two spear-toting guards blocked her path. One leered at her and thrust his unshaven face close.
'This is a toll bridge, woman. You got the money?'
She shook her head. 'How do I cross?'
He gestured with his rusty weapon. 'Use one of the others. Some are free.'
The narrow alley he indicated ran upstream beside the river. Her good sense told her to stay in the busy thoroughfare, however.
The guard winked at her. 'You could make payment in kind.'
Talsy recoiled from his revolting invitation and hurried down the alley. Sagging shanties bordered it, and the stench of urine and human manure made her queasy. Skinny dogs foraged in the rubbish, and rats squeaked and scurried along the edges. Crippled, filthy beggars, no more than bundles of stinking rags with outstretched claw-like hands, clutched at her as she passed. Feral children watched her with empty eyes, their ragged clothes revealing swollen bellies and twisted limbs. She wondered why the city folk, who reviled Mujar for refusing to help them, did not care if their own people starved and suffered in this terrible place. Why should Mujar help those who would not even help each other?
Reaching a dilapidated bridge, she headed for it, but a gang of beggars blocked her way, hands outstretched.
'Toll! Pay toll!' they cried, jumping into her path when she tried to sidestep them.
Ignoring her protests, they persisted until she gave up and carried on along the alley in search of a bridge that neither soldiers nor beggars claimed. Further on, she came to a rude barricade that forced her to turn into a side street leading away from the river. At the next junction, she entered a narrow road running parallel to the spate, and searched for a way back to the bank. The alleys twisted and turned in a fiendish maze, and she soon realised that she was lost. She looked up at the rows of crows that lined the rooftops, preening and calling harshly. If only she had wings.
The afternoon dwindled as the sun sank towards the mountains, out of sight in this endless warren of foul streets. Dusk would soon fall, and she still had to pass through the second half of the city, on the other side of the river, before she was free of its squalor. By now, she had no idea which direction to take. Tumbledown huts blocked her view on every side. An old blind beggar squatted beside the road, rattling a tin cup in which a few stones resided, and she approached him.
'Can you tell me how to get to the river, old man?' she asked.
He rattled his cup. 'Coin for aid, missy.'
Talsy fished out a copper and dropped it into the cup. The old beggar pulled the cup into his ragged robes and cackled. 'Foolish woman. How do I know where the river is? I'm blind!'
'Surely you know where you are?'
'Somewhere in the accursed slums.'
Talsy groaned. 'But is it east or west?'
'No idea.' The beggar cackled again, revealing shrunken, toothless gums.
Talsy cursed him and walked on. The heavy bag dug into her shoulder and her legs ached. She tried to remember whether she had been walking towards the setting sun when she had been on the thoroughfare. Then it had been closer to noon, however, and harder to tell which way was west. Vainly she searched for an alley that led west, hoping it would take her to the river, but each one she turned into curved away from the sun. The narrow streets were deserted now. Even the beggars had vanished into their shelters for the night. Gathering gloom filled the city as the sun sank. No lights shone from the shanties, and only a few street lamps illuminated the grimy roads.
Just as she wondered if she should find a hole to crawl into for the night, a rattle behind her made her jump and swing around. Four burly men approached her, their dirty, unshaven faces twisted in knowing leers as they fingered sticks and rusty knives. One had a longbow slung across his back, and his bright, mocking eyes raked her above a gap-toothed grin.
'Well, well, what have we here, boys? A little bird lost in the woods.'
His cronies chuckled, and Talsy backed away, unslung her hunting bow and notched an arrow. The roughnecks' leader guffawed.
'She's got some little pins, lads, look at that! Not a bird, but a little vixen, hey?'
'Leave me alone,' Talsy said, aiming at his face. Even a hunting arrow through the eye could be deadly.
The leader's smile faded, and he unslung the longbow, drawing a wickedly barbed war arrow from the quiver on his back. 'You want to play with fire, hey? Mine's bigger than yours, little girl.'
The men sniggered and stepped closer. Talsy tried to keep them all in her sight, but two slunk along the sides of the alley behind her. 'Call them off, or you get it!' she shouted at the leader, who grinned and began to bob and weave mockingly.
A brigand rushed her from the side, and she let fly the arrow with a vicious buzz. The leader yelled as it hit him in the shoulder, and his crony swept her off her feet, laughing. Talsy dropped her bow and pulled out her skinning knife, slicing her captor's cheek open to the bone. He bellowed and dropped her. Springing up, she dived for the shadows, but another man grabbed her wrist and swung her around.
Talsy's wild swing drew a bloody line across his chest, and he smacked the knife from her grasp. It landed somewhere amongst the garbage with a tinkle, lost in the gloom. The other men closed in around her. She sank her teeth into the hand that gripped her arm, and the brigand cursed and released her. Again she tried to make a run for it, but another ruffian tripped her up, and she sprawled in the refuse. A man pinned her down, grabbed her flailing arms and flipped her onto her back.
The leader appeared above her, his brows knotted and mouth twisted. Blood seeped down the front of his dirty brown tunic from the arrow wound in his shoulder. She had injured three out of the four, but was now helpless. While one man held her, another pulled at her clothes. He found her purse and mocked it, then tugged at the thongs that bound her jacket. The leader leered down at her.
'You're going to pay for this, bitch! I'm going to tear you apart!'
The cutthroat unfastened his trousers while the other man used his knife to cut her jacket's thongs, pulling it open. Talsy tried to kick whoever she could reach, but they laughed at her futile efforts. She yelled for help, and the man slapped her, making her eyes water and her ears ring.
'That's right, scream, bitch! I love to hear you scream,' the leader snarled.
Talsy shrieked again when the man who straddled her beat her head on the ground, his hands around her throat.
A flash of fire ripped the air apart. An inferno engulfed them with the stench of burning and crackle of flames. Talsy screamed, and her tormentors swore in fearful confusion. The manifestation vanished, and she discovered that she was sheathed in blue fire. The man who pinned her down leapt away with a bellow of pain, beating the flames that had ignited on his greasy clothes. The others recoiled, brushing at singed brows and hair, cursing foully.
Talsy panicked, beating at the fire that licked her skin, but it did not burn. As her attackers retreated, it followed, surrounding her in a ring of flame six feet high. She scrambled to her feet and pulled her jacket closed, glaring at the wide-eyed men who stumbled back from the spreading fire, holding up their arms to ward off the heat. No heat touched her, and the blue flicker lighted the filthy slums with a ghostly glow. The leader cursed as he realised what was going on.
'Mujar! She's got a damned Mujar protecting her!' he shouted, and reached for his longbow. His cronies turned this way and that, scanning the surroundings. Talsy searched for a way to flee, sure that the ring would let her through, but the cutthroats were still all around her. The leader notched an arrow and looked around, then up.
'There!' He raised the bow, and she glanced up in horror. An owl perched on a nearby roof, its eyes glowing silver-blue in the flames. As the man took aim, Chanter spread his wings and leapt into the air. The man drew the bow and released the arrow with a savage, buzzing hiss. It struck the owl in a cloud of snowy feathers. His wings folded, and he plummeted, flapping.
'Chanter!' Talsy screamed, and tried to run to him as the circle of fire died. The air filled with a rush of wind and the sound of beating wings. The owl vanished, and Chanter sat up, gripped the arrow shaft that protruded from his flank and jerked it out. He started to rise to his feet, and the four men rushed him. Two crashed into him so hard they sent him sprawling on his back, and one plunged a knife into his belly. Chanter twisted with cat-like grace,
