Guardian of the Night

1

"This had better be good." The sudden noise of the voice forced Mim to freeze in place, rising from a good twenty feet below her. "You do realise that if someone of my station is seen ... here, it would raise too many questions."

"You're a Senator, Yiladry, you can go where you please, when you please." Another voice. Mim unfurled her legs from beneath her to lie flat against the rotting planks of wood. "Our Chief wanted us to meet here to give you a little perspective. For example, if you look at the Shcnep, here, in this light, you wouldn't think a man could drown in it. It looks like the worst slop from the worst tavern. Disgusting."

Through gaps in the planks, Little Mim could see everything that happened below, here at the very edge of The Sprawl, the very tip before both rivers converged. Men. Several of them, though one looked far better dressed than all the others combined. He faced the other men, holding his chin high, thumbs tucked into his fancy looking belt. That must be what a Senator looked like. Of the other men, one stood forward of the others, pressing a finger into the fancy fella's chest.

"I've told your Chief and I'm telling you the same thing. It cannot be done!" That man, the Senator, looked as though he told people what to do more often than getting told. "It wouldn't take just a Ward majority, but a unanimous vote. And that's before even getting to the Senate! I tried! I have no option, now, than to inform the Ward Council of my indiscretions and hope that they show me mercy. This is done!"

"Oh, Senator." The other man drooped his head, shaking it, before turning to look at his friends. "I wish you hadn't said that."

Without thinking, Mim had reached out to her little, opened package, her fingers fumbling for the nub of bread. If her stomach started growling now, she didn't doubt those below her would hear it. When one of the other men stepped forward, past the man facing the Senator, Mim didn't know what was happening. Then she saw something glinting before that glint disappeared.

The Senator let out a pained groan, looking down toward his stomach, where the man's hand had pressed. That hand pulled away and Mim knew what had happened. She'd seen blood spurt like that before. This was The Sprawl, after all. But, this seemed different. It wasn't a brawl, or a fight between two angry folks. This was cold. Without any anger at all. To stop herself from gasping, she covered her mouth with her hand, knocking her little package as she did so.

Now, the others had joined in, rushing past the man that had talked to the Senator, all appearing to punch the well-dressed man as he fell to his knees, but Little Mim could see the light of the moons reflecting from the metal of their knives. Still, she couldn't take her eyes from what happened below, couldn't move in case they realised someone watched as they murdered a man. A Senator!

Then she saw it. It dropped through one of the gaps in the planks, rolling before falling a little further. Another roll, across the slate of a roof below, along the slates until it fell to the muddy ground below where those men killed another man. Her grape. She had noticed it far too late to catch it and now the leader of those killers had noticed the grape as it fell beside him.

He crouched, picking up the grape and holding it up to the light of the moons before turning his eyes upward. Little Mim bit into her hand as her eyes met his. His eyes narrowed before he turned to say something to his colleagues, who continued to stab a body that had died after the second blow. A finger began to rise, pointing up toward where Mim hid, his mouth opening to say something.

Then he disappeared. He didn't make a sound. One moment, he stood there, ready to reveal the presence of Mim, the next he had simply vanished, shadows following in his wake. Mim moved her head this way and that, trying to see through the gap in the planks, trying to find a better angle, but she still couldn't see him. Not, that is, until a shape flew through the air from the shadows of a nearby alley, the shadows clinging to the shape like fingers grasping at a handhold. The shape crashed into the other men, sending them scattering and falling, before a shadow fell upon them.