Serpents and Stairways

Chapter II - Part 1

Georg sprung past him and, holding on to the railing, leaped down, ready to continue the chase, when... he tripped on a glass bottle and splattered his entire body on the smooth stones of the pavement. He stood up, trying to keep moving, jumped on a barrel, grabbed the wooden edge of a balcony, counting on pulling himself up to the iron bars of the neighbouring window. Instead his hand slipped and he, rather amusingly, dropped right at his pursuers' feet.

"Who are you?" He asked, looking up at them.

They looked at each other. One of them, the big one, had a streak of blood flowing down the neck and under the collar.

"You, sharp bastard..."

"I'm sorry, if I scared you, sir." Said the smaller one, a golden retriever of a boy, intervening. "We just thought..."

"Did one of my creditors send you?" There were no creditors—he had already recognized the bigger man, the one who'd been breathing into his back, as one of the morning bandits.

"No. We..." The boy flushed, as if he was ready to blurt out his love confession to Georg. How old was he? Probably less than two, in dog years.

"You. Did you hear what we talked about?" The forest man asked.

"When?"

"You know when. And we know you are a Chevalier of Fate, aren't you?" The man seemed less sophisticated now.

"What? A Chevalier of Fate? Huh! One of the spoiled brats who always have luck on their side? Were I one of them, I'd do nothing but play poker and bathe stallions in champagne!"

The boy wearing a boater furrowed his eyebrows in surprise. The second man remained unimpressed.

"Hey!" the drunkard shouted from behind them "Ya need any help?"

"No, no. We just stumbled upon an old friend and were running after him to chat and catch up! Who knows when we'll get to see him again?" The young one immediately answered.

"Never, I hope." Georg thought, cringing from the lemon bitterness of that lie. But playing along, he stood back up and waved his hand.

"Were I a Chevalier of Fate, would I have dropped so pathetically?"

"A bullet ricocheted straight into Chabrinovich's shoulder. Great luck."

Wooden signboards, hanging over their heads, were reducing the already narrow river of the blue sky to a choking stream. He wasn't getting anywhere.

"Alright, you caught me. It was me in the woods! With that girl. But—honestly! I was so afraid, I didn't understand a single word you spoke!" Georg exhaled. He wished he could have added that he didn't speak Volk at all, that he couldn't have understood them even if he wanted to, but the opportunity was lost—as they were talking in it right now.

The older man was drilling him with his corkscrew of a stare (usually reserved for wines, going by the smell), waiting for the truth to pop. The entire scene felt stilted.

"And, were I your chevalier, you'd never ever catch me. Right?" He returned a sad look to the corkscrew-eyed.

"Rubbish." He parried, and was preparing to add something, when the boy, Mr Retriever, who up to that moment seemed like a cheap candy given out as spare change, raised his hand. The man fell silent.

"Listen. I swear in Nietzsche's name, we didn't mean to scare you."

Hardly a saint.

"Did you not?"

"Yes!" The boy cast a wary glance at the drunkard "And it's not that we're afraid of you telling on us to the gendarmerie—I can see it in you that you won't"