“You’re welcome,” I wheezed.
It took her a while to get up, on account of what had to be a terrible amount of pain from a cracked humerus. I wasn’t doing so hot myself, but I was in far better shape than her.
I’d managed to get us to the right place. We were atop a six-story building overlooking the lift plaza. There were a bunch of light charms moving along the corkscrew road now as the authorities searched for the troublemakers, but we’d surely glided far enough to have dodged the paladins.
“We should probably keep moving.”
“What’s the point?” Dathka muttered. “We’ve lost the treasure. Father will be so disappointed.”
Her bitter sadness made me thankful my own dad had been a good man. “He’ll live. But you might not if we don’t get you to a healer. At least we’re in the best district to find one of those.”
“No. The Latros have our own healer. I can suffer ’til then.”
“So back to the Slumps it is. What about your vow to kill Gerzog?”
“Right now, my head’s swimming, my arm’s throbbing, and it’s taking everything I have to not vomit from the agony. I’ll get a healing and kill him tomorrow.”
My saint would approve of such persistence. “That’s the spirit!”
We set out across the rooftops. Luckily for us, the houses here were practically stacked on top of each other, and even the alleys were covered or narrow enough they were easy to jump across, so we’d be able to get far away from the Cathedral before we had to find a way to the ground level to cross a major street.
There were no light charms up here, so we had to navigate by the lights from far below. And the roof tops, though not very steep, were also rather icy. I was tired and hurting, so I had to be extra careful not to slip. With my glove used up until I could buy more Clear to enchant it again, if I fell off, I was going down the fast way. So we moved carefully from chimney to chimney, making our way westward toward the Slumps.
A massive shape rose from shadows of the next roof.
“Gerzog!”
I went for my pistol, but too late; the rush of wings whooshed behind me. Something crashed into my back, and I fell forward, slipping toward the edge. I clawed desperately for purchase on the snow-covered shingles, managed to stop my momentum, then caught a swift boot to the ribs for my troubles.
“Thought you saw the last of us, did ya?”
It was the female mercenary, and it turned out that her stolen priest’s robes had been hidingwings.These weren’t feathery, but were more like those of a bat. So that was what the old priest meant when he’d called her a harpy! And she must have carried the goblin merc with her, because that little bastard came around her legs and kicked me too.
That sent me careening over the edge.
I barely managed to catch hold of the gutter.
While I dangled there, six stories over the street, the goblin stopped directly over me, aimed a wand right between my eyes, and snarled, “We need this one alive, Captain?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Gerzog growled.
Dathka cried out in pain as she got thrown down by Gerzog. “Let go of me, you beast!”
“I lost the lamp. I lost my money. I’m gonna salvage what I can by selling you. Not to Carcalla. Oh no. You don’t get off that easy. I’m gonna sell you to whichever rival hates Carcalla the most, so they can carve you up slow and send him your pieces… Where are the others?”
“Caldwell and Torken got done in by the priests of Saint Violence,” the winged woman reported. “Sorry, Gerzog.”
“Then this is all that remains of my beloved Tooth and Claw.”
“You brought that on yourself,” I shouted. I held on as best as I could, and managed to get my boots against the bricks below to take a bit of weight off my hands. That made the gutter creak ominously as it threatened to tear itself off the wall, and the goblin shook the wand to warn me there’d be no funny business. “Your company’s dead because they followed a greedy fool.”
“No risk, no reward. I’ll use what I’m paid for her to hire new recruits. We’ll rebuild. There’s always a war in some realm needing our kind. But will anyone pay a single Tetar for your rotten hide, Carnavon?”
“Your mom.”
Gerzog snorted at that. “Kill him, Skelg.”
“Gladly.” The goblin began to announce some power word, but that got real difficult with a mouth that was suddenly covered in shadow spiders. “Ack! Mrumph!”
