Free Sworn in Steel by Douglas Hulick Page B

a suitable scabbard yet. I’d wrapped the canvas into a rough covering, though, so while it might not have been stylish, Degan’s sword was at least riding more
comfortably across my back.
    For her part, when Nijjan had first seen the bundle she’d merely looked at it, looked at me, and shaken her head. Ungainly or not, I wasn’t about to risk losing it, even if it made
it harder to run the roofs.
    We followed the roofline around the piazza, hopping low walls, dancing leaded peaks, and jumping a narrow drainage alley, until we found ourselves on the Mort Ken’s roof.
    There had been a garden up here once. Raised beds meant for flowers and herbs had been shoved off to one side of the roof, their wood faded and rotting. A few potted fruit trees still struggled
on, their roots crowding out of the soil around the top, or escaping through cracks in the ceramic that held them. A handful of weathered columns were scattered about, standing guard over a herd of
forlorn chairs and dining couches. I could almost see how, at night, with the right lighting and enough fortified wine, the place could take on an air of neglected elegance—just the kind of
surroundings to help set the mood and persuade a Lighter to be that much lighter in his purse come morning. Assuming, of course, they first got rid of the man sprawled on the roof with
Nijjan’s arrow sticking out of his head.
    We could hear shouting from the street now—voices raised in challenge and argument. No hiss or ring of steel yet, which was good. We needed attention focused on the front door for as long
as possible; a fight would be over too quickly, and not in our favor. So far, it sounded as if Nijjan’s people were doing just what we wanted.
    The sunset was little more than a smudge below the horizon now, making the shadows on the roof even thicker. As I looked around, amber-gold began to settle itself more easily across my
vision.
    “How the hell do we get down?” growled Nijjan. “I can’t see the damn jigger for all the crap up here.”
    I scanned the space around us, looking for the trapdoor that would have been used not only by customers, but possibly by the whores themselves when they decided to sleep or eat under the
stars.
    “There.” I led Nijjan over to a rectangle set in the roof behind a pair of pillars. I held back, letting her take the door, both because I was the Prince, and because I didn’t
need any sudden light blinding my recently awakened sight. When it creaked open, a faint glow crept out. Even then, my eyes still burned.
    “Looks like it opens into a room,” said Nijjan, her voice low. She set aside her bow and drew a long, curved knife. She stepped into the opening and went down into the building.
    I blinked the last of the tears from my eyes and went over to the door. A set of steep, narrow stairs led down into the whorehouse. Nijjan was waiting at their base.
    I half stepped, half climbed down into a sitting room. A single, weak tallow candle burned on the sideboard, illuminating a pair of worn chairs and a vase filled with the remains of dead
flowers. Petals littered the sideboard and floor.
    Nijjan moved over to the room’s only door and opened it a crack. The hinge, thank the Angels, barely groaned.
    “Hallway,” she said. She turned to face me. “Now what?”
    “Now we go down one floor.”
    “And then?”
    I shrugged. “We look and listen.”
    Nijjan’s hand caught mine as I moved to go past her. “Wait. Are you telling me you don’t even know where Rambles is?”
    “I know he’s on the third floor.”
    “That’s it? We just go down a flight and listen at whores’ doors until we think we’ve found the right one?”
    “More or less.” I’d operated on a hell of a lot less for years. “No one else is doing any trade right now, so it shouldn’t be that hard.”
    Nijjan stared at me. “And these kinds of plans work for you?”
    “You’d be surprised.”
    The Upright Woman snorted as I opened the door