Across Town

The fastest route to the Eastern Gate was across the rooftops.

This remained true even after Tessa informed me, for the fourth time, that the fastest route was not automatically the best one.

“We’re losing time.”

“We’ll lose more if you fall through into somebody’s kitchen.”

“That happened once.”

“I’m aware. You also went through a window twice.”

“The second was intentional.”

Marek landed on the roof behind us.

“I’m not sure that helps.”

Nobody had asked him.

We crossed another narrow gap and continued east. The city below looked nothing like the capital I had walked through with Gareth months earlier. Barricades cut across several roads; Imperial banners had disappeared from buildings where revolutionary groups held the streets, while other districts still echoed with distant fighting.

Civilians had adapted faster than anyone planning the uprising had expected.

A dressmaker’s shop had become a shelter.

I could see families through the upper windows, rolls of fabric pushed against one wall to make space for the blankets on the floor. Two doors further down, a butcher had turned his counters into treatment tables and hung a white sheet from the sign outside.

At the next intersection, civilians carried a wounded knight on a shutter taken from somebody’s window. A surrendered Imperial Knight walked beside them holding one end.

The city had made its own arrangements.

White chalk arrows had appeared on several walls, pointing towards water, shelter or whichever street remained clear enough for wounded people to access.

A tavern near the old bridge had stacked its tables against the windows and turned the back room into a place where surrendered Imperial Knights could sit under guard. Across from it, a grocer passed fruit through the doorway without asking which uniform the person outside was wearing.

Nobody had planned those details at the dockyard.

People had simply looked at what was needed and started doing it.

We helped where we could without pretending we could stop everywhere.

Marek dropped from a low roof to clear fallen timber blocking a shelter door, then caught up two streets later. Tessa threw bandages down to a woman calling from an aid station.

I stopped long enough to help three civilians move a cart out of a narrow lane so a group of wounded civilians could pass through, then carried one end of a broken shutter while an old man guided an injured girl into the dressmaker’s shelter.

The girl thanked me, but I was already looking east.

It still bothered me enough that I made myself look back and nod before leaving.

The Eastern Gate was still too far away, so I increased my pace.

“Leon,” Tessa called.

“I’m fine.”

“I didn’t say anything yet.”

The tiles ahead were old but dry. I stepped across the ridge, jumped to the next roof and heard Marek swear behind me.

“Slow down.”

“We have reports that Alexander’s line broke twenty minutes ago.”

“And breaking your neck is gonna get us there faster?”

I ignored him because the answer was both obvious and unhelpful.

The next roof sloped towards a narrow alley. I placed one foot near the ridge, shifted my weight and felt the tile move.

Not crack.

Move.

My stomach dropped before the rest of me did. I slid three feet down the roof and caught the edge with one hand. The street below appeared between my boots, and a second hand closed around my wrist.

Tessa.

She hauled hard enough that Marek could catch the back of my cloak, and between them I returned to the roof with slightly less dignity than I had before.

For several seconds nobody spoke.

Tessa’s face had gone pale beneath the anger.

“Say it.”

I sat back on one knee.

“What?”

“Tell me how much time we’re saving. That won’t be the case if we have to keep pulling you back up. What if we weren’t even here to save you?”

I opened my mouth, though the words never came out.

I had judged the tile incorrectly, sure, but this route was still faster.

We had lost seconds, not minutes.

Then I looked at Tessa properly and noticed her hand was still wrapped around my wrist.

I followed her arm back to her face and realised she was still pale, even while glaring at me.

The argument suddenly seemed much less important.

And as much as I hated to admit it, she was right.

“Sorry.”

Tessa blinked.

“You actually apologised?”

Marek stared at me.

“That’s unsettling.”

“Don’t make me regret it.”

“I’m trying to understand whether you hit your head.”

Tessa released my wrist slowly.

“Seriously though, let’s be careful from here on.”

I nodded, and we continued.

Tessa stayed close enough for the next several roofs that I could feel her watching every foot placement, as though she were breathing down my neck.

I considered complaining, then I remembered how the previous argument had ended and finally discovered restraint.

The difference cost perhaps three minutes and saved me from finding out whether another roof wanted to participate.

By the time we reached the eastern district, the sound of fighting had become constant. Rochefort Knights were retreating through the streets in organised groups where they could, and disorganised ones where they could not.

Several were carrying wounded knights between them, and a line of civilians moved west under guard while Imperial horns sounded beyond the buildings.

We dropped to street level near a fountain.

“Where’s Alexander?” I asked the first knight I recognised.

He pointed east.

“Front line. He wouldn’t leave.”

Of course he wouldn’t.

The Eastern Gate square appeared through the smoke ahead. Imperial Knights had pushed us back to the market district, their formation cleaner than anything we had faced in the west.

Rochefort Knights held two streets but were being forced backwards from both.

Alexander stood near the centre with one sleeve dark from shoulder to elbow.

His sword was gone.

An Imperial Knight drove him backwards against the remains of a produce stall and raised his blade.