Take a Thief (43 page)

The bowl took most of it, as he'd anticipated, but his head and ears still rang with it. In fact, for just a moment, he saw stars. He went limp, partly with intent, partly with the shock of the blow, and when he could move again, he regained control over himself and stayed properly limp.

They didn't dally about. They bundled him up cocoonlike in the blanket, one of the snatchers threw the bundle over his shoulder with a grunt of effort, and they were off at a lope. Whoever had Skif must have been a big man, because he carried Skif as if he was nothing.

Cymry did not ask "Are you all right," because she knew he was. And what she knew, Alberich knew. So there was no point in wasting time with silly questions, when Alberich needed to concentrate on following Skif's captors, and Skif had immediate concerns of his own to deal with. Skif concentrated on breathing carefully in that foully smothering blanket, staying limp, and keeping up the ruse that he was as completely unconscious as that blow to the head should have rendered him. This was the hardest part of the plan— to literally do nothing while his captor carried him off, and hope that Alberich could keep up with them. They only had to get to their goal, which might or might not be Londer's warehouse. Alberich had to stay with them while remaining unseen.

Not the easiest task in the world; Skif had shadowed enough people in his life to know how hard it really was.

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He'd have to get the bowl off his head, too, at some point in the near future, or they'd figure out he wasn't what he seemed and he wasn't unconscious. Definitely before he got unwrapped, or he'd be in a far more uncomfortable position than he was now. So as the man jogged along, Skif worked his hands, a little at a time, up toward his head.

The blanket smelled of so many things, all of them horrid, that he hated to think of what had happened in it and to it. It wasn't so much a blanket as a heavy tarpaulin of something less scratchy than wool. Was it sailcloth? It could be. He wasn't so tightly wrapped up in it that he couldn't move. He'd been "sleeping" with his arms up against his chest, so he shouldn't have too far to work them to get his hands on that bowl….

He was glad he hadn't eaten much, since his head and torso were dangling upside down along his captor's back, the stench of the blanket was appalling, and the man's shoulder essentially hit him in the gut with every step. If there was a better recipe for nausea, he didn't know it. He'd have been sick if he hadn't been cautious about not eating much beforehand.

Bit by bit, he worked his arms higher, moving them only with the motion of the man who carried him, slowly working his hands up through the canvas towards the bowl. Then, at long last, with the tips of his fingers, he touched it.

With a sigh of relief, he pushed with his fingertips and ducked his head at the same time as the man stumbled. The bowl came off his head and fell off into the folds of the blanket. He was rid of it, and now he could—

—not relax, certainly. But wait, be still, try to ignore the reek of the blanket, and remember the next part of the plan.

:It looks as if your uncle's warehouse really is the goal,:
Cymry said.

He wished he could see.
Hellfires, I wish I could breathe!

But if Londer's warehouse was the goal, it couldn't be very much longer.

Alberich was supposed to have scouted the place during the day, so he'd be familiar with the outside, at least. Skif just wished that the 299

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Weaponsmaster was as good at roof walking as he was— if only they could have switched parts—

Don't worry about your partner. If he says he can do something, and
you've got no cause to think otherwise, then let him do his job and
concentrate on yours.

Well, that was easy to say, and hard to do, when it all came down to cases.

It seemed forever before the men stopped, and when they did, Skif was gritting his teeth so hard he thought they might splinter with the tension.

They knocked on the door, quite softly, in a pattern of three, two, and five.

:Got it,:
Cymry said.
:Alberich doesn't know if he's going to try going in
that way, but if he does, that will make it easier.:
The door creaked open. "Got 'nother one?" said a voice in a harsh whisper, with accents of surprise. "Tha's third'un tonight!"

"Pickin's is good," said the man to Skif's right, as the one carrying him grunted. "Got'r eyes on two more prime 'uns, so le's get this'un settled."

"Boss'll be right happy," said the doorkeeper, as the men moved forward and closed the door behind them.

"Tha's th'ideer," grunted the man with Skif.

They moved more slowly now, and to Skif's dismay there was a fair amount of opening and closing of doors, and direction changes down passages. This place must be a veritable warren! How was Alberich supposed to find him in all of this if he got inside?

:Let us worry about that,:
said Cymry— right before there was the sound of another door opening, then the unmistakable feeling that his captor was descending a staircase.

Descending a staircase? There's a cellar to this place? There isn't
supposed to be a cellar here!

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Skif was in something of a panic, because part of the emergency plan figured in the Companions coming in as well as Alberich, and the Companions were not going to be able to get down a narrow, steep set of stairs into a cellar.

He had to remind himself that he was
not
alone, he was armed, and he was probably smarter than any of these people. No matter what happened here, sooner or later they would
have
to take him outside this building, and when they did, he could escape.

Even if he and Alberich couldn't actually catch the head of this gang of slavers right now, so long as Skif could get a good look at him, they'd have him later.

What's the worst that can happen?
he asked himself, and set himself to imagining it. Alberich wouldn't get in. He'd be held for a while, maybe with other children, maybe not. The master of this gang would inspect them; Skif could make sure he saw enough he
would
be able to pick him out again. Then— well, the question was how attractive they found him.

He had to stop himself from shuddering. Just by virtue of being healthy and in good shape, he was as pretty as most of the street urchins they'd been picking up. Which meant there was one place where they'd send him.

Now the panic became real; his throat closed with fear and he had trouble breathing.
Oh, no— oh, no—

In all his years on the street, he had never really had to face the possibility that he might end up a child-whore. Now he did, for if he couldn't get away from these people, or they found out what he was doing—

His imagination painted far worse things than he had ever seen, cobbled up out of all the horrible stories he had ever heard, and his breath came in short and painful gasps. He went from stifling to icy cold. What if their—the
brothel
was here, in this building? They wouldn't have to take him outside. They wouldn't have to move him at all. He wouldn't get a chance to escape— they could keep him here as long as they wanted to, they could— they
would!
strip him down first and find his knives. What would 301

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they do to him then? Drug him, maybe? Kill him? Oh no, probably not that, not while they could get some use out of him—

Don't panic. Don't panic.

How could he
not
panic?

:Chosen— we won't let that happen. We'll get to you, no
matter what—: But how
would
they? How
could
they? It would take a small army to storm this place, and by then—

The man carrying him got to the bottom of the stair and made a turning.

"This brat's awful quiet," he grunted to his fellow. "Ye sure ye didn' 'it 'im too 'ard?"

"No more'n the rest uv 'em," the other snapped. " 'E's breathin', ain't 'e?"

"Aye— just don' wanta hev'ta turn over damaged goods. Milord don't care fer damaged goods." The man hefted Skif a little higher on his shoulder, surprising him into an involuntary groan, caused as much by desperation as by pain.

"There, ye see?" the second man said in triumph. "Nothin' wrong wi' 'im.

'E's wakin' up right on time."

"Les' get 'im locked up, then," said the one from the door.

There was the sound of a key turning in a lock, a heavy door swinging open. Then, quite suddenly, Skif found himself being dumped unceremoniously onto something soft.

Well, softish. Landing knocked the breath out of him, though he managed to keep from banging his head when he landed. He heard the door slam and the key turn in the lock again before he got his wits back.

He struggled free of the stinking confines of the blanket, only to find himself in the pitch dark, and he was just as blind as he'd been in the 302

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blanket. He felt around, heard rustling, and felt straw under his questing hands. The "something soft" he'd been dumped on was a pile of old straw, smelling of mildew and dust, but infinitely preferable to the stench of the blanket.

He got untangled from the folds of that foul blanket, wadded it up, and with a convulsive movement, flung it as far away from himself as possible. The wooden bowl that had saved his skull from being cracked clattered down out of the folds of it as it flew across the room.

Which wasn't far, after all; he heard it hit a wall immediately. His prison
was
a prison then, and a small one. He got onto his hands and knees, and began feeling his way to the nearest wall. Rough brick met his hands, so cheap it was crumbling under his questing fingers, a symptom of the damp getting into it.

He got to his feet, and followed it until it intersected the next wall, and the next, and the next— and then came to the door.

A few moments more of exploring by touch proved that this wasn't a room, it was a cell; it couldn't have been more than three arm's lengths wide and twice that in length.

Not a very well-constructed cell, though. Rough brick made up the walls, and the floor was nothing more than pounded dirt with the straw atop it.

And when Skif got to the door, he finally felt some of his fear ebbing. The lock on this door had never been designed with the idea of confining a thief. He could probably have picked it in the pitch-dark with a pry bar; the throwing daggers he wore were fine enough to work through the hole in the back plate and trip the mechanism.

I can get out.
That was all it took to calm him. These people never intended to have to hold more than a few frightened children down here.

As long as they thought that was what he was, he'd be fine. If
this
was their child brothel, he could get out of it.

:Or you can jam the lock and keep them
out
until we get in,:
Cymry pointed out, and he nearly laughed aloud at what a simple and elegant 303

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solution she had found for him. Yes, he could, he could! Then help could take as long as it needed to reach him. Even if they set fire to the warehouse to cover their tracks, he should be safe down here. He remembered once, when one of the taverns had caught fire, how half a dozen of the patrons had hidden in the cellars and come out covered in soot but safe— and drunk out of their minds, for they'd been trapped by falling timbers and had decided they might as well help themselves to the stock.

:Will you be all right now?:
Cymry asked anxiously.

:Right and tight,:
he told her. And he would be, he would.

He had to be. Everything depended on him now.

He would be.

* * *

Between the first and the second, Cymry told him that Alberich had gotten into the building, but could tell him nothing more than that. It was not long after that the men arrived with the second child— and soon after that when the cellars awoke.

There was noise first; voices, harsh and quarrelsome. Then came heavy footsteps, and then light. So much light that it shone under Skif's door and through all the cracks between the heavy planks that the door was made up of.

Then the door was wrenched open, and a huge man stood silhouetted against the glare. Skif didn't have to pretend to fear; he shrank back with a start, throwing up his arm to shield his eyes.

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The man took a pace toward him, and Skif remembered his knives, remembered that he didn't dare let anyone grab him by the arm lest they be discovered. He scrambled backward until he reached the wall, then, with his back pressed into the brick, got to his feet, huddling his arms around his chest.

The man grabbed him by the collar, his arms and hands not being easy to grab in that position, and hauled him out into the corridor and down it, toward an opening.

The corridor wasn't very long, and there were evidently only six of the little brick cells in it, three on each side. It dead-ended to Skif's rear in a wall of the same rough brick. The man dragged Skif toward the open end, then threw him unceremoniously into the larger room beyond, a large and echoing chamber that was empty of furnishings and lit by lanterns hung from hooks depending from the ceiling. Skif landed beside three more children, all girls, all shivering and speechless with fear, tear-streaked faces masks of terror. Facing them were five men, four heavily armed, standing in pairs on either side of the fifth.

Was this the hoped-for mastermind behind all of this?

" 'Ere's th' last on 'em, milord," said the man who'd brought Skif out. "The fust two ye said weren't good fer yer gennelmen. This a good 'nuff offerin'?"

Skif looked up from his fellow captives. For a moment, he couldn't see the man's face, but he knew the voice right enough.