The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) Read Online Free Page A

the very narrow pathway that the two buildings grudgingly allowed. Restarting his pursuit, it didn't take long before Ian had to slow his pace in order to run sideways to appease the width he was allotted.
    By this point his uniform was drenched , and he was beginning to feel the edges of a winded state. His knees were ironically hurting more than his leg was, and he wasn't feeling all that much cleaner than the boy. But he sensed weariness and something else in his thief. Mounting panic perhaps, as the Chax hesitated when he reached the other end of the alleyway. He looked once to the left, as though contemplating a change in plans. But instead he ran straight across the street and jumped down into a lower alley, opposite the one Ian was coming out of.
    The streets were growing increasingly less straight, rough angles beginning to form in the corners, the buildings bec oming more rundown. It appeared to be an older, less considered part of the city. The buildings were tall, but the main streets broken and a thickening web of lower levels of streets and building entrances stretched out for miles.
    Ian noticed that he was softly singing a verse from an old army victory hymn—between breaths, anyway. Even as the boy's path became increasingly more difficult to follow , Ian could feel it. In each failed alley wall Ian had to get through, he could feel it. For every railing, bar, corner Ian had to grab to abruptly change directions. Each change in elevation—whether it was jumping down into a lower alley, or climbing back out of another, it came closer. Its resistance was growing more and more ragged, feebler even as the ringing in Ian’s hands grew. His head was feeling a bit less sure as well, honest signs that he should have had more water.
    It was an intangible, evident thing, it was—
    Ian came around the corner the boy had just disappeared around, somehow knowing that this was the last one even before he saw that it was a traditional dead end. The Chax boy was bent over and breathing hard, scared.
    “Good,” Ian said, as he brought himself to a stop, the restraint feeling strange in his legs. He was breathing at a respectable pace as well, but he managed , forced himself to hide most of it. “Jolly good.”
    “I have nothing,” the boy shouted at him . “Leave all me alone, I don' have nothing!”
    “ No,” Ian agreed, walking toward him and looking around at the fairly deep alleyway they were in. “But I don't think it matters.”
    “Leave me alone, don't hurt me,” the boy shouted again, backing up fast and tripping onto his side. “I have nothing—Help, please help!”
    “Mos mos, so idiot,” said another Chax boy who stepped out of a gap in the building, his face stony. “You bring him right here.”
    “So wwy, sowwy,” the younger boy said, holding his hands up at Ian and making helpless gestures.
    “It wasn't really his fault ,” Ian said, looking at the older boy and deciding that he must have been the one who had taken his regulator. “People aren't supposed to chase him.”
    “They ar e't,” the older boy said. “You’od never catch me, soldier jah.”
    Ian relaxed. He knew what he had to say and was pretty confident he could do this without difficulty, but there was a lot more depending on this than he was used to, beyond just retrieving his regulator. He needed to be careful.
    “Maybe,” Ian said as though he didn't care, as if his head wasn't still swimming with the rush of having beaten them here, into this situation. “This is a nice place, to rendezvous after buzzing something … May I see it?” Ian asked, looking at the older boy firmly enough in the hopes of forestalling any arguments.
    There were only a couple seconds where the lead boy hesitated, the debate almost audibly running across his face. But then he pulled it out from behind him, holding it in a tight fist.
    “Would it bring a good price?” Ian asked, feeling as though he should keep talking.
    “It will,” the