Shield's Lady

a few minutes before he reached the aisle in which she’d left her travel pouches and cloak.
    Sariana glanced around. There was a little more light from the vapor lamps up here. She could see the outlines of the casks on either side of her. Some of the barrels were smaller than others. She made her way cautiously along the curving ribs of the wine casks until she came to a tier of smaller containers that were stacked upright instead of on their sides.
    Experimentally she tried nudging one of the small casks. It proved unexpectedly heavy. She would never be able to lift it, but she might be able to push it.
    The beam of the vapor lamp turned the corner of Sariana’s aisle. She froze, watching in horrified fascination as a figure made his way rapidly along the corridor of wine casks. In another moment he would see the travel pouches and Sariana’s discarded cloak. Sariana held her breath and prepared to use all her strength on the barrel under her hands.
    The man in the aisle gave a grunt of satisfaction when the vapor light picked out Sariana’s possessions on the floor. He hurried forward, swinging the ray of light rapidly back and forth. He never once raised the light to examine the top rows of casks. It was obvious he assumed his quarry was huddled behind a wine barrel.
    “You can come on out of hiding,” the man urged, his voice oily with an attempt to coax his prey into the open. “I’m not going to hurt you. Come on now, little lady. It’s all right. Come on out of your hiding place.”
    Sariana’s fingers trembled on the rim of the upright wine cask. She had to time this perfectly or she would be worse off than she already was.
    Fortunately the searcher paused to examine the travel pouches. He bent over to open the clasps, intent on examining the contents. Sariana gathered herself, felt the scarlet-toe gather itself simultaneously, and then she shoved at the wine cask with all her might. Lucky hissed.
    The man below jerked upright as he heard the scrape of wood on wood. The beam of his light caught the cask as it toppled downward and he cried out in startled anger.
    Sariana watched, frozen in shock as the man tried to throw himself to one side. He was going to dodge the cask, she thought. Frantically she shoved at the next barrel in line and then the one stacked next to it.
    A loud, groaning rumble filled the warehouse as half a dozen small casks of expensive wine went crashing down onto the hard floor. Somewhere in the midst of the noise a man’s scream rose shrilly and then ended with heart-stopping suddenness. The vapor lamp winked out.
    A moment later the last of the cascading barrels rolled to a halt and all was quiet.
    Moving unsteadily, Sariana climbed down the large casks to the floor below. The scarlet-toe was hissing softly again.
    Sariana tripped and nearly fell when her bare toe struck a fallen cask. Stifling an exclamation of pain, she scrambled through the maze of toppled casks, seeking her travel pouches.
    She stumbled over the intruder’s still form first and nearly screamed. But the man did not move. Sariana untangled herself from his short cape and frantically groped for her things. They were splashed with wine. She could smell it in the darkness and feel the dampness under her fingers.
    Shoving her feet back into her slippers, she folded her travel cloak over one arm and grabbed up the pouches.
    “Let’s get out of here,” she whispered to the scarlet-toe who signaled its agreement with a low grumble. Sariana was intent only on fleeing the warehouse. “This is all Gryph’s fault. I wouldn’t be in this awful position if it wasn’t for him. And since I am in this mess, you’d think the least he could do would be to come to my rescue. But no, I have to rescue myself. Typical of a man not to be around when you need him. They’re more than ready to hop into bed with a woman but where are they when she’s in trouble?”
    She was chattering to the scarlet-toe out of anxiety, Sariana realized. It was ridiculous. It was a sign of how badly frayed her nerves were.
    Finding the small warehouse door she let herself out onto the street where she struggled to balance her burdens.
    “We should report this to the town guards,” she muttered to the lizard. “But if we stop long enough to do that we’ll never get away.”
    She hesitated, torn between civic duty and the need to escape. In the end the need to get out of town won. Sariana hurried down the empty street toward the