Winter's Heart (90 page)

If the renegades were renting the top floor from the bootmaker’s wife, being locked in at night would not inconvenience them much. To the south, an alleyway separated the bootmaker’s from a single-story house, a dangerous drop, but on the other side, a two-story building with a seamstress on the ground floor stood wall-to-wall with the bootmaker. Zeram’s building had no windows except at the front—in back was another alley, for taking away rubbish; Rand had already checked—but there had to be a way onto the roof so the slates could be repaired when necessary. From there it would be a short drop to the seamstress’s roof, with only three more to cross before another low building, a candlemaker’s shop, and an easy jump to the street, or into the alley behind the buildings. There would not be a great deal of risk in it at night, or even in daylight, if you stayed back from the street and were careful about the Guard’s patrols
when you came down. The way Blue Carp Street bent, the nearest watchstands were out of sight.

Two men approaching the bootmaker’s made him turn away and pretend to peer through the bubbled panes of the cutler’s small shopwindow at a display of scissors and knives fastened to a board. One of the men was tall, though not as tall as the possible Aielmen. Their deep cowls hid their faces, but neither carried a pair of boots, and although they held their cloaks with both hands, the wind flipped the tails of them enough to show the bottoms of scabbarded swords. A gust pulled the shorter man’s hood from his head, and he snatched it back again, but not before the damage was done. Charl Gedwyn had taken to wearing his hair caught at the nape of his neck in a silver clip set with a large red stone, but he was still a hard-faced man with a challenging look about him. And Gedwyn’s presence made the other Torval. Rand was willing to wager on it. None of the others was as tall.

Waiting until the pair had gone into Zeram’s shop, Rand licked a few greasy crumbs from his gloves and went in search of Nynaeve and Lan. He found them before he was far enough along the curve of the street to lose sight of the bootmaker’s. The candlemaker’s he had marked as a way down from the rooftops stood a little behind him, with an alley at one side. Ahead, the narrow street twisted back the other way. No more than fifty paces farther on was a watchstand with a Street Guard at the top, but another building of three stories, a cabinetmaker’s that shared the alleyway with the candlemaker, blocked the rooftops beyond from his view.

“Half a dozen people recognized Torval and Gedwyn,” Lan said, “but none of the others.” He kept his voice low, though no one passing more than glanced at the three of them. A glimpse of two men wearing swords beneath their cloaks was enough to make everyone who noticed step a little faster.

“A butcher down the street says those two buy from him,” Nynaeve said, “but never more than enough for two.” She looked sideways at Lan as though hers was the real proof.

“I saw them,” Rand said. “They’re inside now. Nynaeve, can you lift Lan and me to that rooftop from the alley behind the building?”

Nynaeve frowned at Zeram’s building, rubbing the belt around her waist with one hand. “One at a time, I could,” she said finally. “But it would use more than half what the Well holds. I wouldn’t be able to lift you down again.”

“Up is enough,” Rand told her. “We will leave over the rooftops, and climb down right over beside the candlemaker.”

She protested, of course, as they walked back down the street toward the bootmaker’s shop. Nynaeve always fought anything she had not thought of herself. “I am just supposed to put you on the roof and wait?” she muttered, scowling left and right so hard that as many people shied away from her as from the men flanking her, swords or no swords. She thrust her hand out from under her cloak to show the bracelet with its pale red stones. “This can cover me with armor better than any steel. I’d hardly even feel a sword hitting me. I
thought
I would be going inside with you.”

“And do what?” Rand asked softly. “Hold them with the Power for us to kill? Kill them yourself?” She frowned at the paving stones in front of her feet.

Walking beyond Zeram’s shop, Rand paused in front of the low house and looked around as casually as he could. There were no Street Guards in sight, but when he prodded Nynaeve into the narrow alley, he moved quickly. He had not seen any Guards before following Rochaid, either.

“You are very quiet,” Lan said, following close behind.

She took three more quick steps before replying, without slowing or looking back. “I didn’t think, before,” she said quietly. “I was thinking of it as an adventure, confronting Darkfriends, renegade Asha’man, but you are going up there to execute them. You’ll kill them before they know you’re there if you can, won’t you?”

Rand glanced over, his shoulder at Lan, but the older man only shook his head, as confused as he was. Of course they would kill them without warning if they could. This was not a duel; it was the execution she had named it. At least, Rand hoped very much it would be.

The alley that ran behind the buildings was a little wider than the one to the street, the rocky soil rutted with the tracks of the rubbish barrows that were pushed along it mornings. Blank stone walls rose around them. No one wanted a window to watch the rubbish carts.

Nynaeve stood peering up at the back of Zeram’s building, then suddenly sighed. “Kill them in their sleep, if you can,” she said, very quietly for such fierce words.

Something unseen wrapped snugly around Rand’s chest beneath his arms, and slowly he rose into the air, floating higher until he drifted over the edge of the overhanging eave. The invisible harness vanished, and his boots dropped to the sloping roof, sliding a little on the damp gray slates. Crouching, he moved back on all fours. A few moments later, Lan floated up to land on the roof, too. The Warder crouched as well, and peered into the alley below.

“She is gone,” Lan said finally. Twisting around to face Rand, he pointed. “There is our way in.”

It was a trapdoor set among the slates high toward the peak, with metal flashing to keep water out of the attic that lifting it revealed. Rand lowered himself into a dusty space, dimly lit by the light through the trapdoor. For a moment, he hung by his hands, then let go, dropping the last few feet. Except for a chair with three legs and a chest with the lid thrown open, the long room was as empty as the chest. Apparently Zeram had stopped using the attic for storage when his wife began taking renters.

Stepping lightly, the two men searched the floorboards until they found another, larger trapdoor lying flat against the floor. Lan felt the brass hinges and whispered that they were dry but unrusted. Rand drew his sword and nodded, and Lan snatched the trapdoor open.

Rand was not sure what he would find when he sprang down through the opening, using a hand on the coping to control his fall. He landed lightly on the balls of his feet, in a room that seemed to have taken the attic’s place from the wardrobes and cabinets shoved against the walls, the wooden chests piled on one another and tables with chairs standing atop them. The last thing he expected, though, was two dead men sprawled on the floor as if they had been dragged into the storage room and flung down. The black swollen faces were unrecognizable, but the shorter of the pair wore a silver hairclip set with a large red stone.

Dropping soundlessly from the attic, Lan looked at the corpses and raised an eyebrow. That was all. Nothing ever surprised him.

“Fain is here,” Rand whispered. As if saying the name were a trigger, the twin wounds in his side began throbbing, the older like a disc of ice, the newer a bar of fire across it. “It was him sent the letter.”

Lan gestured toward the trapdoor with his sword, but Rand shook his head. He had wanted to kill the renegades with his own hands, yet now that Torval and Gedwyn were dead—and almost certainly Kisman, too; there was that swollen corpse mentioned by the merchant at The Golden Wheel—now, he realized he did not care who killed them so long as they were dead. If a stranger finished Dashiva, it would not matter. Fain was another matter. Fain had harrowed the Two Rivers with Trollocs, and given him a second wound that would not heal. If Fain was within reach, Rand would not allow him to escape. He motioned for Lan to do as they had in the attic, and set himself in front of the door with his sword in both hands. When the other man pulled the door open, he darted into a large lamplit room with a posted bed against the far wall and a fire crackling in a small fireplace.

Only the speed of his movement saved him. A flicker of movement caught the corner of his eye, something tugged at the cloak billowing behind him, and he spun awkwardly to fend off slashes of a curved dagger. Every movement was an effort of will. The wounds in his side no longer throbbed; they clawed at him, molten iron and the very soul of ice warring to rip him open. Lews Therin howled. It was all Rand could do to think, with the agony.

“I told you he’s mine!” the bony man screamed, dancing away from Rand’s cut. With his face contorted in fury, his big nose and ears that stuck out made him seem something contrived to frighten children, but his eyes held murder. Teeth bared in a snarl, he looked like a weasel wild with killing fury. A rabid weasel, ready to savage even a leopard. With that dagger, he could kill any number of leopards. “Mine!” Padan Fain shrieked, leaping back again as Lan rushed into the room. “Kill the ugly one!”

Only when Lan turned away from Fain did Rand realize someone else was in the room, a tall pale man who came almost eagerly to meet the Warder blade to blade. Toram Riatin’s face was haggard, but he flowed into the dance of swords with the grace of the blademaster he was. Lan met him with an equal grace, a dance of steel and death.

Startled as Rand was to see the man who had tried to claim the throne of Cairhien in a worn coat in Far Madding, he kept his eyes on Fain and his sword toward the one time peddler. Darkfriend and worse, Moiraine had called him long ago. The blinding pain in Rand’s side made him stumble as he advanced on Fain, ignoring the stamp of boots and the ring of steel on steel behind him as he ignored Lews Therin’s groans in his head. Fain danced and darted, trying to get close enough to use the dagger that had made the never-healing slash in Rand’s side, growling curses in a low voice as Rand’s blade forced him back. Abruptly he turned and ran, toward the back of the building.

The torment tearing at Rand faded to mere throbbing as Fain vanished from the room, but he followed cautiously even so. At the doorway, though, he saw that Fain was not trying to hide. The man stood waiting for him at the head of stairs leading down, the curved dagger in one hand. The large ruby capping the hilt glittered, catching the light of the lamps set on tables about the windowless room. As soon as Rand stepped into the room, fire and ice raged in his side till he could feel his heart shuddering. Staying upright was an effort of iron will. Taking a step forward made that effort seem pale, but he took that step, and the next.

“I want him to know who is killing him,” Fain whined petulantly. He was glaring straight at Rand, but he seemed to talking to himself. “I want him to know! But if he’s dead, then he will stop haunting my dreams. Yes. He will stop, then.” With a smile, he raised his free hand.

Torval and Gedwyn came up the stairs with their cloaks over their arms.

“I say we aren’t going near him until I know where the others are,” Gedwyn growled. “The M’Hael will kill us if . . .”

Without thought, Rand twisted his wrists in Cutting the Wind and immediately followed with Unfolding the Fan.

The illusion of dead men come back to life vanished, and Fain leaped back with a shriek, blood streaming down the side of his face. Suddenly he tilted his head as though listening, and a moment later, aiming a scream of wordless fury at Rand, he fled down the stairs.

Wondering, Rand moved to follow the descending thumps of Fain’s boots, but Lan caught his arm.

“The street out front is filling up with Guards, sheepherder.” A dark wetness stained the left side of Lan’s coat, but his sword was sheathed, proof of who had danced that dance the better. “Time we were on the roof, if we’re going.”

“A man can’t even walk down an alley with a sword in this city,” Rand muttered, sheathing his own blade. Lan did not laugh, but then, he seldom did except for Nynaeve. Shouts and screams rose up the stairwell from below. Maybe the Street Guards would capture Fain. Maybe he would hang for the corpses up here. It was not enough, but it would have to do. Rand was tired of what would have to do.

In the attic, Lan leapt to catch the coping of the trapdoor in the roof and pull himself up and out. Rand was not sure he could make that leap. The agony was gone with Fain, but his side felt as if it had been beaten with axehandles. As he was gathering himself to try, Lan put his head back through the trapdoor and extended a hand.

“They may not come up right away, sheepherder, but is there any point in waiting to see?”

Rand caught Lan’s hand and let himself be drawn up to where he could catch the coping and pull himself out onto the roof. Crouching low, they moved along the damp slates to the back of the building, then began the short climb to the peak. There might be Guards in the street, but there was still a chance to get away unseen, especially if they could signal Nynaeve to make a distraction.

Rand reached for the roof peak, and behind him, Lan’s boot slipped on the slates with a screech. Twisting around, Rand seized the other man’s wrist, but Lan’s weight pulled him down the slick gray slope. Vainly they scrabbled with their free hands for any hold, the edge of a slate, anything. Neither uttered a word. Lan’s legs went over the edge, and then the rest of him. Rand’s gloved fingers caught on something; he did not know what, and he did not care. His head and one shoulder stuck over the edge of the roof, and Lan was dangling from his grip above the ten-pace drop to the alley next to the low house.

“Let go,” Lan said quietly. He looked up at Rand, his eyes cold and hard, no expression on his face. “Let go.”

“When the sun turns green,” Rand told him. If he could just pull the other man up a little, enough to catch the eave . . .