The half-elf stood facing him, already nocking another arrow. Ghaji was about to throw his axe at her, when her eyes went wide and she stiffened. She released her grip on her bow and it clattered to the deck, arrow undrawn and unreleased. The woman took a step toward Ghaji, her mouth working but no sound coming out. She pitched forward, and as she fell to the deck, Ghaji saw the hilt of a dagger protruding from between her shoulder blades.
Ghaji knew he had Diran to thank for saving him, but he had no time to spare for even a grateful wave. He heard a growl and turned just in time to meet the shifter’s charge. The man had assumed his more bestial aspect; his eyes were feral yellow, his teeth longer and sharper, fingers now hooked into deadly claws, and his body hair had grown wild and shaggy, more like wolf fur than human hair. Often the mere sight of such a transformation was enough to startle a shifter’s opponent, causing him or her to hesitate for one fateful second… and a second was all any shifter needed.
Ghaji had faced many shifters on the battlefields of the Last War, and he’d fought far more fearsome foes since joining up with Diran. Thus the half-orc didn’t hesitate as the shifter came lunging toward him. He didn’t have time to swing his axe, but he was able to bring it up in time for the shifter to slam face-first into the flat of the axe-head. The shifter staggered back, nose gushing blood.
“Leave now and I’ll forget I ever saw you,” Ghaji offered. “Stay and die.”
The shifter glared at Ghaji with his amber eyes and licked at the blood covering his upper lip.
“Big talk from a half-breed,” the shifter snarled.
Ghaji’s grip tightened on his axe. “Now that was the wrong thing to say.”
He stepped forward and swung his axe in a vicious arc at the shifter’s neck. The shifter leaned backward just in time to avoid having his throat sliced open. He countered with a swipe of his claws aimed at Ghaji’s face, but the half-orc brought his left arm up to block the blow. Ghaji had allowed the momentum of his failed axe swing to bring the weapon around, and now he brought the axe up over his head and slammed it down on the shifter’s. The sharp blade sliced through the shifter’s scalp, shattered the top of his skull, and bit into the soft pulpy mass within.
The shifter stopped fighting and stood looking at Ghaji, blinking several times in an expression of bewilderment, as if he couldn’t quite understand what had happened to him.
“Oh,” the shifter said, as if something profound had just occurred to him. Then his eyes rolled white and he collapsed to the deck, his ruined brain making a wet sucking sound as gravity drew it away from Ghaji’s blood-smeared axe-head.
Ghaji didn’t pause to savor his victory over the shifter. He turned to check on the tattooed man, and good thing, too, for the wounded thief was on his feet and moving toward Ghaji, his features twisted into a mask of rage, Diran’s dagger still embedded in his shoulder.
Ghaji waited for the man to get closer, and when he was near enough, the half-orc stepped aside from the railing. Unable to stop his approach, the tattooed man slammed into the railing, pitched over, and fell toward the water, bellowing his anger and frustration. His bellow didn’t last long, however, for it was cut off as soon as he plunged into the sea.
Still holding his axe, Ghaji stepped back to the railing and looked over. A series of ripples spread out from where the tattooed man had sunk. Ghaji watched, waiting for the man to swim back up to the surface, planning to offer him the same choice he’d given the shifter. Ghaji waited… and waited…
A fountain of bubbling froth broke the surface, and an instant later the foamy white turned crimson. The tattooed man’s head bobbed above the water, and his mouth opened wide to scream. Before any sound could come out, the maw of a large grayish-white shark much larger than the one Flotsam had caught rose up behind the man and snapped its jaws down on his head. The shark then disappeared beneath the water, taking the tattooed man with it and leaving behind nothing but a roiling mass of blood and seafoam.
Looks like the shark Flotsam caught wasn’t the only one plying the waters around Nowhere, Ghaji thought. He had a sudden thought and turned to look at the dead bodies of the shifter and the half-elf. The corpses needed to be disposed of, so why not a burial at sea? Maybe the big shark had a few hungry friends.
Ghaji started toward the bodies.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Interesting?”
Diran looked up from the large book spread open on the table before him. Makala stood on the other side, leaning forward, hands pressed to the smooth, polished surface of the table. She was wearing a low-cut white dress, and the way she was standing afforded Diran an excellent view. He tried not to look, especially because he suspected Makala wanted him to look, but he couldn’t help sneaking a quick glance. Makala smiled.
“It’s diverting enough,” Diran said, instantly regretting his choice of words. Ever since he’d passed his final test almost a year ago, Makala had taken to teasing him in ways that made him uncomfortable, and he didn’t want to make it any easier for her by providing straight lines like that.
For once Makala let the opportunity pass.
“What is it?”
“A history of the Lhazaar Principalities where I spent my early childhood. I suspect much of it’s hyperbole, especially the more recent sections devoted to the exploits of the explorer Erdis Cai, but…” Diran trailed off as Makala burst out laughing. He scowled. “What’s so amusing?”
“You,” she said, her tone half-affectionate, half-teasing. “You always were something of a bookworm, but you’ve been spending so much time in here lately that you’re starting to talk like one of these musty old tomes!”
Diran couldn’t help smiling. “I like it here in the library. It’s quiet and peaceful, and it provides an opportunity for me to gather my thoughts. It’s somewhat like meditation for me, I guess.” He shrugged. “Besides, you know Emon encourages us to spend as much of our spare time reading as possible.”
“I know. ‘There is no such thing as useless information, my darlings.’” She did a passable imitation of Emon’s voice, and though Diran had heard her do it before, he laughed just as he always did.
“Sometimes I think you’re more suited for the life of a scholar than that of an assassin,” Makala said, clearly teasing now.
Diran didn’t rise to her bait this time, for truth was, he sometimes thought the same thing himself.
The library was the second largest room in Emon Gorsedd’s manor home, the first being the room where the warlord’s charges trained in the deadly arts of assassination. Emon was a firm believer that a well-honed mind was an assassin’s most important weapon, so he collected books and scrolls on every subject conceivable, and he expected his disciples to master the knowledge contained in the written word just as he expected them to master their blade work.
The library’s walls were lined with bookshelves that reached all the way to the room’s high ceiling almost thirty feet overhead. Numerous ladders were stationed throughout the library to provide access to reading material stored on the higher shelves. Painted on the ceiling was a detailed mural of the great dragons that represented the three parts of the world: Siberys, the Dragon Above; Khyber, the Dragon Below; and Eberron, the Dragon Between. Polished mahogany tables with soft leather chairs were spread throughout the room, but while there usually were at least two or three others present reading and doing research, today Diran and Makala were the only ones. In the middle of the room was a round table with an intricate map of Khorvaire carved into its surface. Whenever an assassin’s mission took him or her far enough from the manor grounds, Emon would always brief them on their travel route using the map table. Though he’d passed his final test, Diran had never been assigned a mission that took him that far away from home, but perhaps one day soon…