Chapter 1

Indigestion! That what's woken me up, bloody indigestion, you can't kill me with dragon bane, okay it makes me ill, but a dose that will see off a good sized fire drake will just gives me a nasty case of the ague! I'll lay here a while longer to see if it goes away, I don't want to disturb Ulrika.

Right next to me, in our rumpled bed, Ulrika the Sorceress. All six feet plus of her lean and slender frame, naked but for a silk sheet tangled around her legs. Small breasts like a schoolgirl, tipped with hard little pink nipples, flat belly, lean thighs that flow into smooth calves, and that taut jewel of her sex!

Ulrika my equally semi immortal lover snores softly along sides me.

Gazing at her aquiline features, her short cap of silver gilt hair, almost as short as my cropped copper locks, is pleasant, but it doesn't' cure my upset stomach.

Another surge of acid fouls my mouth! I'll risk waking my slumbering sweetheart to reach out for the carafe of water on the bedside cabinet.

Shit! I remember now. I was in such a hurry to chase 'Rika up the stairs to our bedroom, and make thunderous love to her, I've left it down below in our kitchen. Another smothered belch, another surge of gastric acid, decides me I'll have to move.

My own bloody fault! After 'Rika and I watched the bare handed fights at the "Castle of Blood", and having won a nice purse on a skinny, black, wench, who knocked out the betting favorite in the second round, we went to dine at the "Golden Cockerel" to celebrate.

A bottle of the house's young, white, Takan vintage, to sip while I stared dreamily at my partner's profile, as she ordered her meal.

"I'll have the peppered beef stew please Rosetta!"

In my state of horny anticipation I made a BIG mistake.

"Same for me love please!"

Rosetta flounced away, swinging her ample hips, heading for the kitchens. She can't make up her mind whether she wants to be bedded by me, 'Rika, or both of us at the same time!

It's true what they say; "The Cockerel" serves the finest peppered beef in the city of Tamnet. I've eaten it before, and it bloody near killed me before, but dreaming of 'Rika's white thighs, and her expert tongue, pushed that thought from my mind.

So after we drove each other to a series of shattering climaxes we slept. And now my stomach is burning!

Enough! I'll take the chance I can slip off without rousing her. She's normally a light sleeper, but we cracked a second bottle of that Takan, and that, coupled with my head between her thighs, for a long time, might have her deep in dreams.

Slipping out of my share of the sheet I pad naked towards the bedroom door.

For a plump and curvy lady I can move lithely and stealthily, and I'm trying really hard to do so. Down in our kitchen, along with the cool water, is a bottle of oil of silver mint. A few drops of that with a goblet of water should kill the fires.

From the angle of the moonlight, shining through the window, I estimate its mid way between midnight and dawn, call it the third hour.

The house is silent, as is the street outside. I'm reaching for the heavy, brass, doorknob, when I see it's turning, slowly and silently. Only we should be in the house so there's something seriously wrong! Thought is separated from action by only a split second.

Grabbing the handle, just as the door opens a fraction, I wrench it inwards, throwing the man in the doorway off balance. He's taller than me, but not as tall as my towering lover, lying in the bed behind me. Dressed all in black, from head to toe, and a mask obscuring his features, he's clearly a guild assassin.

He's right handed, a broad murder blade clutched in that hand, he's opened the door with his left, so he can't bring the knife to bear in time. Grabbing his thick wrist I twist hard, the knife falls as a bone cracks noisily. With my free hand I throw him into our bedroom behind me. She should be awake by now but I make sure.

"ULRIKA!"

I've no time for anything else, as a second, all black clad figure, has taken the first killer's place in the doorway. He's toting a curved short sword, poised to strike, I don't let him!

Stepping inside his swing, I hammer the heel of my hand into his sternum, and the blade of my free hand, against his sword arm's wrist.

Behind me I hear "whiz thunk, whiz thunk", which means 'Rika's got to her harness of throwing knives, and I can forget the first killer.

Then fuck me! There's a third black form behind the one I've just disarmed. Heaving his partner into him I duck and scoop up the fallen short sword.

"Whiz thunk, whiz thunk!"

A bone handled throwing knife blossoms from the eye socket of the killer I've staggered, a second one appears in his throat like magic. My lover can work magic but this is just plain skill, and long hours of practice.

With one, effortless, stroke, I nearly behead the third masked man, and step over the two corpses onto the landing. Shit! There's another one heading up the stairs and almost on me. He's carrying a stiletto in either hand, but I don't let him get to use them. With the captured sword I cut him from neck to navel!

It's a good job everything's been in bad light, because my specs are on the cabinet, along side the bed. My inflamed tummy made me forget what's normally a conditioned reflex, to put them on as soon as I wake up.

The killers were no better off than me in the half light. Now Ulrika's with me on the landing!

Soft sandals scuffle below in the hall, and a final black clad figure is running. Ulrika's hands blur! Three "whiz thunks" and three blades materialize in the black jerkin, and down he goes.

Two stark naked women, one of them me, blood spattered, stand staring at each other then speak together.

"What the fuck's going on?"

"Who the fuck is this lot and how did they get in?"

Bending I wrench the mask off the nearest corpse. Tattooed on his forehead is a small skull.

"Black Skull assassin's guild 'Rika, five of them, a hand as they call them. Somebody had plenty of gold to splash out on our heads!"

It's then the reaction hits me, and I'm trembling a little. Not just for myself, I could have lost 'Rika as well as my life. Oh I'm hard to kill! My ancestry makes that a given, sorceresses have more lives than a cat, but our idyll together has made me/us careless lately.

Reaching out I fold 'Rika into an embrace, she's more than a head taller than me, so it's nice that my face is resting against those apple sized breasts as I speak.

"Gods, Love! That was too close for comfort! I could have lost you, we could both be dead. We've gotten slack; we've got to find out how they got in here, and who hired them!"

She kisses me on the forehead like a mother kissing her child off to school.

"You're right Love, but first you better get cleaned up, there's a lot of those bastards blood all over you, and a bit on me now. I think it might be a good idea if we got some clothes on too."

She's right! When you take off somebody's head, and open another one up from one end of his torso to the other, things get messy. Both of us retire to our bathroom, running water, hot running water, courtesy of 'Rika's magic. Cleaned off and dried we dress fast.

Though before we went near the bathroom I checked, very carefully, that the four up here were dead. 'Rika watched the body in our hall, but from the blood pooled around it, I figure that one had long ago met the judgment of his gods. Okay they LOOKED dead but I take no chances.

I pull on a pair of black leggings, a blue cotton shirt, leather slippers, and a leather waistcoat. I don't bother with a breast band, or a pair of those lovely, small, cotton, briefs, they make and sell in this city.

'Rika slips her endless legs into doeskin trousers, tugs on a lamb's wool sweater, no breast band needed for her. Finally, brocade slippers, sheathe her narrow feet. She retrieves her knives, one by one, from the bodies, cleaning the blades scrupulously, on a towel from the bathroom.

Checking the body in the hall I find I'm right and also wrong, at the same time! The assassin's stone cold dead but he is a she. When I peel off the mask, she's olive skinned, dark haired, maybe eighteen world cycles. 'Rika shakes her head ruefully.

"Pretty little thing, but why was she running away when the other four went after us?"

"That "pretty little thing" would have tried to kill us, just like those other four, Love, but she'll be the apprentice. Their job is, if the rest of the hand are captured or killed, to attempt to get back to the chapter house, and then report what went wrong."

It's then that 'Rika wrinkles her nose in puzzlement.

"Where was she running to Karla? She'd turned away from the door and was running down the hall."

"First thing is, Love, to find out how they got in here. The wards are up? Yes? So could they have ported in here through your wards?"

"Karla there's maybe six or seven magic users within a thousand leagues of here, who can teleport themselves, or other people, through my wards. But if they had I'd have known about it instantly, and the shields would have gone up around our bedroom at once."

I'm checking the locks and twin bolts on the ironwood front door while she's talking.

"Still locked and bolted Love. Could a mage have opened them from the outside to let those five buggers in?"

"Not without tripping my wards Love, just like apportation, kinetic manipulation of the locks and bolts would alert me at once."

"Then how the fuck did they get in? They can't port in; they didn't open the door, what's left?"

"There is one way! A portal ring! But one would have to be here in the house, while the linked ring can be anywhere. You step in one and step out of the other instantly."

Things start clicking into place then!

"She was running that way 'Rika! Does the ring have to be visible, like lying on top of the carpet or something?"

"No you can sink them into floorboards and lay a rug over them if you like."

Pointing down to the hall floor I ask 'Rika what might sound a stupid question.

"What do you see 'Rika?"

"The hall floor of course."

"No 'Rika what do you SEE?"

"Sea green tiles with dolphins on them love what else?"

"Yeah our brand new, just recently laid, green tiles!"

Dropping to my knees, I draw back my left fist, and hammer it down SO hard! The tiles explode into fragments and fly like hail. Two more strikes and we can see it! A metal ring, perhaps four or five feet across, made of a dull, yellowish, material.

"Those bastard Arkelian brothers! Remember they wanted us out of the house while they tiled the hall? They said it would be really messy."

"Yep Karla! So we went to eat at the "Cockerel" then watched the horse racing at Bluegrass fields, while those pricks hid this under their tiles."

As I'm reaching down to the ring of metal 'Rika grabs my hand.

"Careful Love! It might be spelled!"

"Do you really think that's likely to hurt ME?"

"Well it's better to be safe than sorry Love, let me check."

Her hand hovers over the dull metal and tiny filaments of silver light flicker over the metal.

"It's safe but still open! Break it Karla! Whoever's at the other end could still send a fireball through it at us."

Hooking my fingers under it I lift it, its light and the metal's malleable, a couple of twists of my wrists and it cracks across.

"Well if that's safe now 'Rika we'd better call the Night Watch!"

A year ago I'd have told my lady to just vaporize the bastard's bodies, but I've learnt how she respects the laws of her city by now. Cupping one of her palms, and frowning, as a tiny manikin appears there. It bows.

"Your wishes my lady?"

"Go to the square of the goldsmiths, you'll find Sergeant Cullen and his patrol there. Tell him to come to Serenity Villa on Birdsong Lane. Tell him murder was attempted here tonight. Now go!"

Surrounded in a globe of orange light, the imp floats through the wall, and is gone. I turn and head off towards the kitchen.

"Karla where are you going?"

"Well if Cullen and his boys and girls are coming here I'm going to put the kettle on and make a pot of tea."

"For them love you better make two pots!"

The Watch arrive promptly, and by then the door is unlocked and unbolted. The imposing figure of Cullen is first through the door. Just a fraction shorter than my lady, he's double her weight, and larger in every other dimension except height!

"Ladies! What in Chaos's name's been happening here?"

His eyes are locked on the small body on our hall floor, in its pool of blood, plus shattered tiles and a broken ring of metal, hurled to one side.