Running a Business

[Ximeno]

Among the couriers of Qadis there was a saying: "Run first, ask questions later."

It took courage to be a coward in the bravado-saturated culture of Corezo. Ximeno was, by that standard, a brave man. Or at the very least a pragmatic one.
Circumstances gave him less than three seconds to gauge an appropriate response to the situation which confronted him in the warehouse. It took Ximeno only one to give Zi the simple command: "Run!"

With that one word he made it clear the job had changed in its entirety.


---Prelude to a clusterfuck---

Ximeno and Clarencia had discussed the task the previous night. It had been one of her 'drop it in his lap without any warning while she had him pinned to the bed' jobs. Ximeno had been aware of the task prior to her raising it through shop talk with his old comrades, and he had most certainly not wanted to take on the job. He'd heard things about the section of docks he'd be delivering to. The same kind of things people heard about his wife, for the sake of an example. But Clarencia had him by the balls - both literally and figuratively. So Ximeno said what any sane and loving husband would: "Of course, my deadly rose-briar, it shall be as you wish."

Clarencia had smiled and loosened her literal, if not figurative, grip - and the rest of the night went as it should have. Surprisingly, so did the first part of the job. For all the skulduggery of splitting the package between himself and Zaveria, and taking the most circuitous separate routes they could, they hadn't had any kind of determined pursuit. It had been, in all truth, bloody boring for the both of them. Which was exactly how Ximeno liked it. So when Zi rejoined him at the destination, all seemed well. Which was, in truth, what had Ximeno on edge. Nothing ever went without mishap. Ever. It was a rule of life.

Their destination itself was a large warehousing complex in a private section of docks leased through the normal channels from the Duque De Quijas and operated by a syndicate of wealthy companies with somewhat questionable heritages. Money mattered more than morals when it came to the Duque's Secretary of Port Revenue constant battle with ledgers and profit margins.

The warehousing complex was the culmination of several large and interconnected buildings containing a veritable maze of crates and pallets. Evidence of the syndicate's wealth could be found in the form of several dormant worker golems - which meant a very expensive contract with the Artificer's guild. Ximeno had been at once curious, and then very not curious, as to how Clarencia had got them involved with anyone linked to such a expensive enterprise. Ximeno's suspicious mind supplied him with all kinds of equally plausible and unpleasant possibilities.

So instead he'd nodded to Zi and signalled in the Courier's hand cant to move quietly into the building. Couriers had long ago learned that, in life or death situations, a means of silently giving each other information was vital. They had, over time, created a complicated sign language - one which Ximeno hoped Zaveria would properly learn. But the command to move quietly was simple enough, and the pair of them entered the warehouse. Ximeno's nose wrinkled. Was it time for her to bath again?

There were crates packed high enough to resemble a city in miniature, with roads and alleys between them, the monotony broken only by tall metal shelving stands for smaller cargo items and sundry goods and stock samples. Seemed there was a lot of rope on display, of many varieties. Hawser-laid, shroud-laid, cable-laid, in hemps, linens, silks and even jute imported along the southern trade route to the East. Very innocuous. Ximeno highly doubted that the crates and pallets contained cordage, despite all the rope samples. Not that it was any of his business.

What was most definitely his business, however, was the fact that it had been far too quiet. Ximeno had expected the usual paranoid merchant fol-de-rol of an entourage of hired blades at the gate and suspicious looks until the satchel was handed over to its intended recipient and checked for legitimacy. Instead, he and Zi were confronted with a large warehouse, and no welcoming party. Inviting themselves in had been the only option open to them, but it had Ximeno even more on edge.

Maybe that was why he noticed the blood splatters on one of the crates and then a moment later the fact that someone had mopped this section of brick flooring very recently. Ximeno signalled to Zi the cues for "Danger. Up. Silently." then slowly, carefully and very quietly scaled up one of the walls of crates to gently haul himself onto the erstwhile roof. They made much slower progress in an effort to make no noise on the crate-stacks but their caution was rewarded when they found their client, or what remained of him, bound to a chair in a loading area. The blood obscured the worst details, but it was obvious he'd been tortured rigorously. The bodies of what were probably his bodyguards lay stacked near the chair.

Then Ximeno heard something which turned his bowels to ice. It sounded very much like someone with climbing claws making their way up the sides of the crates nearby. Ximeno glanced at Zi, frantically signing at her, but the girl's attention still seemed to be focused on the dead man in the chair. Ximeno ran a despairing hand over his face and mustachios. Fuck his life.

"Run!"

---


For every courier there were times for stealth, and times for speed. This was unarguably one of the latter. From the moment the command to run was given their goal was made simple: escape to one of Clarencia's safehouses. Unfortunately, the nearest were at least an hour's uninterrupted walk away. And when Ximeno found his first pursuer to show signs of non-human heritage (the canine qualities of face and snarl, added to the regrettably natural claws heard a moment earlier, all screamed 'fucking shifter') the courier knew this day was going to get worse. He didn't stop to see if Zi had listened to him - if she was smart, she was already running.

Ximeno was definitely already running. Unfortunately, so was the shifter. And while he had a head start the crate-roof made for a straight line which was not what he wanted when trying to outrun something likely faster than him in a sprint. If he was going to survive, he needed an obstacle course. Thank the Changers for the scaffold-like shelving. Ximeno veered to edge of the crates, then cut back across them as he vaulted towards the top row of shelving across the way. This was where being a small man paid dividends. Ximeno pulled his legs up beneath him as one hand, then the next, caught the uppermost mantle of the shelving until momentum pushed his legs through through the gap. Ximeno released his grip and turned his body as he shot over the rope on the shelf, then caught the bottom edge before he hurtled into thin air.

The lithe courier planted his feet briefly on the shelf below, then dropped another level as he heard the crash of the shifter landing on the top of the shelving. Ximeno repeated the manoeuvre and slipped through back to the other side as the shifter dropped down in its attempt to catch him. The Shifter landed on the ground level with a thud and a snarl, and Ximeno was now on the opposite side of shelving from it. The courier sprung up to catch the top edge of the shelving once more, twisted, and launched himself in a smooth motion to grab and pull up onto the crate-roofs he'd only recently vacated. Now, with a headstart and a little more breathing room, Ximeno sprinted along the crate-tops towards one of the warehouse exits.

From behind his and Zi's respective locations he could hear other voices shouting various things all boiling down to 'get them'. As others aside from the shifter moved to obey, the chase was on. As he ran, Ximeno took a moment to tell Clarencia 'I told you so' behind her back, then risked a glance to see if he could tell how Zi was faring.

[Zaveria Streetborn]

Questions were Zi's specialty. They often morphed into complaints, which then degenerated into unspecific and enthusiastic whining. Yet, even for her, there were some times when she chose to save her breath.

She'd turned on her heel the second sound came out of Ximeno's mouth; despite all the training that he had done his best to scrub into her, saving her own hide was something that she'd needed no practice with.

Zi had been ready to run. It was evident in the eagerness she took to it, in the way she shot past him, leaping opposite him to a smaller stack of crates and disappearing from his sight on the other side. She'd no need and no desire to stick at his heels, as that was just one more way to stick them together, one more way for one of them to fuck up and fuck over the other. No, Zi liked losing Ximeno as much as she liked the idea of losing the pursuers, tangling the trails far and wide from each other.

The nearest safehouse was an option, but she'd no intention of aiming for it. For all Ximeno's constant annoying refrains of what to do in the event of disasters, her mind was taking older and more familiar paths. As she darted between uneven stacks (kicking one in passing, hoping to topple it, and grunting in disapproval when she heard no satisfying crash), she was thinking of past haunts.

A shape landed to her front. Without a thought, she pivoted off her next step, using her momentum to jump up the side of a crate and catch its edge. In a flick of a tail she'd gotten her legs up and was scrambling up and over, grinning at the frustrated shouts behind her. She would dally a little bit longer, give Ximeno a head start before she headed for one of the narrow upper windows. Showy and unnecessary? Yup. Unexpected? Oh yeah. Exactly her style.

An aggressive shove put one of the crates just at enough of an angle that when one of her pursuers reached to pull himself up, he wound up toppling instead, with the crate above him. That time, there was a satisfying thud and a spate of cursing -- though given the lack of pain in the voice, she suspected no real damage had been done.

She was whooping as she zigzagged back and forth, up and down: she had enough of a lead to play it out until she saw Ximeno near the exit. Arrogant as she was, she knew she wouldn't be able to keep up the chase forever in the warehouse, and eventually they'd close on her. Or --

A bolt skimmed her shoulder and thudded into the crate she'd been reaching for.

Shitshitshiiiit!

That was so not fair. She yelped, lost her grip, and skidded down the pile of crates until she got her foot into a small landing formed by unevenly stacked crates. The impact jarred her all the way up to her jaw as she pushed off to jump for another stack. There was a twinge of protest in her ankle, which she ignored just in time to hop over a pile of discarded and broken crate slats. She bolted towards the window, scaling obstacles in her way and doubling back twice. A bolt nearly hit her as she ran to make the jump to catch the window.

The drop from the window to the ground outside knocked all the air out of her, but the escape she'd taken would give her enough time to --

a feline growl interrupted the thought.

She looked up, saw an overlarge cat glowering down at her, and had enough time to feel right proper fucked before she scrambled to her feet to dart for the cover a stack of offloaded merchandise (and the men dickering over it) provided.

[Ximeno]

Crossbows were a cheater's fucking weapon. Unfortunately, Qadis was a place where winning was more important than the legitimacy of how you got there. The distinctive click of the first bolt's release sent Ximeno into a diving roll, and the small man then sprang forward across to the next row of cratetops. It turned out the bolt wasn't meant for him. Well, good. But also bad.

Zi, it was fair to say, was faring as well as Ximeno could have hoped: she weren't dead yet. She had almost made it out of a window, and that was a good start. But the crossbows were a problem. There was a lot of flat ground between the dockside warehouses and the nearest comforting squalor of hovels, sheds, shops and narrow alleys. Just the kind of thing convenient to a trigger-happy crossbowman with a mind for murdering a pair of couriers.

Ximeno had heard drunken bravos claiming they could hurl a knife and cut a bow's chord with a single toss. Wouldn't that be a nice skill right about now. Still, he could buy them some time, if he was clever about it. And who was to say it wasn't those murderous assholes with the crossbows and shifter helpers who indulged in a bit of arson? Thing about rope vendors at a docks is that a lot of it is for calking. And calking typically used tar. And tar was ever so fucking flammable. And it gave off a thick, noxious amount of smoke. Given enough time, it could be a solid plan to buy a bit of time. And Ximeno knew exactly where he could find a lantern. Some bastard a few aisles over was shedding illumination like an aging and smelly dog.

Speaking of smelly dogs, Ximeno heard his own pursuer clawing its way up the side of crates while another bolt nearly skewered Zaveria. Luck of the stupid, that one. Why pick a window in line of sight of the fucker with the crossbow? At least she'd made it outside after that. Ximeno bolted towards the aisle with the lantern bearer, bounding across the gaps between the aisles with reckless abandon, as the crossbowman would need to relocate to get a proper bead on him.

The great thing about bastards carrying lanterns is that they've only got one hand free for a weapon. And a weapon will do fuck all if the thing you've got to worry about is a crate being toppled onto your head. To be fair, it wasn't quite what Ximeno had planned: he'd landed with a lot of momentum behind him, right on the edge of a crate above the lantern-bearer, planning to hop across to the other side then drop down to elbow the bastard on the back of the neck. The crate he landed on had other ideas. Seemed it was a bit lighter than he'd thought, and his momentum sent crate and Ximeno tipping into the aisle itself. Ximeno let his momentum carry him further and he managed to grab the edge of the opposite crate-tops. Beneath him, lantern-bearer was knocked down with a satisfying crash, surrounded by sacks of whatever had tumbled out of the crate.

A moment later, Ximeno had dropped down. The lantern was broken, but the oil was still burning and there was plenty of rope. Ximeno dragged a the end of a length of it, dipped it in the blazing mess, and he had himself the promise of a localised smokescreen in a few minutes. Lantern Bearer also had a falchion. And a big fuckoff knife was just what he needed to cut himself a couple of short lengths of rope to dip in the burning oil puddle.

Ximeno managed to get three small lengths cut and lit before the sound of a thump on a crate top nearby told him it was time to run again. And run he did, dropping burning rope into the nearest batches of calking he'd spotted earlier as he zigged and zagged through the aisles in the general direction of 'away'

And then all his clever efforts were rendered moot by pure, dumb luck. And one big fucking explosion.

Boom? Yes.
Quite so. An earth-shattering kaboom at that, and it was coming from the direction of where the lantern had been.

Now, explosions aren't all that common in Qadis. Especially not ones caused by smuggled alchemical powders. It was colourful, it was loud, it was the demolitions equivalent of a typical Corezan party. And the surprise of it knocked Ximeno flat.

Now, it may have been rough on Ximeno's now-ringing ears, but it was many times worse for the shifters with their enhanced hearing. Almost like having icepicks jabbed into their eardrums. Sure, they'd recover soon enough, but they'd be out of action for at least half a minute, even if they were tough as nails.

Ximeno rolled back to his feet, hauled himself up a tower of crates and bolted to reach a ground-floor window as other crates started to go up as well, catalysed by the initial explosion. At the rate the multi-hued flames were spreading, it wouldn't be long before the entire warehouse went up.

Yes, Ximeno decided, it had NOT been him who had lit those flames. Fuckers with the crossbows, those were the guys to blame. That was his story, and he'd falchion-fuck the throat of anyone who said otherwise. At least it gave their pursuers, especially the shifters, something else to worry about in the short term.

With the night sky awash with rainbowed flames and thunder from the localised alchemical maelstrom, he and Zi might just make it to the more comfortable danger of the alleys where they had better odds if the bastards continued the chase.

And it was the crossbowmen to blame, you mark his words. It was the fucking crossbowmen. That's what he'd tell the gawkers who'd inevitably come out to watch the light shows if he ran into them. That's what he'd tell Zi. That's what he'd tell Clarencia, and if he never experienced another explosion in his life, it would be too soon.

With all those thoughts running through his head, Ximeno was also running for the nearest alleyways, keeping an eye out for his feckless apprentice as he did.

[Zaveria Streetborn]

The boom was loud. There was a brief flash of color (was that even real?), and Zi lost her footing in the ripple that shook the ground beneath her. It near shook the teeth from her head, almost made her think there was an attack on the city such was the sound and the rattling. Catching herself, she only saw the cat near fall from its perch -- face all twisted up in feline agony -- before she got her legs under her and dove past the cart and its startled occupants. They wouldn't be long behind her, running to fetch help or water or whatever it is they felt they needed to do. They belonged to the district, unlike her, and wouldn't want to risk a fire damaging their precious wares.

But her? Oh, the wicked, vicious thrill of it, hoping there were plenty dead behind her and fewer to take up the trail. She delighted in the thought of no few of them writhing around even as she skipped past the first few gawkers coming out of the woodwork to ask stupid questions and wonder if they too should run. Good. Some of them were running (the useless stupid ones), and that provided a little more cover from pursuers.

It was then, as she approached stoutly-built buildings, that she caught sight of Ximeno. She made a face at him, and darted away from him -- took her several extra seconds to reach the security of the alleys, but it was worth the wordless fuck you. The city belonged to her, from its twisted hovels to its gilded streets, and when the dice went sour she sure didn't need him and his droning telling her the proper way to get the fuck out.

Here was her opportunity to prove it.

Behind them, two men had started running after them, having recovered faster than their mates. Zi's detour was seen, though the scattered throng helped to slow their pursuit.

[Ximeno]

Of course Zi had made it out. Ximeno need not have worried he supposed - made sense, really. Anything that spent that much time in the company of cockroaches, until they smelled like the garbage the cockroaches lived in, would have learned the art of skittering away from the incoming boot of fate.

Ximeno heard a scream behind him, followed by a mixture of angry shouts and fearful exclamations. There was also the sound of a whole bunch of people scattering in different directions, but all with the general principle of 'away from the guy who just got fucked up by a crossbow quarrel'. Ximeno thought that was wise. Worse than the prospect of crossbows, however, was an enraged and pained howl from near the warehouse inferno.

Well, fuck. He'd really hoped the blast might have put the dog down. Ximeno made a wise choice then: to hell with Zi. He knew where she'd be heading - they'd agreed on the order of safehouses they'd attempt to reach - so all he and she had to do was make it to one alive. Then it'd be laughter, Ouzo, lamb shanks, and dried tomato bread all round. Well, maybe not laughter. Ximeno had it in mind to be damn cranky about the entire fucking disaster of a job once he was safe enough to do so.

Shortly thereafter the wiry courier had reached an alleyway and vaulted through the window of the first building there. Escaping line of site gave him a slight sense of relief, however temporary. Fuck crossbows. Fuck them with a woodsman's axe. "The fuck are you looking at?" This was in response to the shocked look on the obese man sitting at his table for a late dinner. It was perhaps a bit unreasonable of Ximeno, given he'd essentially just broken into the inhabitant's house, but he wasn't in the mood for gawking or proprietary bluster "Just shut it. I'll be gone in a second." Ximeno sprang up the stairs to find a second floor window.

[Zaveria Streetborn]

The dogman was slow to recover, but once he did he proved his worth to his human companions. He howled, and charged free of the flaming buildings; his companions were not his concern. His quarry mattered more.

He caught up with the crossbowman, who was reloading (there really should be an adage about not running with a loaded crossbow, but it wasn't his problem), and snarled, "Follow me" in his garbled up dog-voice. He had the man in his nose, and he would take the lead in chasing him down.

By the time they reached the house, he knew the man was likely already gone. No matter. Time was on their side as they blew past the fat man (who'd begun blubbering for help, though as he wasn't rich enough for guards the dogman didn't know what he was on about) and up to the second floor.

_____

Down the alley, left, left, right and then, before her, was what she sought: access to the rooftops. She scaled the wall, making use of a low window to booster herself up past a smooth section, and then used the natural roughness of the brick to finish the climb. Once she was up, she pushed herself into a run, intending to leap over the next few alleys and make her way to a building she knew had a basement connecting to another. They could try to follow her all they wanted -- she was faster, and better then they could ever hope to be.

[Ximeno]

Any dockside part of Qadis was an utter fucking bitch for roof-top running. The damp air, salt breeze, and general low-class maintenance of many of the abodes meant that roof shingles were loose and slick with moisture off the bay. It was, for the inexperienced, a great way to break most of the important bones in your body.

Ximeno, however, was not inexperienced. He'd lectured Zi about it once. "You've got to know the architecture, girl. Pay bloody attention! It won't be on me if you shatter your spine because you don't know where the support beams in a roof are located. Fuck, are those lice? I bet those are lice." Yeah, okay, it hadn't been the greatest lecture given how swiftly it had been derailed into a lengthy discourse on personal hygiene. But the important detail was that Ximeno wasn't just 'running on a roof'. No, that's what amateurs do. Ximeno was dancing along the support beams, landing his weight with each light bunnyhop forward to where the roof was reinforced. It was the little things what kept you alive in Qadis.

At least, it was when you didn't have a fucking crossbowman and shifter after you. Credit where it was due, the shifter was making decent progress two rooftops back, scrabbling inelegantly as tiles cracked or dislodged underneath it. At one point it's forelimb went right through a half-rotted section of roofing, accompanied by angry shouts from the residents beneath. But it was the crossbowman which had the courier worried. He was showing signs of getting some stability, and was starting to hold the crossbow like a weapon and not a device for helping him maintain awkward balance as he followed the shifter.
It was almost time to leave the rooftops, and Ximeno had one eye on the pursuers, and the other looking for the next obstacle course to keep his spine from sprouting a crossbow quarrel.

---

Elsewhere, a very large greyish cat was about done with feeling sorry for itself. The agony in its ears had gone from 'Stilettos stabbed in the sides of its bloody head' down to a more manageable 'Getting ear-fucked on both sides by amorous hedgehogs'. The cat was, it had to be acknowledged, a lot more imaginative than most of its colleagues in petty murder. The moron who was standing above it, however, was not. The moron was called Gaspar, and was the kind of human that had made the cat shifter spurn human names back in the day as its way of saying 'fuck your species, except for the ones that pay well'.

The cat did not know how it felt about Gaspar's presence. The human was saying some boring tripe about being glad the cat was alive. What the fuck use was with that nonsense? At this rate, they weren't getting paid, and the cat was not getting his supply of absinthe infused with catnip restocked any time soon were that the case. In which case he might as well be dead.

The cat hissed "Shut it, mousedung. Where the fuck are the other four?" Gaspar pointed off into the distance. The cat couldn't hear shit from more than a few paces thanks to the explosion. Fine. Whatever. "Lead the way, mousedung." Gaspar knew better than to argue. The cat was well high up the pecking order, and Gaspar liked keeping his tongue in one piece. 'Cat got your tongue' wasn't a saying in their circles, it was a serious threat.

Once away from the warehouse, the cat could start relying on its sense of smell once more. Where was the filthy bitch, anyway. Ah, there it was, an unmistakable mixture of unpleasant aromas. The cat started lightly bounding along the trail, Gaspar jogging to keep up. As they followed, the cat caught the scent of the other two who'd chased her as well. How did humans manage to live with their shitty sense of smell? Here she went, down the alley, left, left, right, aaand stop. The cat stopped. The scent of the other two idiot humans who'd given chase earlier continued down the path, but their scent was no longer following hers. Useless fucking shrews.

It was thinking time. "Hey, mousedung, make yourself useful and scratch me behind the ears." Perks of the job, really - not necessary to the thinking process but fuck that felt good. Maybe Gaspar wasn't so useless after all. The cat's ears still rang like a Changer's chapel, but a little bit of pampering went a long way to having the right mindset for working out a dilemma. "Right, the two-legged rodent has hit the roofs. Not surprising, she bounded around like a fucking squirrel in that warehouse. Alright, no time to find the others. You try to follow me on ground as best you can. I'll follow her trail by roof and give you directions. Try not to fuck it up."

The cat circled a bit, judged the right trajectory, then bounded up one wall, onto a balcony, then from a windowsill onto a nearby rooftop. A quick sniff around discovered the human girl's trail. "Follow me, mousedung!" The large grey cat's black stripes flickered under the moonlight, and it let out a long and piercing growl which signalled both the start of the hunt, and a ruined night of sleep for a number of people in nearby houses. The cat bounded, padfooted, across the rooftops in pursuit of Zi's trail. Gaspar followed at street level as best he could, trying not to get too lost.

[Zaveria Streetborn]

The salt air felt good. Zi skidded down a peaked arch over a window, and touched down on a chink in a half-wall separating two marvelously decrepit buildings. Her mouth was open, and she was sucking and blowing air better than a whore two johns away from paying rent. Her foot touched down, finding purchase in the rough, crumbling stone, and she used her momentum to spring back up. She caught an iron lattice covering a window, and swore with delight when her weight nearly took the thing out of its mooring.

Sweet, sweet adrenaline.

She scurried up, using the cross sections to pull herself past moss-slimed slickness, and was soon up on the outer bridge of the roof running along its frame until it butted up against its neighbor on the other side.

She knew this path. She knew every rain-smooth gutter, every weak hole, every wide and empty chimney. She knew which windows gaped open and empty, and where the good balconies lay open to interlopers looking for an easy road to the next height.

She slid, hopped, danced her way over and around the cluster of buidings in this mostly residential quarter, her sneering teenage arrogance evident in every line of her body. Oh, she taunted, she preened, she made light of her pursuit with every opportunity. She was full of the spirit of youthful invincibility, sure that she was so much better than anyone around her.

She reached the end of the close-built pack of buildings, and leaped from low balcony to alley, laughter trailing behind her.

_________

The second time the dogman's leg broke through the ceiling, his companion lost his temper. Tail tucked, he was shoved down into the street by a booted foot, left to catch his pace while the crossbowman continued sprinting after their quarry.

The giant molossus wasted a second glaring up after the man. Hacquin Quievremont had once lost a series of bets. A bad series of bets. A series that had landed him in the Quijas district with a collar around his neck an someone holding the proverbial leash. Sometimes literally, if the cat -- Le Chat, the dogman called him, making it epithet and title at once -- was in a snitty mood. As it was, 'beware of dog' wasn't a saying in their circles, it was a serious warning.

Because the dogman was guard dog and hunting dog both. Who seriously was not good at running on rooftops.

He growled under his breath, lifted his head, and caught scent. A myriad of them, which would be considered stinking to his human companions, but which were just scents to him. He was only supposed to take point when his handler called for him to flush the quarry, at least that was the rule since the last time he'd let his excitement get the best of him and had accidentally mauled the target past the ability to speak. Whoops.

The crossbowman stopped, lifting his weapon and sighting down the man fleeing before them.

Hacquin chased from the ground, head lifted and ears back, just waiting for the little morsel to meet his jaws.

[Ximeno]

You know what Ximeno loved? Balconies. You know what else Ximeno loved? Being out of a crossbow's firing line. Now, to be forthright, those questions were as loaded as the crossbowman's weapon. Because the two were very much linked to Ximeno's immediate plan of action: the wiry little man launched himself from the rooftop he was currently traversing to a lower balcony across the way.

As Ximeno leaped the crossbowman cursed and the shifter below growled. The courier landed on the balcony like a cat, arms and legs flexing to absorb the impact, before he barged into the house. Sleeping residents were startled awake - one screaming, one swearing - and Ximeno muttered a gruff apology as he passed through their bedroom and dashed upstairs to a room with a large window facing onto the street. The courier thought he heard the sound of something impacting the door at the building's ground level, and opened the window.

Backing up to take a running start, Ximeno vaulted onto the windowsill then sprang across the way. A moment later he folded himself mid-air like a clasp-knife as he crashed feet-first through another window. The courier rolled to his feet with a grimace and again headed upwards through the building while he kept an ear out for his pursuers.


---


Elsewhere, the large greyish cat was jauntily making its way across the rooftops, trailing the human female's scent. She was an energetic one, the cat had to admit. If the blasted vermin had just had the decency to keep to the rooftops, the cat could have had it all wrapped up in under ten minutes and been able to call it a night. But no. The little hellion went and jumped down a chimney. A fucking chimney for fuck's sake. Who even did that? It wasn't fair play. "Gaspar, get in there!" No way was the cat getting soot all up in his fur. He hated the taste of soot, which made cleaning it off one of those 'no fucking thank you' prospects.

Gaspar, bless him, barged into the house, punched the lights out of the resident who'd been woken a little bit earlier by Zi's entrance, and rushed through the house to discover she'd left by a balcony and entered a neighbouring building. The cat was not going to be pleased.

Was Gaspar an oracle? Because indeed, no, the cat was fucking DIS-pleased. These houses were a fucking rat warren of human vermin, and Changers knew where the mousy little bitch would end up. The cat bounded across the rooftops, trying to catch a whiff of the girl's scent. Wait, what was that sound? HAH, never underestimate a cat's ability to hear its meal-ticket - and the sound of feet landing in an alley nearby rang as brightly as a dinner bell in the cat's ears.

The cat bounded across the roof with the haste and balance of his feline heritage and reached the edge of the roof above Zi's landing zone just in time to see her leaving. "Gaspar! This way you mousedung! Hurry!"

[Zaveria Streetborn]

There were a lot of sounds to follow, but the quarry was singing to him like a damn crow, baiting him out. Hacquin wasn't following direct (that was the crossbowman's job, and he stank at it; Hacquin privately thought of him as 'Turret' since he was best at standing still and aiming. He jiggled when he ran, like he had been sneaking sweets under his jerkin, hoarding up rations like he was king of the fucking puff pastries), but he saw his leash-holder bust over and through somehow, dogged to the end. Heh.

He went around, not unfamiliar with this part of the city (dog patrols, Le Chat would say), knowing where the man was like to pop out and thinking how much faster it was on four legs.

...and then he went through a window.

Turret came up to the window, and Hacquin didn't even acknowledge the hoarse order. He wasn't stupid. Turret, meanwhile, was pounding away to go around the long way. For jiggling so much, he was surprisingly fast -- just not agile. No, never that.

Fucking chattel would have to come to ground eventually, and Hacquin would be waiting teeth first.

________________

Second too late, and weren't that jes how it had to be. Teeth bared, wind streaming past her snickety-sharp, sweet as the first draw on a shiny new dagger, she dodged them like they was stumbling blind drunks. Hah!

She went up the side of a balcony cuz she could, rolled down a canopy all tight and crisp ready for the morning sales, and left it sagging behind her. Meanwhile, she'd bounced into a dead-ender, just to prove that she was better at up then they were. There was a stone doorway she caught up, hauling up and then sideways onto a ledge, and then from there onto a crooked rooftop that lead her back up to the top of it. And then, then she skipped off a gutter and landed on a lower level roof with a door that lead out three ways. Couple seconds behind her, and they'd catch the wrong door and she'd flicker out past 'em before they had a chance to whistle 'Bonny May.'

[Ximeno]

Ximeno found his way to another window, popped his head out, and then his whole body. The wiry courier planted his feet on the ledge and vaulted up to grasp the roof's edge. A quick glance around showed that his pursuit had abandoned a rooftop pursuit.

If there was something Ximeno loved more than balconies, it was lazy bastards who couldn't handle a rooftop pursuit. A clever and agile courier could cross half the city by rooftop if they weren't averse to a little break-and-entry and the risks that entailed.

As it was, Ximeno used the opportunity to slow his pace just a little and tried to figure out what path Zaveria might have taken. There were a few optimal paths to reach the safehouse they'd decided on, and the way she'd taken narrowed it down to three possibilities.

Ximeno leaped across a small alleyway, rolling neatly onto the rooftop below. The real question was, did he want to veer his own path to head in her general direction, or avoid risking their pursuers being able to join forces.

Another helpful balcony, another rooftop, and Ximeno had settled into the habitual pace of the courier - a light-footed jog as he picked his way across stained roof tiles.


---


The cat almost had the bitch once, twice, a third time. His teeth snapped at Zaveria's heels as she leapt up onto a balcony. He'd found his own way onto the rooftops and almost pinned her in the dead end as he pounced from the rooftops. However, Zi was was too quick, and had hauled herself up onto a ledge and once more to the rooftops.

The cat had been quick to find a way back to the rooftop, yet the little wretch had entered a building once more.

The increasingly displeased cat paced the rooftops as Gaspar bumbled about at street level. "Fuck's sake, mousedung, can you see the bitch?" The damn vermin was fast, and wasn't shy about entering a stranger's property.

Gaspar called back "Not yet. You?"

It was going to be one of THOSE days, obviously. "You head north-west and call out if you see the fucking whore. I'll circle around." The cat bounded off, hissing under its breath, while Gaspar trundled back out into the streets.

[Zaveria Streetborn]

The inside of the building Zi had entered was passing fair; while it weren't no summer home of some rich family, it did show signs of repairs (or attempted repairs), and most of the doors were solid enough to not be shoved open except by someone who was big and determined. It was three storey: two shops took up the entirety of the first floor, one-third of the second was taken up by storage and the rest by shop-keepers' families, and the upper floor had an illegal smoking den and three cramped rooms where people lived.

This building was one that Zi frequented, particularly because it provided a convenient space to get high that was right near her old stomping grounds -- grounds that she was intending on fleeing towards as she escaped her pursuers. However, her patronage usually involved ducking in through the roof and leaving the same way; she'd cut her teeth thieving from the stoors on the ground floor, and when using the building as an escape route she had to be aware of not just those following her, but also those with long memories who didn't remember her very fondly.

She dashed down the hall, taking a deep breath of the smell of spice and smoke coming from the den, and hit the back quarter of space that had homes walled off by curtains, and also contained stairs. She took those stairs two at a time, jumping the last five or so with a sharp whistle of breath. Down, down, down, whipping 'round the corner, passing two doors only to come up against the third; as she approached she pulled free one of her long wires. It was a quirk of daytime trust that the storage room was only kept shut by a simple latch; people came in and out of it frequently enough that the real locks weren't engaged until nightfall. So, she slipped the wire through, flipped up the simple wire latch, dashed in and closed the door behind her.

She wove through the room's shelving, heading to the back-corner where the stairs were located; stairs that would take her to the backroom of one of the shops downstairs. There was another set of stairs, one on the other side of the floor that the residents used that empted out into the restaurant -- but that would be too expected.

So she approached the stairs, hopped over the railing with a small whoop of exhiliration, and tangled feet-first with one of the employees of the shop coming upstairs.

They went crashing down six stairs to a small landing in a heap, the man beneath her. Breath knocked out of her, she got her arms under her (one of them on the face of the man, knocking his head back onto the floor to keep him dazed the few moments she needed to get herself back up), and spared a split-second to look back up the stairs for that damn cat.

______

Hacquin had just flat given up on Turret, because he'd no idea where the man had got to and he couldn't waste time trying to guide the idiot in the right direction.

But the good news was that Hacquin was long-legged and fast on the ground, able to tackle corners by half-sliding through them, and big enough to jump over most obstacles and (with the right piles of shit in alley-ways), get over most walls. Tall, well constructed walls weren't terribly common in this part of the city. Lucky for him.

He kept catching glances of the man, and that was enough to follow him. But, perversely, he didn't seem to want to come to ground at all. And that would be a problem. Without someone up top, it was looking more and more likely that Hacquin was just flat out going to lose him. Not an option. Really, really not an option.

But if he could just figure out where the bastard was going, or intended to go, he'd be able to track him by scent.

And then, once the bastard thought he'd lost his pursuers, he'd stop hopping rooftops and leave a path that Hacquin could follow. And all Hacquin needed to do was let the guy think he'd won.

The hound could do that.

[Ximeno]

Ximeno was certain he could still hear his pursuers clattering about in the alleyways. The sound of anything clambering over a wall and landing on the other side was a distinctive one, and Ximeno wasn't willing to risk hoping that the shifter would take a wrong turn. Still, he knew he couldn't stay to the rooftops forever. He would eventually reach the end of the cramped docktown residential areas and find the large open panned expanse of The Traders Plaza.

It would present its own challenges: even at night, it would be thronging with activity. There would only be a token presence of Quijas militia, as The Plaza's operators were as close to a protection racket as one could get without actually being a criminal endeavour. The Plaza operators were silently sanctioned by the Qadis authorities, whose gaze remain averted from the less honest activities in exchange for a healthy percentage of Plaza takings. Even better, because it wasn't strictly tax, the Duque De Quijas didn't need to put it in his books, allowing for a disposable income for the family unhindered by Imperial oversight.

But all that wasn't as important for Ximeno as the issue of there being precious few tall buildings in the Plaza: and while there was a wide expanse of booths and stalls to act as obstacles, if he was deemed to be the cause of damages, he could find himself in trouble even Clarencia might have difficulties extracting him from. And while there was some time before he reached The Plaza, he'd need to plan ahead.

It was a worried courier who vaulted across an alleyway to the next balcony before climbing back to the rooftops.


---


Gaspar was out on the street, straining his human ears to try and find any hint of where their quarry was while he kept an eye out. The cat was stalking about on the roof, likewise carefully listening for a sign of where the little bitch was. However, his ears were useful for more than just hearing the orders of superior feline beings, and heard the distinctive sound of something clattering down a flight of stairs in a nearby building.

The cat swiftly bounded over to the building's rooftop and screeched "Oi, mousedung. Get in there, she's in this building somewhere, flush the goddamn rodent out of there for me!"

Gaspar sighed then jogged to the shopfront on the ground floor. If Gaspar had any talents, it was physical endurance and a knack for kicking down doors. He had this understanding of the weakness of hinges and just where to kick to put maximum pressure on those small, comparatively frail, metal devices. Gaspar applied the power of physics crudely to the door via a boot attached to a sturdy leg, and the door crashed inwards.

Gaspar glanced around the shop, drawing a broad-bladed dagger as he did. Above, on the rooftop, the cat tried to guess where the little mink would make her escape from Gaspar to.