The child. He whirled and saw a gaggle of children—all in blue shirts, barefoot, all wide-eyed but silent, watching him. One, sitting up on the table, had darkening bruises on his throat. Another was the red-haired girl the men upstairs had mentioned, the mark of a hand clear on her pale skin where someone had slapped her.
“All of you?” Arvid asked. He felt breathless and off balance, and the stench of blood and death seemed unnaturally strong. He looked around the room. A pile of children’s shoes, of children’s small daggers. One of the children pointed down, under the table. Arvid leaned over to look and almost gagged. Three children lay there, obviously dead.
“We have to go now,” he said. “Quiet and fast. Up the ramps to the top floor—there’s a way out.”
“Can’t leave Gan and Suli and Tam,” one boy said. His brow wrinkled. “They need buryin’. Tam’s my brother.”
“We don’t have time,” Arvid said. The sounds below had changed; they had to get away. “I can’t carry them and fight, and I can’t fight all those below by myself.”
“We can take ‘em,” the red-haired girl said.
Arvid opened his mouth to protest but remembered—these were Girdish children. Brought up in the grange. Organized. “Who’s senior?” he asked.
They all looked at one boy, the one who had already spoken. “Me, sir. I’m Vol. We can use the cloaks.”
“Hurry,” Arvid said. “We need to move fast.”
Faster than he thought, the children took cloaks off pegs on the wall, wrapped the bodies, and lifted them—two to each—and followed Arvid out of the room, down the hall. He opened the door; now he could hear the argument at the foot of the downward ramp.
“Somethin’s happened up there.”
“Goram found another one—maybe kid fought back—”
“But it went on—”
A loud boom. Thank Gird, the Girdish outside must have decided to ram the door. Yells from below; Arvid hoped all those men would move to defend the door.
“I still say we should check on ‘em—”
“Come quietly,” Arvid said to the children behind him. They were quieter than he’d expected, moving across to the upward ramp and starting up; Arvid waved them on. To Vol he said, “I’m rear guard. You send them all the way up—the back window opens on a ledge—”
Vol nodded. Arvid waited until all the children were past him, his crossbow spanned and a bolt in the groove. He closed the door behind him, then moved across to the ramp and backed up it slowly, listening. Definitely footsteps from below: the stubborn careful person he was going to have to kill. Maybe he’d go look in the front room first.
On the next floor, the children clustered near the foot of the next upward ramp, waiting for him. He walked over to them. “Go on,” he said. “They’re following, but if you’re quick, you can make it. Window’s like a small door in the back wall. Climb out onto the ledge, follow it to the next roof—keep going until you find the outside steps down to an alley.”
“By ourselves? What about you?”
“You’re junior yeomen,” Arvid said. “You’ll do fine.” It was then he remembered the child—the younger child—hidden here on this floor. “There’s a child hidden here—I have to find him, bring him—”
He turned away, back the way he’d come, listening to the voices below, now louder.
“I don’t hear anything—”
“Goram! Selis! What’s going on up here?” The footsteps diminished, heading down the hall, Arvid thought. He found the pile of sheepskins and leaned over. “Child? You need to come right now. They’re coming to search.”
No answer. Had the child fallen asleep? He reached, and the pain in his side stabbed him. He felt something hot trickling down his side. “Damn.” He did not have time for this. He climbed over the stack and found the space behind empty. No child. No fleece to hide the child’s mage-bright hand. He felt around … only stacks of sheepskins or wool sacks.
A yell from below—he couldn’t make out the words, but he understood the urgency. They’d found the dead men. They’d seen that the captive children were gone, and the only way out was up. And he was hurt and couldn’t find the other child.
He could still make it out. He could help those children, hold back pursuit—but what about the scared younger child he’d left behind? Surely the child had just found himself another hiding place … and the pursuers would take the obvious route, up and out the window.