Shadowdance 01 - A Dance of Cloaks

reasons she kept him close. Crouched shoulder to shoulder with him atop the roof, she wished the man would at least take better care of his teeth. Someday his breath would give them away, she just knew it.
    “Unchecked?” Veliana said, her voice deeply bitter. “I’m surprised they haven’t encountered the rest of the guilds slicing through our territory. They’re like wolves fighting over a dead deer.”
    “Tonight that changes,” said Walt. “Tonight the deer shows it’s not so dead after all.”
    “They move,” said Vick, the other man atop the roof with them. He was young, with short blond hair and a scraggly mustache that failed to thicken no matter how long he went without shaving.
    Veliana watched as the six men bolted around the buildings. She unsheathed her daggers as beside her Walt readied a crossbow.
    “Six on three,” he said. “I’ll get two before they turn. That leaves four for you and Vick when you’re on the ground. Think you can handle that?”
    “Don’t insult me,” Veliana said as she leaped off the roof. Her silent landing went unnoticed. High above her a crossbow bolt whistled through the air. It struck one of the Hawk thugs square in the back. He lurched gracelessly to the ground. The remaining five spun. A second died, a bolt piercing his throat. The others charged, weaving from side to side in an attempt to thwart the crossbowman.
    Vick should have been rushing alongside her, and Walt should have been firing more bolts from the roof. When neither happened, Veliana risked a look behind, just in time to see Walt’s body hit the ground. Her heart sank at the disgusting sound it made. She had only a moment to glance up and see Vick sneering down at her before daggers cut at her slender frame. She batted them away, but with four to her one, she was sorely pressed.
    The Hawks spread out farther, trapping her in the center of a diamond. Desperate, she lunged at one of the men, thinking that if she could kill him quickly she might escape. Her skill was great, and the man would have died under her assault, but then she felt a great weight slam into her. Stunned, she looked down at the bloody bolt protruding from her shoulder. Blood poured across her clothes.
    Her daggers faltered, her meager blocks batted aside like children’s defenses. Something hard struck the back of her head. She had just enough time to curse Vick’s name before blacking out.
    When Veliana awoke, she was blindfolded and shackled to a wall. She felt uncomfortably warm, which made even less sense when she realized she was naked. As the rest of her senses came into focus, she heard the popping and crackling of a fire. That explained the sweat that covered her body. But where was she?
    “Wake her up,” she heard a voice say. Hoping to hear anything she could use, she kept her body still and pretended to be asleep. To her left she heard rustling, and then something sharp, like a needle, stabbed the tip of her forefinger. She cried out. The sound was just barely coming out of her mouth before a fist struck her. Blood dribbled down her lips. Her tongue ached where she’d bit it.
    Someone yanked the blindfold off her face. With blurred vision she looked at her captor. She saw the gray of his cloak and the short swords swinging from his hips. The way he stood before her, as if she were a peasant in the presence of a man who owned the world, told her who it was before she ever saw his face.
    “I put word out I wanted you brought before me,” Thren Felhorn said. “Consider yourself a gift from Kadish Vel and his Hawks.”
    “I hope you’re pleased with your present,” she said. She tried to turn her head to spit, but the shackles around her head and neck prevented it. Feeling horribly sick, she spat the blood from her mouth. Her stomach curled as it dribbled down her neck and between her breasts.
    “That’ll depend on your answers,” Thren said. A giant muscular man stood beside him. They were outside the city, somewhere on the northern side judging by the trees that grew within touching distance of the wall … the wall she was helplessly strapped to by buckles and shackles.
    “Will, clean her off,” Thren said to the giant man. Will obliged, cleaning the blood from her chest and neck with a clean rag. She expected him to fondle her breasts or let his fingers linger on her neck, but the man did no such thing.
    “Thank you,” she said. She felt her head clear a little. Two torches were stuck in the