clenched her throat. She wanted to cry. Grotesquely enough, what stopped her was something she’d never have suspected: pride.
The parchment crackled crisply as the man rolled it up. Handing it to one of his followers, he beckoned the others to him. Kiska tensed, her breath shallowing; they were readying to leave and she wouldn’t be going with them.
The scarred man spoke to four of his men, one of whom was the man who’d snatched her. They were all older, more hardened and at more ease than the others. Kiska knew she wasn’t being discussed; her fate had been decided.
A young man at a front window yelped, then jumped away from the wall. ‘A Hood-spawned ghost! A shade! At the door!’
The scarred commander and his squad broke into motion without orders or comment, confirming to Kiska that they were a team of veterans, perhaps part of a unit of Imperial marines.
The one with the lozenge armour drew two curved swords and went to the door. With a sharp blow of his elbow he shoved aside the young hiresword who had been standing guard. Just back from the door two veterans knelt, crossbows levelled. The remaining soldier, along with the commander and the woman, positioned themselves behind. All of them waited, tense, focused upon the door. In her chair far to the back near stairs down to a lower room, Kiska watched as well. Oddly, she too had felt something at the door: a nagging pull like faint scratching.
One of the others, a hiresword Kiska supposed, crept away from the side door he’d been guarding, past Kiska, until he was close to the commander. ‘What is it?’ he whispered.
Glaring savagely, the commander waved him back to his post.
The veteran by the door crouched, looked back to the woman who nodded. Grinning like a fool, he yanked the door open.
It swung inward, revealing an empty street of gleaming rain-slick cobbles and, barely visible through the mist and shadows, Mossy Tors Commons across the way. The man poked his head out only to suddenly flinch back and scramble away.
Light flickered over the door’s solid recessed panels in a restless curving design of shadow and phosphorescence. The woman pushed forward, studied the restless glow. After a few seconds she backed away.
’Well?’ demanded the commander.
The woman clenched and unclenched her hands as if she wished to do something with them but dared not. ‘It’s a Hood-damned invitation. A summons. We’ve got to go. Now!’
‘That’s fine with me.’ He motioned his men away from the door, flashed a hand signal.
‘We’re movin’ out!’ bellowed the soldier in lozenge armour. Those covering the windows and at the tables blinked at him. Their gazes shifted to the street front. ‘That’s right my pretties,’ he said, as cheerily as if facing a summer’s day. ‘Back into the teeth of it!’
Kiska stared at him. Was he mad?
The sergeant — Kiska decided he must be — set his fists at his belted hips and regarded the room as if he smelled something distasteful. ‘Get your-’
A howl as brassy as the largest temple bell tore through the night. The timbers of the wall and floor vibrated, so loud and close did it sound. Kiska flinched violently, causing her chair to jump and almost canter over with her. The men froze, eyes round. Only the commander and the woman seemed unaffected. ‘Shut the blasted door!’ he snarled.
The sergeant moved to obey, but gripped the door only to stare out, immobile. ‘Hood’s own demons,’ he gasped in awe.
From where she sat, Kiska couldn’t see the street. Instead, all she saw was one young hiresword at a window as he screamed and gagged, vomiting while the commander drew his blade. With all his strength the sergeant hurled the door shut then leapt aside. ‘Ready crossbows!’ he yelled, and the men scrambled to raise their weapons.
At that instant the door burst inward in splinters that flew apart like shards of glass. A hound thrust its head and shoulders through the doorway. It was larger than Kiska had ever imagined: the size of a mule, its shaggy coat dappled light tan and grey. It swung its massive head from side to side as if to study everyone, first through one brown eye, then a pale-grey eye. A fusillade of quarrels met it only to slam into the jambs or skitter from its flesh. It shoved forward, its muscular shoulders bunching. The jambs to either side shattered.
The room erupted in cries. Furniture crashed, the hound’s snarls and coughs burst like explosions. Its hot moist breath filled the room. Men slashed at the creature, but to no effect Kiska could discern. Most just tried to flee out of the windows or hide under the tables. Tipping her chair, she threw herself to the floor just in time to see the commander running upstairs. The woman had vanished already. A few feet away the sergeant grabbed one screaming hiresword by his hauberk and threw him fully at the hound, then leapt through a shuttered window. Kiska reached up and back and snatched the knife from behind her neck. She sawed furiously at the rope around her ankles and thanked the twin gods of chance that her hands had merely been bound at the wrists.
Rolling under a table at a booth, she watched while the beast barged about the room, slashing left and right, knocking men spinning as it lunged and snapped. Catching one man by his waist, it tossed him away like a bone. Blood spattered the plaster walls, the tarred timbers, splashed up its massive paws as they thudded across the straw-covered floorboards. Growling like a fall of gravelled stones it stalked the room, stepping over toppled tables, ducking its bloodied muzzle into booths. The hot rank blast of its breath reached Kiska as it neared her.
From where she lay frozen, Kiska could see that three men remained upright. One was hunched inside an opposite booth, his breath coming in short, rasping gasps. He stared at the beast the way someone might watch on-rushing doom. By the door the second wept uncontrollably, fumbling with his crossbow. The last was a veteran, jammed into one corner, a short sword levelled before him.
The growling stopped and the room became silent. Flat and motionless, Kiska watched while one blood- soaked paw stopped before her booth. Its claws tore splinters from the hardwood floor. She found she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe to scream even had she wanted to. A spicy desert odour seemed to fill the air. Kiska pictured its huge muzzle above her, lowering. She squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped her arms about her head.
Close by someone coughed and the beast swung away. Wood crashed, snapping, then Kiska heard the wet crunch of bones. Peeking out, Kiska saw the hound raise its glistening wet muzzle from one body to regard the man fumbling to cock his crossbow. Sensing its attention, he stilled. Looking up his eyes became huge. The hound lunged forward, took one arm in its jaws and shook the man savagely. With a dull, wet tear his body flung free, whirling in the air for a moment before smacking hard against a pillar.
The second man — a youth — wept in terror. With a sudden dash he threw himself to the floorboards where he knelt, head down, as the hound snarled. Then opening his arms wide he screamed, ‘Kellanved! Protect me! I invoke your name!’
Now Kiska remembered her bindings and sawed frantically. Her ankles came free. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she reversed the blade to hack feverishly at the rope between her wrists.
Across the room came the scraping of claws as the hound leapt forward like a sprung catapult. It closed its jaws over the man’s head and clamped down. Bone crunched. Blood and mulched flesh flew from the hound’s maw. Tossing its head, the hound flicked the man’s headless torso away. It rolled to a stop close to Kiska’s booth, blood jetting across the floor. Kiska fought down the surge of bile at her throat.
Into the silence following, the veteran drawled, ‘Well, I guess the old man wasn’t listening.’ He tossed aside his sword to stand empty-handed.
The hound turned to regard him. Kiska also stared, fascinated by the man’s calm. From a pouch at his side he drew a round object about the size of a large fruit, dark green and shiny. His gaze caught Kiska’s and he nodded her to the rear stairwell.
He held up the object to the hound and pointed. ‘It’s just you and me now, boy.’
Kiska’s breath caught. She’d heard stories… she dived down the short stairs to the lower room, rolled, came up running. In the dark she slammed against a table, stood gagging for air. Barely able to straighten up, she glanced around and caught a shaft of moonlight near one wall illuminating a servant’s staircase.
From the room above pounded a man’s scream of pure rage and hate. Kiska staggered to the stairs, kicked
