He really didn't know what to say, or how to say it.
Tarrin turned away from Allia in Renoit's tent and threw up his paws. She and Dolanna were grilling him about what had happened between him and the Empress, but he simply didn't have the answers to their questions. Tarrin was still visibly shaken by his meeting with the Empress. He was noticably pale, and his tail slashed behind him like a berzerker's sword. The fur on his arms was still standing straight up, and he was nervous, edgy, and extremely jumpy.
That scent. It still burned in his nose, hung inside it like an ooze, and he pawed at it ceaselessly to try to shake the memory of that scent loose. It was just ghastly. He never imagined anything could ever smell that way. It wasn't that the smell was overpoweringly putrid, it was the sense of absolute corruption that rested within it. Total evil. If evil had a smell, then that was it. That smell wouldn't fade from his nose, clung to his mind, and it made him feel like the woman was right behind him.
"She's not human," he declared bluntly. "She got close to me, and I could smell her. It was-" he shuddered. "It was like her scent was pure evil. It gives me the chills to just think about it. She reached out for me, and it was like an instant response. No animal would get within a longspan of her, Allia. That explains why I haven't seen very many birds around here."
"She seemed to imply that she had pets," Allia countered.
"She tried to, enslave me, sister," he bristled. "That's the only way I can explain it. She looked at me, and it was like her eyes were trying to bleed off my will. I could feel a part of her inside my mind, something like a Circle. If it wasn't for the fact that my mind instinctively rejects that kind of contact, she would have succeeded." He hugged himself a bit. He felt cold. "If she has pets, it's because she did that to them."
"Are you absolutely sure about this, Tarrin?" Dolanna asked intently. "You are talking about the Empress of Arak! She represents the paragon of Arakite purity! She was married to the Emperor for no reason other than to produce an heir!"
"She has red hair, Dolanna!" Tarrin shot back. "Doesn't that tell you that she's not Arakite?"
"She did not have red hair, Tarrin," Dolanna said, not a little confused. "Her hair was black."
"It was black, brother," Allia agreed.
"It was red," he said adamantly. "She had red hair and green eyes, just like-" he shivered again. "Just like Jesmind."
"This is not something over which I would usually disagree with you, dear one," Dolanna said, "but I know what I saw, and I felt no strange sensation from her."
"I did not like the look in her eyes, but I saw nothing unusual either, deshida."
"What color were her eyes, Allia?" Tarrin asked.
"Brown, but for a moment I thought that they looked a little different. I think it was because she had the sun in her eyes."
"That had nothing to do with the sun," Tarrin snorted.
"Tarrin, I understand your apprehension, but you should just let this go," Dolanna said. "She is the Empress. We are but visitors, nowhere near her notice. The odds are that you will never see her again. Why worry about who and what she is? It is none of our concern. Simply leave her be, and worry no more about it."
"I agree, my brother."
"On to another matter. Sarraya said that she was visited by a man in a black cloak last night, a man who knew who we were. Did you receive such a visitor?"
Tarrin put the Empress of Arak out of his mind for a moment. "I did," he replied. "He threatened to hurt Allia, so I killed him. It made me mad enough to forget sneaking around, too."
"What did he say?"
"He said that if we weren't with the circus when it left, then they'd hurt Allia. I didn't give him time to say anything else. I lost it right after I heard that."
"Sarraya said that she was told much the same thing, but the man who visited her threatened Dar. I will have to warn Camara Tal to be careful. And Allia, I will be going with you."
"Why? I can protect myself, Dolanna."
"You are but one," she replied calmly. "A second pair of eyes will give you twice the protection, and with people out there threatening us, I wish us to have additional protection. And I am sure that you do not think I will be dead weight," she said with a slight smile.
"Never that, Dolanna," Allia agreed with a nod. "What about Tarrin and Sarraya?"
"They can take care of themselves," Dolanna said, sitting down at the small table Renoit had in his tent. "Sarraya has her magic to protect her, and there is probably no living thing in Dala Yar Arak that can take Tarrin by surprise."
Tarrin left them without another word, just barely remembering to change back into a cat before he left Renoit's tent. No matter what Dolanna said, he couldn't forget about what he smelled. That woman was a terrifying, unknown force, a woman with strange powers, and she had tried to use them on him. That probably frightened him more than anything else. She had tried to enslave him, to turn him back into what he had killed countless people to prevent. That was the one thing he would never allow. He'd kill himself before he allowed himself to be a slave again. She had tried to take his very will prisoner, and because of that, he just couldn't forget.
He brooded about it the rest of the day, waiting for sunset, waiting for when he could go back out and do what he had come to the city to do. He couldn't let himself go off like that again. If people knew about him, and more importantly, if they were afraid he'd visit their homes, they'd take extra precautions that would slow Tarrin down in his mission. He couldn't afford to slow down. Dolanna was right, he had to go quietly and not raise any fuss. He had to be careful, because those men in the black cloaks were out there too, and they knew about him.
He wondered who they were. His guess was that they were part of Kravon's little family. They certainly knew enough about him, and Kravon's Black Network was the only group that would know so much. They had sent Jula, they had sent Jegojah, so they had to know a great deal about him and his companions. He wasn't afraid of them, but he was concerned for Dar and Allia. They didn't have Tarrin's attributes. Dar especially was vulnerable, because not only was he human, but he was also not even fully grown. Dar needed someone to protect him, and Tarrin just couldn't spare the time, so he was relieved and glad that Camara Tal would be with him. The Amazon was human, but she was a powerul priestess, and there weren't many who could best her in a swordfight.
Strange. Dar was only two years younger than him, but everything that had happened to him had aged him before his time, opened his eyes to the harsh reality of the world, matured him to the point where nothing that would have interested a young man had any meaning for him anymore. There just wasn't anything, for that matter. No interests, only a few friends, and living day after day after day with the fear and the anger that drove him, the fear of strangers and enslavement, and the anger of knowing he was too weak to be his own master. There was little joy left in the world for him, and what little there had been seemed to disappear when Faalken died. All he had was his mission, a mission that had cost the jovial Knight his life, a mission that he had vowed to accomplish.
But regret was for those who could afford to dream of another life. That was the way things were, and it was that simple. He couldn't afford to soften himself with wishful thinking. That would get him killed. After it was all over, then he would think of what was next in his life, but not until then. For now, he waited for sunset. He waited for the chance to go out and do something.
In the night, everything was much more clear.
Tarrin paused a moment in his searching to look up at the moons, perched in a squat on the corner of a flat-roofed three story dwelling. It was still beautiful. Dommammon was full, and Vala and Duva were half full, just rising, as Kava descended towards the horizon in a waning crescent. By tomorrow, Kava would be new, hidden from the night sky, as Vala and Duva bloomed towards their fullness. The Skybands, which were little more than a knife's edge in Dala Yar Arak, cut across the face of Dommammon's upper half, a tight band of scillinting color painted across the smooth white surface of the largest moon.
Things were much simpler in the night. Here, in this place, Tarrin was the predator. He was the king of this jungle, master of all he surveyed, a towering force against which nothing could stand. He accepted this role with eloquent generosity, passing over his lessers magnaminously and allowing them to go about their own business, so long as they didn't interfere in his. The forest of sand-colored buildings spread out before him all looked the same, but the smells and scents drifting on the breeze and the faint sounds from below told him everything that was going on around him. The king of this jungle was a wary, alert king, sensitive to the subtlest change in his environment that could be the approach of danger.
It was strange how happy it made him. Just squatting there and looking up at the moon, partaking in the simplest of pleasures, it calmed him as the magic of the moons worked their way into his Were-cat soul. Everything always seemed so confusing, until he stopped to look at the moons. And then, everything was clear. He knew what he was doing, he knew why he was there, and most importantly, he gained a sense of self that transcended human and Cat, old morals and feral impulses. Fear, distrust, worry, they all melted away in the light of the greatest moon, leaving him with a sense of serenity he rarely felt anywhere other than the embrace or touch of his sisters, Janette, or Miranda. He could almost see Miranda's cheeky face in the face of the white moon. The mink Wikuni was an Avatar, it turned out, blessed by the Wikuni goddess of the sea and navigation to make her a suitable companion to complement Keritanima's innate gifts. A little piece of the moons were inside her, and that was why she seemed to sing to him, the same way the moons did. Looking up at the moons made him feel a little closer to her, and in a way, closer to Keritanima.
He missed that annoying little brat desperately. He missed her smiles and her sharp tongue, he missed the way she always seemed to twist everything into a wry joke. He missed her conniving and chicanery, he even missed how her eyes would flare up when she was mad at him. He needed her, but she was thousands of leagues away, probably embroiled in about thirty seperate plots to bring her father down. He wanted to talk to her, but he was afraid that doing so would cause her a serious problem. His voice could give her away when she was skulking, and he'd never forgive himself if she got hurt because of it. She would have to contact him, and he was starting to get worried. Why wouldn't she call to him? She hadn't done so for nearly a month. With Faalken gone, knowing that they were so far away, out of his reach, it tore at him. If something happened to them, he wouldn't be there to protect them. He wanted all of them with him, where he could keep them safe, and not lose another friend in this mad quest.
Quest. There were three of them down there. Questors. Men that had taken up the search for the Firestaff on their own, dreaming of power and glory. These three were smart ones, they were. He'd been following them for a few blocks after hearing one of them mention the Book of Ages. He was eavesdropping, seeing if they knew where it was. They seemed harmless enough. One of them was a scholar from Telluria, one was a ship's captain, and the third was the scholar's hired bodyguard, a large Mahuut wearing a chain jack and carrying a glaive. He was nowhere near as large as Azakar, the only Mahuut Tarrin had ever seen, but he was impressively tall and very muscular. The Scholar had figured out that the Book of Ages probably had the location of the Firestaff in its pages, and he'd come to Dala Yar Arak after trying the Cathedral of Knowledge in Abrodar first. And from what Tarrin heard, if he didn't find it in the Imperial Library, he'd move on to Suld, to try the Tower Library.
Poor Phandebrass. Tarrin saw the Imperial Library earlier that night, for it was in his sector. Phandebrass had waived him off, because the mage was searching the library during the day. That building was huge. And it was completely full of books! There had to be millions of books in that vault of paper! And Phandebrass was running in there and tackling it day after day, trying to find the one thing everyone else was also trying to find. From what Tarrin overheard while dozing, it was nearly militant inside the Library. Tarrin's group wasn't the only one to realize that the Firestaff's history had to be written down somewhere. Most of them didn't know it was in the Book of Ages. They thought if they read through enough history books, they'd find the clues they needed to find the artifact. Tarrin had to admit, it was a very smart plan. And if someone wanted to read alot of books, the Imperial Library was just about the best place to go. According to Phandebrass' telling, men were fighting each other between bookshelves to read certain books first. There had even been a few murders inside the Library. Everyone going in now went in with bodyguards, and that made the place look more like an exercise yard than the largest collection of knowledge in the world.
He looked down at the men and turned his ears in their direction. "We really should head for bed, captain," Scholar said with a yawn. "It's going to be another hard day tomorrow."
"Are ye so sure ye'll find the thing in there?" the seaman asked, in a gravelly voice that many sailors seemed to acquire after years of plying the waves. Perhaps the salt air had a degrading effect on the vocal chords.
"Not the Firestaff itself, Dunleary," Scholar answered. "But someone had to put it wherever it is, and odds are either he or someone with him, or someone he spoke to, wrote it down. It's just a matter of finding the right book."
Tarrin was impressed. Scholar was a sharp thinker.
"I still say it's in the Western Frontier," the Mahuut said. "It's unexplored, and the forest spirits defend it a bit too strictly for them not to be hiding something."
"Half the world is unexpored, Tas," Scholar chuckled. "Do you have any idea how large our world is?"
"Ever think them fairy folk just want to keep people out of their homes?" the seaman, Dunleary, asked the Mahuut bluntly. "I'd not be takin' too kindly to an armed party setting camp in my back yard, that's for damn sure."
"I still think I'm right."
"We'll find out, Tas," Scholar said with a slight grin. "One way or another."
They didn't know where the book was, but Tarrin found Scholar to be a bit too clever. The man was good, and in his mind, the man was a direct threat to his mission, a competitor. In this jungle, there could be no competition. The prize was too great.
They never knew what hit them.
Tarrin killed the Mahuut bodyguard instantly, breaking his neck as he literally landed on top of him from the roof. A single swipe of his claws ripped four deep gouges through the ship captain's neck and upper chest, spraying blood over Tarrin and the stunned scholar as the man fell backwards. The scholar managed to open his mouth, as if to say something, before the Were-cat reached him, grabbing him by the neck and closing his fist, crushing the throat and major blood vessels, and shattering the vertebrae in his neck. He tossed the limp body aside casually, wiping at blood that had spattered his face. He felt nothing at killing the men. They were adversaries, enemies, people who were directly opposing Tarrin's mission. In this matter, there would be no quarter, no mercy, and there would be no prisoners. By killing this one man, the pack seeking the prize was lessened, and that increased Tarrin's own chances of success. He would find that book, be it by luck, searching, or eliminating absolutely everyone else that could stand in his way. It didn't matter.
The scholar wasn't the first competitor Tarrin had killed that night. He'd left no more than ten bodies in the streets behind him, all men who proclaimed themselves Questors in his hearing. All ten of them were immediately killed. Just the idea that one of them could beat him to the book was enough to justify it in his own mind. He wouldn't risk that Faalken's death would be in vain, just because he had passed up the chance to kill a rival when he had the chance.
Tarrin was the king of this jungle, and he enforced his rule in the practical, occasionally violent ways of the animal within him. There would be no challenge to his reign.
He climbed back up onto the roof and held out the medallion. He'd been led by it six times so far tonight, all of them failures. It was strange what the medallion considered an ancient artifact. One took him over an hour to find, a small gold coin buried in a basement, probably dropped when Dala Yar Arak was the size of Suld. It had been nearly two spans down, a lost relic of long ago, buried in the sands of time. He had that coin in his litle belt pouch. Phandebrass liked old things, so he'd let the doddering mage inspect it. Fortunately for him, the house had been empty, so his digging didn't wake anyone up. But he was sure they'd be shocked to find a deep hole in their basement the next time they went in there.
Northwest. The next target was northwest, and it wasn't that far away.
Along the way, Tarrin saw the one thing that could probably still move him. His search took him from the middle class neighborhood where he had been and into an area of poverty, where people wearing dirty, worn clothes milled about on the darkened streets. This section of the city had no lanterns. It wasn't the worst place he'd seen so far, though. The buildings were in bad disrepair, but there were some parts of the city that could only be called garbage dumps, where the houses were either falling down or had already fallen down. This area's buildings still stood, but most were a hair's bredth from collapse. The homeless and the predators of the night collected in areas like these, the homeless because the city's patrols wouldn't bother them here, and the predators for the same reason. Dala Yar Arak's police force was corrupt and selective as a group, protecting the rich at the expense of the poor. It wasn't the state of the city's politics that bothered him, it was seeing the children starve.
They were down there. He could see them, children who were either homeless or had nowhere to go, wearing dirty clothes and with dirt on their faces. And they looked so afraid. The young were easy targets for the city's predators, and they lived in a state of constant fear and anxiety. It amazed him that seeing humans suffer could move him so, but it did. He could look at the homeless men and women and not bat an eye, but the homeless, cast away child stirred him in ways he didn't think he could be stirred anymore. It made him so angry that things could come to this, that children were cast away like the night's garbage and nobody would help them. The thought of seeing Janette out there like that, or Jenna, or his unborn son, filled him with an irrational need to hit those responsible for it, and hit everyone else that wouldn't help them. He knew that some of them were out there because they chose to be, but nobody chose to live in misery. That they considered life on the streets better than living at home seemed just as bad.
But there were just too many. He couldn't help them all, and that made him keep his distance. If he helped one, he would feel guilty that he couldn't do the same for the others. It hurt to make that decision, but it was a decision of ruthless pragmatism. He had a mission to accomplish, and even if he stopped to help a few of them, it was time he couldn't afford to waste. There was no gain in it. It wasn't eliminating false leads, and it wasn't reducing the numbers of his competition. There was one little girl out there that he did know, that had saved his life, and he wasn't going to destroy her future. No matter how much it bothered him, he had to turn his back to what he was seeing.
The building that held his next target was an inn and tavern, a seedy place on the edge of the slum through which he had just travelled. That made Tarrin come up short. It wouldn't be a quiet place where he could sneak, but then again, getting in was a simple matter. He just needed some money. He'd go in as a human and quietly try to find out if the target was just some old pair of horns hanging on a wall, or something that he'd have to search to find.
That was simple enough. The rooftops weren't just his avenues, they were also used by a good many thieves. He'd seen them. Getting money was a process that took all of twenty minutes, tracking down one of these cat burglers, ambushing him, and taking whatever he wanted from the body. Scent allowed him to target one that had just come from a successful venture, letting him smell the gold, silver, and copper that made up the metals used for coins in the city. He caught one with a goodly amount of silver coins in his purse. It wasn't a fortune, but it had to be enough to buy a tankard of ale and maybe a chunk of bread or cheese.
Before going in, he cleaned the blood off of himself, then dropped into an alley and changed form. He felt strangely vulnerable in that shape, without his hyper-acute senses to warn him of impending danger, but that was the way things were going to be. Throwing his braid over his shoulder and stamping a bit in one of his boots to settle it, he brazenly walked out of the alley and into the inn's open door.
The interior was smoky, and smelled of people who didn't bathe regularly. There were no musicians, only a low rumble of many voices as the men and few women at the tables conversed with one another, as four servingmen wearing the collars of slaves moved between the tables. Quite a few eyes turned in his direction as he entered, brown Arakite eyes taking in this blond, braided Ungardt stranger. But Tarrin ignored them, moving through the tables in the middle of the common room's open floor to reach the bar that was against the back wall. They didn't know it, but Tarrin could understand their mutterings and hushed whispers as he passed. To a man, nearly all of them remarked that he wasn't wearing a collar or cuff. In Arakite law, that made him fair game. Though the law didn't officially condone it, any man that could manage to capture him could enslave him, especially when he was alone and in a bad part of town. They didn't have to say where their slaves came from, after all. Tarrin wasn't fearful of their ideas, mainly because they had no idea what they were going to try to capture. He nearly wanted them to try, just so he could vent some frustration on them.
Tarrin reached the bar, motioning for the barkeep to come over. He was a young-looking man, but his eyes marked him as older, tall and thin, wearing a simple ale-stained apron that left his shoulders and arms bare. His black hair was cut extremely short, and he had a thin scar running over an unassuming face that was neither handsome nor ugly. The kind of face a man would forget ten minutes after seeing it.
"Son, you obviously wandered into the wrong part of town," the man said in accented Sulasian. "I suggest you turn right around and leave. And once you get out the door, I think you'd better run."
"I can take care of myself, goodman," Tarrin replied in flawless Arakite, giving the man a slight, sly smile. "I'd like a flagon of decent ale."
"Kid, I'm telling you, this isn't a safe place."
"Just let me worry about that, barkeep," Tarrin assured him. "I promise to take it outside the inn, though. I can't bust up your establishment when you were nice enough to warn me."
The man gave him a look, then he laughed heartily. "Alright then, but I did warn you," he cautioned. "I have a good ale from Nyr. They put slices of sandtree fruit in it."
"I'll take it," he said, dropping a few of the silver coins down onto the bar.
After taking a few sips of the ale, which was actually quite good, Tarrin stared at his pottery tankard and let the attention drift away from him. Once he waited a little bit, he slipped the medallion out of his belt pouch and held it before him, reading its magical signals. It pointed behind the bar and up, and was nearly within his reach. He looked up, and to his surprise, found himself looking at a sheathed sword hanging behind the bar, a very large sword with a gentle curve. The blade wasn't that wide, judging from the scabbard, and it had an odd oval crosspiece that was much smaller than what he'd seen on most swords. He'd seen that design somewhere before. He scoured his memory, and an image of a painting hit him, a painting of a man with narrow eyes, wearing robes, with one of those swords in a silk sash.
That was it! It was one of those Eastern blades, swords that were reputed to be of the highest quality. This one was alot longer than the one in the painting. It was just a bit shorter than the length of a two-handed sword, five spans long, and its extended hilt made it clear that it was meant to be used with both hands. With the narrow blade and reduced length making the sword lighter than conventional weapons of the same type, that would give the two-handed wielder exceptional speed and control of the weapon. A strong man could wield it in one hand, if he was tall enough.
"Excuse me, barkeep, where did you get that?" Tarrin asked, pointing to the sword.
"That? My grandfather brought that back from Shu Lung," he replied. "It's been hanging up there, oh, about thirty years. It don't rust, so I just dust it from time to time."
"It's beautiful. I've never seen a sword like that before."
"Yeah, me either," he replied. "Just that one."
"Pardon my boldness, but may I see it? I won't unsheath it, I promise."
The man blinked, then he laughed. "Oh hells, why not?" he chuckled. "If you have the nerve to wander around alone, then I'll humor you." He came over and took it down from its place on the wall, then handed it to Tarrin, who put it down on the bar with the hilt facing him, hanging over the side. He looked at the sheath carefully while his other hand, under the table, inobtrusively touched the medallion to the hilt. But while looking at it, he realized that it was too light to be made of steel. When he held it, it felt like a heavy longsword, not a two-handed weapon. He picked it up again, and realized that that was indeed the case. "No wonder it doesn't rust," Tarrin noted.
"Why?"
"It's not made of steel," he replied, putting one hand on the hilt and the other on the scabbard, and in that position he felt the perfect balance of the blade. Taking the weight of the scabbard into account, he could sense the weapon's center, which was perfectly located to give the wielder the option to wield it with either one hand or two. One hand on the hilt would make the blade whistle like black death, and two would give the weapon extraordinary control. He drew just enough of the blade to look at the metal. It wasn't silvery, like steel was, this metal was black as pitch and strangely reflective, like onyx. Tapping a fingernail to it, he realized that it was metal. It just wasn't steel. "It's obviously a battle weapon," he surmised. "It has a blood groove, it's balanced properly, and it's not gaudy or jewelled like a ceremonial piece. It's meant to be used on people."
"I took it to an antique merchant," the barkeep shrugged. "He said it wasn't worth that much. That's why nobody ain't stole it yet. Say, kid, you know alot about swords."
"I'm Ungardt, barkeep," Tarrin smiled. "Have you ever heard of my people?"
The man laughed. "That mean you were born with a battle axe in your hands?"
"No, but one was put there not long after I was born," Tarrin grinned. "That's why I'm not afraid to walk around alone. To catch me, you have to catch me. If you know what I mean."
That made some of the eyes watching him flinch. Tarrin was speaking Arakite, flawless Arakite, and now they knew that if they wanted him, they were going to have to best him in a fight. Most slavers weren't interested in a target that could kill them. Tarrin had identified himself as Ungardt, a warrior race, so his statement was no idle boast.
"Well, you wouldn't be the only one walking around alone," the barkeep noted. "They got all them fool adventurers running around, looking for something. What did they call it? The staff of fire? Something like that. About all they're doing is driving down the price of slaves at the auction block."
"They're being enslaved?"
"The ones that don't know to stay in the merchant sectors of the city," the barkeep replied. "Ain't nobody allowed to catch foreigners in those places, because of the Festival of the Sun and all. It's when they leave the protected areas that they get in trouble."
He had eliminated another lead. The sword was impressive, but it wasn't the book. "My thanks, barkeep," Tarrin said, resettling the sheath and handing it back to him. The man put it back on the wall, and Tarrin finished the last of the sandtree ale. While he was drinking, he noticed a shift in things behind him. Things got a little quiet, and he could hear the shuffling movements of someone moving quickly. In the act of upending the mug, he turned the corner of his eye behind him, where he saw three indistinct figures holding something between them.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Tarrin warned after he set the mug down, in a reasonable tone. "I'm alot more trouble than I'm worth."
"If that's true, then you'd make one hell of a gladiator," a smug voice sneered from behind. Tarrin turned around, and found himself besieged by three men. Two held a rope between them, and the third had his sword readied.
"I'm only going to say this once," Tarrin said in a merciless tone that made the other men at the bar shrink back from him, "turn around and go back to your table now, and you may live to see tomorrow. You don't want to fight with me. You can't even imagine what I can do to you."
"I think you don't have enough teeth to back that up, kid," the tallest of the three smirked.
"Then let's take this outside," Tarrin said in a grim tone. "I promised the barkeep I wouldn't bust up his tavern. I'm a man of my word. I'm not going to kill you in his common room"
"The only way you're going out is trussed up, boy," the man said with an evil laugh. "You ain't got no weapon. Just give up now, and you won't get hurt."
Tarrin took one step away from the bar, closer to them, a move that made them all tense up in anticipation. "Why are humans such fools?" Tarrin asked with a slight sigh. That he said human made the barkeep's eyes widen. Tarrin released himself from his human form, his body lengthening as he returned to his Were-cat height, his tail and ears and paws returning to what was sweetly normal. His shapeshifting froze everyone in a moment of shock, and he used that to lash out with his arm, grabbing the tallest man by the neck and hauling him off his feet to look the Were-cat in the eye. "The next time someone hands you your life, you should take it," he hissed, then he crushed the man's neck in his grip. The body shuddered horribly, then went eerily limp. Tarrin threw it aside like a sack of meal, which was enough of a slap in the face to the other two men for them to shake off their momentary paralysis and turn to flee.
They managed two steps. Tarrin hit them from behind, driving one to the floor as his tail whipped around the ankles of the other. The one under his knee died soundlessly as a single claw sliced through the back of his neck, severing the spinal cord. The other tried to crawl away wildly, but a paw on the ankle arrested his motion. "No, no no no no no!" the man blubbered in terror as Tarrin dragged him back to where he could get his claws on him, a blubber that turned into a scream when the claws on his other paw drove into his side, giving him a deathgrip on the squirming man that could not be broken. The squealing cries were cut short when Tarrin's paw grabbed the man's head from behind, claws digging into his face, then he jerked his paw back with a snap, forcing the man's head further than it was designed to go. The body jumped, then sagged lifeless to the floor with the head laying at an unnatural angle, and four deep gashes dug into his face.
Tarrin stood up and looked at the stunned patrons of the inn. "Anyone else want to try to catch me?" Tarrin asked in a dangerous tone, pointing at them with a bloodstained claw. "No? Good." He reached into his belt pouch and pinched a couple of coins out between the tips of his claws, and lobbed them at the surprised barkeeper. "For the mess," he said politely, then he stalked towards the door. They melted away before him, and stayed as far from him as they could manage.
He gave it not another thought once he was outside. He vaulted up to the rooftops and was out of sight before the first man could get to the door. On top of the inn's roof, he took out the medallion and held it up. Maybe this time would be lucky. The medallion was pointing due west, a distance of about a longspan.
Soaring over the street, the Were-cat's profile was visible against the moon for just a second, and then he was gone. Leaving behind him a firestorm of rumor and gossip.
"By the Cloudspire, boy!" Camara Tal grunted irritably at Dar, putting a hand to her chest in a display of surprise, "would you stop doing that?"
Dar had literally appeared right in front of her. Intrigued by the Faerie's magical power to turn invisible, Dar had been experimenting with finding a way to do it with Sorcery. What he got as a result wasn't exactly true invisibility, but it was a very close substitute. He simply projected an Illusory image of whatever was behind him. It only worked against those who faced a single direction, but he could move the effect to hide himself from someone looking in a direction other than into the Illusion. The nature of the weave caused whatever was behind him in relation to the onlooker to appear in the Illusion, whether he could see it or not. The result was a wall of Illusory invisibility that, though it only worked in one direction, was still a very formidable magical effect. He was quite proud of his weave, and Dolanna had been impressed by the intricate nuances of the spell's weaving.
He blushed slightly. "Sorry," he apologized. "I thought you knew I was there."
"How do you think I'd know?" she asked waspishly as the scaly drake landed on the Arkisian's shoulder. "Did you find it?"
"No," he sighed. "It was an old mirror, not a book."
"Well, at least we ruled another one out," she told him evenly, unrolling her map. She marked off the location of the house the young man had just invaded with a curt stroke of a charcoal writing stick. For most of the night, they had crisscrossed large patches of ground, having to travel longspans to reach the next indicated object, and through it all the Amazon had bristled. She was a proud woman, proud and strong, and she took exception to the simple deception they were using to get around. Dar was Arkisian, which meant that he was a cousin to the Arakites. He looked exactly like an average Arakite, and he spoke the language, so it made perfect sense for him to pose as an Arakite, with Camara Tal pretending to be his slave. It had saved them a great deal of trouble, but Camara Tal stiffened every time Dar pretended to command her in front of people they met on the street. "That makes five. This would go faster if we didn't have to travel longspans from place to place. What insanity possessed these people to all live together like this?"
"They probably don't know anything different," Dar replied sagely. He held up the medallion, watching as it began to glow with a faint reddish light, and tugged him towards the south. "That's right, Turnkey, we're going that way," Dar told the green drake as it looked past the medallion.
The drake chirped lightly, settling more on his shoulder.
"I'm surprised," Camara Tal grunted. "I thought only the Selani could make them fawn like that."
"They like me," Dar smiled, scratching the drake under the chin fondly. "It looks like the next object is a ways off. Looks like we'll be marching some more," he sighed.
"This will be the last one," Camara Tal said as they started out. "It's well past midnight, and we'll need to get back so we can get some sleep. We don't want to walk into tomorrow's performance sleeping on our feet. That fat circus master will get mad at us."
"He's not that bad," he protested.
"You're not the one he tried to get into a couple of well placed thongs," she grunted.
"Pardon my asking, but why did that bother you?" he asked. "I remember what you said about why you dress the way you do, and you've never seemed all that shy to me. Did that costume bother you that much?"
"It bothered me that he didn't ask," she replied bluntly. "I still wouldn't have worn it, though. I'll not be paraded around like a love slave."
"I doubt anyone would have made that mistake," he told her. "They'd probably still dream, though."
Camara Tal chuckled. "You've been hanging around us too long, kid," she smiled at him. "You talk like a veteran sailor, not a young pup."
Dar smiled slightly. "I'm Arkisian, Camara Tal," he said. "Our society isn't quite as, inhibited, as the other Western kingdoms."
"You make me sound like an old maid, kid," she grinned. "Call me Camara. Calling me Camara Tal is the same as if you were saying 'Mistress Camara.' We only call someone by their family name if we don't know them well enough to drop it. I think you know me well enough by now."
"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence," he said with a faint blush.
"I'm surprised that you're not as innocent as some of them think you are," she noted with a wink. "All the girls in the circus would strip naked and dance in front of you if you gave them half a reason."
"I know," he replied simply. "I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, so I pretend to not know what they're trying to do. That way nobody gets hurt."
"Sounds like you've got a girl," she said. "That, or you have more self control than any teenage boy I've ever seen in my life."
"Not really," he replied with a deep blush. "Just someone I'd like to get to know better."
"Does this girl have a name?" she pressed, looking down at him.
"You don't know her, Camara Ta-uh, Camara. She's in the Tower. Her name is-"
"Tiella," she finished. "The Selani told me about her when she was telling me about what happened before I got here. She helped you out in the Tower."
"Yes, Tiella. She's a nice girl, but sometimes I worry about her. The Tower's not a very safe place right now."
"I remember them saying that too," she told him.
The pair followed the medallion's lead through the streets of Dala Yar Arak, Camara Tal keeping track of where they were as Dar held up the medallion. They continued to talk about little things as they moved, moved past rich nobles and merchants travelling in their litters or carriages, surrounded by their guards, or the trios or groups of off-duty mercenaries or soldiers, past thieves, pickpockets, harlots, and street people who milled about in the night, seeking customers, victims, or food. Just about every Arakite eye wandered over the Amazon's body, and all of them immediately looked to her neck or wrist, where a replica of a slave cuff was resting on her right wrist. More than one man seemed to size them up for what they were carrying, but the Amazon's intimidating size, and the fact that she was a slave that happened to be carrying a sword, dissuaded them. In their eyes, for Dar to trust a slave with a weapon when he carried none of his own was a powerful symbol of where her loyalties lay. The drake as well got a great deal of attention, and Turnkey probably gave the street predators another reason for them to leave the pair alone. For the Arkisian to have both an exotic armed slave and such a unique animal for a pet marked him as a young man of great status, and therefore nobody to be trifled with. Thieves were not fools, or at least the thieves who had lived for any amount of time.
They seemed to cross an invisible boundary, moving from a maintained street that was well lit into an area where there were only a few lanterns on the street, a street that had some missing cobblestones. The buildings had begun to show signs of decay. They were moving into a poor neighborhood, where the litters and carriages and well-dressed merchants and processions of drunken mercenaries gave way to more street-dwelling homeless and night predators. The streets began to take on a slightly ominous feel, a sense of foreboding and danger that hadn't existed in the better lit areas, a feeling that danger was just around the next corner. Dar had felt that many times during his travels with the group, and he had never gotten used to it. The others always seemed to be so fearless, it sometimes made him feel a bit out of place, nearly cowardly that he always felt terrified at the things that the others seemed to shrug off out of hand. They were all so much older than him, except for Tarrin, and Tarrin's condition gave him a maturity that Dar couldn't match for another fifty years.
Being turned Were had aged the young man, aged him dramatically. He was nothing like what he'd been when he'd first met him. Back then, he wasn't mean or vindictive. He was afraid of what he was and what it may cause, but he had been so eager to show friendship, so willing to accept Dar immediately for who and what he was. He'd been looking for friends when nobody wanted anything to do with him. It seemed sad to Dar that now, when he needed friends the most, he wouldn't accept them. What he was had eaten away at the amiable youthful personality that Dar remembered, and replaced it with a bitter shell covering a hard, unforgiving man. And he never smiled anymore, or laughed. That worried him more than anything else.
Turnkey suddenly began to hiss, and it beat its wings hard enough to muss Dar's short black hair.
"Something has it spooked," Camara Tal said as they stopped, putting a hand on the falcon-hilt sword that had once been Faalken's.
"I don't see anything," Dar said quietly as the drake took off from his shoulder, landing on the edge of a flat roof across the street.
The drake suddenly dove off the roof, the claws on its forepaws leading, and there was a sound of impact just outside the light of the street's lantern. There was a surprised barking sound from beyond the light, and then, to Dar's shock, there was a short blast of fire that emanated from the darkness. It illuminated the drake, flying away, but it also illuminated a trio of dog-like animals that were nearly the size of a small pony. They had fur of utter black, but there was a powerful red glow coming from their eyes, an aura that remained after the light of the fire faded with it.
Camara Tal swore sulfurously. "Hellhounds!" she snapped, immediately grabbing for the silver amulet around her neck. "Get behind me!" she ordered of her teenage companion.
"What are those things?" Dar asked nervously as he did what she told him to do.
"Demonspawn," she replied, then immediately began to chant. Her words were unintelligible, but within them was a power that could not be contained by the sound of a mortal's voice. The medallion in her hand suddenly erupted in a blaze of incandescent light, and it brought light to everything within sight of them. Dar looked in stunned awe as the three dog-like creatures, powerfully muscled and with black teeth, flinched away from the brilliant light, whining and yelping as if in pain, shying away from the pair. Camara Tal held the amulet up higher, and it blazed even more brilliantly when she literally began shouting her mystical words, and that seemed to be more than they could take. The three black-furred animals backed away from the priestess quickly, then turned and fled back down the street.
"What were those things, Camara? What's going on?" Dar asked fearfully.
"Hellhounds," she spat, lowering her amulet. "There's not going to be any more hunting tonight, kid. Not until we regroup."
"What are Hellhounds?"
"Demonspawn," she answered. "From the Worlds Below, what some call the Hells, the Abyss, or Hades. If they're here, that means there's a Demon somewhere in this city. Not even a Wizard can summon a Hellhound. Only a Demon can."
"A Demon? I thought Dolanna said that Wizards never summon Demons!"
"They don't unless they have a deathwish," Camara Tal said, grabbing his hand. "Let's talk about this when we get back to the circus. We're way too vulnerable out here. If those Hellhounds bring back reinforcements, we're dog food. I can repel Hellhounds, but my power is nowhere near enough to repel a Cambion or an Alu without help."
"But-"
"Shut up and run!" Camara Tal snapped. "Turnkey, come on, you scaly jackdaw! We're leaving!"
The sun was beginning to rise to the east. It had been a frustrating night for Tarrin, who sat on the corner of a roof looking down at the street below. Twenty hits on the medallion, and all of them turned up empty. Two days now he had searched, and nothing. He knew that it was going to take time, but he'd secretly been hoping that he'd get lucky right at the start. That kind of luck seemed to be as elusive as the book. Time seemed to be an enemy now, lining up in a formation to oppose him. How long had others had to look for the book before he got to Dala Yar Arak? How long had people like Kravon had to find the book before him?
Just that name made him snarl. Kravon. The man that had sent Jegojah, who had ordered Jula to capture him. Faalken was dead because of him, and he had turned feral because of him. He wanted to find that man, find him badly. And when he did, he would punish him for everything he had done. And it wouldn't be short. A lingering death with lots of screaming made Tarrin feel very warm inside for some reason. He wanted Kravon to suffer, to feel every bit of the pain and agony he'd experienced at the man's hands. But he was a faceless enemy, nothing more than a name who hid behind servants and hirelings.
Yawning, Tarrin stretched his arms languidly. He was tired. After so long on the ship, a few days of constant activity had proven to him that even Were-cats needed regular exercise. It felt good to be out and do something, but right now a quiet corner under someone's pallet was exactly what he wanted.
A young woman on the street below chanced to look up, and she met his eyes for a moment. To his surprise, she screamed hysterically and pointed at him, then turned and fled screaming "It's the monster!"
That surprised Tarrin. Certainly people would confuse him with a monster, given his appearance, but her reaction seemed to be extreme. And she called him the monster, like it was exactly him to whom she was referring. That didn't seem right. What had provoked that kind of a reaction? After all, he was way up on the roof. He wasn't threatening her, and yet she reacted as if he was about to rip her head off. And he'd never been here before. He was just crossing through the neighborhood, a neighborhood that looked to be just on the good side of poor, judging from the condition of the buildings.
Crossing to the other side of the roof, where its building faced an alley, Tarrin dropped down to the narrow street easily, avoiding a pile of broken crates stacked up beside what smelled like a butcher's shop. The alley reeked of excrement, rotted meat, and rats mixed with the smell of the wood, dirt, and stone. He absently shapeshifted into his human form, rubbing his hands absently as the nagging ache of holding the form settled into his bones. He was curious about this, and since he didn't have to perform, he had no curfew. If he had, he would have had to return to the circus hours ago. He wanted to find out what that girl was so scared about, and the best way to do that was to talk to some of the locals.
The neighborhood was a poor one, but it was obviously kept up by its inhabitants. The butcher shop was flanked by a ropemaker on one side, and a candlestick maker on the other. Across the street was what looked to be an inn or tavern. The street had some people on it, people dressed in plain, often homespun robes with poor dyes. The women wore veils to hide their lower faces, which was the custom in Yar Arak, sheer lace or very thin linen that let them breathe and allowed an opaque image of their features to show through them. They all looked at him strangely. With his long blond hair, his green eyes, and his height and strange clothing, he was obviously a stranger. And he wore no slave's collar or cuff, which made him even stranger.
The inn or tavern would be a good place to start. Such people loved to talk, and Tarrin had a few coins left to buy some conversation if needs be. He crossed the street and entered through the open door, and found himself looking into a cramped tavern with only four tables on the floor, surrounded by booths on the walls, and a plain bar against the right wall. There were still patrons in the establishment, but they were eating breakfast, not drinking ale. There were three serving women, all wearing slave's collars, bringing plates of food out from a door behind the bar to the waiting customers. A short woman wearing no veil stood behind the bar, being aided by a tall, burly man with a slave's cuff as she placed a small cask up on a rack. All the people in the tavern, slave, barkeep, and customer alike, stopped to stare at him when he stepped beyond the doorway. He realized that his outlander appearance was always going to cause that kind of a reaction, so he ignored them and went to the bar.
"What's served for breakfast, barkeeper?" he asked the woman in Arakite. She was middle aged, with graying black hair and more than a few wrinkles creased into her face, but she was still a rather handsome woman. Her age wasn't an anchor weighing her down, it was a distinguishing characteristic that made her seem wise.
"I think you're wandering around in the wrong place, stranger," the woman replied easily.
"They've already tried that, madam," he said calmly. "The survivors learned to leave me alone."
"By the looks of you, you're Ungardt. That means you can kill without weapons," she surmised.
He only smiled in reply.
"That's an impressive accent you have, stranger," she noted. "Not many can speak the true tongue like a native."
"I was taught by a native," he replied. "Now, what's for breakfast?"
"Mutton," she replied. "Three silver kangs if you're interested."
"Bring me a plate," he replied, sitting at a stool at the bar. "And a cup of water."
"Water? That's no way to wash down damned mutton!" one of the patrons said in a slightly slurred voice.
"Sounds like someone likes his mutton with something a bit stronger," Tarrin noted.
"Old Bray likes to wash everything down with something a bit stronger," the woman said with a slight smile. "What brings a stranger this deep into the city? Shouldn't you be in the trades district?"
"I'm a circus master," he replied. "I've been hearing stories of a strange monster running around this part of the city. I'm always one to find a good attraction for my troupe, so I came to see if it's just another myth."
"It ain't no myth, gold-hair," the man Bray said, standing up. "I done seen it! Tall as a Troll, it was, with wicked talons for fingers an' burning eyes that sucked a man's soul from his body!"
"That's a pretty broad description," Tarrin said. "What does it do?"
"It leaves mangled corpses laying around," the barkeep answered before Bray could respond. "Some people think it's some animal that got away from one of the circuses that came for the festival. There's been a couple of city guardsmen trying to track it down, but they haven't found it yet."
"You don't sound very worried."
"It doesn't come this far," she replied. "They see it the most about a longspan east of here. That seems to be where it's made its hunting grounds."
"I'm surprised," Tarrin said. "If there's a wild animal running loose in the city, why doesn't the city guard do something serious to trap it?"
"Because it's hiding out in a slum," she shrugged. "The only people it's killing are street rats and beggars. Nobody cares about them too much." She tapped the cask they had just placed. "When it kills someone important, they'll get serious about trapping it."
"It ain't no animal," Bray said grandly, standing up. "I seen it, I have!"
"Yah, Bray, just like you saw an Aeradalla last month!" another patron said with a raspy laugh.
"I seen that too!" Bray protested. Tarrin turned from the barkeeper and looked at the man. He was an older man, with a fringe of gray hair around his bald head. He was thin and short, bony, and it was obvious from the shaking of his gnarled hand that he was a man much in love with drink. He wore a dirty tunic that hung down to his knees, leaving dirty, bony legs bare down to where his old shoes started, and he had an old walking stick sitting by his table. "Flyin' over the city as happy as ye please! But the monster, she's a true demon, she is! Twisted by evil magic!"
"She?" Tarrin asked curiously.
"Ain't no doubt it's a she," he said with a wink. "I seen it, I have! Half woman, half monster, tall as a Troll! With a luscious woman's body, but with fur, and talons for fingers, and a tail. And eyes, glowing eyes that steals away men's souls!"
A human's body, but with fur. Talons for fingers, and a tail. And tall as a Troll. Tarrin's expression turned serious for a moment, because that sounded alot like him. No wonder that woman ran screaming. If she heard the same description, she could easily mistake him for this monster. "Fur? Fur everywhere?"
"Naw, just on her arms and legs."
"Big hands?"
Bray nodded.
"Long tail, but not very thick? Very tall? And were her eyes green?"
"Aye. If you seen it, why you asking what it looks like?"
A Were-cat? What was a Were-cat doing in Yar Arak? And why was it rampaging? Was this one of the Western Were-cats, or was it native to this region. If it was a Were-cat at all. It could be some other kind of exotic creature. Sphinxes were reputed to have the heads and torsos of humans, but the limbs of lions.
There was certainly one way to find out.
"A longspan south?" Tarrin asked. "If I just walk that way, will I get there?"
"Aye. Just go down Twostep Street, and you'll be right in the middle of it."
"I think you're a bit nuts if you want to try to find this thing alone, friend," the barkeep said. "It's killed quite a few people that I heard about."
"I can take care of myself," he said seriously, putting a few coins on the bar. "For the trouble of cooking a meal I'm not going to eat," he explained.
"You should think twice, stranger," Bray said. "That thing ain't human."
"Neither am I," he replied bluntly, turning from the barkeeper. "Thanks for the information."
Outside the tavern, he found Twostep Street just down the block from the building, then turned south and started walking quickly, his mind racing the entire time. It didn't make much sense. A Were-cat shouldn't be here, at least none of the ones he knew. If it was a Were-cat native to this area, that could be an explanation, but it didn't explain this behavior. Even if they didn't adhere to the Strictures of Fae-da'Nar, a Were-cat wouldn't be going around killing people for no reason. Unless she had no control over what she was doing. She could be insane. That was a very real possibility. But that too seemed illogical. A Were-cat wouldn't bite someone, and if she did, she'd either take the victim as a bond-child, or kill her on the spot. She would have never gotten away from her sire, unless the sire either let her go, or didn't know about her. But she had gotten here somehow, and it was obvious that she wasn't just trying to blend in.
He found the area that Bray had said was her territory. It was blocked off by an unmanned barrier sitting across the street, with signs in Arakite nailed to it. Tarrin didn't read Arakite, but he had little doubt that the signs were some kind of warning to anyone who was educated enough to read them. He had to climb over the barrier to continue, and when he did so, the few people near enough to see were shocked he would be so bold. He paid them no mind, moving past the barricade and finding himself at the end of the street, turning to the left and walking into what he knew was her domain. It was an area of crumbling, abandoned buildings, some of them laying on the street. And it was deserted. There wasn't even a dog or cat to be seen milling about the abandoned neighborhood. Normally, this would be the haven for homeless and street rats, but the presence of the monster had caused them to flee the area. And he had to admit, it was the perfect place to hide. With all the empty houses and buildings and the occasional pile of debris to break up the streets and create hiding places, it was a predator's ideal hunting ground. This kind of a place was perfect. The unwary would wander in, ignorant of the dangers, and they would be ambushed. The only issue would be water, and that explained why the neighborhoods surrounding this territory were so afraid. She was leaving her hunting ground to find water, and that was why people outside this area were seeing her.
He was never going to find her by walking around. With a quick look around to make sure he was alone on the street, Tarrin shapeshifted into his humanoid form, then sank down to all fours and tested the scents laid down on the street. There were alot of them, many of them fresh. The vast majority of them were human, but there was one scent that stood out, a scent that confirmed everything. Were-cat. The scent itself teased his memory in a strange way, almost as if he had smelled this Were-cat before. But he knew the scent of every Were-cat he knew, and it was none of them. The scent was a couple of days old, too degraded to determine which direction she was moving when she passed this way. He moved deeper into the maze of abandoned buildings, his every sense open and alert, ears scanning for the slightest sound as his eyes sought out any motion, and his nose tracked the old scent on the ground even as it searched for any new scent to waft in on the still air. His nose picked up the smell of decay, or rotting flesh, and he detoured into a crumbling alley to track it back to its source.
What he found was the mauled corpse of a short human male. Either very short or rather young, dead nearly three days. What was left of it was blackened and bloating, exuding a powerful smell of rot, and from the looks of it, the entire body wasn't there. An arm was missing, as well as the lower half of one leg. The scattered condition of small bits of flesh and cloth, and the patterns of blood on the alley's cobblestone told him that the attacker ate a portion of the victim.
So that's why she was killing people. She wasn't just running around killing people, she was eating them.
He felt it was time to think like a hunter. She wouldn't be out right now. Cats were nocturnal by nature when it came to hunting, preferring to hunt at night. Nobody would be on the streets during the day anyway, with those barricades on the streets. That meant that she was laying around somewhere in the area, sleeping or resting, or possibly eating whoever she'd killed that night. So, he was looking for a Were-cat that was hiding, and that meant she would find a dark, small space with an easily defendable entrance. She would be in a basement, or the end of a narrow alley partially blocked by debris.
It came down to finding her scent trail. Tarrin roamed around the area for nearly an hour, moving in a methodical fashion both on the street and on the roofs above them, picking through her crisscrossing scent trails to find the most recent one. Her territory was a large one, he found, many blocks, and it took him a while before he finally found a fresh scent. Once he had it, he determined which direction she was moving by finding a pawprint in some dust near an alley, then turning back around to track her. He wasn't really sure why he was taking the time to do this. Now that he understood what she was doing, his curiosity was satisfied. But a part of him couldn't leave it alone. If she was eating humans and living in a hunting territory, she couldn't be sane. He did feel a little bit of duty to his people to find her and discover if she was insane or not. To uphold the laws of Fae-da'Nar if anything else, even if he had little respect for them.
It took him another hour to systematically track her movements. He must have found her scent at the beginning of her cycle of activity, and it led him out of the territory. He was forced to track her along populated streets, attracting a great deal of attention from the pedestrians, until he reached one of the city's many public fountains. She had come for water. Her path then turned back towards the slum, but at an angle that took him in a different direction. He saw no reason for the change in direction, until he found the signs that she had attacked and killed someone not far from the fountain the night before. Most of the blood had been cleaned up, or licked up by dogs, from the smell of it, but the smell of it was still in the stones of the alleyway. Two blocks away, on the roof of an empty house, he found the remains of a teenage female, the flesh completely stripped off an armbone, but the rest of the kill untouched. Her path went back to the fountain after that, to drink more water, and then it went back towards the slum along the rooftops.
He was starting to get close. The scent trail was fresher and fresher, and the possibility that he was going to get blindsided while trying to follow it was now a serious possibility. He moved slowly and carefully, with utter silence, tracking the scent laid down on the street step by step as he kept himself alert to any change in the environment around him. He began to get nervous when the scent trail led him to a series of resting places, one with signs that she had been there recently, for she had relieved herself in a corner, and her urine was still damp. He was very close. Still his memory teased him over the scent. It seemed familiar, like he knew the scent, but he knew for a fact that no Were-cat he knew had that scent. That distracted him a bit as he left the resting place, on the second floor of an old house where she had piled up old blankets and bits of soft materials to form a bed under a window, but he knew this wasn't her den. This was just a place she laid where she could look out onto the street and see prey.
The trail led him into a very small house that had one wall fallen out of it. It was nothing more than a single room, a single story, and half the roof had caved in when the wall fell down. That littered the floor with small rocks and piles of debris, and he had to pick his footing carefully towards an open trapdoor in the corner of the room to keep quiet. He was right on top of her, he was sure of it. He could smell her now, not just her scent trail, a Were-cat smell mixed with dirt, excrement, and the smell of rotting flesh and bone. She had picked a good place to make a den, for the broken house made sneaking up on her very difficult. It only had one way in, the trapdoor, and anyone trying to enter would have to negotiate the narrow opening without alerting her to his presence. She may be insane, but she wasn't stupid. Her only mistake was picking a den where her scent emanated from it without allowing her to scent the approach of an invader. The air in the basement would warm and flow out the opening without allowing air to flow in carrying smells from outside. Anyone who tracked by scent could, and did, find her scent without giving away his own, just as certainly as if he would have approached her from downwind. She wouldn't smell him until he was literally inside the basement. That was a mistake of inexperience, not an error of instinct.
Reaching the trapdoor, Tarrin squatted down on all fours and poked his head into the opening, looking down. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the cellar, but the scene below him slowly took form. There was a ladder that led to an earth-floored basement that looked to be used to store food. It was as large as the room above, and was littered with empty jars and an overturned shelf. In the corner of the building was the Were-cat, curled up on her side in the corner with her back towards him. She had blond hair, this one, nude, and she was absolutely filthy. She was so dirty that he couldn't tell what color her skin was. She had dirt, excrement, and even what looked like bits of flesh tangled in her unkempt hair. Scattered on the floor around her were bones and scraps of cloth from past victims. There were a great many flies in the den, and the female swatted at them with her tail absently as she rested.
He found her. Now he had no idea what to do about it. He hadn't really had any idea of what he was going to do about it when he started, he just wanted to find her and figure out what she was doing, and who she was. She was a stranger, that much was certain, and now he knew what she was doing. He debated about trying to stop her. It really wasn't his business what she did, outside the fact that she was violating the strictures of Fae-da'Nar. But the city had no idea who or what they were dealing with. They'd never capture her, and she would go on killing until they either brought in a wizard to deal with her or completely abandoned her territory. Getting into a fight with her was the last thing on his mind, but on the other hand, it really wouldn't be right to just leave her here and let her keep doing this. It wasn't what Were-cats did. It was wrong. It did prove that she was insane, though. She had been completely dominated by her instincts, instincts gone out of control from the human part within her. That told him that she wasn't born Were. A natural Were-cat wouldn't go insane like that. She'd been bitten, and her sire had either no idea she was infected, or she had abandoned her.
The Were-cat's ears picked up. She knew he was there. She pulled up onto one paw and turned to look back over her den. And when she did, Tarrin nearly fell into the basement.
It was Jula!
Jula! Impossible! Tarrin caught himself before he fell inside the den and pushed himself out of the opening, falling backwards so hard he landed on his rump, right on a big rock. But he didn't feel a thing. A whirlwind of emotion roared up inside him, fear, anger, rage, astonishment, confusion. Jula! How did Jula get here? How did she survive? And how in the hells did she become a Were-cat? It made no sense! He'd ripped out a good span of her backbone and left her to die. There was no way any Sorcerer could have saved her, even if one had been close enough to help! And even if the impossible had happened, it didn't explain how she was a Were-cat. He'd never bitten her. He'd never gotten any part of his blood or spittle anywhere near her! When he left her, she was a dying human, but now she shows up, half a world away, as a living Were-cat! Just seeing her triggered a nearly overwhelming desire to go down there and rip her apart. She had collared him, she was reponsible for everything that had happened to him since then! But that need to destroy her found competition in a singular, odd need to know how she had gotten here, what had happened, how she had survived. But answers wouldn't be easy to get, because it was obvious that she was mad.
All other thoughts scattered when a growling roar issued from below, and Jula erupted from the opening like a dark angel of death. In the air above the stunned Tarrin, her filthy body rose over the opening from her leap through the trap door, her eyes glowing green in her mindless anger, her challenge to this invader to her territory. She descended on him with her claws leading, claws stained with dried blood, and the sight of that banished his confusion as the Cat within rose to meet this challenge.
He caught her wrist as she landed on him, falling down onto his back as his feet caught her belly. He kicked her over his head, but she twisted in the air and landed on all fours. Tarrin snapped to his feet as well and turned to face her. She hissed at him, lowering down on all fours like a cat, arching her back threateningly. He was still stunned that he was looking into the face of Jula. It felt like he was in some kind of a nightmare, staring into the face of the woman who had a hand in destroying his life, a woman he thought he had killed long ago. Animalistic rage blasted through his mind, ignited his eyes, desired nothing less than ripping the woman into small pieces, and making sure she was alive long enough to see it happen. Faced with the woman he felt was responsible for most of his pain, he lost himself in the depths of rage, a rage totally pure in its desire for nothing less than to kill just one woman.
The female Were-cat suddenly seemed to get nervous, become afraid, when Tarrin hunched down and opened his arms, claws out, and roared at her in mindless fury. She was trapped inside the building, and he stood between her and the door, but she showed no signs of trying to flee. She rose up on her feet and squared off against him.
They sprang at the same time, going from staring at one another to engaged in the blink of an eye, and their initial exchange was nothing short of brutality personified. Neither even tried to defend against the other. They tore and ripped at one another with their claws, even biting with their fanged teeth, rolling across the littered floor as each sought to tear the other apart. But their claw wounds began to heal even as they were inflicted. Not that either of them felt the wounds they were receiving. Tarrin was completely overwhelmed by his rage, and Jula's insane anger had risen her to a similar state, a state that made them both unfeeling, invulnerable to pain or fear, completely dominated by the need to kill. Tarrin and Jula were both inhumanly strong, but he was larger than her, and he was stronger than her, and that let him eventually get her on her back beneath him, begin to start trying to protect herself as he pinned her down with his knees and tried to hit her in the neck.
With a foot to his belly, Jula kicked him off of her, separating them for a moment. Both were covered with blood, both of their blood, and most of Tarrin's clothing had been shredded by Jula's rending claws during their initial contact. He landed on his feet and immediately reversed his momentum, rushing right back at her. She managed to twist out of his charging attempt to grapple her, and she turned and ran for the door. But Tarrin turned even as he went by and grabbed her by her long, filthy hair, snapping her head back forcefully and pulling her off her feet. He turned on her as she landed on her back, trying to put a paw through her head, but both her feet rose up and kicked him dead in the face before he could reach her, kicked him with so much force that he was lifted off his feet, sailed over his own head, and landed hard on his stomach a couple of paces away.
Regaining his feet, the enraged Were-cat shook his head a few times to clear the ringing in his ears. He hadn't been hit that hard in a long time. The impact of it had shaken a bit of his rage loose, allowing a portion of his conscious mind to return to him. And that logical part analyzed things. It realized that if they just flailed at one another, either of them could win. It would come down to whose regenerative power would fail first. But she fought like a wild animal, where he had been trained by some of the finest fighters in the entire world. He wasn't using what he had been taught, he was simply lowering himself to her level and playing by her rules. His rage wasn't going to win this battle. He would need his reasoning mind to be completely assured of victory.
Tarrin rose up from his hunched posture, and retracted his claws. That made the female give him a curious look, unsure of what he was doing, until he closed his fists and shifted into the Ungardt defense position. She hissed at him and rushed, then tried to bull into him to continue raking at him wildly. But he backed up, keeping a cushion of distance between them as his paws and wrists deflected her seeking claws. He tried to get her to hit his manacles, where the steel would protect him from having to heal the wounds she inflicted, save his strength for more serious injuries. Jula seemed unmoved by his shift in tactics, simply trying to bull him down and rip him apart, but she couldn't get close enough to him to do it. He backed up in a complete circle to keep the cushion between them, and the entire time he studied her movements. She was wild, untrained, and that meant the her movements were instinctive in nature. Her speed made this dangerous, but he was just as fast as she was. She depended completely on her speed and her regenerative defense, because she had no formal training. She only attacked. She made no attempt to defend herself.
He'd seen enough. She drove a paw in to try to gouge out his eyes, but he caught her by the wrist, turned to press her up against his back, then whipped her over his shoulder in an arm-throw takedown. She slammed into the floor hard, her breath blasting out of her lungs. He dropped to a knee and tried to punch his fist right through her face, but she rolled aside even as he struck. His fist drove into the soft stone of the floor of the ruined house, shattering the stone it hit and sinking half his fist into the basement beneath. He rose back up to his feet as she rolled to her own, and confusion was evident on her face. She had never seen that coming. But that moment of confusion evaporated in her insane fury, and she charged him again.
She staggered back woozily when his fist slammed into her cheek, using his longer reach to hit her before she could reach him. Her knees wobbled for a second before they solidified, and she wiped blood off her lip that had come out of her nose. The raw power of the punch had affected her, just as it had done Triana. Regeneration couldn't quickly counter the stunning effects of a powerful physical blow. Even that wasn't enough to dissuade her. She roared at him furiously and lunged at him with her claws on one paw leading, but Tarrin simply twisted to one side and leaned back, and let her paw fly harmlessly past his head. He grabbed that paw's wrist after it went by even as he continued spinning to one side, jerking her out of her jump path and swiging her around, then letting her go. She sailed out of control, slamming into one of the walls of the house squarely on her back. She rebounded off the wall and landed on her side on the floor.
Shaking her head, she got back to her feet, but now the mindless fury on her face was replaced by trepidation. He still stood between her and the door, and he knew it. Now the animal within was telling her to flee, and he knew that too. But she wasn't going to get away. He may have enough of his rational mind to fight her, but the desire to kill her was still making his mind swirl in a maelstrom of anger and rage.
She made a show of readying to pounce at him, but at the last instant she turned and tried to rush around him, trying for the door. He turned in the other direction, putting his back to her for an instant, and then his manacled fist came flying around him as it whipped around his body, using the momentum of his spin to accumulate awesome speed and power. The manacle struck her just under the left arm, in the ribs, and it blasted her off her feet as her body simply folded around the irresistable force of the blow. She tumbled to the floor, spitting up a mouthful of blood, but she again got out of the way when he went for her prone form. She got back to her feet and ripped her claws right over his face, nearly taking out his eye, but he grabbed that paw as it went past, then slammed his fist into her face. Still holding onto her, he punched her again, and again, and once again, making her knees wobble, then yanked her to the side and spun her back to him, then wrapped her up in the Ungardt sleeper. Arm over her neck, he squeezed with all his might, enough to take the head right off of a human, cutting off the blood to her brain and her windpipe. She struggled, gasping for breath, then pain shot through his groin when her tail lashed up and struck him between the legs like a whip. The intense pain made him loosen his grip on her, and he struggled to recover from it, struggled not to lose himself to the rage again. She bit the arm that had been around her neck savagely, and the pain was like a wake-up call as her long fangs penetrated deeply into his forearm. It conjured an irrational image of Jesmind, her fangs sank into that very same arm, and it was like the entire nightmare had begun again. He jerked that arm back with her teeth still stuck in it, snapping her head back. She grabbed his arm with both her paws and got her teeth out of his arm, but her arched back shuddered when his fist hit her right in the kidneys. Her head slid under his arm and she fell to the floor, gasping for breath and groaning, as he staggered back and allowed his regeneration to wash out the pain her tail caused him.
Still struggling with the image of Jesmind, of the memory of how it all began, Tarrin snarled at the female as she got back onto her feet, losing his grip on his rational mind once again. But instead of rushing her and trying to rip her apart, Tarrin lunged forward just a bit, then fully extended his body to send his fist sizzling between her upraised paws and right into her nose. The blow shattered her pert little nose, crushing it against her face and his fist, and it sent her right back to the floor. She sprawled onto the floor nervelessly, and she laid there for a few seconds before she began to move again. She moved just in time to catch his paws as he dropped on her, struggling to keep them away from her head. Desperation showed clearly on her face, as the glow in her eyes faded and showed the green cat's-eyes of a Were-cat beneath that glowing radiance. In those eyes was fear. But Tarrin barely registered that, for his mind was spinning with images of Jesmind, memories of the pain and fear and confusion he felt when he'd first been bitten, and seeing Jula before him only brought back the memory of what he was, what he had become. Her face became the representation of everything he hated in his own life, everything he feared, and he tried to destroy it with every fiber of his being. But Jula was fighting for her very life, and that gave her a strength to match his fury, keeping his bloody claws from reaching her as they trembled to sink into her flesh.
He felt her foot claws snag on the skin of his hip and push, and it was enough to drive him off of her. He was pushed off to the side, and she immediately rolled the other way and sprang to her feet. She had no intentions of fighting anymore, she turned right towards the door and tried to flee to it. She managed one step before Tarrin's foot swept her ankles, spilling her back to the floor. "No!" Tarrin screamed furiously as he regained his feet at the same time she did. "Not again! You're not getting away!" He struck her in the face, snapping her head back, and her paws fatally sank down from the stunning effects of the blow. Instead of grabbing her by the head, he hit her again, and again, staggering her back as he vented all his frustration, all his rage, all his pain on her. He had her now, and there would be no quick kill. He grabbed her by the upper arm and hauled her into his grasp, then lifted her over his head by her arm and a paw on the small of her back. He turned and threw her into one of the walls with all of his strength, with all of his pent-up fury and rage, with such tremendous power that her body shattered the bricks and plaster that held it together. She was driven through the wall in an explosion of brick, crumbled mortar, and flakes of white plaster, landing limply on the street beyond as shards of masonry rained down on and around her.
The blow had killed the house. The entire structure began to groan and shift, dust and pieces of stone dislodging from what was left of the ceiling, and the entirety of the building began to lean ominously in the direction of the wall that Jula's body had punctured. Instead of trying to escape, his enraged mind simply reached out, reached out and made a connection to something outside of him, a sensation he remembered only once before. That connection seemed to expand him, make him part of a greater whole, and in its connection he was blessed with power. That power exploded from him, sending a shockwave of force away from him to shatter the crumbled dwelling in a loud detonation, to keep it from collapsing on him by sending it away from him. In a column of dust, the building where they had been was blown apart by the defensive reaction, sending bits of masonry raining down for blocks in every direction.
Tarrin stepped from the cloud of billowing dust, and looked right at Jula. She was on her stomach, looking back over her shoulder, and there was panic in her eyes. She struggled to get to her feet, but her body was trembling with the effort. Her regenerative power was beginning to wane, slowing down as it struggled to heal what were probably massive internal injuries, and it left her vulnerable until she could move. She tried to crawl away from him feebly, but he was on her before she could get more than one paw away from him, kicking her in her wounded side and putting her on her back. She cried out at the impact, a cry that turned into a gasping whimper when she landed on a rock that dug into her injured body. But he showed no mercy, kneeling over her chest and grabbing her by the hair, then punching her dead in the face. The blow sent her head crashing back to the ground, taking a pawful of her hair out of her scalp, which Tarrin threw aside contemptuously. All the things wrong with his life were her fault. They were because of her! He killed people, he couldn't make friends, he had become a stranger to his own friends and family because of her! Her organization had killed Faalken, and had tried to kill him! Rage became powerful emotion, grabbing her by the neck and pulling her up so her glazed eyes could meet his. "You destroyed my life, and you did it for nothing!" he screamed hysterically at her. "I hate you for what you did to me! I want you to suffer, suffer like you've never suffered before!"
Letting go of her neck, he slapped her with the pad of his paw, smacked her hard enough to snap her head to the side on the ground. Then he slapped her with the other paw, snapping her head to the other side. She was the object, the representation of everything he hated in his own life, and punishing her was the same as punishing what was inside him, the darkness that he hated, yet could not deny was part of him. With tears streaming down his face, he struck her again, and again, and again, feeling nothing but more anger and pain every time he hit her, feeling nothing but the rage as he punished the one responsible for it. She was unconscious, beyond pain, and that only made him more enraged. He wanted her to be awake for this, to feel her life slip away from her, to know that he had destroyed her.
Tarrin, enough! Stop this! the voice of the Goddess rang in his mind, forcefully.
"She did this to me!" he retorted hotly, grabbing her by the hair and lifting her head off the ground.
And how does it make you feel? she demanded. Does it make you feel better to hurt her? Does it make everything alright? Does it make you feel more human to act like an animal?
The words were like a slap across the face. He blinked and looked down at the helpless Jula, but his mind was on what the Goddess said. He felt… rage. Hurting her didn't make him feel better, it only made him more and more angry. There was no satisfaction in it, only a towering fury, a need to hurt that had nothing to do with punishing her. He didn't want to punish her. He was punishing himself. And if he killed her, all he would have would be the memory of it, and it would bring him no real comfort. In the end of it, he no longer saw Jula. She was only a representation of what he truly hated and despised, and that was what he had become. And that was what he was trying to punish, to destroy.
He sat down on Jula's dirty stomach limply, looking down at her with sober eyes. She was completely mad. There couldn't have been a worse punishment for her than that. He knew. He had felt that madness, he had faced it, and he had conquered it. She had suffered for what she did to him, suffered more than he could ever inflict on her. She was what he nearly became, she was what he could still be if he couldn't control himself. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. If he would have killed her, then he would have become her, completely dominated by his rage. He had been like that for a while now, since Faalken's death. He had become even more consumed by his anger, anger at Faalken's death, a death he couldn't let go, couldn't mourn. Anger that caused him to kill indiscriminately, seeking only the flimsiest of justification for it, killing that had become easier and easier, and had began to be satisfying to him. The only difference between him and her was that she had no control over her actions, where he consciously chose his. If he would have submitted to his rage this time, if he would have taken her life, it would have been the first step down the path of his own madness.
Now you understand, kitten, the voice of the Goddess sang within him. Now you understand.
Wiping his eyes with the back of his paw, he looked down at the unconscious Jula. He had been so close to killing her, to killing himself. But he didn't see himself in her anymore. He only saw a tortured woman, consumed from within, who was no longer the conniving manipulating betrayer she had been in his past. Just as he was no longer the same Tarrin, this was no longer the same Jula.
For the first time since she had captured him, Tarrin found it in himself to forgive.
But he wasn't finished with her, either. He couldn't allow her to roam around free, not in her mental state. It would get him in trouble with the citizenry, as the screaming woman proved to him. Besides, he had a duty to Fae-da'Nar to deal with her, before she destroyed their repuation. And it felt wrong to him to leave her like this. She had been punished for what she did to him, punished many times over. But she would never appreciate her actions if she couldn't reflect on them in a rational manner. Besides, she had some very logical, very simple assets to make keeping her very smart.
In her head was a gold mine of information he needed, a treasure trove of knowledge they could use. She had been part of the ki'zadun, she knew who they were, where they were, and what they did. She could help them thwart their activities in Dala Yar Arak, could help Tarrin get the Book of Ages first by disrupting one of his greatest challengers.
And she possibly knew where Kravon was.
He may have fogiven her, felt pity for her, but Kravon was another matter. He may have come to an understanding about himself, but it still didn't change some things. He would always be what he was. He only needed to be able to control it.
Jula. Strange, sometimes, the way the fates blew things around. He never dreamed he'd end up with Jula. Leaning down, he pushed her head to one side, then sank his fangs into her neck. He drew in her blood, tasting it, swallowing it, and at the same time he did something that he had no idea how to do. Yet he did it perfectly. In a corner of his mind, a sense of her sprang into being, a sense of where she was, and a general feeling of her. He could feel her madness through that tentative feeling of her, subdued by her unconsciousness, but there all the same. It explained many things to him in that fleeting instant of feeling her. It explained how Jesmind and Triana always knew where he was, it explained how they always seemed to know exactly what to say. It was because they knew how he was feeling, through the bond they had taken from him. He rose up over her, watching the bite marks heal, feeling her proximity through the bond. Jula. Jula was now his child, and he accepted responsibility for her. It was just as good, since he was the only one who could help her. And she would repay that aid with her knowledge.
He got off of the unconscious female, then picked her up and slung her limp body over his shoulder. There were things that needed to be done. Dolanna couldn't heal Jula of her madness, because they weren't the same race. But Tarrin was. Dolanna could show him what to do, and he could do it. Getting a grip on the back of Jula's thighs, he settled her so she wouldn't slide off his shoulder, then he turned and started back towards the circus. There were things to be done, and an old friend to deal with. An old friend, now a new child.
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