Glass crunched beneath a pair of unwitting feet.
Kaltor awoke, but did not move, though his hands tightened around a pair of daggers. A peek through his skin vision revealed three men slipping into his tent through a freshly cut hole in the canvas. Even in the black-and-white vision, he could see the veins on their necks and arms bulging and black.
What in the Gods is that? he thought. They drew their weapons and crept toward each occupied bed.
Kaltor rolled over, keeping his back to the enemy, and released the Varadour energy in his body in four bursts. Short, then long, long, then short. Though they did not move, Honmour and Jensai paused in their deep breaths for a moment, awakening to the code Taneth had taught them for emergencies. Kaltor could sense minute discharges of Varadour power from each of them as they used their own skin vision.
The assassins with bulging veins did not pause in their plans. If they recognized the subtle code they gave no sign. Each man paired off to an occupied bed. The largest of them, whom Kaltor recognized as one of the mercenary leaders called Theldren, raised his sword with both hands over Kaltor’s head. All three men took a deep breath and plunged their weapons downward in perfect unison.
Exploding into a backward roll, Kaltor rolled from his right shoulder toward the mercenary’s blade, parrying its downward thrust with his left hand dagger. Even as his parry pushed the surprised attacker off balance, Kaltor’s right hand dagger dove firmly into his exposed neck. The man crumpled to the ground instantly. Jensai and Honmour finished off their attackers with equal ease.
"What happened to them?" Jensai whispered, rolling his attacker over with his spear to expose his black blood, bulging veins, and expression of pure hatred even as he lay dead. "I thought that wine of theirs was a cheap brand, but I didn’t think it could do this!"
"Questions later," Kaltor cut in. "We have to split up and raise the alarm. Honmour, go wake Melshek. Jensai, make sure the bandit princess is still alive. I’ll wake my parents."
"I don’t think they could sense us using our powers," Jensai said. "They totally did not sense us waking up. Use that to wake the Varadours."
"Agreed," Kaltor said, strapping on his extra throwing blades. "Move!"
They tore into the night, Varadour power blending the colors of their bodies with the moonlit, rocky paths for camouflage. Drawing on his skin vision as well, Kaltor used as much power as he could without revealing his true nature. A few other Varadours in the camp sensed his exertion and woke, drawing on their powers to peek into the night, curious.
Just a little more, he thought. That will be enough to wake Mom. Kaltor turned a corner and found three more vein-bulging attackers, pinning down a guard. One held his mouth shut while the others stabbed mercilessly.
Time to raise the alarm, he thought, screaming aloud as he dove on the first attacker. Both daggers rose and fell three times before his opponents could even react. By the time they lunged toward him, Kaltor’s first victim lay lifeless on the ground. For a brief moment, he froze, recognizing the serving girls.
You brought me dinner last night.
Their screams were shrill and piercing, and their daggers dripping from the guard’s blood. Their tainted veins surged and pulsed with each enhanced step as they lunged toward him.
They’re faster! he observed, dancing backward as they swung in toward his blurred frame. Throwing a dagger into the thigh of the woman on the right, Kaltor spun to his left, deflecting the other girl’s dagger arm and plunging his blade into her heart.
The final woman jerked the dagger free of her leg with an angry hiss and sprinted forward. Kaltor charged into her, surprise interrupting the rage in her eyes. He managed to catch hold of her weapon hand just as his shoulder smashed into her diaphragm. Lifting her upward, he rolled her across his shoulders, through the air, and twisted her arm fiercely as she landed.
Her arm snapped from the collision with the ground, air exploding from her lungs and her weapon clattering uselessly to the ground. In seconds, Kaltor had wrapped his legs around her waist, arms clinging tightly around her throat, cutting off her air supply. She arched backward uncomfortably, trying to reach him with her finger nails, only to claw uselessly against his leather armor.
"Talk fast," he advised. "Or I break your neck."
Without another word the girl threw back her head and unleashed a high pitched shriek so loud he thought his ear drums would burst. Similar shouts resonated throughout the camp, accompanied by the feelings of Varadours drawing on their powers. The excavation site was turning into a blood bath.
"I don’t have time for this," Kaltor grunted, ending her cry of alarm with a gut-wrenching snap. Got to get to Mom and Dad!
Varadour power and adrenaline surged through his system now. His enhanced senses brought the open fighting in the street to him in disturbing detail. His enhanced hearing honed in on the shrieks of alarm, snapping bones, and cries of the dying.
Sprinting through the crowd, Kaltor carefully watched the desperate melee around him. Each time one of the black-blooded people gave him an opening, he dove in, slicing as many hamstrings, sword arms, and throats as he could reach, but did not deviate from his course. He reached his parents’ tent just as both their broad-shouldered guards sank to the ground under five opponents.
A blast of blue Sight Seeker energy rocketed through the open tent door, sending one man rolling on the ground, clawing at illusionary foes. A bow snapped repeatedly from within the tent, sending feathered shafts hissing through the air with impressive frequency. Their attackers grabbed their fallen comrade, lifted his body as a human shield, and charged through the entrance.
Gereth and Krin screamed as all five enemies spilled into their tent, four still combat-capable. Kaltor dove in from behind, hamstringing the first two as he somersaulted past. They stumbled to the ground, feebly swinging their sword and mace toward his blurred body.
The last two attackers held their human shield in one arm, trying to reach around him with their spear and mace toward Gereth and Krin, their backs totally exposed.
How strong are you two? he thought. Ramming both daggers downward into their backs, Kaltor flipped around, facing the hamstrung attackers with his hands on his dagger hilts to support him.
The last two tried to turn toward him without dropping their human shield, but with a jerk of his dagger and a flash of Gereth’s, they were impaled and dropped to their knees. They kept trying to finish off their main targets, crawling desperately across the ground despite their gaping wounds and rapid blood loss.The two hamstrung attackers tried to rise and stumbled toward him, but, using both daggers for support, Kaltor fired fierce kicks into both men’s skulls.
"Hold them!" Gereth ordered, diving to the right side, Krin to the left. Sight Seeker energy tormented their minds and volleys of arrows pierced their flesh, until Kaltor finished off the last of his attackers with a final dagger slice to the throat.
"I recall telling you not to open the vault, Dad," Kaltor said dangerously as he wiped the gore from his daggers.
"What’s going on?" Gereth demanded. "What’s wrong with them?"
"Aside from the bad blood and homicidal tendencies?" Kaltor asked sarcastically, kicking one man over to better expose his black veins and oozing wounds.
"What’s—?" Krin gasped as she saw one corpse’s face. "It’s a Perversion!"
Kaltor recalled the legends from before the Crippling. Mere childhood stories repeated in order to scare children from wandering into the dark on their own. People touched by the Abyss itself to do its will, he thought, barely restraining the urge to vomit. This is what the feelings were warning me about. I started all this.
"We have to secure Melshek, Rivatha, and the bandit princess," Gereth said.
"Honmour and Jensai are on it," Kaltor said uneasily. "But there is rampant fighting in the streets. That’s where we’re needed right now."
"Mark them for me," Krin ordered. Kaltor and Gereth peeked carefully through the tent flap before ex
iting. Orange and red flames sputtered upward from many tents and buildings. Small groups were forming up and down the street, struggling for survival or blood.
Miners in little more than their underclothes fought desperately with whatever weapons were on hand in their tents. The black-blooded attackers were partially armored, and many swung two-handed axes and maces with the ease of a child swinging a tree branch.
The surrounding area glowed blue as Gereth surveyed the scene through a Sight Seeker’s eyes. "Center right," he said. "Their backs are to us."
"Got them," Krin said, drawing another arrow from one of her dual quivers. "Keep them off me," Her first arrow, guided by Varadour-enhanced strength and senses, sank into one large, black-blooded victim right above his chainmail shirt, impaling his throat. Her second shot was of equal lethality.
Familiar shrieks of alarm sounded and three small, black-blooded figures charged across the street. Seriously? Kaltor wondered. Even kids?
Without hesitation two ten-year old boys leapt six feet into the air while a girl dove for his ankles. The moonlight glistened eerily off the forks and kitchen knives in their hands. Sight Seeker energy rocketed into the air-borne children as Gereth selected his targets.
As the bottom child lunged toward Kaltor’s legs, a thin strip of drool fell from her mouth. With a grunt of disdain, the assassin dove into the child’s arms, trusting his leather armor to keep her little kitchen blades at bay.
He caught hold of her head in both hands. She tried to stab his chest, but her arms were too short. Her panicked strikes sank into the hardened leather armor of his forearms, digging through it with alarming speed. He hesitated a moment. I’ve never killed a child.
She continued to howl and claw at him, leaning forward in an attempt to even use her teeth. It was as if Haven itself were suspending her before him, rubbing his face into his own sins like one would a dog into its own urine. This is my fault, he thought numbly. This is because of me.
"Enough," he snarled, though his anger was directed more at himself than her. Holding her a safe distance with one arm, he drove his knee into the side of her head, blasting her into unconsciousness. With a sigh of regret he caught hold of her arm, pulled it up between his legs and twisted fiercely, breaking it at the elbow.
Through his Varadour vision he watched Gereth pummel the two boys with waves of blue energy from each hand. As he overwhelmed their minds, he walked up to their twitching bodies and slammed his mace into their faces, his expression cold.
They haven’t trained me to kill children, Kaltor thought, grabbing the girl’s legs and other arm, repeating the joint-breaking process. "Be thankful I left you alive," he whispered.
He stood back from the girl’s immobilized body and paused. Silence filled the camp. Black-blooded people fell to the ground without apparent cause. The miners approached their bodies cautiously, flipping them over.
It was the girl’s lack of breathing that caught his attention. He leaned down toward her and saw her veins, still and solid, like clay. He leaned over and put his fingers to her throat, trying to find a pulse. The blood in her arteries and veins had hardened into a thick, jelly-like substance, too thick for the heart to move.
That was quick, he thought, shakily. Way too easy. For a moment, he couldn’t pull his eyes from the dead child at his feet. The coagulated blood held her limbs frozen at their impossible, broken angles. She looked like some bizarre sculpture from a sadistic stone carver.
"What in the Great Abyss was that all about?" Krin asked, shaking the fatigue out of her fingers. Her eyes did not leave the bodies of the two boys lying next to her husband and even in the dark, her face was haunted with a green tinge, just on the point of vomiting.
Kaltor moved his gaze to the ground, trying not to look into the children’s dead eyes, unsure he could ignore the guilt within him if he did. He felt like screaming and screaming, never stopping. Yet he knew even if he could voice his remorse for a thousand years it would not make up for the deaths he’d caused this night.
"It must have happened during the night," Gereth said. "Everything was normal when we went to sleep."
"What happened in the vault?" Kaltor demanded. "Did anyone take anything?"
"Of course not!" Gereth answered. "We made it clear any stealing would result in the entire camp losing a portion of their share. Everything was recorded and left with a double guard at the entrance overnight."
"Wonder if they are still alive—" Krin said, pausing suddenly as she and Kaltor froze, eyes unfocused, sensing the energy use of one Varadour in particular. Short-short. Short-short. Short-Short. "Over by Melshek’s tent," Krin said. "Is that a message?"
"Honmour," Kaltor whispered. "Let’s go!"
They passed the healers’ tent along the way. Wounded gradually limped in, relief-soldiers scrabbling to meet all their needs, their powers overseen by what few Sight Seekers could be spared. Most were scrambling around the camp, shouting for survivors to take buckets and head for the river. Others ran straight to the burning tents and pulled them apart to prevent the flames from spreading further.
Throughout the camp Sight Seeker eyes illuminated the darkness like pin pricks of afternoon sky punching through an ocean of black clouds. Kaltor could sense Varadours moving from tent to tent. He heard them all calling the names of friends and loved ones, some with hope, others in mourning.
"Maybe you should stay with the healers," Krin suggested to her husband. "They need an experienced leader," Already a few arguments echoed across the street as two Sight Seekers argued over a patient’s fate.
"What about you?" Gereth asked.
"Other Peacebinders will be gathering at the church," she said simply. "They need a leader as well," She shouldered her bow, pulling out a blue sash and wrapping it around her forehead, marking her status among her followers. Instantly a few miners’ faces lit up with hope and headed in her direction.
"I need to talk to Melshek first," Gereth replied. "We have to figure out what started this. We can’t risk another attack while half our men are wounded," He snapped his fingers, calling a teenage boy over. He whispered something about the vault and the boy scampered off into the night.
"‘Half’?" Kaltor asked incredulously. "Have you even been counting?"
Gereth gulped, glancing back toward the healers’ camp. The wounded were already spilling out into the street, the tables already full. A few good men were already looting their own tents, gathering bed rolls for the wounded, while a few Varadours returned from the night with healing herbs in hand.
"If the rest of the camp is like this, three quarters of the survivors will need healing," Gereth said simply. "Maybe twenty percent of them are still in fighting condition. Even a bandit raid could be a serious problem now," A shout from Melshek’s tent pulled their attention away from the camp.
"Kaltor!" Honmour called. Emerging from a large number of people limping toward another healer’s tent, he struggled under the weight of a large cook. "I’m glad you’re okay," Black blood covered his arms and face, and he limped slightly as he walked.
"Same to you," Kaltor replied. "Did you get there in time?"
Honmour’s facial expression darkened. "I managed to save Rivatha," he said. "But Melshek wasn’t even there."
Krin rushed to Honmour’s side, Varadour energy filling her body as she summoned the strength to support the cook’s weight. "I got him," she said, joining the line of miners struggling toward another healer’s tent.
"What do you mean?" Gereth cut in.
"Rivatha was up half the night waiting for him," Honmour said. "It was all I could do to keep her from charging into that meat grinder to try and find him."
"Oh no," Gereth said, his face pale and his tone hollow. They all turned toward him.
"What is it?" Kaltor asked slowly.
"Melshek took something from the vault," Gereth admitted. "A necklace. He said it marked him as a king. He seemed very excited about it. He called it his share of the t
reasure."
Both Kaltor and Honmour lunged at Gereth, knocking his legs out from under him and pinning him to the ground. "What was your share?!" they both demanded, thinking the same thing.
"I hadn’t decided yet!" Gereth promised, squirming under their iron grip. "You know me, my son. I always think things through very carefully before I choose something so important! I was trying to understand if any of the items were Varadour weapons!"
A few passersby handed over their wounded to others, drawing their weapons and coming closer. "Is he mad as well?" one of them asked. "I can behead him for you."
"Let him go!" a woman called from within the crowd. Rivatha appeared, her eyes swollen from countless tears and her voice trembling with fatigue. "Enough people have died tonight. Look at his skin. He’s not sick!" Kaltor and Honmour looked at each other, sighed in relief, and helped Gereth to his feet.
"Alright, Rivatha," Kaltor said. "What happened to Melshek?"
"I wish I knew," she said humbly. "He got back last night from the vault. He was very excited. Said he’d found a treasure that could make him king. He called his mercenary friends to celebrate at the tavern. Some of my handmaids went to attend to them."
A chill ran down Kaltor’s spine and hovered ominously somewhere around his stomach. Pretty sure those were the women I killed outside our tent, he thought. Melshek’s mercenaries were the first to attack us. Is that where the trouble started?
The messenger boy burst through the crowd, hurrying to Gereth’s side. "The guards at the vault are fine," the boy reported. "They weren’t attacked at all in the night. They want to know if they’re better needed here."
Gereth shook his head. "Tell them what’s happened. Tell them something in the vault may have caused it and not to let anyone in there until I can examine it myself. Also, go find the Battleborn Jensai and have him find us. He’ll be with the thief woman we captured," The boy nodded and hurried away again.
"That makes no sense," Honmour replied. "If this were some kind of disease or weapon from the vault, the guards would have been the first to be hit."
"Unless an object from the vault triggered it," Kaltor said. "Let’s see what’s left of the tavern."
They worked their way toward the northern portion of camp. All around them, tents were collapsed or still smoldering from being set aflame.Wagons were overturned, their contents trampled into the dirt. What few actual tents still stood were covered in debris. Kaltor glanced toward the wooden buildings on the northern side of the camp. Broken glass, shattered wood, and the occasional black-blooded corpse littered the ground.
"That is downright unnatural," Honmour said as they reached the tavern. "Look at it!"
It was the lack of damage that made it stand out from its neighbors. Not even a splatter of black blood touched the walls or doorway. Kaltor’s insides took hold of that ominous feeling again, tied his intestines in knots, and sent them scurrying around his stomach a bit. "Not one window pane is broken, either," he observed, drawing both his daggers. "Let’s have a look."
Waving Honmour over, the two of them crept up to either side of the door. Gereth and Rivatha tried to follow, but the two assassins waved them away. Best leave the scouting to us, he thought. Rivatha is exhausted and I’m still not sure what to think of Dad just yet. He’s not dangerous, but he’s part of the reason I opened the vault in the first place. I don’t want him guarding my back. Kaltor pushed the door open with the toe of his foot while Honmour peeked around the corner, short sword in hand. He signaled that the room was empty.
Kaltor entered first, dual daggers clenched tightly in each fist, feeling light-headed. Small pools of crimson blood lay on tables and floor boards, contrasting oddly with the unbroken surroundings. They worked their way around the first table, which was covered in stains from the food and ale of the previous night. The chairs were unbroken but not pushed into the tables, as if the room itself were recovering from a wound.
They never had a chance to close up for the night, he observed. But whatever happened here wasn’t an all-out fight, and it was fairly recent. The blood pools are much fresher than the food stains, he estimated. They must have happened later on.
They both circled one table, with a perfectly circular blood pool in its center. There was no fighting here, Kaltor thought. Otherwise the blood would be everywhere. Aside from that, everything seems normal.
A few coals still clung to life in the fireplace, glowing ominously among the wood’s charred, black remains. They reached the end of the hall, where a counter separated the customers from the kitchen. Warmth still radiated off the stove. A few open pots exposed long over-cooked soups and meats. The same blood pools gathered here on the floor and counters, perfectly circular with just a touch of splattering, is if poured into place.
They left in a hurry, he decided. Without even pausing to tend to their food. But where did the blood come from? Did the Perversions really pour spoons full of blood on these tables? It was an eerie thought, but he could not restrain the feeling that he was missing something pivotal.
Honmour uttered a cat-like hiss, waving toward the hallway to their right connecting the common room to the back rooms. Then Kaltor caught the scent, too. Dried blood and burned flesh. What in the name of the Gods—he thought.
Their eyes moved along the floor, his heartbeat accelerating as his hands trembled. A path was literally clawed along the wooden panels in the floor and even along the walls. Thin trails of red and black blood led back along the hallway to the base of the stairs, along with small shining particles on the floor.
Those are torn finger nails, he realized as he fought against the urge to vomit, envisioning the scene before him as only an experienced tracker could. And a blood trail leading upstairs.
Liquid fell behind them, landing with an eerie drip. They both whirled around, weapons raised. The kitchen and tavern lay empty as before. Again the sound echoed, out of place in the silent scene like a single rain drop on a cloudless day. They crept forward, using their skin vision to examine their surroundings.
Then they saw it.
A small drop of blood fell from the ceiling, joining the pooling blood gathering on the first table. Another fell in the kitchen to join its comrades on the floor. Another onto the fire place, as if the building itself were crying blood.
Kaltor realized that what he’d thought were darker discolorations in the wood on the ceiling were pools so thickly saturated with blood that the liquid had actually soaked through the floorboards of the second story, dripping onto the remains of the first.
He could not have spoken if he’d wanted to, his voice busy trying to bury itself in his stomach, every part of his body wanting to flee from the gradually unfolding scene before him. But he could not turn his eyes away from it. What’s waiting for us up there? he thought. Do I even want to know?
They looked at each other, then back down the hallway, and gulped in shared, quivering determination. Slowly, they followed the trail of blood, torn hair, strips of fabric, and fingernails caught in the floor boards. Fearing a black-blooded Perversion at every side-door, they opened each room one at a time, listening intently for anything louder than a rat’s paw-step.
Most of the beds were still neatly folded, with a pack of someone’s equipment nearby, but no signs of an attack to explain the smell clogging up Kaltor’s nostrils. The occasional drip of blood behind them set their senses further on edge. Kaltor gripped his daggers so tightly he wondered if they would fuse permanently with his hands.
They reached the base of the stairs, where two candlesticks had been ripped from the walls. Their remains lay along the stairs in battered pieces next to an odd mixture of black and red blood, as if an artist were in the process of mixing the colors with a shattered brush. Numerous footprints muddled the tracks here, making any patterns difficult to discern.
Someone fought very desperately here, he thought. They glanced up the stairs, catching glimpses of torn flesh and hair from where the dragged bod
ies smacked against the steps as their captors dragged them along. The rails alongside the steps were torn from their wooden foundations, their broken remains covered in blood and even chunks of flesh.
People were beaten, then dragged up here very quickly, he surmised. It’s amazing anyone managed to grab those candlesticks at all. He knelt down next to the first stair, glancing at the floorboards. There was blood smeared along the edges, like someone had stomped on another’s fingers as they held onto the stair’s floorboards.
Honmour advanced first, crouching down in front of the candlesticks. With a gesture that said "clean person", he pointed to the red blood stains and torn hair on the edges of the objects, wooden fragments still evident from where they were ripped from the walls. Oh, Kaltor corrected himself. The Perversions used them against their victims.
The stairs led to another set of rooms, with the largest of the chambers at the far end, above the tavern’s kitchen and entrance. The trail of blood and torn wood lead straight into the large main room, with smaller trails from the adjoining quarters along the hallway running into the main one like streams joining a river. Again, Kaltor and Honmour worked their way along each room, in case of ambush.
Broken chairs, overturned beds, and an occasional blood-spattered wall met their eyes. The gruesome odor intensified. The scent grew so thick Kaltor wondered if it could possibly suffocate them from its intensity alone. The silence tore at his conscious mind. How could anything so violent leave so little sound in its wake?
They reached the final room, its door a few inches ajar. The handle was torn from the wood. Honmour pressed his sword tip against it and slowly pushed. Kaltor led the way in a stealthy crouch, daggers ready to deflect any surprise attacks. A wave of decay and gore assaulted their nostrils before their eyes could even register the scene.
"Stupid enhanced smell," he groaned aloud as they stumbled to their knees.
"By the Gods!" Honmour gasped. "Do you see this?!"
"Of course," Kaltor grunted. "I don’t think it’s over, either."
A large table covered in bloody pillows lay before them, raised a few extra inches into the air by a wooden box under each table leg. Eight bodies surrounded the table on four sides in pairs of two. Their hands and feet were bound in the fetal position, held up by spears impaling them and running into the floor. Their faces attested to the agony they had endured. Their foreheads were branded with some kind of marking.
For the first time in his life, Kaltor regretted his training at reading signs and tracks. Every scrape of blood on wood, each fleck of gore, told the story to his eyes again and again. He followed the bloody trail to each of the eight bodies, reading the blood spatter from their fingertips where they’d struggled against their captors, the largest one raising his spear over their heads.
Each Perversion had pivoted toward the table with each new victim. Some had even kneeled in subservience, worshiping their new master. Their movements had been hesitant, though, as if interrupted every so often, but they’d persistently turned back toward the table with every successfully caught victim.
Large chunks of human remains littered the walls, soaking the floor in blood. These tracks told their story, as well. Those who’d died before they could be speared were torn apart, as if by the Perversion’s frustrations, and then tossed aside. Some, however—a particularly burly arm or mailed fist—were nailed into the walls, like trophies. Not all of the remains were those of adults.
The bodies are arranged around the table, just like they were at the vault, Kaltor realized. Whatever did this is alive and repeating what happened there. This is no disease.
"I’ll check the back exit," Honmour said, hurrying from the room. "Whatever or whoever was lying on that table didn’t stay there."
He’s right, Kaltor realized. And none of these bodies are Melshek’s— he glanced at the remains littering the floor and the trophies nailed to the walls. I think.
"Go," he ordered.
As Honmour searched the back of the tavern, Kaltor left through the front of the building to face Gereth and Rivatha’s worried stares. Their eyes glowed blue as they examined him. "I’m fine," he said, sheathing his daggers. "Whoever was causing this moved on about an hour ago, judging by the blood."
"What?" Gereth asked. "‘Whoever’? It’s a person we’re after? Are you sure it’s not an illness of some kind?" Kaltor quick relayed the altar scene made to imitate the vault.
"No sign of Melshek or the amulet, then," the Sight Seeker muttered aloud, staring at the ground in thought.
"Well, there was," Kaltor admitted. He glanced Rivatha’s way and winced. "It was branded into the foreheads of the altar victims. I remember that symbol. I saw it in the vault yesterday."
Hurried footsteps crunched on the hard ground behind him, sprinting around the building and grinding to a halt before their small group. "The tracks are Melshek’s," Honmour reported grimly. "They run off to the east!"
Silence filled the street, interrupted only by the sound of the survivors in the distance. There was only one reason for going east. By the Gods! Kaltor thought. He’s going to do the same thing in Shaylis. There are tens of thousands of people there.
"Honmour," Kaltor said. "Get Jensai while I go get our gear."
"With pleasure," Honmour answered bitterly, disappearing into the night, drawing on his power in bursts to get Jensai’s attention. We have a new target to assassinate, Kaltor thought grimly. Our first one, and only the Gods know what he’s capable of.
Chapter 10
Decoy Page 10
