The Hound's Prey (Revolution's Blade Book 1)

Chapter 11 - Siletto

I considered this but didn't like my next thought. How were we going to distract four guards into leaving their posts? One of us would have to draw them off. I could see no other way, but bollocks was it going to be me. This was the job of a Tutelar, he could distract the guards while we ran.

"And we best be quick about it," the monk added. "They will have spotted the hole I made in the wall back there and be through after us any minute, we've not gone far and they'll be searching this area soon."

"Leave it to me," said Haze. I was astonished! What was she going to do? "Do not move from this spot, I'll be right back with the distraction." She stood up and started to run off. I reached out to stop her, but she pulled away. "Trust me," she said, and for some unknown reason, I did.

She disappeared back in the direction of the warehouse we'd come from. What the fuck was she going to do? The monk watched her go and then looked at me. I found myself telling him it would be fine and that she knew what she was doing. I hoped I was right. The monk was sceptical but - probably because he had no other options - he accepted my words and went back to peering around the corner at the guards. I stayed crouched there in the dark, worrying intently about how we would get out of here and if Haze would ever come back.

Only those two guards in the alley had seen her with me, and only briefly. The ones from inside the bar might not have noticed. Maybe she was just going to abandon me; she could probably flirt her way out of any accusations. I began to worry more and more.

The town by then was littered with search parties, the noises in the surrounding streets were getting louder.

Was it only five minutes she was gone? Perhaps not even that long, but it felt like hours. She suddenly came back around the corner and knelt down next to me. Her head was down and her hood up, so I couldn't see her face, but she was breathing hard, as if she had been sprinting as fast as she could the entire time she'd been gone. The monk and me both wanted answers. She took a moment to catch her breath, and before she said anything, I noticed that the sounds of the search parties had changed; the shouts had become more frantic and urgent. What had she done? Then I heard one word clearly as someone shouted it a few streets away.

"Fire!"

"Fuck me Haze, you've torched the town?" Haze moved her head up a little and her mischievous grin came into view from beneath the hood.

"The guards and everyone else who live here, well, they've now got something more important to worry about than us." There was no arguing with that. The town might be made of stone but there were still a lot of wooden construction, the warehouse had been made from timber, not to mention all the roofs that were thatched. The people searching for us would be forced to fight the fires for risk of them spreading. We were a small concern compared to that, but I still couldn't believe what she'd done.

The Tutelar gestured to get our attention then; he'd gone back to peering round the corner at the guards. I wondered what his religion said about setting fire to a town as a means of escape, even if it was full of bastards. If they caught him, he would almost certainly be hanged from the nearest beam, so I guessed that must have helped him come to terms with the drastic actions of Haze.

"The guards are moving, here's our chance," he whispered back over his shoulder. "Stay hidden!" We all pressed ourselves into the wall as best we could; the four guards he'd described came running passed heading in the direction where Haze had lit the fire. They didn't spot us crouched in the shadows off to their left.

"Now," stressed the Tutelar, and he was off and we were close on his heels. His description earlier was correct; there in front of us was the stone wall, perhaps twelve feet high and with an open archway. I glanced over my shoulder as we ran, checking for any guards. I saw none, but I was astounded by what else I saw. Flames already flicked high in the night sky over the tops of the nearby buildings; the smoke that must have been pouring upwards was swallowed by the darkness.