Lee waved him off as Geffen had done and turned to the jammed room. ‘All right!’ she shouted, ‘Went, Quilla, Donner – pick five men each. You’re with me.’ She headed for the door. ‘Let’s go.’
She hated to rush, but they had to strike quickly before word got to the Napans. That gal in charge, the servitor Surly, struck Lee as canny; she might have taken the precaution of buying an informant among their hirelings, so they had to act now.
They closed on the waterfont and Smiley’s bar. She sent Went ahead with his team to move in from the rear once they heard the rest entering at the front. She motioned Quilla forward, half mouthing, ‘Take the door.’
‘No lookouts,’ one of the hired knife-fighters observed, sounding uneasy.
Quilla’s boys kicked the door open and charged in. Lee waited, tensed, with Donner and his team. The crash of breaking furniture and crockery sounded from within, but no clash of blades or bodies. She edged in the doorway; the common room was dark and empty. Quilla came down the stairs, shaking her head. ‘Gone. All gone. ’Cept for one,’ and she gestured to the bar.
Lee crossed to where a young woman lay atop the counter, legs straight, hands crossed on her chest: Amiss, the youngest of the Napan crew.
She set her hands on her hips.
‘Not one,’ Quilla answered. ‘In fact, we was definitively told no bloodshed – for now.’
Lee nodded at her lieutenant’s words. ‘That’s what I thought.’ She let the shoulder fall – stiffening, yes, but still a touch warm. Must’ve been within the evening.
‘We burn the place now?’ Donner asked, eager.
Lee had to restrain herself from cuffing the hulking fellow. ‘No, we don’t burn it! It’s ours now, innit? They’ve run off.’ She backed away from the bar, nodded to Quilla, ‘Hold the building,’ then went upstairs.
The empty office was a mess of papers, most of them covered in shadowy drawings of obscure landscapes and mysterious charts of some kind involving multiple overlapping circles marked with hen-scratchings of dates and places; Lee couldn’t make head or tail of it all. Other than that, the place was a mess: drawers pulled out and upturned in a quick search for valuables, broken glass and bits and pieces on the floor. Every step was a grating crackle of shards. After one last scan of the shabby place she returned to the main common room and waved her people to follow.
Outside, she raised a hand to shade her gaze against the spitting rain. Someone was stirring up a blood-feud, and she thought she knew who. The damned little smirking shit.
She squinted north, up to the black silhouette that was the Hold. Dark now; no watchfires. Was Geffen there already … and just where had the damned Napans fled to?
She spat aside, swearing, and motioned everyone onward. ‘C’mon, y’damned useless layabouts – we’re for the Hold!’
* * *
They jogged up the twists and turns of the steep Rampart Way up the cliff to the Hold, losing steam about halfway and labouring up the rest of the distance through the chill rain, only to be greeted by the hunchbacked gatekeeper Lubben, sitting under the stone arch of the entry tunnel, a lantern on an iron hook next to him. The old fellow was leaning back and drinking from a pewter flask.
‘Is Geffen within?’ Lee demanded of the old souse, brushing the cold wetness from her face.
The grey-haired fellow screwed up one bloodshot eye to squint at her. ‘Aye.’
‘Any Napans show up here?’
He shook his long hound’s head. ‘No.’
‘Fine.’ She motioned to Went. ‘You stay here and watch the gate with your boys.’
‘Not necessary,’ Lubben objected, but lazily, without even stirring in his chair.
Lee dismissed him with a wave and headed onward into the dark and empty bailey. She crossed the wet cobbles to the doors to the main keep and found them ajar. Donner, next to her, had his light crossbow readied and she took it from him and motioned for him to push open the stained iron-bound door. This he did, then jumped back while she stepped in, crossbow raised.
She faced a long main hall, empty, but lit brightly from far within by what must be a roaring fire. Donner and his toughs readied their knives and clubs. Fresh wet mud marred the fieldstone flags. She crept inward, a finger on the crossbow’s tiller-bar.
Raucous laughter sounded from beyond; a godsdamned celebration. She crept up to the end of the hall and leaned into the room, sighting down the crossbow stock, then let the weapon fall.
The main audience chamber was crowded with Geffen’s toughs. They’d cracked open kegs and were now at the long tables carousing. Sighting her, a number cheered and waved her in.
‘What in the Abyss is this?’ she snarled, and cuffed away a proffered tumbler of wine.
‘We won, didn’t we?’ Two-ton answered, laughing loudly.
