his ascent was drawing the ire of the watch. He neednât have bothered. The people had mobbed the gallows en masse and were busy cutting down the imprisoned knight, while the Burgrave and the dwarf envoy bellowed conflicting orders at their various servants and retainers. Malden easily made the leap from the top of the fountain to a pitched roof beyond, dropping to all fours to get a better grip on the slick lead shingles. He had landed on the top of the civic armory, which normally bristled with guards, but they were busy rushing out to join the general melee in the square. He clambered over the roofline of the armory and up one of its many spires to leap over to another roof, this the top of the tax and customs house.
It wasnât the first time heâd climbed these heights. The district around Market Square was full of old temples, public buildings, and the palatial homes of guildmasters and minor nobility. It was called the Spires for its most common architectural detailâall of which were so heavily ornamented, carved, and perforated they were easier to climb than a spreading oak. Combined with how close the buildings pressed to one another, Malden could move through the Spires almost as easily as he could walk on flat cobbles.
Arms spread for balance, he hurried down the roofline of the customs house, one foot in front of the other like he was walking a tightrope. The sun glared on the pale shingles of the roof, made from slabs of stone cut thin as paper. At the end of the roof he slid down the steeply pitched shingles and sprang up onto a rain gutter, then launched himself across the narrow gap of the Needleâs Eye, an alley that curled around the back of the university cloisters. The cloisters had a nearly flat rooftop running a hundred yards away from him, an easy place to gain some time in case he was still being pursued. Of course, that was impossible. There was no way a man wearing thirty pounds of chain mail on his back couldâ
âOh, thatâs unfair,â Malden breathed.
A puffing, roaring noise like the bellow of an exhausted bull chased him across the roof, and then the clanking noise of chain mail slapping on shingles. The swordsman clambered up on top of the customs house, dragging himself upward despite all the weight he carried. The bastard must be as strong as a warhorse, Malden thought.
âJustâwantâtoâtalk,â the swordsman grunted, hauling himself up onto the steeply peaked roof, staring at Malden across the alley between them. âListen, thief,â he said, âyou neednât runâany further. I justâjust want to talk.â
âIs your tongue as sharp as your sword?â Malden asked. âCome no closer.â Witty banter wasnât coming as easily as heâd hoped. Maybe he was too terrified to crack jokes. Well. Never mind. He drew his weapon. âThis,â he said, âis a bodkin.â
âSo it is,â the swordsman replied, the way a tutor might speak to a student who had just mastered the first declension of a regular verb.
Malden sneered. âIt may not look like much. But itâs designed for one thing, and one alone. It has a wickedly sharp tip so it can punch right through chain mail and into an armored manâs vitals.â Of course, of the hundred odd uses Malden had come up with for his knife, that was the one heâd never actually tried. He imagined it would take a lot of strength to push it through the fine mesh of metal links. He would have to get his back into it. Assuming the swordsman hadnât cut his own spine in half before he had a chance to try. âIf you attempt to follow me furtherââ
âI donât want to follow you over there. Bloodgodâs armpits! Thatâs the last thing I want to have to do today. I just want to talk to you. Truly.â
Malden pointed the weapon directly toward the swordsmanâs midsection.
The swordsman responded by
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