Free Blood and Money by Unknown Page B

against the marbled wall. He moved quickly now, grasping the trailing vines that grew up around the balcony doors, trusting them to hold his weight as he scaled the side of the palace. He risked a glance down over his shoulder. The captain wasn’t about to give up his prey, not when he needed someone to pay the metaphorical price of his master’s death. He was stronger than Isra, but the assassin was more agile. In a fair fight the assassin wouldn’t have stood a chance, but there was nothing fair about a moonlit chase across the rooftops of Katapesh when death was on the line.
    Isra bounced on his toes and pushed upward again, reaching for the roof. He broke his cardinal self-imposed rule of climbing by stretching a few inches beyond what was comfortable. Off-balance, he worked his fingers into a crack in the masonry. Isra swallowed the panic instinct, forcing himself to breathe evenly as he lifted himself carefully upward, gradually taking all of his weight on three fingertips. Then he drew his right leg up, keeping his body pressed flat to the marbled wall, until his instep dragged over another crack, this one barely a wart across. Again, it was just enough. Between fingertips and toes he had the leverage he needed to boost himself up high enough to grab the gable. He slapped his right hand flat on the clay tiles and for a sickening moment he hung there, forty feet above the ground, clinging on by his fingertips. He kicked out, scrabbling for purchase until the tarred sole of his shoe gripped something on the wall, and then he was over the top and lying on his back looking up at the sickle-shaped moon.
    He didn’t have time to catch his breath. Isra rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself up.
    Had the captain been as thorough as Isra would have in his place, the assassin would be dead now—he offered his silhouette to the moon as he ran across the rooftops. All it would have taken was one well-placed archer. But the captain wasn’t as good as Isra.
    The assassin moved fast, circling the domed roof. He was light and nimble, his trade relying on guile and speed over brute force. The man following him was anything but. Isra noted the grating slip and crash of tiles behind him with grim satisfaction as the captain of the guard lost his balance. The captain’s sheer muscle mass made him far less dexterous than the assassin, which was exactly what Isra was banking upon.
    With luck, the man would either fall, ending his pursuit the hard way, or give it up the easy way. Either worked just fine for Isra—but then, given his position, beggars could hardly be choosers.
    He found what he was looking for on the far side of the roof: the flag post flying Hasim Rakhman’s family standard. He didn’t need to peer down over the edge. He knew his city well. The market lay beyond the wall of Rakhman’s property with its mismatch of colorful tents all squashed together. He smiled grimly, thanking Norgorber once more for looking out for his favorite son. Miracles, in Isra’s experience, had no need to be any more miraculous than a well-positioned flagpole in a time of great need. He had practiced leaps like this a thousand and one times before. He started to run, lengthening his stride to use gravity to the full, and launched himself off the roof into the air, kicking out.
    “The Nightwalker always finishes the job.”
    It felt like flying, even though it only lasted for a heartbeat.
    Isra snatched at the flagpole just below the trailing ropes of Rakhman’s fluttering standard. The assassin swung through a quarter-circle before releasing his grip, completely changing the direction of his fall. As he came down fast, he reached or his knife. The blade was still slick with the dead man’s blood. Isra didn’t have time for the luxury of philosophy—the blade had taken one life and was about to save another. That was just the way it went.
    He hit the silk roof of one of the trader’s pavilions hard, tumbling head over heels