"RUN!" I yell and we do. Fast.
We explode into Eelry's streets like a pack of rabid wolves.
"STOP THEM!" The cry goes up behind us—Gospar's lieutenant, his face purple with rage. "FIFTY GOLD FOR THE ORC!"
Rophan emerges beside us, his massive form still dripping with Dark Elf blood. "This way," he rumbles, and charges down the main street like a battering ram. Citizens scatter before him, screaming.
Instantly, the street transforms. Those who don't flee see walking coin purses. A blacksmith lunges at me with his hammer raised, but Rophan's fist takes the man's head clean off. Blood fountains across the cobblestones.
"LEFT!" Nazim hisses, his hood flaring as he spots archers on the rooftops.
Rophan charges ahead, his presence clearing our path of anyone stupid enough to stand in the way.
Arrows rain down like deadly hail. One buries itself in the wall beside my head, another punches through a fleeing woman's shoulder...
One buries itself in the wall beside my head, another punches through a fleeing woman's shoulder. She screams and falls, and the crowd panics, surging in all directions.
A merchant swings a meat cleaver at Forla's back. I catch his wrist and twist until something snaps. He drops, clutching his broken arm and shrieking.
More guards pour from side streets. Steel rings against steel as we fight our way through the press of bodies. The broken orc stumbles, and I haul him upright just as a spear thrust would have taken his head off.
"THERE!" A crossbow bolt punches into Kresh's shoulder, spinning him around. Green blood spatters the stones, but the Naga keeps moving, his claws opening the throat of the shooter as we pass.
The streets narrow, forcing us single file. Behind us, the pursuit sounds like thunder—dozens of boots, shouted orders, the baying of tracking hounds. They're gaining.
A fishmonger tries to trip Forla with his pole. Nazim's tail whips around, catching the man across the temple. He drops like a sack of grain, his skull cracking against the stone.
"FASTER!"
We're running flat out now, lungs burning, legs screaming. The broken orc gasps behind us, but terror keeps him moving. A thrown knife whispers past my ear. Another clangs off Nazim's scales.
A blast comes from above and Kresh suddenly staggers, his yellow eyes going wide. "Something's wrong?—"
The bolt of magic takes Kresh center mass, and the Naga's scream cuts off mid-hiss as the spell eats through his scales like acid.
I look up to see a dark elf with crimson hair and a large smile on his face.
"KRESH!"
The proud warrior who survived months in Gospar's hell dies in seconds, his body crumbling to ash that the harbor windscatters across the cobblestones. When I look up, the crimson-haired Dark Elf has vanished like smoke.
"NO TIME!" Nazim roars, grabbing my arm as I start toward where our friend fell. "HE'S GONE!"
More guards pour into the street. We have to move or we'll all be ash on the wind.
"This way!" Nazim veers sharply into an alley so narrow our shoulders scrape the walls.
Crossbow bolts spark off stone where we were standing seconds ago. Behind us, curses and the sound of men too large for the passage.
But ahead the alley ends in a blank wall.
“I will hold them, once I clear a path of their dead bodies, run.” Rophan says.
"No! Here!" Nazim says as his claws find purchase on seemingly smooth stone, pressing in a sequence I can't follow. "Quickly!"
A section of wall swings inward just as the first crossbow bolt takes flight. We throw ourselves through the opening as quarrels smash into stone where our heads had been.
Nazim slams the door shut. Hidden mechanisms click and grind. Outside, voices explode in fury.
