Deadhouse Landing

He shifted, then, blindly – a very dangerous move as one cannot predict just where one might emerge – and found himself in a new, equally unfamiliar cobbled way. Quickly, he crossed the street to put his back to a stone wall and tried to still his hammering heart. He had never seen that before. Some creature able to follow spoors through Warrens? Gods! No one would ever be able to escape such a—

He stared with mounting panic at the spot where he had emerged, for there, from the shifting shadows, a monstrous paw and forelimb was emerging, followed by a long greying muzzle and twin blazing sky-blue eyes that peered right and left, scanning the street.

Nedurian slowly reached over to a door next to him, offered up a silent prayer to Apsalar, Lady of Thieves, and tried to lift the latch – it rose, and he ducked into a shop-front stuffed with household goods manufactured of tin: a tinsmith’s. From a rear workroom he heard someone weeping in terror.

It occurred to him then to wonder why the creature had singled him out, and he realized that it must be one, or both, of two factors: he had been outside, and he possessed a raised Warren. Reluctantly, he understood what he must do, though it scraped against the grain of decades of habit. He let his Warren fall away, then froze, almost not breathing, listening to the night.

Outside, claws grated against the stone cobbles of the narrow street. He swallowed and fought the mad urge to flee. No running – they are hunters.

A great bull-bellows of an exhalation rattled the door and sent up a massive cloud of dust from the gap beneath. The air became redolent with a sweet spicy scent, as of mace, or anise seed. The frantic need to run made his legs quiver, but he fought it, though he expected at any instant the beast to crash through the flimsy barrier.

A last reverberating snort and the claws grated once more, swiftly, as the monster ran off – called perhaps by some other scent or spoor.

He let out a long hard breath, sagging in exhaustion and relief. He reached clumsily for the door. Ancient gods! I am definitely too old for this.

*   *   *

Tattersail passed through the streets of the high manor district then descended into the thick fogs that cloaked Malaz City proper. The haze was so dense she had to raise her Thyr Warren to its highest extent just to penetrate the coils and hanging curtains.

In the apparent quiet she began to wonder what she was doing here and just what it was she hoped to accomplish. Clearly, some sort of manifestation was taking shape in the city, but what? And what could she hope to contribute?

Perhaps it was one of the legendary Shadow Moons, though she understood such arrivals were always known long beforehand. Agayla spoke of them as highly regulated and predictable, like eclipses.

She turned a corner in the merchants’ quarter and came face to face with several men loading goods into a wagon drawn up before an open shop-front. She stared and they froze, arms full of bolts of cloth, baskets and kegs.

One tossed his armload into the wagon and turned to his fellows. ‘Well, well, mates. Look what we have here.’

‘What are you doing…’ she breathed in complete disbelief.

The one who had spoken hiked up his trousers and gestured to her, grinning. ‘Some sort of social affair, is it?’

Looking down, she realized how absurd she must appear wandering the streets in a full evening gown, and that tattered and torn. Then she blinked, frowning – what she looked like was completely irrelevant! ‘Run, now,’ she told them.

They chuckled together, two circling behind her. ‘First give us a kiss, lass,’ the spokesman urged. ‘Just a kiss, Miss High-and-mighty…’

The two horses at the wagon nickered then and reared in alarm, their sides quivering. The fellow glanced at them, scowling. ‘See what’s spooked the damned horses, Gravin.’

One of the men crossed to the horses, but before he could grasp the throat-latch of the nearest the animals reared again, chuffing in open terror, and bolted down the street. Kegs and crates crashed to the cobbles from the open rear as the wagon clattered into the mist.

Their leader looked to the clouds. ‘Oh, for the love of Oponn!’ He waved his fellows away. ‘Well? Go get it, dammit!’

They jogged off, leaving her alone with two; the leader and one other. They moved towards her and she retreated, coming up against a cold stone wall. Her Warren sizzled in her hands, yet she found she could do nothing; she realized that she’d never before tried to use it face to face against another human being.

‘Don’t make me hurt you…’ she breathed, her voice tight with fear.

They laughed – either in ignorance of her powers, or lacking true insight into her character.

‘Missy,’ said the leader, all hungry smile, hands reaching, ‘you ain’t gonna hurt—’