windows lamplight glowed, though most of them were tightly shuttered, edged and
chinked with light that dappled the worn cobbles below. Lalo winced as a murmur
of voices exploded into abuse. A mangy dog that had been nosing at something in
the gutters looked up at the noise, then went back to its meal.
Lalo shuddered, visualizing death as a starving jackal-hound waiting to spring.
There must be some other way-he told himself, for however much he hated his
life, he feared death more.
Human shadows slid from the shadows behind him, and he forced himself to walk
steadily, knowing that at this hour, in this part of Sanctuary, it was indeed
death to be visibly afraid. By daylight the area shared in the quasi
respectability of the Bazaar, but by night it belonged to the Maze.
From ahead came the sound of drunken song and a burst of laughter. Torchlight
danced around the corner followed by the singers, a group of mercenaries
emboldened by numbers to make the pilgrimage to the ale casks of the Vulgar
Unicorn.
As the light reached them, the shapes that had followed Lalo slipped back into
alleys and doorways, and Lalo himself edged beneath the overhang of a tenement
until the soldiers had gone by. He had almost reached Slippery Street now, and
the cul-de-sac which for twenty years had been his home.
Now, at last, Lalo allowed himself to hasten, for in all the ups and downs of
his fortunes there had been one constant, and that was the knowledge that he had
a home, and that Gilla waited for him there.
The third step of the staircase squeaked, as did the seventh and the eighth.