identify them in the melee that would surely come.
The Dragonbloods marched in from the west, alongside their vassals: the Blacknails, the Pack Wolves, and the Glass Smashers. The Shou wielded all manner of swords and other blades. Many clutched disks of iron filed into points to use as crude but deadly carvestars. Leather armor cut to show her red dragon tattoo, the great warrior Kasi strode in front, a katana clasped in her hands. The Shou and their minions wore jade green sashes to mark them from the other gangs.
From the northeast came the Coin-Spinners, led by Eden herself. The one-eyed priestess had girded herself for the occasion in a gold-inlaid breastplate that had once held precious stones but now displayed only empty sockets. Walking was clearly an effort, but she managed it surprisingly well. She wielded a vicious flail that hung loose at her side, but she was all smiles. “Lady Luck be with us!” she shouted and her forces responded in kind. They were by far the best equipped, but then, they were first among the Five. Every one of them wore a painted gold sash.
At first, it seemed the Master of the Throat would go unrepresented. Then the ground near the northernmost point of the market began to stir and corpses pulled themselves from the riven earth. The living gangs of Luskan drew back, but the undead paid them no heed. The Master of the Throat’s chosen vessel was truly horrific: a hulk built from a dozen corpses that surveyed the field like a general. The corpses had no colors, but there was no mistaking them.
From the mean streets of east Luskan came the Dogtooths, the Bloodboots, and the Hide-Etchers, along with Torm’s Trollops. The last were sharp-as-blades, tough-as-stone festboys and festgirls, with nothing like play on their minds today. The four gangs had ever been lesser players in Luskan, and perhaps they saw an opportunity this day to rise higher. They had chosen orange for their color.
Finally, the Dead Rats filtered in from the south, along with the massive Dustclaws. Since the death of Duulgrin, the brutes had followed the woman who now stalked in front of them: Sithe with her reaving axe. The Dustclaw bruisers cut an odd juxtaposition with the weaselly Rats, but strange times made strange allies. The Dustclaws had donned the same red kerchiefs the Rats wore.
They were all gathered, ready to begin.
A cry went up from the Dogtooths and soon every gang in the square echoed it: “Shadowbane!” they called. “Shadowbane!”
Kalen rose from where he lay hidden in the center of the market, obscured beneath a ratty cloak. His sudden appearance struck them to expectant silence.
Eden stepped forward. “Well, Shadowbane-we’ve all arrived. What now?”
Muffled agreement filtered around the square, all eyes looking to him for what would come next. Kalen surveyed the gathered forces silently, noting how they all stood ready for a charge. At least they were not fighting yet, which he took as some small victory. It would not last, he knew. He held up his hand.
“Now I will speak with each of your kings,” Kalen said, projecting his voice to fill the open area. “Together, we will decide the new course of Luskan.”
Those words met with murmured agreement and a few shouted insults. Ultimately, the various leaders stepped forward. Kasi for the Shou, Eden for the Coin-Spinners, Sithe for the Dead Rats and Dustclaws. The Dogtooths and their ilk sent a hulking man with a great spear, from which hung many shriveled fingers. Finally, the patchwork corpse of the Master of the Throat lurched and lumbered toward him.
“All’s well,” Kalen murmured. “All’s-”
Instinct rose within him, but just too late. An arrow gleamed in the sun, hidden from his eyes until it thudded into his shoulder. Although he could barely feel the arrow’s sting, the impact knocked him to the ground. If he hadn’t trusted himself to move at just the right instant, it would have ended up in his heart.
Poison coated the arrow’s point. He could not feel it, but he recognized the effects of the paralytic venom on his body.
Kalen heard a cry go up and he looked to the gangs as they surged forward. That single arrow-like a flaming taper tossed into dry hay-had burnt up all his plans. Instantly the battle began.
With that, the world vanished.
When Kalen awoke, chaos surged in Luskan’s market square.
The Dogtooths crashed into the Dragonbloods, the Coin-Spinners hacked at red-kerchief marked Rats and locked blades with hulking Dustclaws, and the legions of the Throat fought against them all. Blades slashed, arrows flew, cries sounded, and blood flowed. Dust rose from a thousand stomping feet, covering everything.
A Dustclaw roared, charging in toward three Dogtooths, scattering them like mangy dogs, but a crossbow bolt stopped the brute dead in his tracks. The woman who had shot him fumbled to reload, her hand shaking. The bruiser lumbered toward her, seized the crossbow, and smashed her face with it. They fell together, wrestling in the dust.
Nearby, a hirsute woman-a Dead Rat, by her red kerchief and weasel-like features-leaped onto the back of a Bloodboot and tore off his ear with her teeth. Two zombies stumbled out of the dust and reached toward them both. The man without an ear, already terrified and in agony, ran. The woman, distracted with her new prize, didn’t see them coming until it was too late. She screamed as they pummeled her into the ground.
Kalen had thought he would have more time, but someone had betrayed him.
A tall, feminine form materialized out of the swirling dust.
“Eden,” he said, struggling to rise against the venom in his blood.
The priestess stepped toward him. She wore a huge smile. “Why Brother!” she said. “I thought for sure you’d have the sense to flee by now.”
A mountain-sized creature loomed out of the dust-the Master of the Throat. Eden turned and Kalen saw her coin flare with light. “Begone, in the Lady’s name!”
A storm of power lashed at the hulking zombie and its component corpses abruptly shattered into a dozen pieces, flinging congealed gore in every direction. Some of the muck spattered across Eden’s face and she laughed madly.
A hand touched Kalen on the shoulder-Sithe. Blood spattered the genasi, but Kalen thought none was her own. “Shadowbane,” she said.
“Sithe!” Eden said. “Burn in the Lady’s gaze!”
The priestess waved her hand and a lance of white light stabbed at Sithe, only to be deflected off her black axe. The genasi strode forward, setting her weapon whirling. As the women clashed, Kalen managed to get to his feet. He gazed around to take in the battle.
All was madness. Shou hacked at Dustclaw, Dustclaw at Dogtooth-hundreds of men and women lashed out at anything that did not wear the same colors. A Shou was cutting pieces off a Bloodboot, who howled but couldn’t manage to fight back. A Hide-Etcher drove a blade into a Blacknail’s ribs and stumbled to his next victim. The killer was in turn transfixed with a spear that nailed him to the ground.
Kalen had to stop the fighting. He had to get to the kings.
He cast about, searching. The Master of the Throat he’d seen destroyed. Sithe and Eden had vanished into the dust, fighting loudly with great bursts of power-and wild swirls of Eden’s laughter. Kasi of the Dragonbloods was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps that was for the best-the woman had every reason to want him dead, as a matter of honor.
The ground rumbled and Kalen nearly fell to his knees. The quake stirred up half a hundred shouts. Everywhere the folk of the battle paused in their enthusiastic bloodletting to look around wildly for the source of the disturbance.
A frozen hand closed around Kalen’s spine and fear settled in his bowels. He knew, in that moment, that he had been wrong in some pivotal way. Somehow, he had been mistaken and now they were all going to perish.
A great sound rose through the market-a chittering, chattering, deafening drone that made the gangs in the square cover their ears. The ground shifted and mounds began to rise, just as if some great hand were pushing upward through the burned and blistered soil. Cobblestones popped free of the dirt and skittered down the rising hills. They reminded Kalen of the sores he’d seen on victims of the Fury.
Gods. Kalen saw, too late, what was coming.
The top of one rising hill burst open, sending forth a surging flow of spiders and locusts, beetles and
