc

Chapter 8 of 23

Nera settled behind the crates and counted the watches toward dawn. Then he heard boots. Not the paired step of the stair guards, but a loose group moving down the lane from the market square. He risked one look past the crate edge. Six men in patrol coats, lanterns lit, working the alleys shutter by shutter. A pre-dawn sweep. His climb window opened in less than an hour, and the patrol would reach his gap before then. He could not stay. He could not cross the lane without passing under the wine shop window. He counted the patrol's pace against the shuttered doors. Two minutes per alley, maybe three. That put them at the bakery gap before the guard shift changed. Nera pulled a stub of chalk from his pouch and marked the crate with a short slash, the sign he and Gareth had set for trouble at the post. Gareth waited two roofs east with a coil of rope and a short bow. If Nera did not appear at the climb point, Gareth would read the mark on his own sweep and know to pull back. That was the plan they had made. It was not the plan Nera wanted. He needed the patrol turned. He looked down the lane the other way and saw a man slumped against a doorframe, uniform coat open, one boot untied. A sergeant's stripes on the sleeve, half torn. The face was flushed. A bottle sat by his knee. Nera had watched him stumble in an hour before and had marked him as street noise. Now the man was a tool. Nera slipped along the shopfronts under the eaves and crouched by the slumped man. He shook his shoulder. The man opened one eye. "Debts," Nera whispered. "Patrol's coming. They'll take the bottle and the coat both." The man's name was stitched crooked above the pocket. Denton. Denton blinked at him, slow. "Owe everyone," he said. "Not the patrol yet." "Then move," Nera said. He pressed two silver bits into the man's palm. "Go loud down the far lane. Sing. Fall over a stall. Draw them off ten minutes. That clears one debt tonight." Denton looked at the silver. He looked at his boot. He stood up on the second try, tucked the bottle under his arm, and walked toward the square with the deliberate steadiness of a man who knew how to be seen drunk. Halfway down he began to sing, off key and loud. A stall clattered. A dog answered. The patrol lanterns swung toward the noise and moved after him at a jog. The lane went quiet. Nera slid back to the crates and pressed his back to the wall. The stair guards had not turned. The window lamp had not moved. He set his hand on the dagger hilt and counted down to the climb.