He dropped the bag. Coins spilled every which way, rolling in the muck around the unconscious man.
“I-I wasn’t... I didn’t mean to—” The sailor tried to back away, but Renwell twitched his hand and cut a red stripe across the man’s chest. He gaped at the blood dripping down his front, then bolted down the alley.
Renwell strode back the way we came without looking at the beaten man.
I kneeled and pressed my gloved fingers to his neck. A strong pulse thrummed. He would live.
I hurried after Renwell.
Why punish the would-be thief instead of putting him in the city prison? He had beaten a man unconscious, after all. This sort of brutal justice was wildly unbalanced and could lead to anarchy.
But I kept my mouth shut. For now.
A short while later, we came upon a brawl outside a tavern. They tried to scatter, bleating with fear, but Renwell wouldn’t let them. He used his fists and feet freely, punishing each man with crushing blows. His mask hid his expression, but I swore I could feel his pleasure, as if he relished fighting in the street.
One of the cornered men took a swing at me, and I smashed his face with my metal Wolf mask. He dropped like a stone next to the other brawlers. Renwell grunted his approval.
Perhaps this was his new method of inducing fear, now that he couldn’t ship them off to the sunstone mine.
We left the men there as patrons gaped from the tavern windows.
When we neared the harbor, we spotted two men slashing at each other with curved knives while a woman wept against the sea wall. I raced toward them, drawing my sword. But one sank his knife into the chest of the other. The woman screamed.
Renwell slammed the hilt of his sword against the murderer’s temple. He fell face first in his victim’s blood.
I hurried over to the woman, offering a gloved hand to help her up. She gasped with fear and cowered against the stone wall.
Right. I’m just another Shadow-Wolf out here.
Feeling dirty with guilt, I stepped away from her.
Renwell threw back his head and uttered a shrieking howl. The fine hairs on my arms and neck lifted.
Two more Wolves came and dragged away the unconscious man. Renwell moved on while I whispered a prayer over the other man’s body. As we left, I glanced over my shoulder to see the woman crawl over to him.
Who was he? Why had they been fighting?
I felt like I’d invaded several ongoing stories tonight and hacked them all to threads without knowing why.
It was disconcerting, leaving a sour taste in my mouth.
Was the whole city this bad, or had Renwell taken me to the worst part? But even with this amount of violence, his swift execution of momentary justice felt like trying to contain a waterfall in a teacup.
I hurried to catch up with Renwell when someone jumped out of a darkened doorway between us.
The man wore a sack over his face with holes cut out for his eyes and mouth. He brandished a long, wavy knife at me.
Gods, the man must be insane to attack a Shadow-Wolf.
I whipped out my sunstone sword and sliced it through the air a few times, warning him what I was capable of. The long black blade felt as it had in the mountain village—too comfortable, too deadly. And my recent training only made it more so.
But the man didn’t heed me. He lunged. I blocked his knife with my sword, and the steel burst. Without missing a beat, the man pulled out another knife and came at me with furious strikes.
Whoever he was, he knew how to fight well.
He backed me down the alley as I tried to shatter his other blade, but I kept missing it. Panic crept into my mind. I tried to fight it as Nikella had taught me. But I already felt unraveled in this awful uniform, doing Renwell’s dirty work.
The man seized my sword hand and slammed it against the stone wall behind me. Pain crackled through my body.
