The City of Ravens Read Free

paneling. Anders dodged and slashed, parrying the attack and hacking away at the monster with furious strokes.
    “That’s three!” the swordsman cried. “Do you hear me, Jack? That makes three!”
    While the swordsman and the demon traded desperate blows, Jack shook his head, clearing the cobwebs, and scrambled after the rubies. The first one he reached for was kicked aside by a careless step of the guardian demon; the second, Aldeemo reached first. He groped for another ruby and seized one… just as another door opened and Ospim Kuldath stepped into the fray, armed with a long cudgel.
    “Thievery! Burglary! Chaos!” the second Kuldath shrieked. “Summon the Watch!” Then he stooped and picked up the fourth ruby.
    “Discretion is advised,” Jack muttered, then decided to leave while he could. “Anders! Get out!” He jumped to his feet and darted past Ospim, ducking under a swing of the club, and threw himself into the secret storeroom in the middle of the hall—there was no way to get past the demon and Anders, engaged in their furious duel.
    “Stop! Come back here!” Aldeemo cried. He tried to scramble after Jack, sprawling to the ground again when he tripped over the quarrel stuck in his foot. The lean, bearded merchant screamed a string of curses in some uncouth eastern tongue and clutched his injured extremity.
    Anders snarled a curse of his own and started giving ground, retreating back to the carpet room. At the right moment, he jumped back and slammed the door in the demon’s face, barring it with one swift movement. The creature lowered its massive head and butted the door hard enough to split one of the planks. Hoping that Anders
    had sense enough to make his escape while the demon battered down the door, Jack retreated into the linen closet and groped for the catch to the secret door. An anxious moment later, he found it and bolted down the secret stairway.
    One ruby still clutched in his hand, he burst out of the secret door into the Kuldath business floor and threw himself out of the first window he encountered in a spray of broken glass. Without breaking stride, he rolled to his feet and pelted for home. Instinctively he avoided the bobbing torches and angry voices of the local watchmen converging on the scene, slipping into a dark alleyway and resuming his mask of invisibility.
    It could have gone worse, Jack told himself.
    ***
    An hour later, Jack sat in the crowded warmth of the Cracked Tankard and quaffed a clay mug of ale. The Kuldath ruby rested in the innermost pocket of his doublet, a mere handspan from his heart, and he reveled in the cool impression it made against the ribs of his left side. As always, he’d claimed his seat on the back wall, midway between the stairs leading up to the Tankard’s private rooms, a doorway leading to the kitchens and then the alleyway beyond, and a small window fronting on De Villars Ride. He’d learned through necessity that he could fit through that window in a pinch, and he now counted it among the seven possible exits from the room.
    The Cracked Tankard was not the roughest taproom in Raven’s Bluff, nor the oldest, nor the one most frequented by thieves and swindlers, nor the one with the cheapest ale or the sauciest barmaids. It was instead a pleasant combination of all these things. Situated on the western end of the Anvil, the heart of the city, the Tankard not
    only made an excellent meeting place, but it also collected rumors and news in much the same way that the lowest portion of an awning collected rainwater. All manner of things in Raven’s Bluff ran downhill to this one spot.
    By Jack’s guess, midnight was two hours gone, and still Anders had not showed up at their arranged rendezvous. He chose not to worry too much. The blond-bearded swordsman was one of the best brawlers he knew, and he was as comfortable racing across the city rooftops as the rocky cliffs of his distant homeland. It would take more than an angry demon and the