Hessa poked her head outside her room and stared at the line of guards that crossed the street. These were nothing more than paid assassins sent to recapture the men who had escaped. And if they killed them by accident, surely their fee would be less, but what mattered was that no one escaped. It would be bad for business. Omi House thrived on control, on a plentiful supply of whores to bed and men to fight in the pits-bawdy entertainment for the men and women of the assassin guilds that paid dearly for something to see or do that that was out of the ordinary.
She waited until the guards passed before she stepped out into the street. Rain drizzled from the wan clouds clinging to the sky. The sun fought to shine down on the world. She started along the street, keeping close to the buildings. Gunnar soon followed, wearing a makeshift wrap about his body as if he were one of the harem girls from the east. All she could see were his eyes. His massive sword was disguised in the wrappings and tied at his back. She feared someone would stop them. He was so tall, a giant walking amidst people who were one or two heads shorter.
They passed the fighting pits, and even in the slight rain people had began to gather for a show. Wild animals growled and roared from the lower pens where they were kept before they were set into the arena. She looked back and saw the emotions in her lover’s eyes. No fear, but something sadder, more terrible, the look of a man who had seen death and suffering too many times. “We can take the trade road.” She had never followed it before today, but she knew it led to other cities, to the forestlands, to countless places that exported goods to Bisura. The one thing Hessa didn’t know was how far they would need to travel to be safe.
Gunnar’s eyes softened. He hurried his pace with a few strides until they walked in time with one another. “Should something go wrong, run.” He patted her shoulder. “You run away, and I will find you, Hessa.”
She nodded.
They bypassed two taverns and a smaller building she knew to be where the children were housed. A play yard in the back offered sounds of laughter and sing-song games. She remembered her own time there with little fondness. It was there that the headmaster had punished her for stealing by lashing her back with the whip. And she had fought him then, only to have her spirit broken and her face cut with the man’s dagger. She looked ahead, trying to bury that memory. “When we reach the outskirts, there will be farmland,” she told him. “Then I think we will come to the forests.”
“Anywhere is better than this Godsforsaken city. The first town we come to, I will find work. We can save up enough coins to buy a horse. Then travel the roads south to the sea.” He squinted at the horizon.
Hessa followed his gaze, curious and thinking perhaps he knew the way to go better than she could guess. His fingers caught hold of hers to squeeze and offer comfort. She realized why. Ahead at the city gates were several guards, and these men did not look like they had been drinking the night away like the ones form the cells.
Gunnar’s hand slipped away from hers. “Remember what I told you. Run. Don’t look back. I will follow after you when I can. We are meant to be together. The Gods will give us that chance again if we part ways.”
She fought the urge to turn and go back to her room. Freedom had never been this close. She knew the men ahead would not let them pass. Dread filled her. There was no escape, no way out. Life would go back to what it had always been-endless days of cleaning, working, lewd comments from drunk men that didn’t see her as anything of value. She looked back the way they had come, at the children’s building and the arena beyond. Then she remembered what that brothel woman had whispered in her mind. “They will not break me,” Hessa whispered, repeating that woman’s words. She curled her fingers into fists.
Gunnar stepped away from her as if to walk in another direction. He started to hum, his voice low and mesmerizing. Wind swept up from the valley beyond the city and pushed back her hair. She marched forth, scared but determined. “They will not break me,” she repeated to steel her resolve.
The light drizzle became heavier. Droplets of rain pattered down all around her on the hard-packed dirt road. She kept setting one leather clad foot before the other until she was but a few steps from the line of dangerous men that waited to stop her.
“Where are you going, woman?” one asked with a sneer.
The man next to the first fingered the handle of his blade with meaning.
“My master has sent me to hire someone.” It was a vague answer, and she doubted it would gain her passage.
The one with the dagger laughed under his breath. “Which someone?”
She looked past them, past the sprawling fields of jindi and the date palms that swayed in the gathering wind. She knew few people outside of Omi House, but there was one name that she had heard of-the most feared assassin in all of Bisura. “Lord Brenin Drake.”
The man who had sneered at first grew pale. “What business does your master need of Lord Drake?”
“You know what business I speak of.” She placed her hands on her hips and scowled at them. “Now, let me pass and be on my way.”
The dagger bearer took a step toward her. Two others reached for the hilts of their swords. Her nerves were beginning to get the better of her. She thought maybe they could see through her ruse.
“You may pass,” one said. “Our worry is not over a woman.”
“That’s the one,” a guard said, his nonchalant nod pointing out Gunnar though he stood much farther away. “I remember his shape from the pits. They bypassed Hessa, and one man slapped her ass. “Be on your way, woman, before I have a mind to use you for myself. Stop this way when you’re done with your master’s business if that idea pleases you.”
She turned back, staring at Gunnar. He was alone against four men. With two fingers he pulled the fabric down that had hidden his nose and mouth. Run, he mouthed to her. She hesitated. What if she ran and he didn’t catch up? What if these guards overpowered him and he was sent back to the pits and the cell she had found him in?
The guards picked up their pace.
Gunnar held his ground.
Hessa turned her back on him and did as he had told her to do. She ran from the place of her birth, the sordid, whore-ridden city of Bisura, and she sprinted through the fields toward a black tower jutting up from the ground far in the distance.