He waited until they entered the warehouse before pulling himself back up to his feet and sighing in tremendous relief. He almost gave himself away. The man's treatment of him provoked an instinctive response. Tarrin was not used to showing throat, was not used to being submissive. The man's threats had provoked his sense of dominance, had seemed to challenge him. He came about a rat's tail from showing the man just who was the dominant of the two. Blind luck, that, or the man was afraid of him. One or the other had kept the man from doing something about it.

The fluttering of chitinous wings heralded Sarraya's return. She landed lightly on his shoulder as he limped towards the inn, aware that eyes were on him around the compound. "I've got good news and bad news," she whispered in his ear. "The bad news is that the cliff is about a hundred spans down where we are. The good news is that the cliff's height lowers as you move to the north. If you can get a longspan north, the cliff is only forty spans high. You could jump that, there's a sand drift at the base to land in."

That explained why it took her so long to get back. "I've gotten past them," he told her in a bare whisper. "I think we can make a longspan in the dark, because I'll be behind them."

"Good. Where are we going?"

"Where I was told to go."

Tarrin reached the door of the inn and immediately opened it. Beyond was a rather dirty common room, full of partially destroyed furniture sparsely scattered across a bare earth floor. Inside was packed nearly fifty people, men and women and children, sitting on the few chairs and sitting or standing on the floor. All of them had the look of a prisoner, despondant and wary, with the look of fear in their eyes. They all wore dirty clothes, and most of them had dirt and dust streaked on their faces. The majorty of them were Arakite, but he did see four pale-skinned faces in that crowd, what looked like Torians.

This was not something he expected. Being cooped up with so many strangers would certainly wear on him, and wear on him quickly. The fact that he was already dealing with the aggravating ache of a body locked in an unnatural form for too long would make his temper very short, as it had been with the Torian guard. These were all strangers, and what was worse, they were all potential enemies. Any one of these would probably turn on him if they knew who he was, that they were looking for him, in the hopes that calling him out would get them released.

There was nowhere to sit. All of the few chairs were occupied by the largest of the men, who had probably bullied their way into them. With no guards to separate the prisoners, Tarrin had little doubt that this inn was ruled by the largest and meanest of the humans, who took what he wanted from whomever he wanted.

There was nothing like imprisonment to bring out the worst in a human.

It would bring out the worst in him, and he knew it. It was only about an hour until sunset, so he only had to stay out of the way until then, until it was dark enough for him to slip out and away. But the first order of business was to get out of sight of the inn's bullies. He was new, his ageless face made it easy to mistake him for an older man, and he was moving like he was old and weak. That would make him a prime target for them.

Tarrin grimaced slightly when one of the seated men suddenly stood, looking in his direction. It certainly hadn't taken him long. He was an Arakite, big and broud-shouldered, wearing a rust-spotted tunic that told him that this was a mercenary. He was used to having armor over that tunic. He had strangely wide features for an Arakite, with a scar puckering the right side of his nose. He had his head shaved, but days without access to a razor had put black stubble over his forehead. The man blocked Tarrin's path into the inn with hands folded before him, staring into Tarrin's eyes with an ugly look.

"There's a tax for entering this inn," the man said in Arakite, in a dangerous tone and an ugly smile, which made some of his friends laugh harshly. But that dangerous tone and ugly look became uncertain when Tarrin again rose up to his full height, suddenly towering over the man by half a head, looking down at him with a stony face that threatened violence should the man not tread carefully.

"I'll only say this once," Tarrin said in Arakite, in an ominously quiet manner. "The first man to put a finger on me dies."

"Oh, what are ya gonna do, use nasty words?" the man before him asked, then he laughed at his own joke. "Curse at me til I die? You couldn't carry my shield, old man."

"There's one way for you to find out," Tarrin proposed in an emotionless voice, his eyes narrowing.

The man grinned nastily and held out a single finger, then purposefully reached over and poked it into Tarrin's chest.

Tarrin lashed out with his left hand, grabbing that finger and breaking it, twisting it back over the man's hand and turning with it. The man screamed in pain as his hand and arm followed Tarrin's pressure, until it was turned around with the palm up. Muscles sore and aching for days became suddenly fluid and loose as Tarrin's other hand snapped forward, three fingertips striking the man squarely in the throat, crushing his trachea. It was a Selani move, and it was a killing move. And Tarrin had performed it perfectly.

Tarrin let go and watched with distant, cold eyes as the man grasped at his neck with both hands, then sagged to the floor while making gurgling sounds. Then he toppled over and fell to the floor with a crash.

"Anyone else?" Tarrin asked with a brutal tone, looking around the room, at all the startled faces.

There was silence.

Giving the room a deadly look, Tarrin collected himself, stalking across the quiet room and taking the dead man's chair. The other three men at the chair's table jumped up and abandoned their seats when he grabbed the back of the chair, and then sat down to an empty table with the rest of the room's complement staring at him and whispering in hushed tones.

"My, we're testy today," Sarraya whispered impishly in his ear, but he ignored her comment, propping his chin with his hand, elbow on the table, waiting in sober silence for nightfall. The rest of the people in the room began talking again in hushed tones, and a few of the more adventurous of them stripped the body of the man clean of anything useful, leaving it literally in its shortclothes. Then it was carried back into the inn's kitchen, probably to be disposed. He certainly hoped they didn't intend to cook it.

He reflected momentarily on what he saw. The ki'zadun was probably his very first enemy, the first ones to identify him and try to kill him. He'd thought of them what he'd been told, as a secretive shadow organization that worked behind the scenes with spies, informants, and magicians. He never dreamed that they had a standing army, not like the one he'd seen outside. Certainly he knew that they had some sway with Goblinoids, but he never dreamed they could assemble a standing army. An army that looked disciplined, well supplied, and well trained. Now he saw a different side to his old enemy, a militaristic side. They were more than a secret society that used intrigue and politics to gain power. It seemed that they knew when the application of direct force was more appropriate, and kept that force on hand when it was required. He wondered what kind of man could be part of that army, to know that he was working for the wrong side, to ally himself with Trolls and Waern and Dargu. But that was something of a silly question. Humans were humans, and a great deal of them had morals that only went as far as the money they were paid. That was just they way they were. He knew that for some men, if they were paid enough, they'd do just about anything.

He had to admit, they also had a good idea and a good plan. They couldn't find him, and any patrol that did find him out on the plains would be wiped out. So instead of trying to hunt him down, they had set up so that they made him come to them. They never intended to hunt him on the plains, not when they knew where he was going. It was much easier and more sensible to assemble their forces along his path, to stop him before he could reach his objective, and bring along enough force to give them a reasonable chance to do it. He could appreciate the strategy, even if it inconvenienced him.