Chapter 30

Eastmarket District, Oldtown

The goblin, Asaqi, was alive with curiosity when her sister Goldeneyes tasked her with aiding the old woodworker, but she didn’t ask questions. Goldeneyes was in a mood and she had learned long ago it was safest just to obey. She assembled a team comprised three of her sisters and two white mountain trolls who were her usual leg breakers. They led the human across Oldtown to one of Silverbirch’s warehouses. Human-kind in Oldtown were generally regarded with scorn. They didn’t possess the amoral cunning of goblin-kind, the maker skills of dwarven-kind, or the fighting ability of trolls or orcs. So she was more than a bit curious why her sister had shown such respect to the old human. The others in her team did not mask their disdain for the old woodworker. It was a straightforward job compared to their usual. Easy money. They sauntered along, greeting acquaintances and joking among themselves.

As a matter of course, Asaqi kept her eye on the cutpurses that infested the streets. She gradually noticed that they were behaving oddly. They seemed to be covertly signing in what she recognized as the thieves’ secret language. With shock, she realized it was the old woodworker that they were directing their attention to. Did he know thieves cant?

Meg, the female troll, grew impatient with their slow pace, cursed and shoved the old man to get him to move faster. Somehow, unbelievably, he adroitly dodged her shove, grabbed her wrist, twisted it and forced her to her knees. The troll eight feet tall and over five hundred pounds grunted in pain and anger that disappeared when she stared fixedly at a small tattoo on the inside of the human’s right wrist. Her face went pale as milk. She grunted something in trollish. The human nodded. She leaped to her feet and leaped back from him like he was a deadly viper.

He growled out a command in trollish. The two trolls bowed their heads respectfully.

The human ignored the show of deference and walked on. The trolls followed, practically stepping on his heels in their anxiety to anticipate and obey whatever command he would give them.

The goblins looked at each other uneasily and followed. The disdain her team had shown now morphed into a cautious wariness. Something had shifted. She had lost control of her team and she couldn’t quite figure out why she felt that way. She cursed her blind stupidity when she saw the facade of age was gone from the woodworker. He moved differently. She slanted her eyes at him and what she saw made the hair on her neck stand. His green eyes were flickering from green to black. His former easygoing manner had disappeared. Now he was all cold steel. Deadly.

She had a terrible suspicion and drifted over to the female troll, Meg. She was pale, still shocked.

“What’s going on? Who is this being?”

Meg looked at her like she was a cub. She whispered, “He is the Shadow Walker, Mistress.”

Now it was her turn to pale.

The human looked over at her and growled, “How much further is this place, goblin?”.

Thoroughly cowed now, she answered. “Two blocks ahead, master.”

When the group arrived in the alley behind the warehouse, the first thing Asaqi saw was the crumpled form of a small goblin up against the wall. Someone had beaten the little male severely, but she saw he still lived. Goblin-kind were far tougher than most beings realized. Both she and the human knelt to check on the small male. His left arm was twisted out of the socket and broken. The right still clutched a bloody dagger. He had sustained a massive blow to the chest. Ribs were sure to be broken.

“Master, I hurt.” The little goblin’s voice was barely a whisper.

“I know, my brother,” the woodworker said. “We will get you to a healer. First, let’s get your arm back in place and that will relieve some of your pain. Then we will get you to a healer to fix you up.”

Asaqi watched the human adroitly set the arm back in its socket and noted how he expertly checked the goblin’s eyes and felt for a pulse.

“Clanless, I am. I never had a brother, Master.” He closed his eyes.

And died.

She was shocked when she saw the anguish in the human’s eyes. Goblins saved their emotions for members of their clan. Outsiders were either to be feared or exploited.

“Master?” Asaqi asked fearfully. The being before her had changed into something else, it looked at her and froze her to immobility.

“Go, Mistress.”

The woodworker casually walked up to the door and delivered a kick that took the door completely off the hinges.

Despite herself, she followed into the courtyard behind the building. She wrinkled her nose at the redolent odor of death. The yard looked and smelled like one of the slaughtering pits down in the Shambles district. Blood spattered everywhere. In one corner lay the bodies of two young dwarven girls. She could see that someone had tortured them, then slit their throats. They weren’t alone. Two Asrai half-bloods were sprawled next to them and had suffered a similar fate.

She looked at the tall human to see his reaction and stepped away hastily. His eyes were now purest black. There was a shriek and a glowing whip-like shape wove around his body. Wide-eyed, she and her team backed away slowly.

The being looked at her and whistle clicked in low alfar, “The lordling has taken his revenge. I will take mine.” His ebon eyes caught hers. “I have need of your sword, Mistress. I offer two hundred coppers for the loan.”

Thoroughly cowed now, she licked her lips, then belatedly nodded her acceptance of the deal. The human reached into his bag and handed her four paper wrapped in cylinders. She slipped them into her pouch without checking. Counting might cause offense. She meekly handed over her sword.

“Go.”

Asaqi and her team backed away and ran. Utterly relieved to escape.

After the goblin team left, Quinn’s eyes swept the yard again, cataloging detail after detail. He cursed bitterly when he picked up a faint brimstone trace of the ripper’s magic. The last time he’d seen it was in Niamh’s hands.

He stood still as stone, listening to the metronomic beat of his heart, trying to control the flaring rage that threatened to overwhelm him. The Other urged him to cry havoc. After some centering breaths, he was able to bank the heat until all that was left was ice. Finally, he could think.

Niamh would never let go of the ripper willingly. Katie and Niamh working together were a recipe for disaster. Neither of them had a lick of common sense when it came to doing what they thought was right. They would charge the gates of hell with a cup of ice water, egging each other on to run faster. Now it looked like they had got their butts captured. Only the Mother knew where.

Things about this job just kept getting better and better. He cursed again, this time at himself. Told himself to quit whining and get his shit together. He had no room to judge. This day, he was no poster boy for competence.

It was time to have a talk with the guild master. He slipped through the back door and found the first floor empty, save for three of the mindless who sat perched on chairs in a corner, staring at each other. Quinn grimaced in pity and proceeded up the stairway to the second floor moving silent as a winter fog. There he saw three battle orcs crouched playing one of the dicing games that their race seemed to be addicted to. A female troll sat behind a battered desk, sharpening a dagger on a whetstone.

None of them heard his silent entrance.

“I believe the guild master is looking for me,” he sang out in low alfar.

The sound of his voice splashed into the room like a stone on a still pond.

All four beings jumped into action, tripping and shoving to get to him. The orcs soon sorted themselves. They spread out and advanced toward him. Quinn was impressed. These beings were fighters of high order. Fully trained and, judging from the scars they wore, battle-tested, probably in the fighting pits down in Southmarket.

He only needed one. The whip flashed, two calculated blows, and two fell unconscious.

The third, the eldest, kept advancing. As he shuffled forward, he huffed, working himself into a combat rage.

“Stand fast, battle leader,” he growled in orcish. “And maybe your wives won’t have to tear their hair and mourn this day.”

Given that sliver of hope, the orc stood fast.

Quinn turned to the female troll, who looked stunned by the quick turn of events. “What is your name, Mistress?”

She paled. The tall being spoke trollish. She had a sudden insight into just who this being was.

“I am called Toolie of the Ruby River Clan,” she said faintly. Her eyes were modestly downcast, as was proper in the presence of this being.

“Mistress Toolie, do you know where to find the being that is next in line for the leadership of the guild?”