or alter a letter or two to corrupt the meaning of the sign. The Dragon’s Teeth became the Dragon’s
He remembered he’d gleefully taken part in that very desecration, once.
He’d done far worse in his time in Luskan.
Kalen was tired. He’d ridden hard for four days, fought his way through guardsmen and thugs alike, set a gang tavern on fire, and his body was finally starting to feel the toll. He didn’t actually feel the aches in his body that indicated weariness, but his limbs weren’t doing exactly what he told them. That meant he needed sleep-or that he was about to die. Either way, he couldn’t very well collapse in the street, if he was to find whoever had Myrin.
Myrin had to be alive. It would be a waste to kill her, if only because of that special talent that she brought to the city: magic.
He moved past various takes happening in broad daylight on the street. An angler dipped a hook toward an unattended pouch, while the victim gazed up at naked flesh in the windows above. Likely, those were nymphers, who lured a mark into bed while an accomplice stole his possessions. Down an alley, Kalen saw a burst of light which sent a man reeling. The thief-a “flash”-ran off with a purloined loaf of bread under his arm.
But these were mundane tricks.
In Luskan, those who could work the Art were few and far between. Most rose to leadership in one of the gangs or carved out a piece of the city for themselves. The Dragon, who ran Luskan’s Shou gang, was rumored to be a wizard of some skill. His enforcers wore shifting tattoos that enhanced their strength and speed. The only other mage Kalen knew of was the necromancer who held court in the tower called the Throat. A legion of corpses clawed out of the ground at his command. Kalen hoped he would not have to cross either of those Captains.
Having seen Myrin exercise her own wizardly tricks, her ability to absorb magic and channel it herself, Kalen thought she could disrupt the entire balance of power in the city. And what if she had come by more of her memories in the last year? She could possess far greater power than he remembered.
Another thought came hand-in-hand with that. Would she be someone different?
“Worry later,” Kalen murmured. “Rest first.”
His priority was shelter: somewhere to bandage his wounds and sleep. For this purpose, he searched for an unoccupied, preferably condemned building in which to hole up. It would be easy enough, as much of Luskan was abandoned, leaving hundreds of empty buildings. The city could easily house four times as many folk as lived there, but one did not tend to
He settled on the fourth building he’d been eyeing. It must once have been a butcher’s shop but was now unoccupied (unlike the first two, which had boasted squatters and a pack of wolfdogs, respectively) and provided an excellent tactical position (unlike the third, which boxed him into a corner from which he could find no escape). He counted three exits, including the roof, his preferred means of egress. Everything else was covered over in enough wood and stone to create a massive racket should anyone attempt to catch him unawares. A pair of simple snares, and he would have a relatively safe place to rest.
He paused before entering the place and glanced over his shoulder. There was no sign of it, but he could have sworn someone had followed him into the alley. No visible sign, however-only a feeling.
Thieves learned to trust their feelings.
Kalen pulled aside a loose shutter, pushed into the abandoned building, and immediately crouched low and to the side, his daggers drawn.
Drawing pursuit had been part of the plan all along-light some fires, attract attention-but he hadn’t expected it quite so soon. After all, he’d only lit up one tavern and beat up a few bruisers. Chief Duulgrin was no doubt sore about it, but the Dustclaws weren’t known for their street smarts. Perhaps someone had been watching him from the moment he’d entered the city. But who would have known he’d be coming?
That, then, was his best lead: whoever had anticipated his arrival and was having him shadowed might well be the same gang that had Myrin.
He crouched, warmed by the anger that flowed inside him. He wanted someone to come through that window-wanted to plunge his blades into a foe’s flesh. He waited.
And waited.
Eventually, after half an hour had passed, Kalen gave in to weariness and niggling pain from his wounds. Slowly, he put the daggers away and set up his snare: another of the clay flasks of alchemist fire, balanced to fall out into the alley when disturbed. The liquid inside would burn on contact with the air, not needing a spark. Anyone who followed Kalen was in for a screaming surprise. It might not kill, but it would rouse him from slumber so he could prepare.
Stalking room-to-room inside, one dagger drawn, Kalen found them mostly empty. One upstairs held a withered, sweat-stained bedroll and a pair of surprisingly intact boots. Someone must have lived here once, but no one had been here in a tenday at least.
He was about to sheathe his blade when a scrabbling sound came from inside the closet at the end of the chamber. Kalen raised his dagger, which caught the murky rays of sunlight through the boarded-up window. He moved slowly to the door. Closing his fingers carefully around the latch, Kalen breathed in and pulled.
A skeleton lunged out of the closet, its bony fingers scrabbling for his eyes.
Kalen drew aside quickly and the inanimate skeleton tumbled to the floor, its bones flying in every direction. The skeleton’s jawbone bounced and rolled along the creaking floorboards, finally coming to a rest on the abandoned bedroll.
“Skeletons in Luskan’s closets,” Kalen murmured.
He peered down at the source of the scratching: a bulbous rat, newly freed, looked up at him with wide, red eyes. Greenish froth trickled from its mouth. Having grown up in this city-and learning from an early age to tell which animals carried afflictions-Kalen knew the rat to be both diseased and malnourished, and he didn’t like the way it looked at him.
Kalen nodded to the skeleton. “You didn’t eat
The rat cheeped, as though considering the question, took two weak steps forward, flopped on its back, and died. Freedom, it seemed, was a mighty curse.
Kalen inspected the bones, which were bleached as though the skeleton had been there for decades. Probably a slaying spell of one sort or another. He found a few other rat bodies in the closet as well. Perhaps they had picked the body clean, though Kalen had never seen vermin that could do that so completely that they left the body in a standing posture. And how had they come to be sealed in the closet?
A feeling of unease crept over him, as though what he’d thought was a good place to rest had turned suddenly very dangerous.
Ultimately, however, he simply didn’t have the strength to move to a new hideaway. He needed to rest and he wasn’t likely to find a more defensible spot soon. He almost wished he had Vindicator’s familiar if uncomfortable grip in his hand.
Almost.
He resolved that, if more rats came to attack him in the night, his blades and four remaining vials of alchemist fire would just have to do.
He picked up the jawbone and set it back by the skull. “You don’t mind, friend,” he said, “if I share your tomb with you.”
Though it had its jaw back, the skeleton chose silence as a reply.
Kalen kneeled and unbuckled his leather hauberk. Scars and stitched rents crisscrossed the armor, the legacy of thousands of fights Kalen barely even remembered. He’d earned at least one new cut-from Galandel’s sword-that would need to be patched when possible. Before he attended to that, however, he pulled off his leggings and sat bared to his smallclothes in the grimy room. A cough bubbled up in his chest and he covered it with his hand. No blood on his fingers-good.
He drew his pack over and took out a silvered mirror. With it, he inspected himself: hands, arms, legs, back-all those stretches of flesh he could not easily see. He found mostly bruises and small scrapes, but blood trickled from a long and vicious cut on his right shoulder. He remembered the blow that had dealt it-one of the
