They turned west on Cart Street; Geran glanced behind them, where he could see the bright orange-glowing smoke rising from the burning temple above the rooftops. Dark figures milled around a couple of hundred yards farther down the street. He couldn’t tell for certain from this distance, but it looked as if several parties of searchers were setting out to comb the streets. He quickened his pace, heading for Fish Street to cut over toward their waiting mounts and stay out of sight.
A muted clatter of steel came from the other direction, and four of the helmed gray warriors suddenly rounded the corner at a silent run, halberds clutched in their thick hands. Geran and Sarth froze in surprise; they’d been watching for pursuit from behind them, not ahead. For an instant Geran hoped that the creatures were simply hurrying to the scene of the fighting, but the gray monsters altered their course the instant they caught sight of the two fugitives, lowering their halberds to charge with the weapons’ deadly spear points.
“Take them!” the swordmage said to his friend. “We can’t let them follow us to the horses!” He drew his sword, and ran forward to meet the first of the helmed guardians. The creature drew back its thick arms and rammed the halberd point ahead in a powerful but clumsy thrust that might have driven the big weapon through the side of a house, but Geran simply stepped aside. In a single fluid motion he rolled in along the weapon haft, crouched, and drove his sword point up under the ribs on the thing’s right side. Fifteen inches of steel vanished into its gray flesh. He drew out his sword and spun away, searching for the next foe-but the hulking creature he’d just stabbed planted its lead foot and pivoted to bring the halberd around in a massive sweep that Geran avoided only by throwing himself back on his seat. He scrambled to his feet, ducked to his left, and lunged forward to cleave his long sword through its lower torso, just below the armor plate guarding the center of its body. The steel sword smacked into the creature’s flesh as if he’d hewed at a block of wet clay; when the blade passed through, it left a wide, thin-lipped cut, but only a few dark drops of ichor leaked from a wound that would have disemboweled any mortal foe. The creature raised its halberd for another strike, and this time Geran was obliged to scramble away from that attack as a second helmed guardian tried to skewer him from the side.
“They don’t bleed!” he cried in frustration. “It’s like hacking at mud!”
Sarth scorched another of the monsters with a jet of bright fire. Claylike flesh hardened under the heat and then broke away in fist-sized chunks as the construct advanced and swung its halberd at the tiefling. The sorcerer ducked and retreated. The construct paid no attention as huge slabs of its substance delaminated and fell to the snowy cobblestones, pressing after Sarth. “Nor do they burn very well,” the tiefling snarled. “In fact, they seem difficult to harm.”
We don’t have time to carve these things to pieces or bake them into immobility, Geran decided. They could not afford much delay in their escape. He traded one quick glance with Sarth, and said, “Run! We’ll lose them in the alleyways.”
Dancing away from the slow-footed guardians, Geran sprinted up Fish Street to the first convenient alley and darted in. Sarth followed a step behind him. He led the way as they darted through one yard after another, vaulting fences and darting down each twist and turn they could manage. They quickly outdistanced the hulking helmed guardians; the creatures were fast enough in a straight sprint, but they fared poorly in quick turns and narrow places. Geran worked his way north and west toward the storehouse where he’d left their mounts, and after a hundred yards or so emerged onto Keldon Way across from the towers of glassy green stone known as the Spires. Breathing heavily, he paused to scan the streets for signs of pursuit.
Sarth halted alongside him, panting. Then the tiefling snarled and spat a curse in a harsh language that Geran didn’t know. “Two more are coming from the right!”
“Damn the luck,” Geran said. He looked in the direction Sarth was staring, and saw the hulking creatures hurrying toward them. That was unfortunately the direction in which their waiting mounts were hidden; that pair might have been stationed up by the foot of the Burned Bridge, or perhaps near the gates of Daggergard. He glanced back to his left to see if there was someplace they might hide from the approaching guardians, only to see another pair of the monsters hurrying up from that direction. And now he could hear the clatter of the creatures they’d skirmished with drawing close through the alleyways behind them. That’s not ill luck, he realized with a sick sensation. That’s coordination.
“They know where we are,” he said to Sarth. “They’ve got some way to follow us!”
“And to communicate that knowledge to each other without speaking,” Sarth replied. “A subtle and powerful enchantment, but a very useful one.”
“Useful, indeed,” Geran muttered. “So how do we elude them?”
“That has now become problematic.”
Geran gave Sarth a black look. “Come on, we have to keep ahead of them. Perhaps if we open a wider lead we can circle back to our horses.” They hurried over another building or two and cut back into the alleyways east of Keldon Way, dodging through more of the narrow lanes and cluttered yards of the homes and workshops in Hulburg’s westerly districts. This part of the city was not heavily inhabited, and some of the rubble of the old city that had once stood on this site still lay in heaps between the buildings that had sprouted up here over the last few decades. As often as not Geran and Sarth slipped and scrambled through weed-grown mounds of old masonry as they tried to keep ahead of the helmed guardians. This time Geran worked his way as far east as the Middle Bridge and then turned south to cut all the way across town toward the waterfront, staying off the major streets; now it was not just the gray constructs they had to be wary of, but also the bands of armed Cinderfists who roamed the streets. Near the tradeyard of the Jannarsk Coster they finally paused to scan the nearby streets for any sign of the helmed constructs.
“That must have lost them,” Geran said as they caught their breath.
“Perhaps,” Sarth said. The tiefling glanced up at the sky. “Dawn is not far off now. We are losing our chance to reach our mounts tonight.”
Geran nodded agreement. He looked up to gauge the hour by the lightening of the sky, and he caught a glimpse of a small, bat-winged shape momentarily silhouetted in the gap between two buildings. He frowned and let himself look away, but marked the spot. “Sarth, do you see something on the roof of that countinghouse to my right? Something like a large bat? Try not to look right at it.”
The tiefling turned his head slightly and looked from under his brows. “There is something there …” he said in a low voice. “Ah, a homunculus. It is watching us. That would explain how we have been followed so easily, although I still wonder how the gray guardians know what it sees.”
“It must be Rhovann’s work. He is an expert in alchemical creatures.”
“Their bodies may be formed by alchemy, but the animating force is another matter. There is magic at work here that I am not familiar with.”