than he did, have known that the underpinnings of his safety trembled. The
report did, and soon, reach the Stepsons’ Sanctuary-side headquarters, after
which a certain man sat alone with uncertainties. Dolon was his name. Critias
had left him in charge, when the senior Stepsons had gone, quietly, band by
band, to the northern war. ‘You’ve got all you need,’ Critias had said. Now
Dolon, in charge of all there was, sat listening to the first patter of rain
against the wall and wondering whether he dared, tonight, the morale of his
command being what it was, send a band to the bridge to gather up the one
available body before the dawn.
Of even more concern to him was the missing one, what might have become of
Stilcho; whether he had gone into the river, or run away, or whether he might
have been carried off alive, to some worse and slower fate, spilling secrets
while he died. The house by the bridge was a burned-out shell; but burning the
beggars’ headquarters and creating a few Downwinder corpses had not solved the
matter, only scattered it.
He heard steps outside the building, splashing through the rain. Someone knocked
at the outside door; he heard that door groan open, heard the burr of quiet
voices as his own guards passed someone through. The matter reached his door
then, a second, louder rap.
‘Mor-am, sir.’ The door opened, and his guard let in the one he had sent for,
this wreckage of a man. Handsome once … at least they said that he had been.
The youth’s eyes remained untouched by the burn-scars, dark-lashed and dark