Chapter 30: Clear the Oldest Street

The Oldest Street at the first night bell was a river of lamps. The town had left the Ring with its tins lit and was going home by its own oil, singing in pieces: a verse here, a refrain there, two households quarrelling over the third. The shopfronts leaned over the road black and close, their sills and jetties and stair rails older than any ward in Ash. Kael came down the middle of it with two cracked ribs and a left hand that closed only as far as the bone allowed. Valcrest came beside him on the bad leg. The people parted for the blue coat and shut again behind it, slow with singing, in nobody's hurry but theirs. The street reached him before the sound did. The beams were humming. It came up through the soles of his boots and the heel of the hand he had laid…