The Inquisitives [2] Night of Long Shadows (8 page)

Despite his best efforts, Wren had never been inside Savia’s rooms. For some reason, the woman consistently managed to resist his charms. He looked around the gently-lit sitting area. She definitely had good taste, so she should be drawn to Wren like a Khyber worshiper to a hole in the ground.

Torin stood uncomfortably by the doorway while Wren breezed around the room, picking up small carvings and examining them, bending down to study the porcelain inlay on a small black table. It looked dwarven to him. He came to a stop before a series of stone sculptures depicting a warrior in various poses of prayer. He reached out to touch them, then drew his hand back.

“Are these real?” he asked, seeking out Savia.

“They are.”

Wren turned his attention to the carvings. They were Valenar in make. The statues represented the seven deep prayers the elves recited to their ancestors before going into battle. But the statues
must have been over five hundred years old. No new ones had been made since the Valenar left Aerenal. They were passed down through the generations and treated with the utmost reverence.

“How did you come by them?” he asked.

“They were a gift. For a favor.”

“A
gift!
Host, woman! What did you do for them?”

“None of your business. Now, tell me what’s going on.”

Wren’s gaze lingered on the statues, then he tore himself away and joined Savia on a small couch. On the table in front of them were papers and files, some marked important. Wren realized they must involve the city council.

Savia saw him looking and gathered the papers together. “Focus, Wren. Come now.”

“Sorry.”

He went on to tell her of the night’s events, ending with a description of the assailant and the name they had found in the professor’s diary.

“How bizarre,” said Savia.

“Does the description strike you as familiar?”

“Well, yes. But that’s what I find so strange. The description perfectly matches a man called Cutter. He works for the Boromar clan watching over some of their girls. The establishment isn’t far from here, actually. It’s called the Tufted Feather. And ‘Red’ … I can only assume that to be Rowen. She’s a courtesan, but she and Cutter are an item. The girls think it all terribly romantic.”

“Interesting,” mused Wren. “Torin, what am I thinking?”

Torin had stepped forward from his place by the door when Savia started talking. He cleared his throat. “You’re thinking this Cutter couldn’t handle his girl sleeping with other men. That he killed this professor in a jealous rage.”

Wren winked at Savia. “Taught him everything he knows,” he said. “What do you think? Does it sound feasible?”

Savia shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know this Cutter fellow. I’ve only seen him in passing.”

Wren stood up. “Come, Torin. I know you wanted to get home to that lively wife of yours, but duty calls.” He took Savia’s hand and kissed it. “Always a pleasure. Call me if you ever change your mind about dinner. The invitation is always open.”

Torin was waiting for him by the door. They exited the rooms and headed into the corridor.

“Does your wife really not like me?” asked Wren.

“Hates you. Do you find that hard to believe?”

“Frankly … yes. I think you’re lying just to upset me.”

Torin sighed. “Believe what you want, Wren. Let’s just get this over with.”

C
utter dumped the skycoach a few districts away and returned to the Tufted Feather on foot. He was aching all over from the fight with the warforged, and he was sure the last two fingers on his right hand were broken, or at the very least, dislocated. He couldn’t even remember how that had happened.

He slipped through the front door and headed straight for the stairs. The rain had washed much of the blood from him, but he still looked a mess. Luckily, no one paid him any attention.

He checked Rowen’s room to make sure she hadn’t returned. It looked the same as he had left it. He stood at the foot of her bed and tried to think it through.

She was still out there somewhere. But where? It made sense that she would return here to Cutter. He could protect her.

Unless she thought she was being followed or she feared the warforged would be waiting for her.

So where else could she be? She had no family. Her only brother had been killed last year in a tavern brawl. She had no
home. All her friends lived around the district.

Unless she was already—

No. He couldn’t think that way. The warforged had asked Cutter where she was, so she must have escaped the professor’s rooms. All he had to do was find her and they could sort this whole thing out. In the meantime, he needed to figure out what had happened in the professor’s rooms. And Salkith was the key. Cutter needed to track down the courier to find out the part he played in the night’s events.

He returned to his room and changed his clothes, slipping on a leather vest beneath a clean shirt. It didn’t offer much protection, but it was better than nothing, and he preferred its flexibility to any kind of mail shirt. He located his short-hafted war hammer and attached its loop of leather to his belt. It weighed him down. He preferred the Khutai blades, but the heavy hammer would be more useful against the warforged. One side of it was spiked, and he reckoned he’d do more damage with it than the Valenar knives. Cutter took a small money pouch from the drawer and weighed it in his hands. Tiel hadn’t paid him for the last month’s work, so he had been dipping into his meager savings. Not much left.

Tiel. He’d be wondering where Cutter was with his money. Regardless, Cutter couldn’t spare the time to seek him out and tell him what had happened. He’d have to leave it for the moment. There were more important things to think about.

A knock came at the door, soft and hesitant.

Cutter froze, then looked around his room to make sure he had everything he needed. He unhooked the hammer and crept across the wooden boards to the door. He took a deep breath, then yanked it open.

A woman was standing there. She stifled a scream and stepped backward, staring at Cutter with wide eyes. It was
Renaia, a courtesan from a brothel over in the Firelight District. He lowered the hammer and stepped backward, opening his mouth to apologize.

At the same moment, the window behind him exploded inward, showering the room and Cutter’s back with shards of glass.

Cutter spun, slamming the door shut as he did so, and saw the warforged landing on the floor at the foot of his bed. Cutter swung the hammer in an overhand arc. It slammed into the warforged with a dull clang, driving it to its knees. The warforged lashed out with an arm, punching Cutter hard in the stomach. His leather vest absorbed some of the blow, but it still sent him staggering back into the wall, gasping for breath.

The warforged straightened and surveyed the room. It must have followed Cutter, hoping to find Rowen.

Cutter flipped the hammer around and pushed himself away from the wall. The warforged was ignoring him for the moment while it searched for Rowen. Big mistake.

Cutter swung the hammer as hard as he could and felt the spike punch through the metal plating on the warforged’s back. The ‘forged arched its back with an animal-like cry of agony and jabbed its elbow into Cutter’s cheek. His head jerked back. Cutter felt a bloom of red-tinged pain as the skin split and blood flowed.

Cutter staggered backward, blinking to clear the flashes before his eyes. The warforged reached over its shoulder and pulled the hammer free. Blinking, Cutter managed to focus just in time to see the hammer flying end over end toward him. He dropped, and it smashed into the wall, punching a deep hole in the plaster.

The warforged sniffed the air, but when it decided Rowen wasn’t hiding anywhere, it turned its attention to Cutter. It held
its arms out at its sides. Cutter heard the scrape of metal on metal as two blades slid from the backs of its hands.

“You don’t know where she is.”

“I …” Cutter pushed himself to his feet and grabbed the hammer. “I already told you that.”

“Then you are of no use to me.”

The warforged advanced on him. Cutter took one look at the blades and grabbed the hammer, thrusting it into his belt. He couldn’t be any help to Rowen dead.

So he jumped out the window.

It was a pretty stupid thing to do considering his room was on the top floor of the building, but he didn’t have any other choice.

Cutter turned just before he dropped from the window and grabbed hold of the window ledge. He shinnied across and pulled himself up at the next window. The eaves of the roof were about five feet above him. He jumped and caught hold, but the gutter came away in his hand and almost sent him tumbling to the ground. He steadied himself and tried again, this time catching hold of the wooden supports beneath the roof tiles. He looked back and saw the warforged leaning out the window. The construct grabbed hold of the window frame and climbed out.

Cutter cursed the creation of all warforged and pulled himself up onto the roof. He ran carefully along the center peak and leaped across the gap onto the next building.

The three neighboring buildings were all part of the same structure, giving him space to build up speed. But he was rapidly running out of roof. The street on which the Feather was built was nestled between huge towers that soared up on either side. On the lower levels of Sharn, any kind of empty space between tower bases was a much sought after prize.

Cutter glanced over his shoulder and saw the black metal of
the warforged glinting in the light of the surrounding city. That glow was always there, a permanent facet of city life gleaming from windows and everbright lanterns and passing skycoaches. Cutter was thankful for it as he reached the end of the roof, because it enabled him to search for a means of escape.

Not that one presented itself. A wide street opened up below him. The building on the opposite side was over twenty feet away. No way was he making that jump. Cutter cursed himself for not listening to Rowen and buying himself a feather fall charm. She was always saying he would need one.

Cutter pulled out the hammer and turned to face the warforged. It had slowed to a walk and was now only a few arm-lengths in front of Cutter.

“Why are you doing this?” asked Cutter. “What do you want with Rowen?”

“She took something that didn’t belong to her,” said the warforged.

“I’ll find her. She’ll give it back.”

“It is too late for that.” The warforged crossed its arms across its chest, the blades forming a
V
under its chin.

Cutter looked over his shoulder. A skycoach was approaching. Keep him talking, Cutter thought. Maybe there was still a way out of this.

“Who are you?”

“Who am I?” The warforged was silent for a moment, and when it spoke again it was in a soft whisper that caused the hair on the back of Cutter’s neck to rise. “I am the unnamed. I am the fear of darkness. I am the night stalker, the killer of children. I am the will of the Shadow, and I do his bidding.”

Cutter swallowed.
The Shadow?

“Enough of this. It is time for you to embrace darkness.”

“Embrace your own darkness.”

Cutter swung his arm with all his might, the hammer coming around in a wide arc. He released the haft, keeping hold of the leather loop. The iron smashed into the warforged’s face, sending it staggering to the side. Without waiting to see what damage he had caused, Cutter turned and leaped into the air, praying that he’d timed this right.

He hadn’t. The skycoach was already drifting past. He stretched out with his free hand and managed to grab hold of the stern as he plummeted through the air. His arm jerked in its socket and the coach lurched downward. He gritted his teeth against the pain, then threw his hammer over the side and grabbed hold of the hull with his other hand. He pulled himself up and flopped over the side, landing on his back. Cutter heard the driver shouting something from up front, but couldn’t hear what he was saying. Nothing complimentary, that was sure.

He pushed himself up against the side of the coach and stared at two young men who were regarding him from their padded seats with looks of irritation.

“Did you see that?”

“I did. No consideration. None at all. He made me spill my wine. You.” One of the men prodded Cutter with his foot-a foot shod in a silk slipper. “How dare you jump into our coach like that. Have you no manners?”

“Of course he doesn’t. Look at him. He’s a brute.”

“Mmm. Quite tasty though, don’t you think?”

“I suppose … in a
vulgar
kind of way. If that’s your thing.”

“Oh, definitely.
If
that’s your thing.”

Cutter sat up. “One more word from either of you and you’re over the side.”

“What’s going on back there?” shouted the driver, trying to see over his shoulder and control the coach at the same time.

Cutter ignored him and got to his knees, looking back at the rooftop.

The warforged was dropping through the air straight for him.