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.The Red Axe-or Whistler, or member of some other gang beholden to the tanarukk-was of no importance at the moment.Sefris would kill or evade him when the time came.She had to keep up with Aeron, and she hurried down the side of the tower, knowing that until he came into view below her, he couldn't see her, either.The problem was that he never did appear, not on the steps or on the ground underneath, either, and by the time Sefris reached the second story, she realized what was wrong.He'd noticed her magic after all, and was trying to shake her off his trail.How, though? Had he sprinted to the ground and concealed himself? It was possible, but she hadn't heard his running footsteps slapping on the steps.It seemed more likely that he'd slipped through one of the doors leading into the tower.She did the same, and found herself on a landing lined with doors.Interior staircases zigzagged up and down.Which way?She was grimly aware that he could have gone anywhere.But a sorceress learned to heed her intuition, and hers told her he'd scurried upward, doubling back to the Rainspans.She dashed in that direction.She threw open the door that led to the bridge she'd crossed a minute before.Kesk's minion was in the middle of it."Did you see where Aeron went?" she snapped.He gaped at her, evidently amazed that she'd picked up on who he was and manifestly useless.She raced on up the inside of the tower and plunged through the exit to the higher of the two Rainspans.Aeron sar Randal was scurrying along it.When he heard the door bang against the wall, he turned, saw her, and like-wise looked surprised, in his case surprised that she was still on his track and catching up so quickly.He shouldn't have been.Her training enabled her to run faster than any common thief.Nobody else was on the bridge to deter her from attacking.She charged, and Aeron threw a dagger at her.It flew straight and true, and without breaking stride, she batted it out of the air.The thief hurled a second knife.She ducked it.He spun, ran, reached the end of the Rainspan, and sprinted on down the long axis of a clay-tiled gable-and-valley roof, which the builders had made flat to create a narrow walkway.At the far end was the top of a spiral staircase that presumably corkscrewed all the way down to the ground.Not that it mattered where it ended.Aeron wouldn't make it that far before she overtook him.Evidently he realized it, because he spun around to face her and reached under his cloak.Grabbing for another weapon, she supposed.But she was wrong.He brought out The Black Bouquet itself.He'd carried the volume to his meeting with Kesk, the Dark Goddess alone knew why.He heaved it away, at right angles to the path.It thumped on the tiles and slid on down the steep pitch of the roof.Sefris leaped off the bridge and dashed after The Black Bouquet, intent on intercepting it before it slid over the edge.If the old, crumbling book fell to the ground below, the impact could damage it severely.She dived for it at the last possible second, indifferent to the fact that by so doing, she was also flinging herself toward the drop-off.She grabbed the tome, somersaulted to the very brink, and stamped down hard.The action shattered clay tiles, countered her momentum, and kept it from tumbling her off the edge.She felt a swell of satisfaction, which ended abruptly when she took a good look at her prize.Viewed up close, it was a little too small and didn't have a title embossed on the front cover.It wasn't the perfumer's formulary after all, just a decoy Aeron had procured in case he needed a diversion.She spun around.The ridge walkway was clear.The thief had disappeared, but where?As before, Sefris could think of several possibilities, but she knew that at that point, in Aeron's place, she would have tried to reach the ground as quickly as possible, which meant he'd bolted down the stairs.She could use them herself, but despite her skills, would waste precious seconds clambering back up the slanted roof.It would be far quicker to descend via the controlled plummet she'd learned during her training.She swung herself off the brink and dropped, grabbing at protrusions and depressions, the merest unevenness sometimes, in the timber wall with its flaking white paint.Many of these handholds could never have borne her full weight, but even so, the fleeting contacts served to slow her down a little.She landed in a snowy flurry of dislodged paint chips, executed a shoulder roll, and vaulted to her feet uninjured.The gable-and-valley configuration of the roof existed at street level as well, which was to say the whole building was cross-shaped, and positioned behind one of the projecting arms, she could no longer see the spiral steps.She dashed around the structure until they came into view.Her quarry didn't.Assuming she'd correctly guessed his intentions, he'd already made it down to the teeming street, where a good many humans, orcs, goblins, halflings, and gnomes were bustling about.She pivoted, peering into the crowd, and abruptly spotted a flash of copper in the bright, warm autumn sunlight.Aeron had pulled up his cowl to cover his red hair, but when he glanced back, no doubt checking to see if she was still on his trail, it didn't quite hide his goatee.The thief was striding toward a staircase that, at first glance, looked like it led down into someone's cellar, but which she suspected was actually an entrance to the Underways.She didn't want him to reach the steps.He probably could elude her down in the tunnels.She couldn't hit him with a chakram, not with so many people milling around between them, but her magic might work, and at that point, she didn't care who saw.If anyone took exception to her actions, she'd deal with him.She gestured, and the shadow of a brown-and-white horse standing in the traces of a parked hay wagon lengthened and deformed into a tentacle, which then reared from the ground.The animal whinnied and shied, and people nearby cried out in alarm.Aeron turned, saw the length of darkness lashing in his direction, and tried to dodge.He wasn't quite quick enough.The tentacle spun around him and held him fast.He thrashed, struggling to squirm free.Agile as he was, with that skinny frame, he might actually do it, but it wouldn't save him.By that time, Sefris would have closed to striking distance.She raced forward.Broadsword in hand, a Gray Blade scrambled out of the crowd to bar her path.With his slender frame, ivory skin, and vivid green eyes, he looked as if he might possess some elf blood."Hold it!" he said."I saw you ca-"Sefris drove her stiffened fingers at the half-elf's solar plexus.He had excellent reflexes.He jumped back in time and brought his round target shield up to block.His sword leaped in a head cut.She shifted in so close that the stroke fell harmlessly behind her.Sefris rammed the heel of her palm into his jaw, snapped his neck, and raced on toward Aeron.Maddeningly, a second Gray Blade-middle-aged, stocky, and entirely human-lunged at her.Apparently he'd been hurrying toward Aeron and the tentacle, but had spied his partner's fate and turned back around to avenge him.His sword point streaked at her face.She sought to deflect it with a press, and avoiding the block, it dipped down to threaten her midsection.She had to retreat a step and twist at the hips to keep it from piercing her guts.She gave him a roundhouse kick to the knee.Bone snapped, and he fell down.She stamped on his chest, breaking ribs and rupturing his heart.She ran on.People scurried to get out of her way, which afforded her a good view of the conjured tentacle.It writhed and shifted from side to side, clenching and unclenching, its coils empty.The Gray Blades had delayed her long enough for Aeron to wriggle free
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