The Inquisitives [2] Night of Long Shadows (5 page)

So the question was—what happened, and where was she now?

He turned, planning a more detailed search of the room. But instead, he froze. Something wasn’t right. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he suddenly felt he wasn’t alone.

And then the shadows came alive and lunged at him. Something rock hard smacked him in the chest, lifting him into the air and sending him flying backward over the bed. He landed on the edge of the mattress and tumbled to the floor, his chest and ribs flaring with pain. He rolled to his feet, eyes frantically searching for his assailant, but he could see nothing in the dimly lit room. He backed against the wall and pulled out his Khutai knives, holding them in the ready position along his forearms.

He slid along the wall, creeping toward the doorway. Still no sign of his attacker. Cutter glanced to his left, checking the door.

When he turned back, he found himself staring into a pair of glowing white eyes. A black metal face hovered only inches from his own. It tilted to the side, birdlike, studying him for an instant. Then it jerked forward, head-butting him.

Cutter staggered backward into the wall, blood spraying from his nose. He slashed out with the knives, hearing the scrape of metal on metal. He ducked low, barely avoiding a fist that smashed into the wall where his face had been. Plaster showered his head. He stabbed upward with the Khutai, but the blade
was turned aside by armor plating. He pushed himself forward, diving headlong across the floor. He scrambled to his feet and pulled the shutter off the everbright lantern near the bed. Yellow light flooded the room.

And Cutter could see what he was facing.

A warforged, but unlike any he had ever seen before. The figure was completely black. Light bounced away from its carapace. Shadows wrapped themselves around its form, almost as if it gathered the darkness as a cloak.

If it had been a human, Cutter would have described it as lithe and sinewy. Its movements were precise, not a motion wasted. He couldn’t quite place what it reminded him of.

But when the warforged stepped away from the wall, he realized what it was.

It reminded him of a hunter stalking its prey. This warforged was more animal than anything else.

It loped toward him, and Cutter saw that the face wasn’t crafted to look like the usual Cannith-issue faceplate. It was thin, like a fox, sharp and pointed, the mouth pulled into a permanent snarl.

“Where is she?” The voice was quiet, unrushed. It sounded male. “Where is she?”

“Where is who?” asked Cutter. He feinted to the side, but the warforged darted forward and grabbed hold of his neck. It lifted Cutter from the floor and pulled him close. The head tilted again and it sniffed, moving over Cutter’s face and neck.

“The girl,” it said. “You have her stench all over you. Where is she?”

Rowen. The ‘forged was talking about Rowen. Cutter struggled in its grasp. “Why?” he gasped. “What do you want with her?”

“That,” said the warforged, “is none of your business.”

It stepped forward and rammed Cutter into the wall. His body smashed through the plaster, his head hitting the wooden wall framing.

“I ask again,” said the warforged. “Where is she?”

The warforged stepped to the side and jerked Cutter away from the wall. He hit the floor, landing awkwardly on his arm. Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet. He’d managed to hold onto his knives, but they seemed useless against the warforged’s plating.

He looked around. The warforged had vanished again.

Cutter realized that the warforged was toying with him, like a predator with harmless prey. Anger coursed through his body and he straightened up. This time he saw the attack coming. He leaned away from the sound of movement and swung his arm in an overhand thrust. He felt the blade connect and sink in, heard a hiss of pain.

Cutter yanked the blade out again.

So the warforged wasn’t invincible. It was just a matter of finding the vulnerable parts.

Cutter dropped into a crouch and swung both knives. They connected but didn’t penetrate. Sparks flew, then something smashed into Cutter’s face. Pain exploded in his cheek. Light flashed before his eyes like lightning strikes stabbing into his head. He was pulled off his feet. He fought, disoriented, but all he could do was scrabble feebly at the metal armor. The warforged pulled him close, then thrust him away again in one smooth, fluid movement. The room flew by, then he was in the light again as he sailed into the lounge.

He landed on his back, his breath exploding from his lungs. He heard a horrible cracking beneath him, then wetness spread along his back. Cutter tried to push himself up but kept slipping every time he did so. What was going on?

Then he realized. He had landed on top of the professor. He felt the bile rise in his throat. He rolled over, momentarily face to face with the shattered visage, then kicked away. He pushed himself to his knees, wincing at the pain shooting through his body. The professor’s blood covered him.

The warforged strode out of the bedroom. Cutter shuffled sideways into the sitting area, putting the couch between himself and his assailant. The warforged didn’t pause. It walked straight over the professor’s body, leaned down and grabbed hold of a couch, and straightened again, sending the heavy piece of furniture crashing into the wall.

Cutter fell back a step. He remembered the sunken fire pit behind him and stepped around it. All he could think about was getting out of this alive. Rowen was in trouble somewhere and he had to find her. He glanced over his shoulder. The door was only a few feet away. If only—

He turned back and shouted in surprise. The warforged was in midair, sailing toward him like a spider gliding along webs.

Cutter dove forward, the warforged passing above him. He tucked his shoulder and rolled straight to his feet, whirling around with his blades held ready.

The construct stood directly in front of him. It grabbed Cutter’s neck, lifting him from the floor. Cutter stabbed beneath its arms, but this time there was no give.

“I will ask one last time,” it said. “Tell me where she is.”

The warforged squeezed. Cutter felt his throat constrict, pushing all the air from his lungs.

“I … I don’t … know.”

“A pity.”

The fingers tightened even more. Cutter dropped his knives and desperately tried to loosen the grip, but it was impossible. The warforged was too strong. Blackness appeared at the edge of his
vision. He squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting his last sight to be that of his murderer. He thought of Rowen, and he prayed that she was somewhere safe, that she hadn’t gotten involved in anything stupid. His lungs screamed for air. He felt a lump in his chest, slowly rising, cutting off all feeling as it went. It hit his throat, demanding air, but there was none. It rose higher, into his head, and he felt himself drifting, falling …

Cutter hit the floor. A moment later he realized that the fingers were gone from his throat. He opened his mouth and pulled in a screaming gasp, air burning, coursing into his body, driving the blackness away. He rolled onto his back, sucking in great mouthfuls of air, as much as he could get. Cutter opened his eyes and rolled over, wondering what was happening, waiting for the killing blow to fall. He tried to get to his feet but his hand slipped and he collapsed, catching the metallic butcher smell of blood in his nostrils. Cutter stared blearily at the red pool beneath him. He had rolled into the professor’s blood again.

Cutter finally pushed himself up. He looked around and saw his Khutai blades lying nearby. He stretched out and grabbed hold of the pommels, dragging them toward him.

He winced and climbed to his feet, looking about the room. There was no sign of the warforged. It had just disappeared. But why?

He heard a gasp of surprise. He turned, still foggy, and saw a dwarf—the dwarf from the library—standing in the doorway, staring at Cutter.

Cutter looked down at his blood-covered body crouched over the corpse of the professor, bloodied knives in his hands.

He looked up at the dwarf. He was reaching into his jerkin for something. Cutter shook his head, knowing there was no point in proclaiming his innocence here. It looked too incriminating.

He staggered toward the door. Whatever the dwarf was
trying to reach was caught inside his clothes. Cutter swung his fist, hitting him in the side of the head. The dwarf fell against the door frame, then collapsed to his knees.

Cutter swept past him and sprinted up the stairs to the rooftop, his breath burning in his lungs and his heart beating erratically in his chest. He crawled back through the window and ran across the bridge.

Only when he was gliding through the air, safe in the sky-coach, did he allow himself a sigh of relief.

A
braxis Wren stood on a small hill in Skysedge Park and let his eyes drift down the sweep of neatly-trimmed grass to the crowds milling below him like …

What were they like? Sheep? No, not sheep. Like expensively dressed and bejeweled peacocks, strutting about with their feathers in the air—or in this case, positioning themselves in strategic locations so that their jewels caught the light of the gently bobbing lanterns.

He took a sip of his wine and winced, holding it up to check its color. This was supposed to be from Aundair? He didn’t think so. He made a mental note to check how much his supplier had pocketed by palming this goblin’s piss onto him. How did the idiot think he would get this past a half-elf?

He turned his attention back to the ebb and flow of bodies—

—ants! They were like ants. That was it!

He stared at them, looking for something, anything remotely interesting to catch his eye. There wasn’t much. The usual
sycophants and boot-lickers, flatterers of women, curriers of favor. He’d already had to fend off three people looking for work, five people wanting an introduction to Celyria ir’Tain—something he couldn’t do if he wanted to, as he didn’t know her—and three rather intriguing invitations he might follow up on, depending on how the rest of the evening turned out.

He sighed and headed down the slope, aiming for a group of people gathered around a particularly annoying young man he’d had the misfortune of meeting at a gala dinner a couple of months previously.

As he drew closer, Wren could hear the young man’s irritating voice as he regaled his audience.

“The thing is, you don’t have time for fear. All you do is get on with the job. And even though my superior officer had died in my arms and handed over command of the unit to me, I had to think about it logically.”

“What did you do?” asked a vacuous-looking young elf.

His companion, a female elf who was not at all vacuous looking—rather tasty, in fact—rolled her eyes.

“The only thing I could do. I wasn’t about to risk any of my men, so when darkness fell, I snuck behind enemy lines and killed the Karrn general myself. Slit his throat.”

The elf gasped and put a delicate hand to his mouth. “No!”

“It was war. These things had to be done.” “Tell me,” said Wren. “Where did this confrontation take place?”

The young man narrowed his eyes at Wren. “Outside Karrnath.”

“Really? Would this be outside Karrnath in the Talenta Plains, or outside Karrnath in the rather unfriendly mountains of the Mror Holds?”

“Uh—”

“Or maybe it was in the Mournland? Yes? No?”

“I … I can’t remember.” The man put a hand to his forehead as if he had a headache. “It’s the trauma, you see. It sometimes makes me forget things. But you wouldn’t know about that.”

“I would, as a matter of fact. And I also know that during the War you were nowhere near the frontline. How did you get in here, anyway? I didn’t invite you.”

“This is your party?”

“It is.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Obviously.”

They stared at each other. Finally, the young man looked away, flushing with embarrassment. “Uh, maybe I’d better go …”

Wren waved his hand dismissively. “You’re here now,” he said. “You may as well stay. Have some wine. It’s from Aundair.”

“Um, thank you.” The young man glanced at the girl, hesitated, then shook his head and wandered off. The girl stared at Wren, eyebrows raised.

“That was rather cruel.”

“Was it?” Wren scratched a pointed ear—a gift from his elf father—and frowned. “I didn’t notice.”

“No, I imagine not. You were too busy staring at me.”

“Can you blame me?”

“No, not really.” The elf grinned, taking a small sip of wine and staring at Wren over the rim of the crystal glass.

Wren smiled back. Maybe things were looking up after all. He took her by the arm and gently guided her away from the confused elf who had been so impressed by the war stories. “Should we go somewhere a bit less … boring?”

“Didn’t you say this was your party?”

Wren shrugged. “I’m afraid it hasn’t lived up to the hype.”

“I see. So, where should we go?”

“Well, my place is not far. We can enjoy the view of the park and enjoy some wine from my cellar.”