Mar lurched forward with another desperate stroke, then gasped as his knee struck something beneath the water. The force and the pain of the collision broke the rhythm of his strokes and he flailed in exhausted panic and began to sink. Frigid water filled his mouth, but a frantic kick brought his head back above the surface. Choking, he sucked air hoarsely as the current pushed him along. His arms were leaden, his legs and feet numb. Blearily, he searched through the dark ahead. He could not tell where the bank was, could not guess how much farther he had to go.

Only the great bridge downstream, lit with the torches of the searchers, was certain. He was nearer it by half since his last look. Too weary for an overhand stroke, he sculled his arms in a steady crawl. He had no strength left but the cold river offered no rest.

Within but a few armlengths, he began to fight the water, splashing more than swimming and swallowing more water than air. He lost forward momentum again, realized his legs were unresponsive, and felt the water closing over him.

It came as something of a shock when his feet settled into the sandy mud of the river bottom. He fell forward into a crouch and struggled further into the shallows. He began to shake, gasped as exhaustion tremors seized his body, and buried his hands in the mud to hold himself upright. The spasms continued for an unknown length of time but finally subsided to an occasional vagrant shake.

When he could raise his head, he looked downriver. The Red Ice Bridge was only a little more than a hundred armlengths distant. Too close for his liking but not close enough to reveal him to the Imperials guarding it.

The water of the perennially cool Ice River was flush with snowmelt from the uplands and its numbing effect was almost seductive, a balm that vanquished pain in unfeeling. The swirls and spirals of the current pushed and tugged at his limbs as it coursed around him, threatening to pull him back into its deadly embrace, and that danger goaded him to action. He gasped once more, a ragged, rasping breath, and then stood, weaving to find his footing on the fluid mud as streams of water cascaded from his body.

He stood there for a single relieved moment, swaying weakly, and then waded forward through the thigh-deep water. Instantly, the wind passing with the current bit at his flesh, sending shivers racing across his naked skin, and he clenched his teeth to silence a spastic chatter. Though only the night and the river saw it, this forced grin was hideous, stretching the weary lines of his face to reveal all the panic that ate at his heart.

Pausing once more, he stared intently at the black, irregular bank rising before him. The light scattering from the bridge was more of a hindrance than an aid, but fortunately the bank on this side of the Ice was much lower than that from which he had come. Nothing moved in the deep shadows up and down the rubble scattered clay bank, nor above it on the top of the low brick-faced levee. Beyond the Lower City was only a gray silhouette against the night sky.

With what stealth he could muster from his wracked muscles, he waded the last few steps to the bank and started to climb up through the riprap and reeds. The broken masonry and building stone scraped his knees and hands, but he managed to avoid most of the sharp-edged rushes. When he was beyond the raw bank, he lowered himself to his belly and slithered up the sloping brick. Hiding his torso below the crown of the embankment, he raised his head to peer along the street beyond.

Underneath the few sputtering oil lamps left alight by the Imperials, the bleached wooden stalls of Khalar's infamous fish market were empty and quiet. Likewise, the faded brick fronts of the shop buildings across the way. Shouts carrying faintly from across the river lent unexpected strength to his wavering legs, and he rose to his feet, wincing as cramps began to attack his legs and shoulders. Crossing over the levee and down to the street, he began a steady trot north. He had no plan; his choice was by default. North led away from his pursuers.

* * * * *

The alley smelled of rotting fish, butcher’s offal, and things much worse. It was also as dark as a moonless, overcast night could make it, which well suited Waleck’s purpose. He stood still, perhaps unnaturally so. The horses and mules behind him were equally still, not an ear flicking or a tail swishing. They were well-trained, but they were only this still when Waleck needed them to be. A mere feeling had brought him here to wait. It had been hours; he had not bothered to count them.

With interest, he watched the young man—hardly grown, really, and still just a youth by some measures—slink from the river. The greater part of an hour had passed since Waleck had heard the first alarm. He considered the fugitive’s appearance here somewhat noteworthy.

His best guess was that the alarm had gone up from near the Viceroy’s New Palace, considering the route that the frantically screeching drill pipes had taken as they relayed “Alert All Stations” across the city. That meant that the youth had needed to cross half a league of treacherous rooftops, leap from a ten-manheight bluff, and swim more than a thousand armlengths through bitterly cold water. Truth to be told, the deed was, on the face of it, nigh impossible.

Or, at least, the boy's pursuers were of such a mind. The Imperials appeared to be concentrating their search in the Old City. Their torches and lanterns danced in crazy profusion even now above the bluffs of the distant shore. As yet, the Imperials had not extended their patrols to the Lower City, but it could not be long before the Viceroy’s Personal Guard would suspect that this quarry had escaped them.

One of the ponies behind him shifted its hooves, its iron shoes making a startling clacking sound on the cobbles of the alley, and raised its head to tug on the lead rope resting loosely in Waleck's hand.

“So you think so, too, hmmm, Rhovma?” Waleck murmured to his mount without turning. “Time to be going?”

In sudden decision, Waleck strode forward. A firm tug on the lead rope brought Rhovma and the other pony, and then the mules in succession, plodding noisily after him. The line emerged so abruptly from the utter blackness of the alley that the boy, moving silently along the center of the street, almost collided with Waleck.

As both took a wary step back, a thin-bladed knife gleamed suddenly between them. From whence it had come was an utter mystery, as the boy was naked but for a simple wrapping about his midsection. Even though shivers vibrated the skin of his forearm, the boy gripped the hilt unwavering.

“You want a job?” Waleck asked without preamble or explanation. The first was inefficient and the second would come if necessary.

* * * * *

Mar showed no surprise at this development. If asked, and if moved by some vagrant whim to answer, he would have said that, at that moment, nothing could surprise him. A man with no expectations whatsoever cannot be surprised. He gave the horse line a calculating glance. The ponies and mules were Waste crosses, small but tough. There were a brace of large water casks on one of the mules and the handles of shovels poking from the packs on the others.

“You the scrapper?” he inquired with a studied casualness, though the shiver in his breath tended to spoil the performance. “I’d heard that there was one left.”

Only one, a Gods cursed madman or a Gods blessed fanatic, depending on the teller of the tale.

Waleck nodded slightly. “I am Waleck of Gh’emhoa.”

“Never heard of the place.”

“Few have.”

“How much do you pay?”

“A tenth share.”

Mar laughed. Even to his own ears, the sound was full of harsh and strained tones. He chopped the laugh off cleanly and made a sharp, negative gesture with his knife.

“A tenth of nothing is nothing!” he derided caustically. “I prefer wages.”

The scrapper straightened himself with a half-shrug, and made as if to continue on his way.

Mar laughed again, genuine amusement in his voice this time. He had no options. “A deal, Master Scrapper! A deal!”

Waleck pivoted on the ball of one booted foot, seemed to consider Mar for a long moment, and then grunted as if it made no difference. He faced the younger man formally and stuck out his hand. Business had always been done that way in the Lower City. Scribes and factors cost money that could siphon all profit from a bargain. For most, just a single handshake had to do.

Mar hesitated suspiciously for a moment—it was an ingrained habit—and then tucked his knife back into his smallclothes before gripping the hard-skinned palm with his own. The scrapper’s grip was solid and strong and his dark eyes locked with Mar’s for a brief instant.

The scrapper had turned away and raised his boot to the stirrup of the lead pony before he spoke again. “What are you called?”

Mar considered the question at length before replying. What name should he give? He had several aliases that he could play without lapse, at least two with complex and well-developed backgrounds that would withstand even the closest scrutiny. But did it truly matter, in the midst of this current debacle, what the scrapper called him? Eventually, not sure why he did, he gave his own true name.

“Mar,” Waleck echoed thoughtfully, the name sounding somehow more significant than its single mean syllable, oddly impressive in the quiet darkness. “No family name? No patrimony? No Guild?”

Mar grunted negatively.

The scrapper shrugged. “Then mount, Mar of no kin, no father, and no trade. I would like to be to the foothills by morning.”

Mar threw a quick glance down the street to the south. Some blocks away the glow of torchlight and the tramp of cheap Guard issue boots signaled the approach of the Imperials.

“I couldn't agree more,” he said, half under his breath, as he leapt to the saddle of the second horse.

When his buttocks slapped the hard leather, the animal trotted complacently after the scrapper's without urging, which could have been nothing less than a blessing from the Forty-Nine Gods, as Mar had never been on a horse before in his life.