They were getting the receipt for their meal when two male
nobles entered, laughing loudly. One of them called out to the restaurant, and
Keestu looked at her cuff. "The Prató's get," was all that it
understood and translated. She wondered if Pulon had been sent to find them?
"He just said something about the Prató's child,"
Keestu informed her table.
"We better check it out," Gontu said, wobbling
momentarily as he stood.
Vahin nodded in jovial agreement, and they approached the
nobles, one of them very drunk. He put his finger to his lips with exaggerated
care as he grinned at them, hushing them as he motioned for them to follow. He
staggered into the night and took them around to the back of the building.
Keestu's eyes darted around before she went around the corner, alert for a
trap. She saw that Tenget and Gontu, while feeling their drinks, also scanned
their surroundings before moving into the alley.
Keestu was completely unprepared for what she saw there:
Shariel, her back to them, had her hands in the trash barrel, and was pulling
out leftovers and eating them with the same single-minded intensity as she had
the food on her plate at home.
Disgust warred with pity in Keestu. She understood that
Shariel's mother was a horrible cook, but Shariel herself appeared to either
lack the discipline needed to keep her eating under control or she suffered
from a serious medical disorder of some sort. She was eating as fast as she
could, and Keestu realized she must do this every time she was locked into her
room for the night, for it gave her many hours in which to get to the city and
return unnoticed.
The drunk noble sniggered loudly next to them, and Shariel
whirled, her cheek and chin smeared with stew from the garbage. Keestu saw
horror, shame, and anger on her face before she shouted something at them in
Phaet, which was muffled by the mouthful of food that she had just crammed in.
Keestu saw that their erstwhile guides had vanished, no doubt
fleeing the wrath of the Prató's daughter.
She grabbed at Tenget's arm, pulling on it while
emphatically nodding her head back towards the light. However, shouts sounded
from that quarter as well.
"Down the alley," Gontu decided, urging them past
Shariel, who was still shouting at them in Phaet. Keestu didn't bother to try
and read the translation on her cuff in the darkness.
They were almost to the end of the alley, when their way was
blocked by a group of six Vuloan nobles armed with stun staves, spears, and
short swords. "So," one of the guards growled at them menacingly in
Unity, "You're digging in the trash with the Prató's glutton
offspring!"
Before any of them could respond, the guards were rushing at
them. "Spread out," Gontu shouted. "Find a weapon if you
can!"
Keestu looked frantically around the alley, but saw nothing
she could immediately use. She looked back to see Gontu planting his feet in
front of Rue, who he'd shoved back towards Keestu. Tenget sprang forward, to
face the closer immediate threat with Gontu, while Vahin checked behind them
for anything useful to use to fight. Finding nothing, he moved forward and
resolutely formed a second line between Keestu and the closest onrushing Vuloan
nobles. Keestu checked behind her again, though she heard no more pursuit from
that direction. In fact, Shariel had vanished, as had the nobles who had come
out of the restaurant to see what the others found so funny.
The first of the men were on them, and Gontu sidestepped the
first stun staff thrust at him, grabbing it with one hand as he delivered a
backhanded punch to the man carrying it with the other. There was an audible
crunch as the man's nose broke, and he fell to the ground, yelling what Keestu
assumed were curses in his own language. Gontu kicked him soundly in the
stomach after he landed, and the man curled quietly into a ball, unable to cry
out with the breath knocked out of him.
Meanwhile, Tenget had met his first assailant and was
grappling with him over his stun staff. Neither had punched each other, and
Keestu watched in horror as the short sword of another man came down on
Tenget's left arm, severing it just above the elbow. Tenget screamed,
reflexively kicking out at the man who'd maimed him as he fell to the ground,
blood spurting from the wound.
Gontu, seeing Tenget gravely injured and knowing they were
now greatly outnumbered, turned to Keestu and Rue, yelling the one word she
never thought she'd hear from him. "Run!"
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