Reynevan snatched a pot wrapped in straw from inside his jerkin. Five bombs were still in the merchant’s chambers in Milk Street. That one was the sixth.
“Ignis! Atrox! Yah, Dah, Horah!”
There was a hiss, a loud blast and the street was lit up by a powerful explosion that splashed liquid fire in all directions, sticking to everything within range. Everything in the vicinity caught fire. That included a woodpile, the whitewashed wall of a house, the cobbles and the slops in the gutter. And several attackers. The screams of the men being burned rose up to the starry sky. Then Reynevan recognised a familiar shape in the light of the blaze. A black cloak, a black doublet and black shoulder-length hair. An avian face and a nose like a bird’s beak.
“Take them alive!” yelled the Wallcreeper, shielding his face from the roaring flames. “I want them alive!”
“Run!” Samson tugged Reynevan, paralysed by the horror, by the arm. “Run!”
“Fire! Fire!”
They ran as fast as they could as the lane behind them thundered with the sound of their pursuers’ footsteps.
“Take them alive! Aliiive!”
“Fire! Fiiiire!”
They ran as fast as they could, animal fear giving them strength. They knew what being taken alive meant. A long, slow death in a torture chamber, sides burned with red-hot irons, broken joints, bones crushed in pincers and boots. A cruel death on the scaffold. Anything but him, thought Reynevan, bounding like a greyhound. Anything but Birkart Grellenort.
One of the men was catching up and Samson twisted back to slam him with the goedendag. Reynevan stabbed a second from below, in the groin. The man howled and curled up on the cobbles. A third tripped over him. Before he hit the ground, Reynevan slit open his face.
They ran on, having gained a little advantage. They saw Scharley indicating the way—into a narrow alley. They ran. Bisclavret was in front of them. Trutwein had vanished.
“Run! Now left!”
The sounds of their pursuers quietened somewhat; they must have briefly confused them, and they were being hampered by people hurrying with buckets to put out the fire. But Reynevan and Samson didn’t stop, they ran without pausing to draw breath. Mud squelched under their feet, water splashed, a dreadful stench assailed their nostrils, an awful fug of urine and faeces. Bisclavret and Scharley broke some planks with a bang.
“Get in! Go on, fast!”
It was some time before Reynevan understood that the Frenchman was instructing them to enter the black, circular hole of a latrine belching out a vile stench. Scharley had just vanished into it with a splash. Better shit than a torture chamber, he thought. He took a deep breath. The faeces below greeted him with pleasant warmth. And then a great wave as Samson dropped into it. The stench was overpowering.
“This way, ugh…” Bisclavret spat out what the wave had carried into his mouth. “To the canal. Heads up. It soon gets better. There’ll be more clearance later.”
They heard their pursuers approaching. Reynevan held his nose between his fingers and dived under.
Reynevan preferred to erase from his memory the trek through the clay-lined sewer on his hands and knees. The clearance to the brick vault increased and diminished by turns, so sometimes his mouth was above and sometimes below the liquid shit. His hands and knees sank into a thick layer with the consistency of potter’s clay on the bottom, which was shit that had settled there over the last sixty years, since, as Reynevan found out later, the Kłodzko sewage system dated back to 1368.
It was difficult to say how long their ordeal lasted. It felt like an entire aeon. But suddenly there was the overwhelming joy of fresh air and the delight of fresh water bringing tears to their eyes—they plopped out of the sewer straight into the Młynówka. From there, it wasn’t far to the Nysa, where they were able to rinse themselves in the faster-flowing current. They jumped into the water and swam across to the right bank. The surface of the water shimmered in the gold and red of the great blaze consuming the shacks and sheds of Rybaki and Wygon. The shapes of riders flickered.
“Dammit,” said Scharley in a tired voice. “I had a currant bun in my pocket… It must have fallen out. That’s breakfast down the drain…”
“Who betrayed us? Trutwein?”
“I doubt it.” Reynevan sat down in the shallow water, revelling in the sensation of it washing him clean. “The bomb I set was thanks to him… He supplied me with a little oil. He filched it from the church…”
“Oil in a church?”
“For extreme unction.”
Horses’ hooves thudded dully on the riverside sand.
“Vogelsang! Good to see you sons of bitches alive!”
“Rzehors! Ha! And Brázda of Klinštejn?”
“You’re alive, Reynevan! Greetings, Scharley! Hail, Samson!”
“Berengar Tauler? You, here?”
“In person. I went from the Tábor to the Orphans, but I still maintain that soldiering has no future… Oh, you stink to high heaven—”
“To horse.” Brázda of Klinštejn cut off the conversation. “Královec and Prokop the Small want to see you. They’re waiting.”
The Orphans’ headquarters was located in a tavern in the Neulende suburb. When Reynevan entered, led in by Rzehors and Brázda, a silence fell.
He knew the commander-in-chief of the Orphans’ field army, Hejtman Jan Královec of Hrádek, a sourpuss and evil character, but one who fully merited his reputation as an able commander and was adored by his soldiers almost as much as Žižka had been. He also knew Jíra of Řečice, a hejtman from Žižka’s old guard. Naturally, he knew the preacher, Little Prokop, who followed the hejtmans everywhere. He knew the ever-smiling and invariably cheerful Sir Jan Kolda of Žampach. He didn’t know the young nobleman in full armour with a shield twice divided into black, silver and red fields. He was informed it was Matěj Salava of Lípa, Hejtman of Polička. He couldn’t see Piotr of Lichwin, known as Piotr the Pole, anywhere, and only later found out that he had remained with the garrison in the captured stronghold of Homole.
Královec received calmly the news that the sabotage in the town had failed, that none of Kłodzko’s gates had been forced and no fires had been started.
“Oh well, that’s life.” He shrugged. “In any case, I’ve always thought that Prokop and Flutek hold an inflated opinion of you, Reynevan of Bielawa. You are simply overrated. On top of that, forgive me, you reek.”
“I fled Kłodzko through the sewers.”
Královec was still composed. “So the town shat you out. How symbolic. Now go and get washed and tidied up. A sizeable job and a serious task await us here. We have to capture that town ourselves, without outside help.”
“In my opinion,” Reynevan blurted out, “Kłodzko ought to be avoided. The defence is extremely strong, the commanders valiant, the morale of the garrison high… Wouldn’t it be better to go straight to Kamieniec? And the Cistercian monastery? It’s very wealthy.”
Jíra of Řečice snorted and Kolda shook his head. Královec said nothing, but he sneered and looked at Reynevan long and unwaveringly.
“When I want your opinion in military matters,” he finally said, “I’ll let you know. Dismissed.”