Guardian of the Night

17

With the ship tied to the dock, activity around it began. The few dockworkers that remained in the Old Docks busied themselves as Bilain and Kaluun watched from the rooftop. Cargo passed from ship to shore, but none of it looked like barrels. Bales of some kind of cloth, crates filled with any number of objects from the lands beyond the Akaean Sea. People coming and going. For hours, Bilain watched and saw nothing that looked like whale oil came from the ship's hold.

After some time, the activity diminished, leaving Bilain to wonder whether this was, indeed, the ship bearing the murderous cargo. The dockworkers dwindled, the sailors returned to the ship, or set off to the nearest tavern or whorehouse and the night quietened once again. The air had turned cold and bitter, biting into muscles that had not moved much since the ship's arrival.

Kaluun never wavered. She had watched the ship the entire time, her eyes catching everything, but Bilain began to consider other tasks that required her attention. Soon, the Sun would rise, only a couple of hours away, and she would have to return to the Watch House empty-handed. Perhaps she and Kaluun had thought wrong? Perhaps the oil did not enter the city this way. She knew very well that smugglers had any number of ways to pass contraband into the city, out of sight of anyone.

"I need to get back." She rubbed her calves, stiffened through crouching behind the parapet. Age had begun to creep up on her and, once again, she considered retirement. "If I don't sleep, I can't lead."

"A little longer." Kaluun hissed the words, the cloth returned to her face, covering her mouth and nose. The shadows had returned, too, curling like black snakes over the woman's body. "Trust me."

Bilain couldn't trust her. She was a murderer and even sitting here beside Kaluun betrayed everything Bilain believed in. But there were greater dangers to face and if the Lady En Lutar could help save The Sprawl from fiery destruction, she had to keep her morality tamped down. For now. What happened after, Bilain would have to decide when the time came.

About to call an end to the observation, Bilain heard the sound of a cart rolling across age-old cobbles. Rattling and creaking, it passed out of a street not twenty yards away, drawn by a single horse, a driver and a passenger upon the seat. As the cart neared the ship, activity began once more. Not a lot, but sailors returned to the deck of the ship, watching the cart approach.

The cart took a lazy turn, a wide circle that brought it beside the ship, facing back the way it had come and, as soon as it stopped, several people disappeared from the ship's deck, into the hold. Before long, barrels began to emerge from the hold, turned on their sides and rolled down to the quayside and the waiting cart. Six barrels, in total, rumbled along the gangplank and, when the last came to rest, the sailors left the ship to load the barrels on the cart.

When all six barrels sat upon the cart bed, the passenger reached up to the seat, taking hold of a heavy sack. Each of the sailors received a fat pouch from within that sack and, when it lay empty, the passenger tossed it back under the seat, climbing up beside the driver. With a quiet whip of the reins, the driver set the horse moving once again, carrying the barrels away from the docks and back into the streets of Dockside.

"We can't let them out of our sight!" Bilain rushed to the other side of the roof, leaning out to see of she could keep the cart within range. She had to get back to the ground. "With the weight of those barrels, I doubt they can move at speed."

"I can." Something dark whispered past Bilain and launched from the roof, landing upon the roof across the alley with ease. Kaluun turned, calling across in her muffled whisper. "You follow from the ground, I'll follow from up here. If you lose them, meet me at my estate at noon."

Before Bilain could protest, Kaluun became one with the darkness, swallowed by her own shadows as she raced after the cart. She looked out over the edge of the roof and marvelled at the woman's agility. Not less than seven feet between this roof and the other and Kaluun had leapt it with ease. Bilain had no chance of repeating the feat. She could only find her way down and follow the cart on foot.