A hand reached out from the alley between two buildings and caught her by the arm.
Arya tried to wrest out of the grasp, but her reflexes were too dulled by the cold. As it was, she inhaled the breath to scream, but a hand pressed itself over her mouth to stifle the sound. She tasted tanned deer hide.
"Wanderin' late at night, are ye, pretty wench?" a growling voice asked in a rough accent. "Not lookin' where ye be-Ah!" His words turned into a gasp of pain as she bit him through the leather glove. She managed to worm out of the loosened grip as he reeled, and brought her elbow back hard, catching him in the stomach. She whirled to face him, instinctively reaching for her sword-which wasn't there.
Arya turned right into a backhand slap, a blow that left her spinning and dazed. The only weapon she carried was a long dagger in her boot, but when she stooped, a knee caught her in the chin and sent her staggering back into the wall. The impact knocked whatever breath she'd been able to recover from her lungs and she sank to her knees.
Her assailant was on her in an instant, catching her by the shoulders. Before she could punch at him, he clutched her wrists with an iron grasp. "Not going to play nice?" His voice had changed, his accent shifting into something less rustic. He sounded familiar, but she couldn't recognize it through the gruffness and the pain.
"No' so intimidatin' with-outta sword, are ye, Sir Serving Wench?" The gruff, broken language was back. It might have sounded slurred, but Arya knew her attacker was not drunk. She was about to ponder the implications when another slap caught her face.
"Who said… I was a… knight…?" Arya managed through swelling lips, though she was painfully aware of the Silverymoon brooch that shone brightly through her open cloak. Blood trickled from her split lip.
"Count thyself fortunate ye harlots disgust me," he said. He held a dagger to her throat but then paused. "Still, I could reconsider, seeing thy face…" He ran a finger down her cheek, and a shiver ran down her spine.
Then a dark shape dropped behind the attacker, silently, with what seemed like wings billowing wide.
The man grunted as the newcomer threw him against the opposite wall. The dagger that had threatened Arya's life skittered into the shadows. The gruff attacker went for another knife, but a gleaming sword point appeared at his throat and the hand froze.
"Inadvisable," the savior rasped. The assailant cringed at his broken voice, and even Arya felt a chill when she heard it.
Arya's vision swam, but she heard the assailant chuckle.
"You not going to tell me to drop the knife?" he asked. "Just that my suit is 'inadvisable?'"
"Your choice," came the reply.
A knife clattered down. "So you're the one they call Walker," the assailant said. His voice was back to normal. It seemed familiar, somehow.
"Perhaps," her savior-Walker, she knew in her heart-replied. His manner was filled with a terrifying resolution.
"You don't seem all that impressive to me," the assailant said. "You fool us all from a distance with your cloak and your silence, but you don't impress me up close."
"Irrelevant," Walker replied. "Yours is the judgment of a coward in a mask."
Arya's vision was just clearing. She saw that Walker had not withdrawn his sword and the unnamed attacker was still standing at the end of the sharp steel. He didn't look cowed at all; rather, his stance was a challenge to Walker. The assailant wore a tattered black cloak and had his cowl pulled low. Even so, his mouth was just faintly visible stretching into a sneer.
"This isn't over, whoever ye be, Walker." He was feigning the drunken voice again and slipping away along the wall. "The People of the Black Blood will have your heart for this."
"I doubt it," Walker replied, though which assertion he doubted, he showed no sign. He kept his blade up until the hooded man ran out of the alley. Walker watched him go for a moment, sheathed the sword, and turned back toward the street.
"Wait!" Arya managed as she struggled to climb to her feet.
Startled, as though he had not noticed her, Walker turned to regard Arya. His collar was pulled up high and his face was half concealed, but Arya took careful note of his features-they were the only things she could focus upon. His pale skin and black cloak contrasted starkly in the moonlight. He was dark in dress and wild of hair, as though he were a demon come to Faerun. Arya, however, could only see the light of his eyes. At first, his presence had been terrifying, but she found that as she looked on him, she became less and less afraid. There was something about him, something that told her he was important, a key to the entire unfolding mystery.
And there was something she could see in his eyes-a call waiting to be answered, a terrible vengeance…
Then Walker's eyes vanished into shadow as he turned away. Arya tried to follow him, but her vision swam. He was gone.
Staggering, off-balance, and with her head splitting, Arya managed to limp back to the Whistling Stag, where she could hear the sounds of raucous laughter issuing from the windows. She ignored it as she pressed through the doors and made her way up to her room.
For Arya knew two things: that her business with the dark stranger was not finished for the night, and that she would need her blade.
Chapter 6
26 Tarsakh
Walker strode away from the alley, his mouth set in a frown. He did not have far to go-Quaervarr had perhaps five dozen buildings and only three main streets. Few would be out of their homes after nightfall, and none would spot him as he glided between shadows.
Not that he would have cared even had he been watched. He was thinking of the woman with the auburn hair.
He had come upon the struggle in the alley by coincidence as he stalked through Quaervarr, and any other day he might have passed by without interference. Why had he saved her? He had no idea who she was. He'd never seen before, but that was not surprising. Strangers often came through Quaervarr; he himself was a stranger, in a sense.
Had he acted out of a sense of justice? Walker scowled. Justice was antiquated and meaningless-he had only to think of the murder of his father, a devotee of Tyr, for evidence. Still, the choice had not felt random; it had not been whim. Had the sight of the woman sparked feelings in him, feelings long since buried? His pulse quickened.
Walker turned to the spirit of Tarm for guidance, but his father's face was impassive. Whatever answers Walker was going to discover would come from within, where he was empty.
Using techniques perfected over long years of practice, Walker put it as far as he could out of his mind. His memory of the auburn-haired woman remained vivid, and it burned, almost indignantly, from its place in his subconscious, but he paid it no attention. He focused his attention on the task at hand-Torlic, the warrior known in Quaervarr as the "Dancing Blade."
Walker's hand went to his arm, where an old stab wound throbbed.
Torlic's was a large townhouse, built in the early days of Quaervarr and expanded later. Over the last twenty years, Torlic-a razor-thin half-elf with a penchant for the rapier-had built himself a substantial base in the Quaervarr watch, thanks to Dharan Greyt. Torlic was first lieutenant to Unddreth, though not because of his personality or any friendship with the hulking captain of the Watch. Torlic was also known for his paranoia and regularly posted his underlings to guard his own house, rather than to patrol the streets.
There were no guards that night, though, Walker observed. It seemed unlike a man such as Torlic to be unprepared, so Walker was wary. Mithral sword in its scabbard, the ghostly warrior stalked toward the house on a roundabout path, through the shadows, just in case any guards were watching from behind the darkened windows.
Leaving the front entrance behind, Walker slid along the worn logs of the outer wall and searched for a back entrance.