The System Chose the Weakest Man

Chapter 040: Ash and Ink

The coin sang all the way back to the Rusty Ladle.

Ethan walked with it clenched in his fist, but that didn't help. The sound went right through his skin, a thin, pure, endless note, like a wet finger circling a glass. Rhea heard it. Tomas heard it when they reached the room, and he went the color of old paper and sat down on the bed without a word.

"A death token," the old man said at last. "A silver key, tuned to its mate. When the bearer dies, it calls. Voss will feel it in his teeth." He pressed his fingers against his eyes. "I should have thought of it. Of course they'd carry them. A leash with a leash on it."

"How far does it reach?"

"The coin? Twenty miles, perhaps. But the calling goes much farther. He'll know where Rook died. Roughly. And where the coin is now."

"So we throw it away."

"We can't. If it moves, he'll follow it. If it stops, he'll go to where it stopped." Tomas lowered his hands. "It's a perfect trap. I rather admire it."

"I don't," Rhea said.

Ethan stared at the thing in his palm. It was cold now, and the note was getting stronger. He could feel it in his teeth. "Then I need to put it somewhere it'll draw him away," he said. "Somewhere he'll look first."

"Where?"

"Where he expects Rook to be."

Rhea's eyebrows climbed. Then, slowly, the corner of her mouth twitched. "Hesk."

The Wardens arrived at noon.

They came up the east road in a long grey column, forty men on horseback, with collared Stalkers loping at the stirrups on short chains. Sun glinted off silver badges. Hesk rode at the front in a fresh coat, perfectly composed, his notebook in his saddlebag and his gloved hand resting on his thigh. Behind him, in a covered wagon, a figure sat hunched under a hood.

Ethan watched from the roof of the stable with his cap pulled down.

They're here early. He'd known they would be. The coin had done its work in the night. Voss would have been waiting, patient as a spider, for a strand to twitch.

Now.

He dropped off the roof, rolled, and vanished into the crowd.

The streets of Greywatch had gone silent. Shutters slammed. A woman dragged two children indoors by their collars. The column rode through the main gate under a banner of black and silver, its hooves ringing on the cinders, and the Stalkers' heads swung from side to side, sniffing.

Fifteen meters. Stalker's Instinct rippled outward. Beasts. Men. A pulse among them, slow and careful, riding at the head of the column.

He edged along a wall, matching the column's pace.

A cart blocked the street ahead. A woman had stopped it, dumb with fright, in the middle of the road, and the first riders were forced to swerve. For a heartbeat, everyone's attention went to the cart.

Scurry.

He ran along the wall, ducked under a horse's neck, and slid past Hesk's stirrup like water. His hand flicked out. The coin went into the saddlebag, among the notebook and the spare gloves, as neat as a card into a deck.

He was ten paces away before the song reached its peak.

It rose in a single high note, loud enough to make the horse flinch. Hesk's head snapped round. His eyes widened, and in that instant, the Stalkers began to howl.

"What is that?" he said. "What is that?"

Ethan didn't wait. He was already in an alley, running.

Bram was waiting at the stable, huge and silent in the dim light, with a pack on his back and his shield strapped over it.

"Selka's staying," he said, before Ethan could ask. "She's got the charter, and the Wardens won't touch her. But they've started on the names of everyone who stood near you." He shifted the pack. "I'm done being their ears. I'd as soon be their problem."

"Bram. You don't have to--"

"Wenna will understand." A faint, tired smile cracked his scarred face. "And you need a man to hold a shield. You've a nice knack for ending up in places where people want to hit you."

"I do."

"Aye." He nodded toward the cart. "Come on."

They loaded in a hurry. Tomas had abandoned his stall without a backward glance, the maps and almanacs left to the wind, but he clutched the old book to his chest like a wounded bird. Rhea had put on a plain cloak and tied her sword under it. Biscuit, hitched to Pol's old cart, stood with the patient dignity of an animal who had already decided the whole business was beneath him.

Ethan stood in the stable door.

"One minute," he said.

Mira was on the step of the Rusty Ladle, with a mug of tea cooling beside her and her chin on her knees.

She looked up when he approached. Nothing in her face. A faint, polite wariness, the look she'd give any stranger.

"You again," she said.

"Me again."

"The carrier. Shouldn't you be running?"

"I'm about to." He stopped a pace away. "I wanted to say goodbye."

"Why?" Her eyebrows rose. "We don't know each other."

"No," he agreed. "We don't."

He took a small leather pouch from his coat. He'd counted it in the stable, ninety silver, most of what the gate had paid him, and tucked it into a fold of her cloak before she knew his hand had moved. It was a trick Mira herself had taught him on the back step of this same inn. She'd never know.

"Safe road, Mira Quill," he said.

"I'm not leaving."

"You are. At the first snow." He kept his voice gentle. "North. To the coal town."

Her face went still.

"I never told you that," she said slowly.

"No."

"How do you know about..." She stopped. She stared at him, and something moved behind her eyes, a flicker, small and uncertain, like a candle seen through frosted glass. Her hand rose halfway to her face, as if she were reaching for a word on the tip of her tongue.

Then it faded.

"Funny," she murmured. "I have the strangest feeling I've said goodbye to you before."

His throat closed.

"Take care of yourself," he said. And he turned, and walked away, and didn't look back.

The north gate was open.

Guildmaster Crane stood beside it with her arms crossed, leaning on the post like an ancient guardian, her pipe stuck in her mouth. Behind her the gate warden, Pike, was staring very hard at a bird on a roof.

"Nothing's gone through this gate in an hour," Crane said, around the stem. "Nothing at all. I've been watching."

"Guildmaster," Rhea said.

"Captain." Crane took the pipe from her teeth. "I won't ask where you're going. I know what I owe. Don't come back, and don't make me write a letter." She looked at Ethan. "The favor stands. I'll find you."

"Thank you."

"Don't." Her pale eyes held his. "Just stay alive. It would be a terrible waste otherwise."

The cart rolled out beneath the palisade into a wide, grey, ash-strewn evening. Behind them, Greywatch burned with torches and shouts. Hesk's voice rose over the walls, high and furious, and the Stalkers' howling joined it.

Ethan sat in the back with his legs dangling over the tailboard and his hands empty. Ash was falling. A single flake landed on his lip and melted.

No taste. Not even the faintest hint of cold.

[Mission complete: Survive Hunter Rook. Reward: Level +4. Stat points: +12.]

[Level 15 reached.]

He watched the lights of Greywatch dwindle behind him until the dark closed over them.