Shadowdance 01 - A Dance of Cloaks

middle of Veldaren with no clue what’s going on. We should have waited, damn it! Should have sent someone to make sure things were calm.”
    “Too late for second-guessing,” Madelyn said, feeling his nervousness catching. “The estate’s not far, and soldiers are about. But just in case, keep your swords drawn, and take no nonsense from anyone. I don’t mind arriving at home with blood on my clothes, so long as the blood is not mine!”
    They continued traveling down Merchant Way, approaching the wealthy eastern district. The closer they came to the center of the city, the more eyes watched their passing. Madelyn wondered how many belonged to spies of the thief guilds. Half? None? All? She thought
all
the most likely.
    “We’re not far now,” she said aloud, trying to calm the girls around her. Most of them were younger than she, and they felt vulnerable despite the soldiers. They were not used to having so many eyes leering angrily at them. Madelyn clutched her hands tightly against her waist. Let the peons seethe with jealousy. She had earned her wealth, on her back as much as her feet. Laurie had fought tooth and nail to keep the wealth he had, as had the entire Keenan family line. She would not feel pity or guilt for the standing that was rightfully hers.
    “It’s in the eastern district,” Madelyn continued. “Merchant Way ends in a fork at Iron and Cross. Not far up Cross Street is our estate. We’ll be safe there.”
    The girls seemed to calm a little, although Madelyn’s mind raced. She had seen several men following them, all wearing cloaks of gray.
    “Gray is the Spider Guild?” she whispered to Nigel.
    “Believe so,” Nigel said, his eyes darting about as frantically as Madelyn’s. “Could also be the Ash. Your dress might just get that blood you wanted, milady.”
    “Not wanted,” she said. “But I’ll endure if I must. Watch the rooftops as well. Spiders cling to rafters just as well as they hide under rocks.”
    A few of the gathered men and women shouted insults.
    “Whores!”
    “Hoarding bastards!”
    “Cowards!”
    The mercenaries raised their swords and cursed back. The first few skittered away, but more and more gathered to follow them. Madelyn felt the hairs rising on the back of her neck. There was something deliberate about the way the small crowd seemed to stalk them. More curses were hurled their way, but the mercenaries let them be. Soon they started having to push their way through. Nothing serious, nothing overtly deliberate, just a man standing in the center moving away too slowly, or a woman with her wash who refused to budge.
    Two men rolled dice in the center of the street. Each wore a gray cloak. They looked up from their game, pulled their cloaks back to reveal their daggers, and then let them fall.
    “Push through ’em?” asked Nigel. Madelyn looked about. She felt as if she walked through a forest of dry tinder, and every person traveling with her carried a blazing torch. A single false move meant fire.
    “We’re starving!” shouted a young man in dirty clothes.
    “Bread or blood!” was the answer from someone unseen within the crowd.
    “Move around them,” Madelyn said, her decision made. “Do it quickly. I can almost see our gate.”
    “I see the Reaper’s eyes,” said one of the men as Madelyn’s group passed. She glanced down at the dice. Each showed a one.
    They reached the fork at Iron and Cross. The south path on Iron Road seemed bare and quiet, but Cross bustled with a waiting gang of twenty. It seemed a merchant with a load of bread had been assaulted, his cart toppled. He lay unconscious, his face covered with bruises. With shouts of “Food,” more and more came their way, jostling the mercenaries and smothering them with noise.
    As the people rushed past, one slid a knife through the side of a mercenary. He crumpled, his pained cry the only alert they had. Two more dropped, blood spurting from cut throats.
    “Stay back!” Nigel shouted, cutting down a woman who had dared step too close. Her blood coated his armor. “All of you, stay back!”
    The rest of the mercenaries took his cue, swinging wildly at any who came too close. Their progress slowed to a crawl, and with one of their own fallen, the mob turned their attention from the bread to the blood.
    “Murderers!” another unseen man cried.
    “Butchers!” shouted another, this a woman with raven hair cut short. She wore the gray of the Spider Guild. When she saw