Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth) by Matthew Medina

Author:Matthew Medina [Medina, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-06-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Catelyn sprang freely from rooftop to rooftop, scuffing her bare toes on the shards of gravel and tar as she launched herself over the warrens and alleyways of Brunley. Catelyn had wanted to get away from the streets for a time, to feel somewhat normal once more, or at least what passed for normal since leaving the Seat.

However, that meant scant little to Catelyn at the moment, vaulting over roofs in broad daylight. Even though she was dressed appropriately, with full head coverings to hide her hair and face, Catelyn knew she was risking a lot by traveling via rooftops in the daytime, but she refused to wait another day before looking into the possibility of escaping via the Dun Marsh or the cliffs of the southern wall of Brunley.

She probed the edges of her bubble, sniffing for the highest concentration of rank water to guide her southeast towards where the Dun Marsh encroached into the city.

She wasn’t sure what she would find, and she did not dare to hope that her escape would be as easy as finding a crack in the massive Wall that she could squeeze through. Still, she had to try to ascertain how the water was getting into the city, because if water could get in, then it stood to reason that there was a way for the water to get out. She was beginning to taste hope and she wanted her freedom.

Catelyn felt as though she were rushing, and willed herself to tread carefully. She knew from painful experience what rushing in could cost her. She didn’t wish to pitch herself off of the roof, and one misstep was all it would take. She couldn’t afford even a minor injury, like a sprained ankle or a cut, as even the thought of a delay in her plans was a possibility that she was loath to contemplate.

Her nose caught a cloud of rank smells on the air and she focused her bubble on its source. She followed the trail of the scent, leading south down the alley beneath her and she crept lithely to the edge of the roof she was on, and hunched there on all fours, taking in the scene below.

Her senses painted her a picture as vivid as if her eyes still functioned, and probably even more richly detailed that most people with sight, or so she liked to think. The alley was long abandoned and flooded by several finger-widths of standing water. A dripping noise from the building across from where she hunched suggested either runoff or rain, and the echoing of that noise bounced off of the ruins of the nearby buildings. The foul water was part marsh and part sewage.

Although it was empty now, her nose told her that people had lived here, or at least had excreted her, not that long ago.

She followed along on the edge of the rooftops, tracing the waterway and the cloud of scent through alleys and along the edge of the abandoned ruins.

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