Читать книгу The Orphan - Peter Lerangis - Страница 7
ОглавлениеHOW HAD HE known?
I swallowed hard. The man towered over me. He was a beast. If I tried to run, he would yank my arm out of its socket. “I—I can explain!” I pleaded.
“Running through the garden is a safety hazard, little wretch,” he said. “And it is against regulations.”
“Running?” I squeaked.
And it dawned on me—he didn’t know! How could he? He thought I was just a girl running recklessly for no reason. How could he know what I’d done? He had been on the outside.
I knew this was a stroke of dumb luck that would not last. I bowed low and spoke fast. “Yes, kind sir, you are right, and I will never do it again …” But he was holding tight, not budging.
Frada’s wise words came back to me: To loosen a guard’s will, feed his ego.
“… O pillar of great strength,” I added. “And wisdom.”
The corners of the guard’s mouth turned upward into a proud, gap-toothed smile. His fingers went slack. And I stepped away—walking, not running, until I rounded the next bend, out of the guard’s sight.
A voice boomed out from inside the garden. “What are you doing, fool? You call yourself a guardian of the gate? There is a pomegranate missing!” Running at full speed, I disappeared into the throng.
Soon I could hear at least three, maybe four guards behind me. But I had the advantage in the streets. They were my home. I sprinted down the road away from the gardens, through the ceremonial gate, and into the city. I raced past lavish houses I could never dream of entering. Many people were sympathetic to a vulnerable, running child, but others shouted my whereabouts to the guards. I darted into the vast outdoor market, hoping to lose them among the vendors. My eyes darted from stall to stall, looking for anything I could use to my advantage.
I tried to avoid looking at the gaunt, screaming man in the wooden stocks in the center of the market. His wrists and ankles were nearly worn through to the bone, bound by metal clamps. His face was bloodied and swollen. He had been there for five days, left to die because he had not bowed sufficiently to the king. My stomach wrenched at the sight, but there was nothing I could do. I had Frada to save.
I escaped out the opposite side of the market, into the streets. But the streets had guards, too. To “keep the peace,” as the king labeled it. As they heard the shouts of my pursuers, they came after me, too. “Capture the street rat! It stole the king’s property!”
My three pursuers became four, then eight. It, they called me. As if I were a thing, not a person. That notion just made me run faster.
I headed toward an alley, but one of them had gotten there first. I darted back into the street but I’d lost time. Now another set of guards was emerging from the road ahead. They were behind me and in front of me.
I stopped. There was only one way to go now.
Up.
Grabbing the window frame of the nearest shop, I hoisted myself onto a balcony. The wall was cracked and full of metal hooks left over from old signs. I used them as handholds to climb up the wall.
“Careful, Daria!” a voice shouted. “They are close behind!”
It was another urchin, a girl I knew only as Shirath, who people called the sad-faced one. “Can you help me?” I shouted.
The girl didn’t answer, but I knew the look in her eyes. In their expression I could read a kind of silent code shared only by street people: I have your back.
The guards followed, but they were slow and clumsy, weighted down by armor. I climbed to the roof and glanced in either direction. The shops were connected, so I could make it from building to building, easily jumping the difference in heights. This—this!—was the fastest way to move through the city. The breeze flowed freely through my thin tunic. With nothing but the distant towers and ziggurats in my line of sight, I felt swift and free.
“Halt or I will shoot!” a voice thundered behind me.
I turned. One of the guards had reached the roof and was aiming an arrow at my head. I knew in that moment that he really meant Halt so I CAN shoot.
So I shot first. With my sling.
I caught him square between the eyes. He let out a cry, arched backward, and fell. I cringed as I saw his body drop through the space between buildings—and land with a sickening splat into a pile of sheep manure.
He would live. But he wouldn’t be bothering me.
With an effortful groan, another guard clambered onto the roof. I reached into my belt pouch to take out another stone.
I found nothing. I’d used the last one I had. Dropping the sling back into the pouch, I turned and ran across the roofs, leaping from building to building.
The guard was laughing. Taunting me. “The lion gets the rat!” he shouted.
I knew if he didn’t catch me, he’d shoot me in the back. On an instinct, I darted left, across another row of rooftops with patched tiles and cracked surfaces—a poorer neighborhood.
A neighborhood I knew well. Very well.
As a small child, I’d lived in an old, abandoned place close to the city wall. I needed to get to it. Now. It was my only hope. It would save me.
I felt an arrow whoosh past my ear as I jumped from a higher building down onto the old shelter’s roof. I landed near the wall shared by the two buildings. Carefully I walked sideways across the roof’s edge. It was the last building on the block. If I jumped, I would be seriously hurt.
The guard appeared at the ledge above me. His chest heaved with the effort. When he saw I was trapped, he grinned.
“Nowhere to run now, thief,” he said, leaping down toward the roof.
It was a strong leap. It launched him far forward. In midair, he drew his sword with a dramatic flourish. He landed with a loud thump, in the center of the roof.
I sidled farther along, my eyes on his feet. I knew that section of the roof well. It was rotted and patched with clay and netting. Unless, of course, it had been repaired.
“Please,” I said. “You must hear me out! You’re a father, are you not? Haven’t you ever had a sick child?”
“You dare compare yourself to a child of a royal guard?” he replied, charging toward me. “Prepare to meet your maker, street raaaaaa—”
Just like that, he was gone.
Through the roof.
His shocked scream echoed upward as he fell down two stories of rotted wood onto the earthen floor below. Getting as close as I safely could, I peered through the hole into a silent, rising cloud of thick dust.
From far away came a muffled sound of commotion. I looked into the street. It was empty. The guards had taken another turn. In the confusion, they’d somehow been drawn off course. Unless …
Shirath. She must have done something to confuse them. Pointed the guards into another alley, perhaps, or sent them into a different quadrant. This was her way. I knew it in my soul. This was how we protected each other. In the absence of power, you had to use brains.
With no one chasing me now, I could lower myself over the edge of the wall, grabbing onto holes and window ledges. I landed quietly in a dark alley.
Alone at last. My chest burned. My body cramped. I stood with my back against the wall, trying to calm myself down. I’d eluded the guards for now, but I had to keep moving, just to be sure. Commotion had a way of shifting. Guards had a way of finding their prey.
