"I'm thinking I'll be gone for a bit, girls," he said, surprised at how sad those words made him.

He'd grown attached to his girls, as attached as he got to anything. They looked back at him, meat and drool hanging comically from their mouths. He scratched each behind the ears again. The smaller licked his hand.

"But I'll make sure you're cared for."

He had encountered the girls on his way home one night, perhaps two months before. Both dogs, obvious strays, had been as weak as infants and as thin as reeds. When Riven held out his hand and softly called to them, they had approached him timidly. But when he gently rubbed their muzzles and flanks, their diffidence vanished and they fairly overwhelmed him with licks. Since then, they'd been his girls, and they returned to his flat almost every day. He suspected that they lived in the alley nearby.

He'd never bothered to name them. He wasn't sure why. Maybe he would someday.

Riven had loved dogs since boyhood. Back in Amn, in a life that was so far removed from the present that it seemed to be someone else's past, he had been a kennel boy for Lord Amhazar, an insignificant but sadistic nobleman with a taste for women and violence. Riven's hours with the dogs had been the only happy moments in an otherwise harsh boyhood typified by episodic beatings and chronic hunger.

One morning, that nobleman had beaten him senseless for a reason Riven still did not understand. It was Amahazor's signet ring that had popped Riven's eye. Afterward, he'd left Riven for dead on the side of the road. But Riven didn't die. A passerby, a slaver out of Calimshan, had taken him in and for reasons still unclear to Riven, nursed him back to health, and trained him with weapons. Looking back, Riven realized that he owed that slaver much. He might have told him so if he hadn't put a punch dagger into the base of his skull over a decade before.

When Riven reached early manhood—even then he was already a highly efficient killer—he'd returned to the Amhazar estate in the night, murdered his former lord and the entire Amhazar family, then burned the place to the ground. He'd spared only the serfs and the dogs from the slaughter.

You can always trust dogs, he thought, looking at his girls as they licked the bucket clean. Dogs were utterly guileless. Dogs always stayed loyal. Not so with men, as Riven knew well from experience.

Absently, he rubbed them each in turn. They lay on their bellies on either side of him, full and content.

He would not betray the trust they had given him.

"Stay," he said to them, and he rose.

They gave no sign they understood, but both their tails drummed the wood floor.

"I'll be back."

He opened the door and walked next door to the scribe's shop.

The door was ajar so Riven walked in without knocking. The small shop was crammed full with shelves covered with parchment rolls, inkpots, quills, paperweights, and a host of other paraphernalia that Riven, who could not read and write, didn't recognize. The scribe, a thin, plain looking man with squinty eyes, sat behind a huge walnut desk on one side of the room. He was writing something on a piece of parchment and had not yet looked up at Riven.

"Hold just for a moment," he said. "Let me finish this thought." He thumped the paper with his quill point. "There." He looked up. "Now—"

When he saw Riven, his gaze went in rapid succession from Riven's scabbarded sabers to the window that looked out on the street, to Riven's face. His squinty eyes went as wide as fivestars.

"You! Ah—I mean, how can I help you? Is something wrong with the flat? Or do you want to purchase something?"

Trying to get out from behind his desk, the scribe tripped over his feet. When he caught himself on the desk, he toppled his ink pot and spilled ink over whatever it was he had been writing.

"Oh, dark! Dark and empty!"

He tried to sop up the dark fluid with some spare paper, succeeding only in staining his fingers black.

Hearing the scribe curse in anger almost brought an amused smile to Riven's face. Instead, he adopted his professional sneer and stalked toward the desk.

"I do want to purchase something" he said. "Your services."

The scribe wiped his fingers with the parchment.

"You n-need something written for you?" the scribe said, his voice shaking.

Riven eyed him coldly and replied, "No. Something else."

The scribe's eyes moved around but not once did they settle for more than a heartbeat on Riven's face. He dropped the ruined paper and wiped his hands, still shaking, on his trousers.

"Wh-what then?"

Riven leaned forward and rested his fingertips on the desk. He knew he had to tread carefully—create enough fear to ensure compliance with his request, but not so much that he frightened the scribe into fleeing town.

"Two bitches scratch at my door in the late afternoon or evening. You've seen them?"

The scribe's mouth hung open slightly. He nodded.

"I'll be leaving for a while. I won't be returning to the flat for a time."

The scribe started to speak, but Riven cut him off.

"You are not to re-let it. No matter how long I'm gone. Here."

He reached into his cloak, removed a diamond—a small fortune, more than the scribe earned in a year, perhaps two—and placed it on the desk. The man's eyes went wide.

"Take it. That is advance rent for the next twelve months. It's also advance payment for the service you are to perform for me."

The scribe eyed the diamond but did not reach for it. He met Riven's gaze.

"The dogs?" he asked.

Riven nodded. At least the man wasn't stupid.

"A butcher's boy delivers a bucket of meat scraps to my place daily. I feed the scraps to the gir—dogs. I also provide them with water. They rely on me for that. I will make arrangements with the butcher for the deliveries to continue while I'm away. You will see to it that the dogs are fed and allowed entry into the flat. That's all."

The scribe didn't dare refuse but Riven thought he looked less than enthusiastic. The assassin decided to make things perfectly clear.

"Hear what I'm about to say, scrivener. You hurt the dogs, or don't abide by my request, and I'll find out. When I'm back in town, I'll look in on you for a while. I'll watch you from the shadows, for days. You won't know when."

He let the import of that sink in then added, "I've killed over fifty men, scribe, and some of them died ugly. It's work to me. Business. You cross me on this and you're just another number. Clear?"

The scribe's eyes showed white. He nodded rapidly. "Yes. Clear."

Satisfied, Riven shot him one final glare, spun on his heel, and walked back to his flat. The girls' tails thumped the floor when he entered. He smiled at them.

"Taken care of, girls," he said.

For a time, an hour or two maybe, he sat on the floor between them and gave them his full attention. The smaller wanted to play but Riven had no play in him. When the flat began to darken, he stood.

"Time to go, girls." He stood and opened the door. He gave them one last pat as they trotted out. "See you tomorrow," he said out of habit, then realized that he probably wouldn't.

Watching the girls trot back across the street to the alley, he felt concerned. What would happen to them if he were to die?

He blew out a breath and shook his head.

You're getting as soft as Cale, he chided himself.

He pulled the door closed behind him and hit the street. He would make a stop off at the butcher and head back to the Foreign District, to Cale and Fleet.

He shot only a single glance back as he walked—to the alley, where his girls lived.

As promised, Riven returned before dark. Their perch atop the rowhouse afforded a nice panorama of Selgaunt and the setting sun cast the city in fire.