The Sable City

by M. Edward McNally

  *

  Nesha-tari had no defensive spell raised when Horayachus’s flame strike crashed all around her, and she dropped to the ground as her clothes burst into flames. She lay quaking for a moment before opening her eyes. Her innate magical resistance had saved her, but it had also pushed her fully through the Change.

  Nesha-tari arose, the last ashy bits of clothing falling off her tawny fur, leaving it smoldering but unburned. She smelled the spoor trail lingering in the air where Horayachus had gone, and bounded after him on all fours. Others were still fighting in the yard, but they did not matter.

  Her claws tore gouges in the plank floor of a smoke-filled hall as Nesha-tari ran. She emerged hacking into a large inn room full of overturned furniture. Horayachus stood across the room with lips moving and grimacing face turned aloft, tattooed arms spread wide. Nesha-tari sprang forward but a sheet of flame erupted from the floor in front of her. She skidded to a halt, claws digging in.

  She paced along the flames that stood as a burning wall, blue eyes locked on Horayachus’s through them.

  “Why does Blue Akroya send you against me, woman?” Ayon’s priest shouted over the crackling flames. The fire was climbing all the walls now, spreading smoke through the air and vapor along the floor.

  “I did not ask,” Nesha-tari growled, though she doubted the man could understand her voice as it was the roar of a lioness.

  Horayachus resumed a low chanting and raised his arms. Nesha-tari crouched to run for she had no means at present of casting a spell of her own to interrupt or counter the Fire Priest’s. A beam fell from the ceiling athwart the wall of fire and she sprang quick as thought through the momentary gap.

  The High Priest of Ayon screamed and threw his arms forward. Nesha-tari swiped them away with enough force to shred the tattooed flesh to the bone and yank both out of their sockets. She turned her massive head and her jaws closed on Horayachus’s throat. The taste of the only thing that assuaged the Hunger filled her mouth.

  Nesha-tari Hrilamae, daughter of the Lamia, drank deeply.