Warsinger by James Baldwin (most important books of all time txt) 📕

my vision back, and flinched as he tapped me across the side of the head.

“I'm not a smug little mutant like you, eh?” he whispered. “I see the gate and the fence and some smudges about three hundred feet from here.”

“Oh.” Right. “Well, there's a grate back there. We can send the guards for a swim. Back up the toilets for fun and profit.”

“What about us?” Suri asked from my other side. “Karalti might make that jump, but good luck getting my rhino-sized arse over it without alerting every guard between here and the Sultir's palace.”

“We need a spotter, and you and I can radio each other,” I said. “Can you stay out here and keep an eye out for us?”

Suri's lips quirked, and she looked back over at the compound. “Gonna have to, unless Karalti can teleport me... oh, holy fuck.”

“What?” Vash and I said at the same time, turning to look. My jaw dropped. “Holy fuck.”

An important-looking man on an important-looking hookwing was trotting alongside another person of note. Violetta DeVrys rode side-saddle in a high-collared, ankle-length white dress totally unsuited to the desert heat. Her hair was drawn up into a severe bun, her face haunted and expressionless. The man - Dakhari, dressed in a fancier gold and turquoise version of the Witchhunter’s armor - gestured animatedly as he talked to her. He looked worried... as if he were trying to appease her as they trotted in through the gates to the jail.

“No fucking way.” I reached up to grip my hair, pulling on it. “Am I hallucinating? Is this all a bad dream? Why the fuck is she here? How the fuck did she know WE'd be here?”

“Hold on a moment, dog. Look at them with those eagle eyes of yours.” Vash's narrowed as he tracked them through the gate. “Neither of them know we're here. She's relaxed in the saddle, nor is she looking over her shoulder. She doesn’t sense anything amiss.”

“Her dragon isn't here, either.” Karalti swayed uneasily, gripping the edge of the wall.

“She's being discreet,” I said. “There's only one NPC of note in this facility - Sage Mehkhet. Mehkhet really must know something about the Warsinger. That's the only possible reason she’d be here.”

“Then we'd best hurry, or she will get his information before we do.” Vash rolled his neck, then silently slipped into the shadows of the building beside us and vanished.

After a couple months of bumbling through dungeons and battlefields and sneaking up on unsuspecting castle guards, I was less stealthy than Vash, but capable of still capable of holding my own in the sneak department. Karalti, with her ridiculous Dex and light armor, padded soundlessly across the roofs ahead of me while I picked my way across. The houses ringing the market were tall enough that we could make our way around the plaza without descending below the second-story roof level, but as we got to the buildings across the alley from the back wall of the jail, we could see it wasn't going to be as easy as a jump, tuck, and roll. Three guards were loitering in the alley, smoking and talking beside an open grate. The guards had left their visored helmets arranged on top of a crate nearby, and seemed to be keeping an eye on the ladder that went down into the mid-level sewers.

“You thinking what I'm thinking?” I dropped my voice to a hoarse whisper as we sidled up to Vash.

“Take them out and get their armor.” He squatted on his heels just out of their gaze, watching the trio with the calculating, wary eyes of a hunting cat. “They're on a static post here, eh? Tempting as it is, we can't use disguises to walk in through the gates. They have a checkpoint set up, and their friends will know something's fucky.”

“They’re not good enough disguises to pass through the checkpoint,” I replied. “But if we're already in the yard when we put the disguises on...”

“Then no one will be the wiser.” Vash gave a short nod. “I like it.”

“Also, if we're dressed as guards, we can go in there, get the man we need, and put him in one of those armored prison coaches.” Karalti pointed at the one idling in the covered bay. “We should be able to just drive him out.”

“Hell yeah,” I said.

“Someone will walk around the compound and check in on these three,” Vash said. “Probably not often - maybe once an hour. We'll need to be out by then, or they'll raise the alarm.”

“Then we better hurry. Can you get behind the guy closest to the wall?”

“I can get into anyone's behind with enough effort.”

I choked back a laugh. “Alright, ready? On the count of five.”

When they nodded, I held up my hand, marking off each second by folding my fingers down. On five, we dropped. Vash vanished and reappeared behind the man facing us, and before any one of them could shout, we took them down: Vash and Karalti with their fists, and me with the haft of the Spear. Mine took the longest to drop, clawing and choking at the length of steel across his throat as we did a slow waltz toward the jail wall. Eventually, he sagged, and we were left in the dark and stillness of the alley with three unconscious guardsmen.

“No point in killing them,” I said. “Even if I felt like it, corpses don't vanish in cities. Let's gag them and stick them in the crate, then we can do the wall.”

After some impromptu bondage, we took the armor with us and scaled the wall. Against the average irate Dakhari citizen, the broken glass mortared into the edge would have been a big problem. For us, it was about as easy as it got. I used Spider Climb to climb it, then the hilt of my old dagger to break off some of the glass. As soon as I had a Hector-sized gap, I climbed up to hang. “Suri,