Whitlock breathed deeply, trying to expel the last bit of smoke and soot from his lungs and mouth. His shoulder ached from the heavy blow he'd suffered from the gnoll's flail, but he pushed that from his attention. "Melann!" he called into the ink, black night. Whitlock stumbled to where they'd put the horses. They were gone. He found no sign of Melann either. The dark night kept its secrets well hidden.
Whitlock saw a dark shape near or on the ground, farther into the darkness. "Melann?"
No answer. Whitlock ran back to the fire. His scuffle through it had scattered the wood, and the separated flames were dying quickly. He grabbed a flaming brand, its end unburned but painfully hot. Whitlock returned to where he'd seen the shape. It was a body. A gnoll. Further, the beast-man still lived, though the sounds of its breathing were heavy and thick, as though it had suffered a wound against its chest. Sure enough, a closer look revealed that its crude leather armor was stained with dark blood.
"Where is my sister?" Whitlock demanded. The creature turned over to face the warrior. Its large, brown eyes showed only incomprehension and pain. A snarl escaped its bristling, bloody snout.
Whitlock placed his booted foot over the creature's chest and pressed down. "Where… is… my… sister?" he said, each word forced through clenched, bile-coated teeth. The creature didn't reply.
Perhaps, he thought, Melann managed to run into the woods. Maybe when the gnolls appeared, she saw them coming and slipped away. It seemed too much to hope for, but Whitlock looked around him, wishing to see her come out of the darkness unscathed.
How was this gnoll injured? Whitlock looked down at it and saw that its wound might have been inflicted with a blunt object, like a club. Melann carried a small baton to use in self defense. She must have fought them. Perhaps she drove them off, as he had done, but then where was she?
His mind searched for an answer when, just a few feet off to the gnoll's side, Whitlock saw a bit of cloth lying on the ground. It was a small piece torn from Melann's traveling cloak.
"No!"
He brought his sword down on the neck of the dying gnoll.
Chapter Seven
Tianna's charm of longstepping proved to be as potent as she had claimed.
Once he activated the charm, Vheod was transported-not instantaneously, but with incredible speed-across the barren landscape. As he watched, trees, rivers, hills, mountains, and even miles of open space passed before his eyes so quickly he could scarcely recognize them as anything but colored blurs. Rather than feeling the wind whip across his body, Vheod felt instead that he stretched his body the entire distance, as though, just for a moment, he existed in his starting and ending points at the same time, as well as all the points in between.
The sensation ended, and Vheod dizzily lurched to keep his feet under him. Disoriented and reeling, he could tell that a city lay in the distance. Regaining his balance, his vision clearing, Vheod saw that the city was surrounded by a high wall, with a few buildings outside. Most of the outbuildings looked like animal pens or barns-perhaps a stockyard or something similar.
The process of traveling so quickly made it very difficult for him to get his bearings. It was as though a part of his mind was left behind when he activated the magical charm and still believed that he remained, or at least he should have remained, back where he started. The disorientation made even walking difficult at first, but he adapted and accommodated eventually.
This must be Tilverton, Vheod reasoned. Or at least he hoped it was. After taking a breath or two to recover and alleviate the pain in his aching head, he walked toward the wall and what appeared to be an open gate.
Tilverton bustled noisily. Herders brought their flocks in for market, and farmers hauled produce through the gate on carts and wagons. People moved into and out of the city watched only casually by guards. Vheod wondered if he, too, would be allowed entrance to the city, or if the guards would stop him for the same reasons the villagers had driven him out of their community only hours before.
Vheod ran his hands through his long hair, smoothing his red tresses and pulling them behind his head. He dusted off his dark brown pants and tattered violet cape. His long sword clattered in its sheath against his leg. He stopped suddenly. Something made him think of the Taint. He looked quickly but carefully over his exposed skin for it. It was nowhere he could find. That meant it had either moved to a spot under his clothing or armor, or it was somewhere he couldn't see it, like his face.
The thought that other people might be able to see the Taint while he couldn't gave Vheod great concern. Who knew what shape it might take without his knowledge? Not more than a hundred yards away from the city gate, he drew forth his sword. Taking his cloak with his other hand, he tried to polish a bit of the sword's blade as best he could hoping to shine it to a reflective sheen. His efforts were partially successful, and he gazed into the spot, angling the blade back and forth to look at different parts of his face and neck. Though it was far from a thorough search, he saw no trace of the tattoo anywhere on his face. With a sigh, he sheathed his sword and continued on to the gate.
Vheod passed through without the guards so much as raising an eyebrow. No one in the street paid him any particular attention, in fact.
From at least one point of view, a city is just a city, no matter where in this or any other world it might sit. It seemed to Vheod that only one city actually existed, and all the others were merely extensions of this metaphysical, ubiquitous city. Vheod looked about Tilverton and realized that at its heart it differed only slightly from any of the other cities he'd ever wandered through.
Vheod had spent most of his time in the Abyss in cities made of dark bricks and bone. He resided longest in Broken Reach, a vast catacomb of intrigue and betrayal ruled by a succubus named Red Shroud. There he worked for a guild of assassins called the Bloody Dagger. Those of the Dagger killed for money, usually hired by some minor tanar'ri noble to kill an opponent or a superior. Even in the lawless, amoral plane of the Abyss, however, Vheod had occasionally thought his profession was less than ethical. Normally he'd been able to push such thoughts from his conscience, glad to see each and every fiendish victim die by his hand. The teeming streets of Tilverton, and his almost instinctual ability to blend into the crowd and avoid the eyes of those who passed by him, brought back those thoughts. The city-the ubiquitous city-was a symbol of shame to him now. Vheod entered the town from the north and wandered through the streets of Tilverton for quite some time. A melancholy washed over him, and he walked through the streets in a fog. Shaking his head, he brought himself back to the task at hand. He found Tilverton now he needed to find someone whom Gyrison and Arach had described as being like him. Vheod needed information.
A city, as an entity, thrives with a life of its own, serving the needs of those who live in it, yet feeding off them as they move through its streets. A city always contained major arteries and paths through which its life flowed, but also held darker, less-frequented areas where few inhabitants and fewer outsiders visited. A city always held some sort of authority or organization, even if it hid its presence very well in the cacophony and mayhem that teemed within its walls-such was often the way of Abyssal cities. Even in the Abyss, however, cities held gathering places, like taverns, alehouses, or festhalls. Even in the Abyss, when one sought information, it was just such a gathering place that offered the best chance to obtain what one needed.