The news came shortly before lunch. There were two men hanging in cages in Pranan’s Hill. The men who had heard this reported it to the crowded common room of the Blue Evening Inn to Raya’s twenty-odd supporters. Raya let Ailo and Benn ask the questions while she digested the information.
Dondar, healed from his wound, had set out to Olston to bring a few more trusted guards for Raya’s protection.
“Does anyone know how they got there?” Ailo demanded, his eyes narrowed. His master said nothing.
One of the news heralds was already halfway through an ale. The man had friends on the outskirts of Massed Alley, and coming to his favourite bar had been his second stop. “They were there this morning apparently,” he announced. “Hanging from the roof of one of the abandoned estates. No one noticed them going up, so who knows? They could have been up there all night.”
Raya pursed her lips. “To what end?” she asked.
The man shrugged. “How should I know? Doubtlessly it’s supposed to be a slow death, but I wouldn’t claim to guess at a motive.”
They had heard a dozen strange stories from the cities. There were riots outside of military barracks and men caught by the Watch trying to smuggle goods out of the city. This sounded like something entirely different, though. All three factions laying claim to Ith were doing so in a public manner, but no one had claimed the men in the cages.
Benn and Ailo in tow, Raya headed into Pranan’s Hill. Guards patrolled the streets closed to the edge of the district, but Raya was not stopped. Only those clearly militarized slave groups were, and Raya’s trio looking nothing of the sort.
The estate in question was indeed abandoned. Wooden planks hung over all the windows save those nearest the cages. The latter apparatus were bare, unadorned iron, with hefty locks at their doors and arched roofs shorter than the height of a man. Inside each sat a shirtless soul, quiet and still. It took Raya a moment to be certain they were alive, but they were.
After a half-hour of waiting for something to happen, one of the men stirred. Raya realized with a sickening turn to her stomach that the men were gagged. One cage shook as the man tried pointing toward the center of Pranan’s Hill, but it made no sense to anyone in the gathered crowd and the man resigned to his captivity once more.
Raya had Benn ask if anyone had tried getting the cages down—they were told the doors were as barred as the windows. There was no sign of the culprit of this disturbing situation. The people of Pranan’s Hill were unaccustomed to such barbarism. Their fine linen and fur clothes were unstained by the rust that clung to the underside of those cages, and their sensibilities were starkly offended. As though this was any more grisly a sight than the death of the Mage Kings.
“I’m sure there’s a way in,” Raya said, quietly. “Let’s go check the door.”
They approached the front door, and a few others in the crowd accompanied. As they had been told, the front door wouldn’t budge. Ailo led the way around the size of the house. Ornate latticework struggled under overgrown vines, while an overturned wheelbarrow had spoiled the garden near the back corner of the mansion. Raya found a backdoor; she paused a moment to eye the nearby windows suspiciously, but then helped Ailo, Benn, and another man from the crowd shove it in. The wooden doorframe cracked, pulling slivers of wood off with the hinges.
The interior of the mansion was dusty and plagued by cobwebs. As Raya climbed the steps toward the second storey, she saw through the slits between window-boards. The crowd was starting to move closer, with others following the way toward the back yard.
The second storey was no different than the first. The third held bedrooms and similarly barricaded look-outs. A scuff in the hallway was the only sign of the prisoners’ bizarre arrival. They had to climb up a narrow staircase to the attic to find the open windows near the swaying cages.
It took the better part of an hour to free the men. While Benn and a woman from the onlookers tinkered with the locks, the prisoners looked at them with wide, urgent eyes. At last one lock gave way and the first prisoner was hauled inside. He panted as he reached solid ground, pulling his wild hair out of his face and sucking in breath. Then he glanced at Raya and the others and blurted, “It might be dangerous here. We helped kill the Mage Kings, but were captured and later put here. I think as bait.”
Ailo drew his sword, as though compelled by instinct. “I’ll check the house out,” he said and started to stride away. He passed another group of civilians in the hall as he left.
The new arrivals looked just like the rest of the crowd, with quality garb, decorated weapons at their waists, and groomed features. They looked at the escaped man, and his presently freed comrade, with smiles and relief. The man who had uttered the warning repeated his words quickly to them. Together, they hurried down the hallway.
“Wait,” Raya called, “Who are you people?”
“You’re better off if you don’t know,” one man said, looking back at her. He had a fiery look in his eye, but he smiled and winked to her. Then he descended the stairs after the men Raya had rescued.
Raya glanced at Benn in confusion. “A ‘thank you’ would have been sufficient,” she said. Benn smirked.
By the time that Ailo had reappeared, the crowd had mostly dispersed. Raya and her friends returned empty-handed to the muddy garden and then to the windswept street. The men they had rescued spoke hurriedly with his friends—Raya got a few glances, but started to move away to alleviate their suspicions.
Then, with a word from one of the newcomers, the group briskly marched past Raya and her friends, heading into the nearby suburb of shops, homes, and inns. Ailo glared after them, then glanced at Raya. “Should we tail them?”
Raya shook her head. “Let them go,” she decided. “If they are up to something foul, I’m sure we’ll hear more about it. And we’ll be better equipped for it then.”
It was a long walk back to Massed Alley. Entering the district proved to be much more complicated than leaving it. Though most of Raya’s corner of the Alley was unclaimed by the Delivered, groups of haphazardly armed ex-slaves were patrolling the streets. As they saw Raya and her comrades coming, they put themselves in the way of the road. The other commoners going about their business were quickly displaced. One woman, carrying a big clay pot of water, hurried into a nearby house.
“What business do you have in the Alley?” one man asked in an urban drawl.
Ailo patted his sword. “Wouldn’t you like—”
“We live here,” Raya told them. She glared at Ailo out of the corner of her eyes while she bowed a head to a man gripping a wooden table-leg. “We’ve done nothing to interfere with you and your comrades.”
“Not too many here with weapons like that,” the table-leg wielder murmured with staccato. He eyed Ailo’s weapon, the best among them.
Raya ground her teeth together, but did not let the freed slaves see it. “Listen, we don’t work for the City Watch, alright? We’re just going to our bunkhouse. The Freeman’s.”
“I heard it was closed up,” wheezed one of the others, a short woman with a vaguely translucent mask over her mouth.
“You heard wrong,” Benn said, sternly. “We came from there not three hours ago.”
The group of Delivered watched them a moment longer. “Fine,” said table-leg, at last. “Don’t let us catch you crossing the battle-lines again tomorrow though.”
Battle-lines? Raya thought. Ith is a city, not a war ground. She sighed as they past the Delivered by. The sun was at its zenith, and the city was growing hotter by the minute.