The Twilight City

by Gregory Mattix

  He advanced until he was even with her hiding spot.

  Nera exploded out of the shadows, left hand flicking two throwing knives at the dwarf even as she drew Lightslicer with the right. The dwarf immediately sensed her movement and turned, axe raised defensively. One knife deflected off the head of the axe while the other glanced off his pauldron. However, the thrown knives were a feint to distract him as she dove into a tumble, taking her past the dwarf’s thick legs. She lashed out with Lightslicer, aiming for the tendon at the back of his ankle. The keen blade sliced through his leather boot as if it was butter and bit into flesh, causing him to grunt in pain.

  The axe whistled down, shattering tiles and just missing Nera as she rolled past and regained her feet. She sprinted away as the dwarf cursed and grunted in pain.

  A quick glance over her shoulder revealed he was still in pursuit, albeit with a limp. Her strike evidently had failed to sever the tendon and disable the use of his leg. “That should slow him, at least,” she muttered to herself.

  Nera raced across the crest of the roof. She spotted another street ahead, the next rooftop at a level with hers, meaning the leap across would be even farther. She said a quick prayer to Sabyl that her leg would hold up.

  Time to go all in on this one.

  She sailed into the air, legs and arms still pumping to maintain her momentum. The gap was wider than she’d anticipated, and she fell hard against the eave, the edge slamming into her chest and momentarily knocking the wind out of her. A moment of panic struck as she started to fall, fingers slipping across the tiles. But then her fingertips latched onto the edge of a tile. She prayed it wouldn’t come loose as she hung there for a moment, trying to regain her breath. Her chest felt as if she had been struck with a warhammer.

  The tile held, and Nera was able to slowly pull herself up enough to swing one foot up over the edge. She rolled over onto the roof, gasping for breath, chest aching with each inhalation.

  The dwarf regarded her with murderous intensity from the opposite rooftop. He surprised Nera by backing up a few steps and rushing forward, launching himself into the air with his short, powerful legs.

  She scrambled away from the edge, eyes wide as time seemed to slow. No way he can make that jump.

  The dwarf sailed toward her, mouth open in a cry of rage, axe in hand. However, he was wounded and not able to get enough power behind his leap. He fell short, the axe clanging against the eave and flying out of his grasp to clatter to the street three stories below. His scarred hands fought for grip on the edge of the roof, and he managed to hold onto a tile at the edge by the fingertips of one hand.

  Nera crept forward, peering over the side. The dwarf looked down at the street below and then up at her. The rage faded from his eyes, and he seemed suddenly afraid, almost pleading as he gazed up at her.

  “I can’t go back,” Nera said simply. “I’m sorry.” She drove her heel against the tile he was clinging to, and it broke loose.

  The dwarf fell with a cry to the street below.

  Nera quickly turned away, wincing at the meaty thud. She tried to shrug off the guilt for causing his fall. A howl of pain followed after her as she disappeared into the night.

  ***

  Waresh cried out in pain as bone shattered. He fell heavily onto one side, rolling over and clutching his ankle. Neratiri had wounded his right ankle, and the fall had shattered the left one. He cursed profusely as he strove to master the pain.

  A quick glance revealed Heartsbane lying several paces away. Recovering the axe became more important than the pain of his wounds. Waresh painstakingly dragged himself toward the axe, needing it as a man dying of thirst in the desert needed water. As soon as his hand grasped the leather-wrapped haft, his pain receded. His thoughts clarified under the influence of Heartsbane, and one thought became clear. The plane-cursed bitch is gonna pay for this with her life.

  A pair of shutters creaked open on a house across the street, and a bleary-eyed man poked his head outside to see what the source of the noise was. “What in the Abyss is all the damned racket?”

  An angry glare from Waresh made the man hurriedly decide he had better things to concern himself with. The shutters banged shut as quickly as they had opened.

  Waresh turned the dial on his collar, and a portal ripped open in the alleyway, carving an arc out of the wall of a nearby building. Planting the haft of Heartsbane on the street, Waresh pulled himself to his feet, pain roaring through him. He used the axe like a crutch, trying to keep the weight off his shattered ankle. He hobbled to the portal and awkwardly tumbled through.

  He barely noticed the blast of cold from the void before he fell face-first onto the tiles inside the Special Judiciary building. Torches guttered weakly, but nobody was around at such a late hour. Waresh yelled for the night clerk on duty.

  Eventually, a clerk appeared, staring at Waresh in disapproval. “Where’s your retrieval?” the man asked, confused.

  “Get me a healer, fool,” Waresh growled. “Now.”

  The clerk saw pain and murder in Waresh’s eyes and swiftly went to summon a healer.

  Chapter 26

  Nera’s breath rasped in her throat, and her leg throbbed with a burning ache that sent sharp lances of pain up her back with every step. She could tell she was losing too much blood. The rag she had quickly tied around her wounded calf was soaked through, and she felt light-headed.

  Bastard dwarf cleaved deep into the muscle… Without magical healing, my thieving life could be over. Nera fought down the panic and paused to try to get her bearings.

  The shadows of the deep slums seemed to crowd in around her, and she realized she was in dangerous territory controlled by rival gangs. She had thought she knew where she was going but now wasn’t so sure. Somehow, she seemed to have gotten turned around in the slums, and at such a late hour, the only ones remaining out on the streets were those up to no good.

  “The Temple District should have been just ahead a few hundred paces,” she muttered to herself.

  Normally, she would have gone to her nearby guild house, but they couldn’t be trusted anymore. Someone had sold her out, as evidenced by the safe house having been compromised. She had no doubt they wouldn’t hesitate to stab her in the back again to fill their purse even fuller of coin, were she to show up on their stoop.

  “Someone will pay for their betrayal.”

  Chances were she would never get the opportunity to exact revenge on whoever had sold her out unless she got help. I’ve got to get to the Temple of Sabyl. Even if I could find Nihad’s, I’d never make it that far. She was so desperate that even the thought of limping back and having Endira tend to her wound no longer seemed that distasteful.

  The sudden awareness that she was being followed cut through her haze of pain and fatigue. A lifetime of living on the street had attuned her to such feelings, and they were not to be ignored. A moment later, the slight scuff of a boot on stone confirmed her suspicions.

  Nera moved into the shadows against the closest shanty. She risked a glance behind herself but stumbled on an uneven cobblestone and would have fallen, were it not for her keen reflexes. Her clumsy recovery drew a gasp as a severe stab of pain roared up her leg.

  Her glance had been enough to reveal three shadowy figures who had melted out of the darkness a short dagger’s throw away. Two were man sized, and the third towered over them by a considerable amount.

  “The fiendling looks to be drunk… nay, wounded,” one said. “Mmm… I can smell the blood from here.” A sinister smile was almost visible beneath the hood.

  “How do you know it’s a plane-cursed, Yvain?” someone asked in a deeper voice. “It’s darker than a shadow’s arsehole over there.”

  “I hail from the darkness, Knuckles, you fool. Besides, I got a touch o’ the sight. I can see that one plain as day. She’s a looker, too… if ya don’t mind some horns, that is. And I don’t.” The speaker’s eyes reflected light eerily.

  “You plane-cursed sti
ck together, eh?”

  Yvain chuckled. “One could say we are drawn to each other like fire and oil.” After a pause, he shook his head and added, “That means we don’t get along much, you dumb louts.”

  “The Magehunters be payin’ good money for plane-cursed females right now, word is,” the giant said, his voice a barely intelligible growl.

  “Aye. They didn’t say what state they gots to be in, though,” Knuckles said. “We could always have a bit o’ fun wit this one first.”

  Nera considered her chances and quickly realized they were looking much like shite. She could run but wouldn’t get far with her injury and blood loss. Besides, she didn’t recognize this particular street, and her pursuers were undoubtedly familiar with it. This wasn’t the type of neighborhood where anyone would open the door to a stranger in need in the middle of the night, either. She might be able to hide but wouldn’t be able to climb and suspected the thugs would find her in short order. If she attacked first, she might be able to take a couple of them down, but she was doubtful she could take all three quickly enough. Exhausted and in a foul mood, she decided a fighting chance was more appealing than more running or delaying the inevitable by hiding.

  Fight it is, then.

  “Sod off, you curs,” she growled. “I’ll stick my daggers through your ball sacks and pop them like Orlian scarabs.”

  “This one gots some fight in her! What you make o’ that, Nulrog?” Knuckles asked.

  The third man, a hulking brute who must be Nulrog, bellowed a laugh that sounded a lot like a canine bark. “I like that—we can drag this bitch into one of these ʼere buildings and split her apart—with me other spear.” The thug gestured at his crotch as Knuckles laughed. “I never had a cursed wench before. I bet they like to bite and claw like the bitches from the pack.”

  “Don’t underestimate this one,” Yvain warned. “You fools—” He choked off as Nera dropped her darkness spell on the three thugs.

  At the same time, she let loose with a barrage of throwing daggers. Yelps of pain and the sound of metal on metal reached her ears. One missed and clattered on the cobblestones down the street. “You arseholes run your damned traps too much,” she taunted with a bitter smile. Despite her disorientation and the pain of her wound, the adrenaline of a fight perked her up.

  Nera hobbled over and melted into the deeper shadows of the doorway of the nearest building. Perhaps I can bury Lightslicer in one of their backs.

  Curses and the ring of steel sounded from the darkness before it disappeared as suddenly as Nera had summoned it, leaving the three thugs looking around wide-eyed with steel bared.

  Balor’s balls… The one is a mage.

  “Nice try, wench,” Yvain said, obviously unharmed. He dropped the hood of his cloak to reveal himself as plane-cursed. Black horns twisting in tight spirals grew straight back from a ridged forehead. His skin was a red hue, and his eyes gleamed like silver coins. A snakelike tail twitched below his cloak. In one hand, he held a dagger. The fingers of his free hand worked some complicated gesture as he muttered arcane words.

  A globe of light spread from his hand and drifted lazily down the street. The brightness was painful to look at directly, and it quickly dispelled the shadows in the area, including the ones she was hiding in.

  “Now go get her, you arseholes,” Yvain snapped, pointing out Nera’s position unnecessarily.

  Knuckles, an ugly, bald human with a bushy beard and one missing ear, limped toward her, short sword raised. He was wounded in one thigh, where one of her knives had landed.

  Nulrog was revealed to be Canician—one of a race of savage doglike humanoids. The mongrel had stiff, yellowish fur and wore a rusty ring-mail shirt over his muscled frame. A wicked-looking spear taller than Nera was clutched in one clawed hand. He seemed to ignore the dagger lodged in the meat of his shoulder, which was leaking blood. The dogman loped toward her on long canine legs, tongue hanging from the side of his muzzle.

  Nera threw another knife, hoping to drop Yvain, the leader, and spook the other two. The blade would have struck him in the face, but it suddenly angled away, deflecting off some type of magical shield. She cursed and reached for Lightslicer.

  Yvain muttered another arcane command, and Nera found she couldn’t move. Her hand froze with fingertips on Lightslicer’s hilt. Her limbs went numb and unresponsive as if they no longer belonged to her. She tried to open her mouth to yell but couldn’t move her face other than her eyes.

  Nulrog reached her first. His mangy paw engulfed her upper arm, and he tossed her into the middle of the street with ease. Unable to move and stiff as a board, Nera landed hard on her back, skull smacking the cobblestone street. Streamers of darkness washed over her vision, and she nearly blacked out.

  A hand smacked her cheek, and her vision cleared to find Yvain leering down at her. “Are you the one making the Magehunters’ cocks so hard? You’ll bring some good clink, I’ll wager. Doubt they care what type of shape ye’re in, though.” His hand pawed roughly at her clothes as he searched her pockets. He relieved her of her coin purse and daggers and removed the rings on her horns, including Malek’s. He whistled as he examined Lightslicer. “Nice li’l blade ya got here. That’ll look good on my belt. You two, take her and be quick about yer business.”

  Knuckles’s rough hands pawed at her breasts before he grasped her beneath the armpits to drag her away. She gagged from Nulrog’s breath as he leaned over and sniffed her. The dogman stank as if he had devoured rotten meat recently.

  “Ye’re right, Yvain. This un is a looker.” Knuckles grunted, pulling her away toward an abandoned shack a few paces away. “I bet she’ll be nice and slick… Shame she can’t put up a fight anymore. Mayhaps ya could drop the spell? I like it when they got some fight in ʼem.”

  Panic gripped Nera, a cold fist in her guts. She couldn’t move a muscle, and these brutes were about to violate her. She was about to pray to Sabyl to at least grant her the mercy of passing out when against all hope, a figure strode into view behind Yvain.

  Nulrog sniffed the air, and his head whipped around. “Sod off!” he snarled when he saw the stranger. He raised his spear threateningly.

  The figure didn’t reply but continued toward them. As he came into the light, Nera saw he was human with a shaved pate, save for a patch of hair down the middle, and wearing simple rough-spun gray clothes with a crimson sash tied around his waist. He seemed unremarkable in appearance yet slightly familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

  “That is no way to treat a lady. Unhand her,” the man said in a firm voice.

  “There ain’t no lady here. You talkin’ ʼbout this demon whore?” Knuckles snarled then dropped Nera and stepped up beside Nulrog, his short sword raised. “It’s no concern of yours, so piss off!” Knuckles lunged, stabbing at the man’s throat with his short sword.

  The man shifted casually to one side, seemingly unconcerned that he was being attacked. Knuckles’s blade passed close beside his head, and the other man’s hand shot up and seized the thug’s wrist. He yanked Knuckles forward, dropping his shoulder and bringing it up into his opponent’s midsection. Knuckles went head over heels, smacking down hard on his back, the breath audibly whooshing out of him. The stranger twisted, and with a crack, Knuckles’ wrist snapped, sending the sword clattering free to the street. The thug screamed and clutched at the stranger’s iron grip. His other hand lashed out in a quick strike to the side of the thug’s head, and Knuckles went still.

  The stranger rose and turned back around just in time to face Nulrog’s attack. The Canician took a huge leap forward, spear stabbing down in a mighty blow that would’ve spitted the man had he remained there. As if his bones were liquid, he weaved inside the strike, and his fists shot out in rapid succession, drumming on the dogman’s chest. Nulrog stumbled back a couple steps, wheezing for breath. He was surprised to find his spear suddenly in the man’s possession.

  Nulrog snarled and bared his teeth. He lunged at his opponent, trying t
o claw and batter him. The butt of the spear whipped up and smacked Nulrog right between the eyes with a loud thump. Then it twirled around and smacked the Canician on first one ear, then the other. Nulrog let out a miserable squeal of pain and cowered back. A strike to the groin caused an even louder yelp, and Nulrog turned tail. He fled down a dark alley, cupping his bruised testicles. The man tossed the spear aside and continued his approach.

  He’s a monk, Nera realized after her surprise at his martial prowess wore off. Kick this whoreson’s arse so hard he’ll have toes for teeth.

  Yvain watched the exchange coolly and seemed unsurprised as his lackeys were defeated. He withdrew a hand crossbow hanging from his belt and fired smoothly at the monk.

  The monk’s hand shot out and caught the bolt, likely poisoned, in midair. He tossed it aside and waggled a finger at Yvain as if scolding him. Yvain released the crossbow to drop on its lanyard and raised his hands to cast another spell.

  Nera tried to call out a warning, but her tongue and mouth didn’t work. She needn’t have bothered.

  The monk suddenly surged forward with incredible speed, cloak billowing behind him, as if he himself were launched from a crossbow. His leg lashed out and connected a powerful kick to Yvain’s chest, launching the thug into the stone wall of a nearby building. Following a loud crunch, he slid bonelessly to the ground.

  “Nasty piece of work, that one.” The monk put his hands on his hips and frowned at the fallen plane-cursed.

  With Yvain’s incapacitation, Nera’s paralysis was broken. She sat up, massaging her concussed skull, and watched her savior curiously. She recognized him then. “Thank you for that. You were the one in the prison cell, were you not? Who are you? And how did you get out of prison?”

  The monk smiled and extended a hand to help her up. “Brother Cerador at your service. Apologies for the questions earlier, but I didn’t recognize you at first with the glamour you wore. As to your last question, the Weave required my presence elsewhere, so the prison could no longer hold me. Fortunate for you, I was right to come here.”