racing and woke wanderlust within her.
Maybe someday, she thought, someday when Arch Wood doesn't need me anymore.
She drew a final deep breath and lowered her nose, turning to trot away from the water and back up to Moonshadow Hall.
She had barely cleared the stink of the docks when a new smell sent her cringing back instinctively, teeth bared and fur on enda dark smell, acrid, metallic, and foul. The wolf in her hated it. The human recognized it.
Poison.
No one with any honest business could be about with poison at that hour. Nose to the ground, Feena circled the trail once, then jogged along in the direction that seemed freshest. She gleaned more information as she went. A man carried the poison. He had been drinking, though not heavily, and his dinner had been some kind of spiced pork. The thick odor of clay clung to himshe would guess that he was a potterbut also the smell of cold, raw stone. It was a strange combination.
She caught sight of her quarry just as he stepped into the street-level shadows of the Stiltways.
A growl rumbled up from Feena's throat. She had been into the Stiltways as an acolyte, of course. It was all but impossible to live in Yhaunn without venturing into the district at least once. But even her human senses had reeled at the visual and auditory assault and it had taken her several visits to get used to the place. Crouched so low that she was almost crawling on her belly, her tail tucked tight between her legs, Feena creeped up to the intersection where the man had disappeared and peered inside.
Dank, vile odors wafted out at her. Sounds of pleasure and celebration mixed with groans of misery and suffering. The bright lights and chaos of the Stiltways were, at least, mostly on the levels over her head. Down below, figures moved and stumbled in shadow, their way lit only by smoky torches and shafts of light from above.
Her quarry was almost at the end of the street. The stink of the Stiltways masked the smell of the poison he carried. If she didn't follow, she would lose him.
Bright Lady of the Night guide me, thought Feena.
She rose and raced after him, the nails of her paws clicking on the stone of the street.
The man stopped and turned at the sound.
Feena plunged into the darkest of shadows. Another man curled up there, snoring and drunk. She hunkered down behind him as her quarry paused for a long moment, looking aroundthen moved on. Feena relaxed and rose.
The drunk man stirred.
'Fha… what?' he snorted. Bleary eyes focused on Feena's. 'Nice dog,' he slurred and reached out for her.
She slipped away from his hand and trotted after her quarry, taking more care as she ran. She stayed close to the shadows, and low. The man walked briskly, almost nervously. It seemed that he knew where he was going, but that he wasn't entirely eager to get thereor to be seen on his way.
He finally stopped again at the mouth of an alley. Feena curled into a doorway and watched as he looked furtively in all directionsup and down the street as well as up into the Stiltways abovethen stepped quickly into the shadows. He'd reached his destination. She darted up to the mouth of the alley and peered down it.
Beyond its narrow neck of a mouth, the alley opened up into a small courtyard that been practically buried by the platforms and walkways above it. Noise and some illumination drifted down from the levels overhead. Feena's quarry stood in the freckled shadows, a large dark flask in one hand as he fumbled with the heavy wooden cover on a low stone structure. A number of pipes pierced the wood, rising up and into the shadows, some passing into buildings, others ending in public hand pumps. A well.
Moonmaiden's grace, Feena cursed, if he pours the poison in there
The wooden cover wasn't yielding to one hand. The man set the flask on the ground and hauled at the cover with both hands. It groaned and began to shift. Feena reached into her spirit, seeking the point of balance between woman and wolfand shook herself.
Her chain and the battered symbol of Selune jingled softly.
The man started and the wooden cover slipped from his fingers.
'Who's there?' he called, peering back into the alley. Without taking his eyes away, he bent down, groping for the flask.
Feena flung herself down the alley, exploding out into the courtyard on legs as long and as powerful as a human's, but bent like those of a wolf. She still had a wolfs tail and a wolfs head, as well, but her torso and arms were those' of a woman for all that they rippled with short reddish fur. Her hands, however, were huge, her fingers long, thick, and tipped with claws. Her muzzle all but incapable of forming human words, she let out a dangerous snarl as she leaped.
The man gasped and jerked back toward one of the courtyard's walls. Feena landed with a thump on the wooden cover of the well and spun around to face him.
He clutched the flask in his hand. She growled and stretched out clawed fingers. The man's eyes darted around the tiny courtyard as he sought a way past her. From the top of the well, however, she commanded the space. He started to take a step and she jumped forward to block his way.
The dim light from above flashed on her medallion. The reflected light caught his eyesand they widened.
'Selunite!' he gasped, pulling away. His features hardened into sneering resolve. 'You won't have me, moon- bitch!'
Jerking the stopper free, he raised the flask to his lips and drank greedily.
Startled, Feena froze. When finally she barked and lunged forward to bat the flask away, it was too late. Only a few drops of the dark, acrid liquid splattered across the man's face. His eyes opened wide, the pupils huge, and he let out a strangled, gasping rattle before thrashing back against the wall. Dark froth oozed out of his mouth and across his lips. One hand clawed at his neck and a pendant there.
'Shar…' he slurred.
Horrified, Feena stepped away as he stumbled off his feet, fell to the ground, and lay still.
Moonmaiden's grace, she silently cursed.
Feena bent down swiftly and touched his neck, feeling for a pulse as best she could with her clumsy taloned fingers.
Nothinghe was already dead. But his dying words
She seized his hand and pulled against muscles drawn as rigid as steel by the poison. The dead man's fingers loosened enough to allow the pendant he had seized to fall free. A wooden disk, its rim dark but its center even darker. By better light, Feena knew it would be black surrounded by purple.
A follower of Shar.
Feena let his hand drop and scrambled for the flask as it spun slowly in the shadows. Spilled poison stained the neck and sides. She picked it up carefully, holding it in a beam of pale light from above. A scrap of paper with crude writing had been pasted to the flask's side.
'For the glory of the Lady of Loss,' it read. 'Let all know her power and despair.'
Sharrans. There were Sharrans in Yhaunn.
The flask's stopper had rolled out of the dead man's other hand. Feena retrieved it and replaced it in the flask. A cold feeling was forming in the pit of her belly. If the enemies of Selune were operating in the city, there was certain to be trouble.
But at the same time, her thin, wolfs lips drew back and she bared her teeth in grim satisfaction. Archives for Dhauna, social graces for Mifano, accounts for Velsinorea fight for Feena. Finally, something she could handle without feeling like a complete fool. Feena touched one clawed hand to the medallion around her throat as she stood and turned away from the poisoned corpse.
Bright Lady of the Night, she thought, thank you! — amp; The creature turned away. On one of the walkways overlooking the courtyard and its well, Variance Amatick waited another moment, then parted the shadows that had concealed her. A Selunite and a werewolf. So what she had been told was not an exaggeration.
'I hadn't expected to find you hunting the night, Moonmistress-Designate,' she murmured to herself.
She took a step forward into shadowand emerged on the ground in the courtyard. The dead man's eyes stared up at her. It was a nobler death than she would have given him. A score of deaths and a flask proclaiming the glory of Shar would have been a good lure. The body of a fanatical Sharran cultist would have been even
