Siltwhisper's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Siltwhisper poled into the back channel before the sun cleared the reeds. The mossy shack sat low on its piles, half-hidden by hanging weed. He climbed the bank and stopped. A torn cloak hung from the stump by his door, dripping black water, trailing rags into the mud. Someone had come in the night. Inside, a man slumped against the wall. Wet hair, split lip, one arm clutched to his ribs. He lifted his good hand slow and set a wax-wrapped pouch on the floor between them. "Runner," he said. "From the sister cell." His voice was thin. "Don't move your people yet. Not till you're sure of me." Siltwhisper crouched. He did not touch the pouch. He watched the man's eye instead — the small twitch when boots scraped outside, the way he did not flinch toward the door. A bait runner would flinch toward rescue. This one braced away from it. Still, braced could be trained. "Open it yourself," Siltwhisper said. The stranger worked the runner's knot with one hand. Inside lay a strip of cipher cloth, and beneath it a small carved token Siltwhisper had pressed into a courier's palm two winters back. Only one man had carried that token out. He had not come back. Until now. "Jasper," Siltwhisper said. Jasper closed his eyes. "I lost them," he said. "All but the message. I'm sorry I made it." Siltwhisper stood. He bolted the door from inside and dropped the trapdoor latch beneath the waterline. The sister cell was burning, and a man he had counted as dead was bleeding on his floor. He could not move anyone tonight. But he was no longer moving alone.