“We’re not joining you.” Dhamon swung around and raced toward the bank, feet slapping loudly on the planks. “Ragh!” he shouted. “Fiona!”
The draconian and female Knight looked up, then both turned in the other direction, facing the town, their attention was caught by the throng of people suddenly materializing, the lord mayor and his assistant in the lead.
“By the memory of the Dark Queen!” Dhamon cursed.
He vaulted from the dock and onto the sand just as the press of townsfolk swarmed around his two companions. The Knight was tall, towering over some of the townspeople, but in a few moments Dhamon couldn’t see her head. They’d managed to overwhelm her by their sheer numbers.
The draconian resisted, pulling away from people and roughly tossing them to the ground. Dhamon reached the crowd. He was loath to draw a knife, as he’d seen not a single weapon since he’d arrived.
“Damn me for bringing us here!” he swore, as he forced his way into the mass and found Fiona unconscious and in the arms of the lord mayor’s assistant. She’d obviously put up a fight, as the two nearest townsfolk were sporting broken lips and noses, but even she couldn’t stand up to their numbers.
They’d hurt her. Blood ran from a high cut on her arm, soaking the sleeve of her new shirt. The once-friendly townsfolk had become a mob, and he felt the hammering of their fists on his back.
“You must stay!” someone called to him. “You must teach us.”
He shrugged off the blows and grabbed Fiona from the hobgoblin, who started to claw at him in protest. Cradling her to his chest with one arm, he dropped his free hand and tugged loose his knife.
“Get back!” Dhamon shouted, swinging the knife. “All of you mad people, get…”
The mob swelled in number and pressed closer, and the hobgoblin dropped to a crouch and sank its teeth into Dhamon’s side. Dhamon shifted his grip on the handle and drove the blade down but only managed to nick the hobgoblin’s shoulder. He raised the weapon again but found no room to maneuver now. The air was hot from the crush of bodies, filled with sweat and blood and the buzzing of voices.
From somewhere, Dhamon heard the draconian calling to him.
There seemed at least fifty or sixty people. Perhaps the entire town had turned out. Dhamon noticed the portly inn owner who’d fed them so pleasantly just this morning, the seamstress who had clothed them, the healer who had nursed Fiona’s wounds. This was the only one who seemed to be holding back.
He finally spotted Ragh, feverishly clawing at people. Dhamon didn’t want to kill any of these unarmed people, but he wasn’t about to let them capture and imprison him either. He certainly wasn’t about to stay in this damnable town of nameless faces.
Fists pounding against his back, booted feet kicking at his legs, he wormed an arm free and thrust the knife forward and down, into the stomach of the lord mayor’s assistant. “I said everyone get back!” The hobgoblin fell to his knees. Dhamon tugged the knife free and stabbed now at a man with tired, sunken eyes. Hands fumbled against his, fingers pulling his fingers open. Someone grabbed his knife.
“Don’t kill him! He can’t teach us if you kill him!”
“Is the girl all right? Someone tell me if the girl’s all right!”
“Don’t use the knife! Don’t hurt them!”
“Let us go!” Dhamon shouted. He fell forward, struck across the back of his knees with a board.
Before he could regain his footing, he was pushed across Fiona. He felt the weight of bodies piling on him, and though his strength was formidable, it somehow wasn’t enough to fight all these people.
He heard Ragh snarl, heard the harsh breathing of those closest to him, heard a familiar voice.
“Dhamon Grimwulf!” the lord mayor shouted. “Stop fighting us! We don’t want to hurt you! We just want you to stay!”
Dhamon tried to reply, but his face was shoved against the sand, his chest crushing into Fiona. The smell of her blood and the other scents—sweat, perfume, fear—was overwhelming. He thought of Riki and his child, reached down deep inside him to summon all his strength for the child he desperately needed to see.
For a moment he felt hope, felt his arms pushing off, giving Fiona space and lifting the people on top of him. But even his muscles couldn’t sustain such tremendous weight. He collapsed on top of Fiona, the air rushing from his lungs.
When he woke it was night and his head was pounding terribly. Starlight spilled through a narrow, high window. He was alone in a cell. Fiona and Ragh were in a cell across from him. Fiona’s arm was bandaged, and there was more of the paste on her face and along her neck. She sat on her bundle of clothes, unmoving, but her eyes were dully open.
“How is he?” Dhamon asked her, indicating Ragh.
“Alive. Sleeping.”
Dhamon could see that Ragh’s chest was laced with cuts, his leg bandaged in two places. The draconian’s breath was ragged.
At first Dhamon was surprised that he’d been out so many hours. Checking his injuries, his fingers felt fresh scales beneath his clothes. His left leg was almost entirely covered now. Some had formed on his arms. He was slightly feverish and suspected he’d suffered another minor bout with the scale—the real reason he’d been out so long.
“A jail,” Dhamon said bitterly. “They threw us in the town jail.”
“Only to convince you to stay,” came a familiar and unwelcome voice. The sound of the lord mayor’s voice was followed by the scrape of flint and steel, as a torch was lit. The mayor carried the torch down the stunted hallway and stood between the two cells. “We want you to stay. You have to teach us things.”
Dhamon gripped the bars and tugged, testing them. With time, he thought he might be able pull them loose.
“You have names, Dhamon Grimwulf,” the lord mayor said. “We have none. No families. Few memories. We forget how to do things. We forget our friends. We need you to teach us.”
“Chaos wights,” Dhamon spat. “Damnable Chaos wights. It’s like an epidemic.”
The mayor cocked his head. “I would like to read, I think. I have several books. I expect you know how to read and can teach me. Maybe we’ll make you my new assistant.” He paused. “You killed the old one,” he said ruefully.
Dhamon rattled the bars angrily. He wanted the lord mayor to leave so he could begin to break the bars and slip out. “You can’t make us stay in this accursed town. None of you should stay, either. There’s undead here, remnants from the war in the Abyss. They’re called Chaos wights, and they’re robbing your memories.”
“You must be speaking of the shadow men,” the lord mayor said in a hushed voice.
“Yes, the shadow men. They’re Chaos wights.”
“Glowing eyes.”
“Yes,” Dhamon said. “Let us out of here and—”
“The shadow men will be coming here soon. They always come at night with the cold.” The Lord Mayor placed himself directly in front of Dhamon and held the torch close. “I will see about getting you some good dinner, Dhamon Grimwulf. Maybe while I’m gone the shadow men will come and visit.
They’ll convince you to stay in Bev’s Oar. They convince everyone, you know.”
“Probably by making people forget they’ve got somewhere better to be,” Ragh said, waking up and joining in. “Stealing their memories until there’s nothing left, drinking their intelligence like damn vampires.”
“The shadow men have never hurt anyone.” The lord mayor faced the draconian and spoke to Ragh now. “The only thing the shadow men will take are your names. They will convince you to stay in Bev’s Oar. Then starting in the morning, you will teach us about the world, and you will teach me how to read my books. Now, I will see about getting you some dinner.” He took the torch with him when he left, leaving the hallway and the cells to the starlight.