Thomas Reid - The Gossamer Plain

Aliisza fumed. "She could make more than that selling her body on the Silk Way!" she growled. "You are a wretch. I should make you pay her what you earn! No," she said, inspired. "I should drag you to the district and let you service the dandies. I hear some of them secretly worship Loviatar. They pay well for the privilege of using you in their worship rituals, but we'd let Lizel have the coin. Wouldn't that be fun? Yes, I like that," she finished, smiling.

The man whimpered. "I'll give her five silvers a day," he yammered, wringing his hands. "And no more of the other. I promise!"

"Good boy," Aliisza purred, walking around the work table to stroke his chest with her hand. Master Velsin quaked at the alu's touch. "And you're going to excuse her for being late, because she's with child, and she has to take care of her little brother and sister. And you're never going to dock her pay because of it, right?"

"Right," the man whispered. His eyes were nearly rolling back in his head from fright.

"Because, after all, I know where to find you, don't I?"

"Yes," he gasped. "I swear, it will be as you say. Now please, leave me be."

Aliisza chuckled and headed toward the door. She paused and turned back. She gave the trembling man one last baleful stare and said, "Yrudis Gregan had better be out of this shop before Lizel gets here." And with that, the alu walked out into the daylight.

It took her several moments to notice that the ghost of Lizel's father was no longer around.

Vhok sighed as he yanked Burnblood free. "You disappoint me," he said to Hafiz. "I thought you'd be much wiser and more reasonable than those silly azer."

On the cambion's left, Zasian went through the complex motions of a spell, and Vhok felt a surge of preternatural power course through his body. The priest then dived to the floor and rolled, disappearing beneath one of the wagons. Two efreet dashed after him.

The half-fiend tensed his muscles and felt strength surge into his limbs. He twirled and shifted his blade experimentally, and waited as the horde of efreet surrounding him closed the circle.

"You were the unwise one," Hafiz growled, stepping back and watching his minions work. "Did you really think we'd welcome strangers here? Spies from our enemies sent to learn our defenses before attacking us?"

The closest efreeti lunged at Vhok. The genie towered twice as tall as the cambion and the creature's slice arced down toward Vhok's head. The half-fiend parried the blow, throwing all of his newfound strength into the counterstrike. The clang of it rang through the great chamber. He felt satisfaction as his opponent's blade whipped back from his driving force.

Startled, the efreeti nearly lost his grip on his weapon, and spun to recover it. The reaction put him in a vulnerable position.

Vhok saw the opening and jumped inside his foe's reach. He raked his long sword across the efreeti's abdomen. The genie roared in pain, but Vhok didn't stay near to see the severity of the injury. He let his momentum carry him forward. He leaped high on the follow-through and landed atop the nearest wagon. He bounded across the large molds with their glass castings to the opposite side. There, the half-fiend paused and spun in place.

Two of the onrushing efreet closed the distance, and Vhok saw that their oversized blades were long enough to reach him despite the width of the wagon. Three others began to skirt the conveyance, determined to surround and capture him. Two of them vanished suddenly, disappearing from his sight.

"We told you we held no loyalty to the azer," Vhok said as he parried the first of several falchion strikes from his two opponents. "You didn't even wait long enough to see our goods to bargain with," he added, giving Hafiz a disparaging shake of his head as he knocked a second falchion away and jumped down on the far side of the wagon. He had no intention of letting invisible efreet sneak up on him and catch him unaware.

The hulking efreeti overseer sneered. "Whatever you think you have to offer, I can merely take from you anyway, once I have captured you," he called. "Unless you fight too long and hard and my warriors are forced to slay you instead," he added.

Vhok ignored the words of the great efreeti and ducked beneath the wagon. He scrambled forward, toward Hafiz. When he reached the end of the transport, he darted between the beasts hitched to it. The creatures paid him no mind, but the licking, crackling flames radiating from their bodies scorched his skin and made him flinch.

Just as the cambion was about to run past the pairs of fiery rothe, a wall of searing flame burst across his path. The towering barrier rose from the floor directly in front of the creatures, causing them to rear up in alarm. Vhok skidded to a halt just before he plunged into the crackling curtain. He cringed from the heat, feeling his skin blistering in spite of the magical ring upon his finger.

Vhok spun around to dash back the way he had come. Two efreet waited for him there, one on each side of the wagon, between the back pair of rothe and the front of the vehicle. They thought him trapped, and they grinned malevolently as they leveled their falchions at him.

Rolling his eyes at their simple ploy, Vhok mentally thrust himself upward. He rose into the air, levitating beyond the reach of the licking, consuming flames and the gleaming curved blades the efreet wielded. He smiled as his foes' grins turned to expressions of consternation. They leaped at him, slashing at his feet as he ascended, but Vhok managed to block their strikes with his own blade.

The cambion turned in place as he rose, looking for Zasian. The priest had disappeared when the fight began, right after he had cast the strength magic upon Vhok. The half-fiend spied the pair of efreet who had gone off in pursuit of the Banite, moving slowly among the wagons as though searching.

He slipped away, Vhok thought. But did he leave altogether?

The cambion knew they had no reason to stay. Hafiz had no interest in negotiating, and Vhok doubted anything he said or did was going to change the overseer's mind. Zasian must have come to that conclusion, too, and if the priest was smart, he'd already cleared out.

That's what I'd do, Vhok thought. So I will. He can take care of himself.

Vhok prepared to invoke the spell that would transform him into a gaseous cloud once more, but as he began the incantation, a sizzling beam of fire struck him in the back. The cambion cried out from searing pain and his spell was ruined. He nearly lost his balance and toppled over, but he righted himself and whirled around to see what had caused his injuries.

Below him, an efreeti pointed a finger at him, precisely in the direction of the blast that struck him. Nearby, the overseer had enlarged himself and stood more than twenty feet high. He strode forward, his massive falchion swishing through the air in great swaths. With such a huge blade, the gargantuan efreeti could reach Vhok where he hovered in the air.

Even as Vhok took note of the new threat, a second genie aimed a digit in the cambion's direction and let loose a scorching ray of fiery energy. Seeing it coming, Vhok was able to spin out of the way, and the beam shot harmlessly past him. But it crackled as it passed, and the half-fiend could smell his tunic smoldering.

Bastards, the cambion fumed. Have to find another way out, now.

The half-fiend fished in one of his inner pockets and yanked a wad of something sticky from it. He chanted arcane words and concentrated on rising into the air at the same rime. When the spell took effect, Vhok vanished from sight. Immediately, he reversed his direction and began to descend. The mess of fiery beasts and barriers still burned below him.

I hope that confuses them, he thought.