"I think we can do business without the display," he said in Arakite, chuckling a bit more.
"Business? What business would I have with you?" Tarrin demanded, quickly adjusting his Arakite to remove the majority of his bad accent.
"We know who you are," he said simply. "We know why you're here. I'm here to tell you to do your business and leave. There are people in this city that don't like you being here. When the circus leaves, we expect you to be with it. If you're not, well, then we won't be very nice."
"Who is we?"
"Call us the concerned citizens of Dala Yar Arak," he smirked.
"And who will throw me out? You? Five of you? Ten? Fifty? If I want to stay, there's not a damned thing you can do about it, human. Stay out of my way, and you won't be bothered."
"We may not be able to do much to you. But there are other factors you should consider. Like that sweet Selani face that paraded in with you. I'd hate to see it cut off."
That was the wrong thing to say. Putting his ears back, Tarrin's eyes exploded into the green aura that marked his anger, a greenish radiance that was pronounced in the darkness, and he immediately pounced on the man, claws leading. He drove the startled man to the stone floor of the roof, holding him down by the neck with one paw as the other rose up. "Take this back to your leader, dog!" he hissed in a brutal tone, then he deliberately drove his palm into the man's face with such force that it caused the man's head to explode, showering Tarrin with brains, bits of bone, and a spray of blood, and cracking the stone beneath where his head had once been.
Heaving with icy fury, he picked up the headless corpse and threw it off the roof, into a narrow alley. He was focused on his anger, his rage, and it threatened to overwhelm him in a way that he hadn't felt in a long time. He could feel it just under the surface of his mind, a mindless bloodlust that yearned to break free, to rampage and destroy as it had done under the Cathedral of Karas so long ago. The smell of the blood sprayed on him only intensified his frenzy, but the rational part of his mind managed to retain a tenuous hold on his rage. He turned that fury on the one thing that mattered to him more than going on a rampage, and that was finding the Book of Ages.
Any concept of a plan went out the window as Tarrin lept from the roof and rushed towards the compound, then vaulted over the fence. He attacked a small knot of guards and their two dogs mere steps inside the grounds, striking from the shadows, falling on them with a savage fury that took them completely by surprise. Tarrin killed the dogs first, then turned on the guards and killed them in a lightning fast explosion of claws, killing three of them before they even registered that they were under attack. One was smart enough to run, to try to get help, but Tarrin was on him seconds after killing nine men, driving a single claw into the back of his neck, severing the spine and making the body tumble lifelessly to the ground in midstride.
It wasn't enough. His protective instincts over his sister were fully exposed, completely aroused within him, and that gave his anger a fuel that wasn't about to run out any time soon. But the need to seek out and destroy abated with the killing of the guard unit, mellowing into a seething, clear-minded objective. Find whatever the medallion indicated was in the compound. That overrode his desire to hunt down the rest of the guards, to completely eradicate any challenge to his progress, to kill the men one by one and feel the twisted satisfaction that came from the act. He recovered enough of his sanity to hold up the medallion and have it point the way for him. He wouldn't hunt them down, but he wasn't about to hide. Anyone who got in his way was going to die. It was just that simple.
After a quick move into the large compound, he located the proper building. It was a large, oblong construction with large windows, but the windows were barred. It also had a large, ornate set of doors, bound in brass and with a large wolf or jackal crest etched upon them. They looked to be bolted from the inside.
It only took one hit. Tarrin struck one of the doors with his shoulder, using his inhuman strength to break whatever lock was keeping the door closed. He heard that bar snap in a squeal of protesting metal, and then he pushed open the door and looked inside. Beyond was a large receiving foyer, and four shocked guards holding pikes. One of them brandished his weapon towards Tarrin.
That sealed their fates.
Like a pouncing lion, Tarrin literally flew into the room with his bloody paw leading, ripping the throat out of the nearest guard with a blazing swipe of his paw, a swipe that sent flesh and blood flying in a wide arc as his paw came around. He grabbed the dead man's pike with his other and immediately brought it to bear against the second guard, smashing his own weapon out of Tarrin's direction of movement and letting his claws get to the man unhindered, shearing through his throat in a calculated slash of a single claw over his neck, a slash that opened the major artery and vein in the neck and caused blood to pump from the wound in a ghastly fashion. The dying man clutched at his throat and gurgled out the last of his breath as he sank to the stone. The other two men just started to react to the Were-cat's blindingly fast attack by the time he reached them, bringing the pike around and spinning into it, putting both paws on it to give it more force, then bringing it around his side and slamming it into the side of the nearer guard. The impact shattered the pike and sent the man flying, a ragged scream coming out of his mouth just before a fountain of blood replaced it. Before he landed on the carpeted foyer floor, Tarrin threw aside the broken handle of the pike and rose up over the last of the guards, who was paralyzed with terror, staring blankly into Tarrin's glowing green eyes. Tarrin showed no mercy, rending four finger-deep slashes into the man from his left shoulder to his right belly, running off his body as Tarrin's power drove his claws through leather, flesh, and bone like a sword through snow. He struck the man across the face with his other paw, ripping most of it away and sending the body tumbling aside in a bloody, limp heap.
He left the four dead men splayed all over the foyer, with blood and gore dripping from the tapestries on the walls, and pools of blood widening on the floor.
With a single-minded drive that caused him to ignore those who fled screaming from his path, Tarrin stalked up the hall as he followed the medallion's directing glow. Several manacled men and women saw him coming and wisely turned and ran the other way, or ducked into doorways and slammed them as quickly as the could. Tarrin didn't perceive them as a threat, so he left them alone. Only someone who stood between him and his goal would be killed. A few guards also saw him. Two moved to block him as the third ran the other way, screaming loudly to raise an alarm. Tarrin killed the two blockers with nearly contemptuous ease, parrying stabs from their pikes with the manacles on his wrists to let him get inside their weapons, then ripping the life out of them once he was within claw's reach. More and more slaves and servants fled from his inexorable advance up the hallway, and the next trio of guards he met took one look at his blood-spattered body and immediately gave room to get on the far side of a four-way intersection, raising weapons to prevent him from advancing. But Tarrin stopped in the intersection and looked at the medallion, and he saw that it was leading him to the left. So he turned left and passed the three guards over, leaving them nearly slackjawed in disbelief that he not only would not attack them, but turn his back to them and walk away. Backing out of the intersection had saved their lives, but one of them was more than willing to squander it. With a quick flurry of feet, the tallest of them levelled his pike and charged at the Were-cat's back, trying to kill him before he could turn around. But much to his shock, Tarrin not only was aware of the charge, he also simply smacked the pike's head aside with his tail, making it go wide of his back as the man charged headling into his killing embrace. The guard couldn't arrest his forward momentum in time to keep out of the Were-cat's long reach. The man staggered right into Tarrin's outreached paw, who killed him by driving a clawed finger into each of the man's eyes.