Troy Denning: The Sentinel

Kleef located the flash of green again, about ten paces away and still pushing against the traffic. The woman had wisely concealed her hair by raising the hood of her cloak, but the green was so bright and distinctive that it drew almost as much attention.

Still, something seemed wrong to Kleef, and after a moment, he realized the woman was not moving through the press of bodies as easily as she had before. Now she was shouldering her way ahead, not looking back at all, and there was no sign of her short companion.

“Stinking Hells!” Kleef pointed at the green hood. “Fetch the one in the green cloak. I have questions.”

Jang acknowledged the order with a curt nod and slipped into the crowd. Shaking his head at his own folly, Kleef shoved through the mob in the opposite direction, until he found a spot where he could view the far side of the street. Here, the river of pedestrians was roughly ten people wide. In the absence of wagons, they were pulling handcarts and carrying heavy rucksacks, creeping toward Wilhastle Square at a tortoise’s pace.

Kleef stepped onto another wagon to get a better look. Neither the red-haired woman nor her short companion were anywhere in sight, but a dusky-robed figure was skulking along the walkway, moving against traffic and still keeping a watchful eye on the middle of the street. The man’s eyes were not visible, but there was a vague haziness around the edges of his silhouette, a kind of murkiness that suggested shadow magic, and Kleef began to hope that he had found the spy again.

Then the figure looked directly at him, revealing an ashen face with a long chin and brown, faintly glowing eyes. His gaze slid past Kleef without pause, then he turned around and began to move through the crowd again. As the man drifted away from the buildings, his drab robe faded to gray, and he grew indistinguishable from the rest of the mob.

Kleef resisted the impulse to go after him. He had never seen a Shadovar before today, much less hunted one. But he had been told by a member of the Purple Dragons that there were several kinds of Shadovar, and that the ones with the lambent eyes-the shades -were the most cunning and dangerous. So, trailing the spy now seemed unlikely to accomplish anything more than leading Kleef into an ambush. It would be much smarter to find the red-haired woman, then ambush the shade when he attempted to take his quarry.

Jang returned to Kleef’s side, engulfed by a cloud of fragrance so sweet and fresh that it masked the stench of manure and urine that pervaded the street. The Shou’s hand was locked on the elbow of the slender figure wearing the green cloak. Kleef reached out and snatched back the hood, exposing the dirty blond hair and sunken-cheeked face of a teenage street urchin. A boy , no less. No doubt the cloak was the source of the perfume.

Kleef ordered Jang to keep watch for Shadovar, then grabbed the urchin by the back of his neck and pushed him off the street, seeking the privacy of a doorway. Once he felt certain he could question the boy without being observed by the spy, Kleef took the front of the cloak and rubbed the soft green cashmere between his fingers.

“Nice cloak,” he said. “How did you come by it?”

The urchin raised his chin. “I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you mean. It’s mine.”

“That so?” Kleef knotted his fist into the cloth, then lifted the urchin off the ground and made a show of sniffing around his collar. “Pretty nice perfume for a guttersnipe like you-especially a boy guttersnipe.”

“I’m no boy,” the urchin said. “I’m a man.”

“A boy … who smells as sweet as a noblewoman.” Kleef lowered the urchin back to the street, but continued to hold the cloth. “You can keep the cloak, but I need to find the lady who gave it to you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the urchin said. “I took this cloak off a cart.”

Kleef raised a brow. “You’re admitting you stole it?” he asked. “ Confessing to thievery, just like that?”

The urchin paled. “I mean, it fell off a cart, and I picked it up.” He looked away. “If you want my thumb for that, I guess I can’t stop you.”

“You’d give up a thumb for the red-haired woman?” Kleef was truly surprised. Marsember’s street urchins were not the kind to make noble sacrifices. “Who is she to you?”

The bewilderment that washed over the urchin’s face told Kleef all he needed to know. The boy had no idea who the woman was-or even why he was trying to protect her. She had probably charmed him with magic.

“Look,” Kleef continued, “if you truly want to help the lady, you will tell me where she went. She’s being hunted by a dangerous sort. She’ll be much better off if I find her first.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I expect you to answer me.” Kleef took a deep breath, then switched to a more kindly, fatherly voice. “Since you’re a man, I’ll tell it to you straight. It’s not me this woman is running from. It’s the Shadovar.”

“There are Shadovar in the city?”

“At least one-a shade no less-and he’s hunting your red-haired lady.” Kleef released the urchin. “Now, will you help her or not?”

The urchin looked uncertain for a moment, then finally nodded. “She’s so beautiful,” he said. “I can’t believe she asked me for help.”

“Go on,” Kleef urged. “Everything you remember.”

“There isn’t much,” the urchin said. “She just smiled at me and said she would consider it a kindness if I took her cloak and wore it.”

“That’s all?” Kleef asked.

“That’s all she said ,” the urchin replied. “But there was a look in her eyes. It felt like we had known each other forever. I could tell she liked me … she liked me a lot .”

Kleef nodded to himself. Charm magic, for certain. “And I suppose she told you to pull up the hood?”

The urchin shook his head. “That was my idea,” he said. “I knew she was being chased, and I wanted to draw them off.”

“ How did you know she was being chased?”

The urchin frowned, clearly confused. “I don’t know. I guess it was the way her manservant kept watch,” he said. His face brightened, remembering. “And the servant said something like, ‘There is one of the devils now,’ and then he led her away.”

Kleef felt his belly sinking. “ ‘ One of the devils?’ ” he asked. “You’re sure he said that exactly?”

The urchin nodded. “That’s what I heard. And then he grabbed her arm and pulled her into Backstabber Alley, just like I said.”

Actually, the urchin hadn’t said anything about Backstabber Alley, but it seemed an honest mistake. Kleef reached into his belt pouch and removed a Watch flan-a steel meal token the Watch used to buy the cooperation of the hungry-and passed it to the boy.

“Take that to King’s Tower and tell the gatekeeper you’ve been of service to Kleef Kenric,” he said. “Got that? He’ll see that your belly is filled before you leave Marsember.”

The urchin took the flan. “Kleef Kenric. Got it.” He paused, then frowned. “Wait-are you throwing me out of Marsember?”

Kleef frowned. “I’m trying to look out for you, boy. The shadow fiends of Wheloon have escaped their prison, and they’re marching against us. Even the lord marshall doubts we can hold the city, and with the war against Netheril going the way it is, there won’t be any help from the Purple Dragons.”

The urchin shrugged. “What do I care who rules this city-or the Realm?” he asked. “Either way, I sleep in a doorway. But I hope you help the lady. I liked her.”