Senara crouched on one of the stone rooftops, her eyes just barely peering over the edge down to the street below. Her face was masked, covering everything except her silvery blue eyes. Anyone who knew her well enough would recognize her, but she moved too quickly in the darkness for anyone to get a close look very long.
Down below, her target had just walked out from his office. The man was a tall fellow, well muscled with long blond hair that danced around his face. He reached into his pocket and paid the carriage driver very well from what Senara could see. The man then climbed in the back, and the driver slapped the reins against the horens, making the cart move.
Move.
Senara quietly jumped from her rooftop to an adjacent one. Thankfully, nearly all of the buildings in Agalor were nearby, so leaping from rooftop to rooftop was not as dangerous as it was in Morvan or Stordem. She needed to keep her target in her sights however, and that usually required her to jump from higher points. This rooftop offered a wall on its edge, behind which she hid, making sure she knew where the target was moving. The carriage driver cruised at a slower rate than most of them did. Perhaps the Baron was ill? Not if he was going where Senara believed he was going.
The black and gold, wooden carriage rounded a corner to the left and Senara ran part ways up the adjacent building, then leaped at her second step, reaching out and grabbing the roof edge, and pulling herself up. Her leather gloves had rock splinters in them, which was better for her than having her hands sliced to bits. She kept crouching, watching as the carriage moved passed her on the ground. She stalked it carefully, leaping down to the next rooftop, rolling as she fell, and nearly snapping her bow. She had hit the roof at the wrong angle, and rolled onto the bow itself. Stupid, she said to herself.
She continued stalking and saw the carriage turn right. She needed to get down from her building and across the street. She looked over the edge of the building: a fall from the height she was at would most likely shatter most of the bones in her legs. Damn it.
She did not want to use her rope yet, but she'd lose her target otherwise. She quickly loosed the rope from her belt and tied it around one of the stone pillars that dotted the roof she was on. She checked the ground again to see if anyone was coming, and when no one was, she slid down the rope. Her gloves, this time, were covered in rope fibers.
It did not get her all the way to the ground: roughly nine feet from it actually. She took a deep breath, then kicked off of the wall, letting go of the rope as she did, tumbling through the air. Closing her eyes, she landed on the ground and rolled on her side, changing her direction so the other side of the street was in front of her. Then, with precision and haste, she ran up the side of another building, grabbing whatever she could as handholds to pull herself up. Awnings, flagpoles, even loose rocks became springboards from which she leaped from building to building, catching up with her target.
He was just out of sight when Senara leaped from one building onto another carriage, splintering the roof, then jumped off, running on the stone ground after her target. Stupid. She was certain someone had heard the driver shout something behind her. She had broken any sort of stealth she had employed. Guards would be after her if she did not get out from the well lit streets. She rounded a corner, keeping the carriage in her sights, and quickly ran up a short building to regain her height advantage. Another building in front of her. She needed to move, and quickly.
Senara felt around for handholds, and found a few, then pulled herself up, trying to find more as she climbed. She reached a section where she felt none, and it trapped her on the side of the building. Falling now would not kill her, but several bones would shatter and cause her to be out of commission for several days. Her mother could not afford that. She looked around, frantic for something-
YOU ARE READING
The Warden's Awakening
FantasyAn ancient evil seeks to breathe new life into the land of the Theln; an evil that has all but been removed from history by the Keldrisian Empire. As the leaders of the empire seek to mandate and control the unlimited magic use, more and more people...