Warbreaker (Warbreaker #1)(175)

Eventually, Vasher pulled to a stop. He pointed toward a building: single-story, flat-topped, and wide. It sat alone, in a depression, shanties built from refuse covering the low hill behind it. Vasher waved for her to stay back, then quietly put the rest of his Breath into his rope and crept forward up the hill.

Vivenna waited, nervous, kneeling beside a decaying shanty that appeared to have been built from half-crumbling bricks. Why did I come? she thought. He didn’t tell me to—he simply said that I could. I could just as easily have stayed behind.

But she was tired of things happening to her. She had been the one to point out that maybe there was a connection between the priest and Denth’s plan. She wanted to see this to the end. Do something.

That had been easy to think back in the lit room. It didn’t help her nerves that, looming to the left side of the shanty was one of the D’Denir statues. There had been some of them in the Highland slums as well, though most of those had been defaced or broken.

She couldn’t feel anything with her life sense. She felt almost as if she’d been blinded. The Breath’s absence brought memories of nights sleeping in the mud of a cold alleyway. Beatings administered by urchins half her size but with twice her competence. Hunger. Terrible, omnipresent, depressing, and draining hunger.

A footstep cracked and a shadow loomed. She nearly gasped in shock, but managed to keep it in as she recognized Nightblood in the figure’s hand.

“Two guards,” Vasher said. “Both silenced.”

“Will they do for answering our questions?”

Vasher shook a silhouetted head. “Practically kids. We need someone more important. We’ll have to go in. Either that, or sit and watch for a few days to determine who is in charge, then grab him when he’s alone.”

“That would take too long,” Vivenna whispered.

“I agree,” he said. “I can’t use the sword, though. When Nightblood is done with a group, there’s never anyone to question.”

Vivenna shivered.

“Come on,” he whispered. She followed as quietly as she could, moving for the front door. Vasher grabbed her arm and shook his head. She followed him around to the side, barely noticing the two lumps of unconscious bodies rolled into a ditch. At the back of the building, Vasher began to feel around on the ground. After a few moments without success, he cursed quietly and pulled something from his pocket. A handful of straw.

In just a few seconds, he had constructed three little men from the straw and some thread, then used Breath reclaimed from his cloak to animate them. He gave each one the same command: “Find tunnels.”

Vivenna watched with fascination. That’s far more abstract a Command than he led me to believe was possible, she thought as the little men scuttled around on the ground. Vasher himself returned to his searching. Apparently experience—and ability to use mental images—is the most important aspect of Awakening.

He’s been doing this a long time, and the way he spoke before—like a scholar—indicates he’s studied Awakening very seriously.

One of the straw men began to jump up and down. The other two rushed over to it and then they began to bounce as well. Vasher joined them, as did Vivenna, and she watched as he uncovered a trapdoor hidden beneath a thick layer of dirt. He raised it a tad, then reached underneath. His hand came back out with several small bells, which had apparently been rigged there to ring if the door were opened all the way.

“No group like this has a hideout without bolt-holes,” Vasher said. “Usually a couple of them. Always trapped.”

Vivenna watched as he recovered the Breath from the straw men, quietly thanking each one. She frowned at the curious words. They were just piles of straw. Why thank them?

He put the Breath back into his cloak with a protection Command, then led the way down through the trapdoor. Vivenna followed, stepping softly, skipping a particular step when Vasher indicated. The bottom was a roughly cut tunnel—or, so she got from feeling along the sides of the lightless earthen chamber.

Vasher moved forward; she could only tell because of the quiet rustling of his clothing. She followed and was curious to see light ahead. She could also hear voices. Men talking, and laughing.

Soon she could see Vasher’s silhouette; she moved up next to him, peeking out of their tunnel and into an earthen room. There was a fire burning at the center, the smoke twisting up through a hole in the ceiling. The upper chamber—the building itself—was probably just a front, for the chamber down here looked very lived-in. There were piles of cloth, bed rolls, pots and pans. All of it as dirty as the men who sat around the fire, laughing.



Vasher gestured to the side. There was another tunnel a few feet to the side of the one they were hiding in. Vivenna’s heart jumped in shock as Vasher crept into the room and toward the second tunnel. She glanced at the fire. The men were very focused on their drinking, and were blinded by the light. They didn’t seem to notice Vasher.

She took a deep breath, then followed into the shadows of the large room, feeling exposed with the firelight to her back. Vasher didn’t go far, however, before stopping. Vivenna nearly collided with him. He stood there for a few moments; finally, Vivenna poked him in the back, trying to get him to move aside so that she could see what he was doing. He shuffled, letting her see what was before him.

This tunnel ended abruptly—apparently, it wasn’t so much a tunnel as a nook. Nestled against the back of the nook was a cage, about as high as Vivenna’s waist. Inside the cage was a child.