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 m
oved 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 bu
st 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.
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