“At most,” answered Dah’mir, and the sound of his oil-smooth voice sent shudders along Geth’s spine. “By the way, you might not want to pick your best men to accompany us, captain. The journey can be dangerous-”
His words cut off sharply. “Lord?” asked Vennet. “What is it?”
Geth’s heart felt like it had stopped beating. The light from the mouth of the alley vanished as Dah’mir stepped back, his nostrils flared as if he smelled something bad.
For an instant, time seemed to stop as Geth and Dah’mir stared at each other, and Geth’s attention focused on a single detaiclass="underline" the blue-black Khyber dragonshard that had glittered on the chest of Dah’mir’s leather robes before was gone, shattered by Geth’s sword, its place marked by a wet stain and a crudely mended tear in the leather.
Then Dah’mir’s acid-green eyes flared. His lips peeled back, “You!”
A predator’s instincts might have been focused on hunting and fighting-but predators knew when to flee, too.
Geth thrust himself away from Dah’mir, twisting to his feet as he moved. “Run!” he roared at Ashi and Orshok. “Run!”
CHAPTER 3
Orshok needed no encouragement. He sprinted down the alley faster than Geth would have thought possible. Ashi, however, stood frozen for a moment, torn between flight and the desire to fight. Geth didn’t give her the chance to think about it-he just ran straight at her. The alley was too narrow for them to pass each other. “Go, Ashi!” he screamed as he charged at her. “Move!”
She spun around and ran. Geth put his head down and focused on moving his legs as fast as he could. With each pounding stride, he expected to hear the dragon’s deafening roar and to feel hot, acidic venom spatter against his back. Trapped in the alley, they were all three an easy target. He’d seen the dragon’s acid melt orcs and dolgrims alike on the battlefield at the Bonetree mound, flesh and bone dissolving into a hideous slop. Any time now, he thought to himself with mounting horror, any time now.
He heard Vennet shout for his crew, ordering them into pursuit. He heard a strange sharp whistle. He didn’t hear a dragon’s roar. He didn’t feel acid drench him.
He burst out of the end of the alley and onto a quiet laneway. Orshok grabbed his arm, whirling him to a stop. “Which way?” gasped the orc.
Geth twisted around, looking back down the alley. Vennet stood at the far end, his cutlass raised, waving to someone-probably his crew-back on the docks. Beyond him, Geth could see Dah’mir, still in human form, standing and glaring. The shifter gulped and leaped away. He looked both ways along the laneway, then thrust a hand in the direction that seemed to lead back to a busier part of the city. “This way!” he said. “Grandfather Rat, if we can get into a crowd before Vennet’s men are through the alley, we might lose them!”
“Men aren’t the only thing we need to worry about!” Ashi pointed upward.
Black herons were rising into the sky above.
“Rat!” Geth cursed again. Bonetree hunters had once used the birds to track Dandra from the air. With Dah’mir to command them, he didn’t doubt that they’d perform the same task for Vennet’s crew, guiding the sailors right to them. He clenched his teeth. “We still don’t want to be caught in the open! Come on!”
They’d almost made it out of the laneway and into the busier street at its end when shouts erupted behind them. Geth looked over his shoulder and saw a knot of sailors pouring out of the alley. “They’ve seen us!” he called to Ashi and Orshok-then they were all plunging into the crowd on the street.
For a panic-stricken moment, the shifter feared he had lost the druid and the hunter, only to find them right beside him. He struck out for the middle of the street, moving as quickly as he dared. Full out flight through the crowd would only draw attention to them, and getting through the milling throng quickly seemed unlikely at best. He looked behind them. The sailors were standing at the side of the street, looking around with a blank stare. Overhead, the herons spun in wide, lazy circles, as if still trying to pick out their targets. Geth drew a slow breath. Maybe they had a chance.
Vennet’s voice rang out above the noise of the street. “There! There they are!”
Geth spun back around. Vennet and fully half of his crew were ahead of them. The half-elf must have known a shortcut through the twisting alleys-and he and his crew didn’t need to worry about being stealthy. The sailors came hurtling through the crowd like stampeding cattle, ignoring the cries of the people they shoved aside.
The shifter twisted to look back the way they had come-and saw the other sailors closing, too, drawn by Vennet’s shouts.
A crooked sidestreet opened nearby. It was empty. “Down there!” he told Orshok and Ashi. He pushed them past the people who stood like confused cattle, staring at Vennet and his men, and down the street. He followed-but not before snatching a long bolt of colorful fabric away from a woman standing on the corner. Her shouts followed him around the first sharp bend in the street.
“Ashi!” he called. “Stop and help me! Orshok, run slow-you’re our bait!”
He saw the young orc swallow, but keep going. Ashi stopped and whirled around. Geth grabbed her and pulled her into the shelter of the bend. He thrust the free end of the bolt of fabric into her hands. “Hold tight to this.”
Shouts echoed along the street. The first group of Vennet’s men had come after them. Geth and Ashi pressed back. Geth drew a deep breath, reached inside himself-and shifted.
Instincts, reflexes, and animal features weren’t the only legacy to shifters from their lycanthropic ancestors. Although they couldn’t take the true beast forms of their ancestors, shifters could take on bestial aspects. Some could grow claws or fangs. Some could put on incredible speed or enhance their senses. Geth’s shifting ability wasn’t so flamboyant or deadly, but he had always thought it was even more useful.
As the shifting swept through him, his skin toughened. His hair bristled and seemed to grow thick. A sensation of invulnerability pounded in his veins.
When Vennet’s men came pounding around the bend in the alley, their eyes fixed on Orshok, Geth roared and leaped out behind them. Startled, the men froze for just an instant. That was long enough for Geth. He darted forward, jumping around the men, the bolt of fabric unraveling behind him in an unlikely banner. Ashi realized what he was doing and ran around the other way to meet him, drawing the noose of fabric tight. Vennet’s men found themselves abruptly clustered together, pinned by the colorful cloth before they could draw their blades. Geth and Ashi turned almost in unison and threw themselves against the trapped men, laying them down with a flurry of hard, fast punches and kicks.
One sailor managed to squirm free and pull out a knife as the fabric noose fell slack. He lunged at Geth. The shifter swatted his attack aside, but the knife still connected. The blade slashed his arm-and left no more than a score in his shifting-toughened skin. Geth growled and smashed his elbow across the sailor’s face. The knife might have done no lasting damage, but it still hurt.
The man dropped like a stone, the last to go down-and just in time. Vennet’s voice swept down the street. People were staring down from windows above. A short distance along the street, Orshok was waiting, hopping from one foot to the other, ready to run again. Geth let go of the fabric and grabbed Ashi. “Come on. Half a dozen down is only a start.”
Ashi’s eyes were bright as they sprinted after Orshok, whipping around another bend in the street. “It was too easy,” she hissed between her teeth. “They moved slow. Did you see their eyes?”
Geth scowled. “I wasn’t looking at their eyes!”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, though, he could see in his memory exactly what Ashi meant. The sailors’ reactions had been slow, almost as if they had been drinking. Their eyes had been focused, but also strangely distant-as if a part of each man’s mind had been under the control of someone else. Another growl escaped him. “Dah’mir’s influence!”