"Elf," he whispered.

The half-blood's eyes widened. His jaw dropped ever so slightly in disbelief.

"You?" he hissed.

Tibor dropped in through the window, saber in hand.

"Magiere!" the half-blood shouted. "Get up!"

And Toret charged.

Chane saw Toret slip through the window and knew he had to move quickly. He hoped the half-elf would be waiting inside the room he would now enter. As much as Toret feared the half-blood, Chane preferred to have his master battling the dhampir. Chane wasn't remotely afraid. He could handle almost any kind of fight, but he felt potential freedom lingering close. The dhampir had a better chance of finishing Toret.

"Stay here unless I call for you," he said to Sestmir.

The mindless minion nodded. Although pleased that the creation of these new slaves had weakened Toret, Chane found them almost as annoying as Sapphire. It was sickening the way they groveled so before their maker. He dropped through the window and landed without a sound.

A low, rumbling growl filled the room.

Chane turned to lock gazes with an enormous blue-gray hound glaring at him with crystalline eyes. Its coat almost shimmered in the dark room.

The bedcovers shifted, someone turning beneath them. All Chane could see was dark hair around a pale woman's face as she groaned in annoyance.

"Chap…?"

The dog leaped, wailing, and struck Chane hard at the waist.

Its teeth sank through his cloak into his sword arm. Shock and pain hit him as his forearm began to burn as if ignited from the inside.

A loud thud came through the wall from the next room, and a voice shouted, "Magiere, get up!"

Blankets flew off the bed into the air. From behind the flurry of cloth, the woman scrambled for the near corner of the room. This was happening too fast.

Chane punched the dog in the head, and it tumbled away and rolled back to its feet. Its snarling and wailing pounded in Chane's ears.

The black-haired woman stood near the door, an unsheathed falchion in her hand. Dressed only in a loose shirt, she had pale skin like one of his own kind. A light below her throat pulled his gaze to a small stone on a chain that glowed brightly, casting her features in yellow tones. He had not expected her to be lovely.

Thumping footfalls and scraping metal sounded from the next room, and the dog's attention shifted. It looked quickly at the woman. Without taking her eyes from Chane, she flipped the door's latch and flung it open, and the dog raced out.

Saliva filled Chane's mouth, and he willed himself into tight control. If she was the dhampir, then Toret now faced the half-blood. Chane needed to make this look like a true fight, without killing her or allowing her to kill him. No small feat.

She was poised, blade at guard, waiting and watching. Grunts and cries and the dog's wail sounded from the other room, and then another loud thud, but the dhampir remained fixed upon him.

"Come for me," he said, throwing his torn cloak off.

She took in the sight of him, and her gaze settled on his leather gloves.

Chane felt unsettling confusion as her dark brown irises flooded to pitch black. She hissed at him, her mouth lined with elongated canines among sharp-edged teeth.

Cold wrath coiled inside Leesil. Ratboy? How was that possible?

He'd seen the little undead vanish into Miiska's woods with a wooden branch through his chest. Now he was somehow in Bela? The sly little creature looked different, well dressed and groomed, and brandishing a crafted long sword fit to his size. But it was indeed Ratboy, and he wasn't alone.

Leesil wanted to rush the door and get to Magiere, but Ratboy stood in the way, and an armed sailor dropped through the window. No doubt some undead was slipping into Magiere's room as well.

If two faced him, how many had come for Magiere?

Ratboy hesitated, and Leesil feinted with his blade at the sailor, keeping him at bay. He was about to call out to Magiere again, when the door slammed inward as the jamb splintered. The snarling mass of Chap charged past Ratboy and into the sailor.

Leesil quick-stepped toward Ratboy. He slammed the arm blade down hard against the undead's lunging thrust, and then spun and kicked Ratboy in the face. The scrawny undead grunted as his head whipped to one side, and Leesil stepped in tight, driving his blade's point at Ratboy's throat.

The space in front of Leesil was empty. Steel flashed down from his right.

A quick twist of shoulder and arm, and Leesil blocked. The long sword screeched along his blade's edge. Snarling and the sound of a man's painful cry filled up the room. Chap had gotten past the sailor's guard and connected with his teeth. Ratboy settled back into the room's center, blade out.

It struck Leesil as bizarre that this creature, who'd fought so viciously with teeth and fingernails, now relied on a weapon.

With a wrist flick, Leesil slipped a stiletto into his empty left hand.

"Remember these?" he said, holding the thin blade out in plain sight. "I think you still have one. Been bothering your guts much lately?"

Ratboy hissed and charged. Someone had taught him to wield the sword, but a man with a sword was just that and nothing more, if he didn't keep his wits. The second Ratboy lunged, Leesil spun again, low beneath the thrust.

His foot caught the inside of a knee, and Ratboy's balance faltered.

Leesil hooked the long sword's crossguard with the stiletto blade. He didn't need to hold it off but only guide it away on Ratboy's momentum. Rising up, he pushed off the floor with his legs, snapping his arm blade forward.

At the last moment, a sudden lurch by Ratboy made Leesil's blade point miss its mark at the undead's throat, and pierce just below his collarbone. Leesil drove forward and up with his entire weight.

Ratboy stiffened as his slender body was slammed against the wall and his feet left the floor. Unable to cry out, he stared in shock at the blade buried nearly to its grip in his upper chest.

Mundane weapons might not even slow down an undead, but a gaping wound in any creature's body would cause confusion if not outright panic. At least that was in Leesil's mind when he'd first conceived his new weapons. Now he only wished he had the second blade to take this little vermin's head. His left hand arched up, driving the stiletto through Ratboy's left eye.

The small undead screamed this time and dropped his sword. He slashed with his fingernails, catching Leesil across throat and shoulder. Pain burned Leesil's skin, and he retreated, losing hold of the stiletto, but keeping his grip on the punching blade.

Ratboy dropped to his feet and jerked the stiletto out, flinging it away as he stumbled along the wall to the corner, dark trails running down his cheek from his mangled eye socket. Leesil clutched at his own throat, but saw the surprise on Ratboy's face as the undead looked down at himself.

Black fluids poured from his chest wound, soaking his split tunic and dripping down to the floor.

Leesil hesitated in shock. Had his blade gone so deep?

Chap and the undead sailor toppled to the corner beyond the window, the sailor's saber lost in the scuffle. With Chap's teeth clamped around his wrist, claws tearing at the man's face, the sailor resorted to his own teeth and nails.

Before Leesil could move, Ratboy reeled toward them and kicked the hound in the side. Chap tumbled back against the foot of the bed with a yelp, and the sailor snarled as he tried to seize the dog. Leesil started to rush in.

A snap and hum sounded behind him, and something whipped past him through the air.

The sailor lurched back on his knees. The feathered end of a quarrel protruded from his throat, its metal head sticking out below the back of his skull. He clutched at it, as his throat began to smoke.