Chapter 10: Traveling the Vagabond’s Highway

The trouble with boltholes is that they only work until someone else figures out where you sleep.

I was heading back from a quick, paranoia-laced food run. Carrying a loaf of stale rye and a wedge of hard cheese wrapped in greasy butcher paper, filling, at best. Not gourmet in the slightest. Two of Harian’s goons were leaning against the rain-barrel right outside my doorway down in the Weaver’s Quarter. They weren’t making much of an effort to hide it, either. One was picking his teeth with a rusted nail while the other casually flipped a brass coin, their eyes scanning every passerby.

Just my luck.

Going through the front door was out. Turning around and wandering back into the main thoroughfare was equally stupid, considering the Watch was patrolling three streets over. I needed to get off the cobbles, grab my spare coin purse and the second pair of boots from the floorboards, and disappear before those two figured out which room was mine.

I slipped into the shadows of the adjoining alley, ducking behind a stack of rotting wool-crates.

The climb up the back wall was an old routine. Brick-gaps, a rusted iron drainpipe, and a leap across to the third-floor window ledge. It took twenty seconds of silent, toe-pinching effort, but I managed to ease the wooden sash up, slide inside my cramped room, and drop quietly to the floorboards.

I moved fast. I threw the cheese and bread into my pack, pried up the loose floorboard under the bed to grab my emergency stash, and strapped my gear tight. Two minutes, in and out. Clean.

I slunk back toward the open window to check the alley before making my descent.

That’s when I noticed him.

Sitting on an overturned bucket directly beneath the drainpipe was a scruffy kid, maybe eight or nine years old, wearing a tunic three sizes too big and a pair of boots held together with twine. He was staring straight up at the window. Straight at me.

Our eyes locked.

I didn’t panic. I just slowly raised an index finger to my lips, giving him the universal shh motion, accompanied by a quick, conspiratorial wink.

The kid stared for a beat, then slowly gave me a firm, serious nod.

Good lad, I thought, letting out a small breath of relief. A fellow traveler of the dark.

I leaned out, preparing to swing my leg over the sill to begin the climb down—and watched as the kid stood up from his bucket, sprinted toward the mouth of the alley at full tilt, and began shrieking at the top of his lungs.

“IT’S HIM! IT’S HIM, DAT IS! THAT WOLF GUY! THE WOLF!”

I froze, one leg dangling three stories above the cobblestones.

I had a brief, fleeting moment to admire the kid’s sheer mercenary instincts. The little rascal didn’t even hesitate. He saw a reward poster with more zeroes than he’d ever see in a lifetime, and he cashed in instantly. In another ten years, I’d have awarded him honorary Rogue status.

Then the shouting started at the end of the alley.

“Damn kids,” I muttered, hauling my leg back inside and slamming the sash down. “Don’t know when to keep their mouths shut.”

Then ... it was time to run.

Heavy boots were already thundering up the wooden stairwell inside the building. Outside, shouting echoed from both ends of the alley as Harian’s goons converged, alerted by my little entrepreneur.

I didn’t bother with the door. I threw myself back out the window, grabbed the iron drainpipe, and slid down just far enough to drop onto the roof of the adjacent shed. I hit the rotting wood with a loud CRACK, rolled to absorb the impact, and scrambled to my feet as the first thug burst into the alleyway with a drawn cutlass.

“THERE HE IS!”

I bolted down the winding maze of side streets, taking sharp turns, ducking beneath clotheslines, and vaulted over a stack of fish crates. But with every corner I cut, the reality of my situation hit harder.

It wasn’t just Harian’s men chasing the noise. Whistles were blowing two streets over. The Watch was closing in from the main avenues, while the Independents flooded the alleys. Up ahead, three Watchmen in iron caps turned the corner with crossbows raised, while behind me, four of Harian’s heavy-hitters were cutting off my retreat.