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Grief leaned forward with an oily smile and touched Faith’s sleeve. “Do you see the souls drifting here and there in the wind? They are what remains of babes, dead before they were born. They’ll stay here, wailing for their mothers’ teats, until the earth falls into the sun.” Faith shivered. “How awful! ’Tis not their fault that they died thus.”
Grief grinned, his impish tail whipping back and forth. “Aye, but there is no justice in Hell. For them or for your beloved.”
Faith frowned and pushed Grief from the horse. …
—From The Legend of the Hellequin
“Over there,” Alf said later that night. He whispered so close to Godric’s ear that he could feel the boy’s panting breaths. Alf was scared, though he hid it well. “In that cellar across the way. Do y’see?”
“Aye.”
This was the second—and biggest—workshop of the night. He’d already freed six girls from a shed in the back of a foul courtyard—a relatively easy operation, as there had been only two guards, one of them drunk.
Now both Godric and Alf lay prone on a roof catty-corner from the cellar he’d indicated. “Is there another way in?”
Alf shook his head decisively. “Not that I ever saw.”
Godric grunted, analyzing. The lassie snatchers had chosen a good spot for the workshop. The cellar door lay within a narrow well—any attackers would be exposed from behind and perforce would have to enter single file.
Of course, he’d always planned to enter by himself, so the point was moot.
Winter had argued in favor of bringing in more men for this second workshop when Godric had delivered the first six shivering girls to him. Godric was loath to trust anyone else, though, both with possible exposure of his identity and with the attack itself. He was used to working alone. This way he didn’t have to rely on another’s skill and dependability.
No one could fail him if he only had himself.
“There’s two guards.” Alf’s whisper was barely audible even this close.
Godric glanced at him, and for a moment his eyes were caught by the delicacy of his profile. Something twinged at the back of his mind—something that bothered him about the boy.
Alf jerked his chin forward, distracting him. “See? One by the door, one at the entrance o’ the alley.”
“And another one on the roof,” Godric replied.
Alf started, his gaze swinging in that direction. “Sharp eyes,” he said grudgingly. “What’ll you do? There’s only one o’ you.”
“Let me worry about that,” Godric whispered, rising to his haunches. “You stay here and don’t get involved. I don’t want to have to worry about you as well as them.”
Mutiny flashed in Alf’s eyes and Godric respected the scamp more for it.
Then the boy looked at the three toughs guarding the workshop and nodded. “Luck, then.”
Godric smiled at him. “Thank you.”
He was off, running silently across the roof in a crouch. He leaped away from the building housing the cellar, moving in a wide circle as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop. He was careful about it, taking a good fifteen minutes to work his way around until he was in back of the guard on the roof over the cellar. Then it was a simple matter of stealth and quiet. Killing the guard wasn’t hard: a firm, quick grasp on the guard’s hair, a vicious tug to bare his neck, and a lightning-strike cut across his throat. The difficulty came in making sure the guard made no sound before he died.
But he didn’t. Godric had more than enough experience to make sure it was so.
The man at the end of the alley was next; the fact that he stood in the open made it a bit more complicated. When the man turned at the last moment as Godric rushed him, Godric was forced to jab him hard in the throat before he could kill him. The man fell, wheezing quietly—the vulnerable hollow of his neck was crushed; he’d suffocate before too long.
Godric’s dagger thrust was quick and merciful.
He couldn’t waste a second after that. It was only a matter of time before the third guard noticed that his compatriot no longer stood at the end of the alley and gave the alarm. Godric scaled the building again, his chest heaving silently, his arms and shoulders burning as he hauled himself up. He ran over the rooftop, pausing only to see where the guard stood below, and leaped into space.
He landed square atop the guard and the man fell, smashing his head against the cobblestones. He didn’t move again.
But as Godric landed on the guard, he tumbled to the side, instinctively bracing himself on his left hand. Pain, white hot and blinding, flashed through his wrist. For a moment, nausea boiled in his throat and he feared he’d lose his stomach.
He stood, staggering a little.
