“We need to clear that lot away, or we’re never getting out of here,” Kalev reasoned.
The woman understood at once. She scrambled to her feet.
“Help!” she wailed at the top of her lungs. “Duke Arisor is attacked! Oh, help!”
Attacked. Not murdered. The guard will come check the study. Smart. Below, an officer barked orders. Half the patrol headed for the walls, the other half sprinted toward the main doors, leaving the space under the windows clear.
The woman wasted no more time. She leaped onto the sill. There came a loud ripping noise and Kalev suddenly found a mass of topaz fabric flying at his head.
He knocked the bulky missile aside. When he could see again, the window sill was empty.
The sound of running feet in the corridor was very loud.
Kalev swung himself onto the sill, grabbed the ivy, and climbed down until he could safely let himself drop to the ground. He landed in time to see a faint flash of jewels in the lamp light as the woman scaled the outer wall.
Kalev set off at a run. He seldom lost his way, even in the dark, and quickly found the side gate again. It was still open. He was through and out into the street in time to draw a look of startled fury from the woman-now clad in breeches, boots, and a tight, dark tunic-as she gazed down at him from the top of the wall.
Before he could say anything, two massive hands yanked him off his feet and slammed him against the wall.
When his vision cleared, Kalev found himself pinned against the wall an inch off the ground, staring into the brutish face of a battered warforged. Essentially a living suit of armor, the creature had one massive fist cocked back and ready to punch Kalev’s unprotected head.
“Sheroth!” The woman dropped lightly to the cobbles. “The target’s this way!”
The warforged-Sheroth-growled, let Kalev drop, and lumbered after the woman. Kalev hit the cobbles, staggering a moment before he found his footing.
He stared after the retreating pair. What was going on?
The only way to answer that was to follow the woman and the warforged. Choosing the thickest shadows, Kalev ran.
Fairhaven was a city of wide avenues and tall spires, famed for its beauty. Duke Arisor controlled the majority of the spice trade on the river and, contrary to convention, had built his main residence close to the docks to keep an eye on his ships and his warehouses. Outside his palace, the district was low, mean, and twisted. The alleys Kalev ran through had more in common with a dungeon than a Fairhaven thoroughfare, and all of his senses were on high alert for footpads as well as for his quarry. Fortunately, this particular warforged hadn’t been created for stealth, and Kalev, silent in his soft-soled boots, had no trouble following Sheroth’s thudding footfalls as the warforged stomped over cobbles and packed dirt.
Abruptly, the lumbering footsteps ceased. Kalev skidded to a halt at the corner of a sagging timber and brick warehouse. Dagger ready, he eased himself around the corner.
Someone whimpered. Kalev’s eyes darted left to see a pile of tattered darkness shifting on the other side of a darkened threshold. Kalev peered more closely and saw a slender girl staring back at him, tightly clutching a bundle of rags.
“Don’t go back there,” whispered the girl.
“Why?” Kalev stepped up to the threshold and crouched down in front of the girl. “What’s back there?”
The girl drew a huge breath.
“Idiot!” cried a familiar female voice.
Kalev was snatched from behind and once more tossed against the wall. This time his head connected with the filthy bricks and stars exploded across his vision. When his eyes cleared, he saw the woman from the duke’s study barrel past him and collide with the girl, knocking them both into the darkness of the warehouse.
“Don’t!” cried the girl as she groped backward one-handed, clutching her bundle more tightly.
Kalev found his feet. The warforged filled the narrow alley juncture. Inside the warehouse, the woman…
The woman blurred and changed. Then there were two girls, one in rags, one practically swimming in the tunic and trousers the woman had worn. The first girl stared, eyes bugging out.
Then, that ragamuffin also blurred, and also changed, becoming an orc with heavy arms and a wide, grinning mouth, but still with the bundle of rags clutched in one clawed hand.
The second girl shifted, and then the orc faced an elf, slim and golden haired.
“Don’t just stand there,” rumbled Sheroth from behind Kalev.
Kalev gaped at the warforged, who wore a broadsword on his back and a morningstar at his hip. “What about you?”
“Too big.” Sheroth looked down at him with glowing eyes. “Not too big to get you, though.”
Kalev swallowed. It had not been his night.
Inside the warehouse, the two… beings… shifted and shifted again, becoming human, monster, male, female, beautiful, hideous, by turns. Two things did not change-the bundle of rags held by the one, and the clothing of the other. Which gave Kalev his target, whom had now shrunk to become a bearded dwarf in full armor.
Kalev gritted his teeth, hefted his dagger, and charged.
Kalev hit the dwarf with his shoulder and they went down together, rolling and grappling. Despite what Kalev’s eyes told him, his hands felt no mail, or hair, just muscled flesh. Nails raked his face.
WHAM!
The building shuddered around them as Sheroth-a living battering ram-slammed against the doorway. Praying the warforged didn’t bring the aging building down on top of them, Kalev stabbed down at his opponent. The pseudo-dwarf howled as the dagger struck home, and he kicked straight into Kalev’s belly with both feet. The wind left Kalev in a rush and he catapulted backward. A second figure leaped over him, slim as a girl but with white skin and ivory hair tinged with lavender. The being wore the woman’s tunic, trousers, and jewels, and wrapped its bare hands around the other shapechanger’s throat. The shapechanger choked and growled, and reverted to a bundle of dark sinewy limbs and snarling hatred.
Wheezing hard, Kalev forced himself back into his fighting stance. The shapechangers spun round, grappling. Sheroth pounded the narrow doorway, making a deafening thunder over the fight. Kalev looked frantically for an opening as they rolled on the floor, snarling and screaming, and found none.
But he did spot the bundle of rags lying on the ground.
Kalev snatched up the bundle. It was heavy, and about the size of a loaf of bread. Gold gleamed under the tattered sacking.
“Who wants it?” Kalev held the bundle high.
The shapechangers froze and Kalev found himself facing two pairs of eyes, one murderous and dark, one furious and shining amethyst.
“Mine,” croaked the skulk. “Mine or I kill it!”
Kalev had no time to make an answer. The other combatant took advantage of the skulk’s inattention and gouged at its eyes with hooked fingers. The skulk bellowed and threw the other backward so hard she flew through the air and hit a pile of empty barrels with a cry.
“Vix!” Sheroth slammed its bulk once more against the doorframe. The whole building groaned. Wood and brick gave way with a splintering crash. Sheroth rocketed into the low-beamed space.
The skulk howled and leaped and Kalev found himself tumbling head over heels. He stabbed out, then felt his dagger catch and be ripped from his hand, followed by the bundle.
His arms were empty and the skulk was bounding for the much-enlarged doorway. Sheroth planted himself in its path, but it dived straight between the warforged’s massive legs. Kalev tried to scramble after it, but tumbled over one of the barrels dislodged by Vix’s impact and turned another undignified somersault to slam up against Sheroth’s shins.