Dark Heart by Russell Kirkpatrick Page A

huanu stone? He was gambling that they could not.
    A swift glance over his shoulder confirmed what his ears were telling him: the fingers of Alkuon were busy razing the Artisans District, their attention drawn away from him for the moment. Drawn away by his children, he reminded himself.
    To his right the rear of the inn seemed relatively undamaged. A rickety stairway led upwards to the fire doors every building in Raceme was required to have. He placed a hand on the stair, gave it a shake, and leapt back when a crack was followed by a series of shudders. Through the rising dust he watched the stairway settle.
    He turned and left the alley, as there seemed no point in risking the climb. Even were the stairs to hold his weight, the door might—would—be barred from the inside. He had hoped the wind might have provided a way in.
    Well, of course, it had, after a fashion. The entire front of the inn was open to the skies, but the stairway from the tavern to the private taproom above had been set against the front wall; and wall and stairway both had been swallowed by the whirlwind. Standing back from the remains of the inn, he could see into the taproom. The bedrooms behind appeared more or less intact.
    Hauling himself up to the second floor taxed his aching muscles to their limits. He made use of dangling beams, sheets of metal, ropes and cords—anything that would give him a hand- or foothold. By the time he scrambled onto the creaking taproom floor, both his hands were bleeding and he had the beginnings of a bruise forming on his right leg, just below the knee.
    ‘Oh my,’ a familiar voice said as he pushed himself to his feet. ‘My, my, here’s the brave fisherman, yes indeed, come to pick up the stone he so carelessly left lying in his room, yes.’
    Noetos drew a deep breath. Olifa the alchemist, he whom his fellow miners called Omiy . ‘I have no doubt it’s no longer where I put it,’ Noetos said, breathing out in a long hiss.
    ‘No, indeed.’
    Omiy held out his hand, which cradled the huanu stone. Noetos looked at the man’s fingers wrapped around his daughter’s carved neck. He went for his sword—and then remembered, of course, that he didn’t have it.
    ‘My, my, my, you must be more careful with the contents of that belt,’ the alchemist said, his grin wide and taunting. ‘Do you think I would have made myself known, yes, taken this risk, if I’d seen your sword in its scabbard? Oh my, no!’
    In his pursuit of the stone, Noetos had forgotten the loss of his sword. In one sense he’d known it was missing: a sword thumps against the leg when a person runs, it rubs against the stomach when he bends over, it has a weight about it. His mind had simply slipped into old habits. And where had it gone? He’d fought the Neherians with it, then had fled with Mustar; together they’d disturbed two red-bibbed soldiers despoiling a woman; he’d taken the head of one of them, and, and…he had left his sword on the Summer Way, laid it aside to tend the woman who, it had turned out, was past any care he could offer.
    Clearly not so used to the weight of the blade that you’d notice if it were mislaid, aye?
    ‘Do you not think I can force you to surrender the stone using my hands alone?’ he said. The words were not convincing even to his ears.
    Omiy barked a laugh. ‘I note you have no thought of merely persuading me to hand it over, oh no. Not a man with any trust in his wits. No! Trusts his fists over his tongue, he does. Then let him use his fists—and fight this!’
    The alchemist reached over to the taproom’s small bar, snatched a bottle by its neck and broke it against the bar’s leading edge. The jagged edges of the broken pottery looked sharp enough to inflict serious damage.
    ‘I cannot let you live, my friend,’ the alchemist said as he took a careful step forward, the tip of his impromptu weapon steady in the air before his face. ‘Oh my, no. Can’t have someone dogging my trail,