The sand-coloured wall rose above the dusty street beneath the shadows of Cas’ pikes. Two more had been erected this morning, displaying new heads to the city. In death, Aparis of Illia’s handsome features were twisted in animalistic terror, while the mighty Kashta the Talon was forever frozen in unthinking fear.

Flies had gathered on them, and they had already begun to rot under the morning sun. Below, people passed quickly, keeping their eyes lowered and their voices hushed lest some errant glance or whisper catch the attention of the master of this evil place.

Yet, one moved not at all.

Glaring at the heads from the midst of the crowd was a young woman, dark olive complexioned and black haired, with thin hands clenched into fists so tight her nails stabbed her palms. Her cracked lips were drawn back over her jaw, revealing an overbite and large upper teeth beneath her green beady eyes.

This was Wurhi the Rat.

The thief who, until this morning, had been partnered with one Kashta the Talon.

“Kashta!” she shrieked, drawing startled looks from all about her. “You filthy, scum sucking, pus-licking traitor! You stupid, drooling, dead fool!”

As the crowd drew away from her, she shook her small fists at the dead men. Her voice might have been great, but her stature tiny: a full head shorter than almost all the other women in the street.

“Jackal ball-licking wretch!” she continued to scream, spittle flying from her mouth. “I told you not to trust that little princeling! And now look at you! Kashta the Talon? No, Kashta the Corpse! What about the debts, you bile drinking, greedy, backstabbing trash?! What am I supposed to do now!? What am I-”

“You there!”

Wurhi startled.

A tall woman had mounted the wall, brown skinned, lean like a blade, and corded with wiry muscle beneath a polished bronze breastplate and plumed helm. A white cape fell from her shoulders and four heavily built, armoured and armed men flanked her, giving Wurhi the glare of guard dogs.

“Shit! Shit!” the little thief’s eyes went wide. She’d seen the woman before.

Azar the Sting. Captain of Cas’ guard battalion.

“Do you know these men?” Azar demanded.

Wurhi the Rat gave answer by way of running the hell away.

“Come back here!” the cry rose behind her as she tore down the street and weaved into the throngs. Her small size and narrow build allowed her to pass through tightly packed groups of people with no trouble. She continued sprinting until she’d rounded a corner of an especially crowded street, then raised her hood and slowed to a walk, allowing herself to disappear into the mass of folk.

She remained tense long after Cas’ towers had disappeared behind the flat rooftops, but let herself ease when she’d finally reached the river market. If pursuit had been coming, then pursuers would have appeared earlier, and any secret followers would have a hard time tracking her through the morning market hordes.

The river market bustled around her. Donkeys and servants pulled carts alongside snorting camels and grunting porters. An elephant, surrounded by guards, quietly parted the crowds, with its owner cross-legged atop its back. On the sides of the street, priests of Amitiyah sang their praises to The Weeping God alongside meditating ascetics of the Circle of Breath.

The grim-faced adherents to the Cult of Steel marched through the throng, sweating in their polished armour. Tell-tale signs of exhaustion haunted most faces, but they hid them as best they could. All lay beneath a miasma of worldly spices and the foul odours of the river.

Wurhi’s belly grumbled. She decided breakfast was in order.

Pulling her hood higher over her distinctive face - the vast majority of street merchants wouldn’t let her within ten paces of their stalls - she merged with the haggling masses and slipped by the stalls of the distracted, her hands darting from her cloak to snatch what she wanted.

By the time she’d passed through the market and walked to the river harbour, she had acquired a loaf of bread, a large hunk of goat cheese, and a good handful of dried dates. Her coin purse was no lighter in spite of her acquisitions.

Of course, it had been very light to begin with.

Alarmingly so.

Wurhi the Rat made her way down the quay, passing merchants and bawling sailors stripped to their loincloths, sweating in the sun, hefting heavy burdens off ship. They paid her little heed, though ox-like suntanned guards eyed her suspiciously as she passed, thumbing the ends of dangerous looking clubs.

The smells of brackish water, sweat and spices made her nose wrinkle, and she quickened her pace. Gradually, activity lessened as she reached the older part of the wharf. Docked boats were smaller, and each dock she passed, in poor repair and more deserted. The only inhabitants here were some few anglers and vagrants muttering to each other and eating nervously.

There was even a person who slept under the sun, moaning pitifully, her body unconsciously trying to fend off unseen attackers. Others looked on her with a knowing grimness, but kept their distance, including Wurhi as she passed by.

Soon, she’d left even them behind and reached the edge of the wharf, or what was the edge these days. Years ago, there had been one more dock, but ill repair had led it to collapse during a storm leaving only a few stout poles sticking out of the water to connect the lonely dock to the rest.

It was all but unreachable, save for someone of Wurhi’s agility and lightness of foot. With a running start, she leapt from the broken edge of the pier and deftly hopped from one pole to the next over swaying reeds and lazy shoreside waters.

She landed lightly on the abandoned dock - which only groaned slightly beneath her feet - then sat cross-legged at the end, facing the river. Untying her cloak and laying it to her side, she placed her bounty on it then looked out over the ships, barges, and fisher boats passing over the waters.

The little thief broke off a piece of the loaf, chewing the hard bread rapidly.

She swallowed.

Then she popped a date in her mouth, sucked out the hard pit and spat it into the river.

She swallowed the dried fruit, then took a sip from her water-skin.

She paused, then lifted her face to the cloudless sky.

“Shit! Shiiiiiiit!” she screamed.

Kashta had ruined her this time. Completely ruined her.

The nightmares had made the merchants go sick with paranoia, pouring all into their defences or moving their fortunes out of the city.

Good plunder had turned rare, and the thieves desperate.

Then that demon-damned princeling had drifted in from Salik, spinning tales of vast fortunes and grand magics waiting within Cas’ walls, all ripe to be picked. The more Aparis had talked, the more his words had planted dreams of impossible wealth in her and Kashta’s minds.

In the time of nightmares in Zabyalla, sweet dreams were seductive.

The three soon plotted together, though she’d never fully trusted that princeling. She had been right not to; a five-year partnership had dissolved in a single night by Kashta’s backstabbing.

Wurhi tore off a chunk of cheese and bit into it aggressively, its pungent sourness spreading across her tongue.

Now all alone, what was she to do?

Cas’ guards were all hardened veterans and headed by Captain Azar, a monster in the form of a woman. The little thief was no stranger to a street scuffle, but a horde of trained warriors would make quick, bloody work of her were she to be caught. Her head would be on a pike the next morning, and that would be the end of Wurhi the Rat.

Worse yet, if the rumours were true, then it was Cas who had infected the entire city’s sleep - including her own - with the worst nightmares every night. A magus who cast spells on a whole city; what good would her single dagger do against that kind of vile magic?

She had to accept it. Enacting the plan alone would be suicide.

Yet, she might not have any choice about it.

Both she and Kashta carried heavy debts to the lenders of The Maw, and time had only seen them grow. Now, they’d pass that dead fool’s responsibilities to her, leaving her to pay a back-breaking sum. How was she supposed to meet that? Filching trinkets from the street?

She could do that for half her lifetime and be no closer to paying it down. The terrifying thing was that the bastards’d already know that. They’d have her on a slave scow to Salik in under three sunrises.

“Give my head to Cas’ pikes, live under a whip until I drop dead, or run with only the clothes on my back,” she sighed, then bit into the loaf.

She stiffened and immediately spit it into the water.

The bite had been filed with grit from the mill.

Much like her whole damn life at the moment.

She glumly watched small river fish swarming her bread, then raised her gaze to a massive Nubtukan cargo ship passing mid-river. A deep drumbeat boomed from the deck, keeping time for its multitude of straining oarsmen. She sighed. If only she were on it, sailing far from here.

Or better yet, if only she could turn to her damn partner for some damn help. They’d relied on each other. She’d told him all of her secrets.

All of them. Of course, he was nowhere around now.

He was too busy being greedy and deceitful.

And selfish.

And dead.

“You goat’s bastard. Why’d you have to do it?” she sighed again, and lifted the bread to her mouth.

Splash!

Something hit the water in the distance.

Wurhi was on her feet in a heartbeat, her loaf rolling into the river and her hand gripping the hilt of her bronze dagger. Her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed at the water below. She took a step back on the dock.

One only underestimated how high a crocodile could leap once.

She peered over the river. Where had it come from?

Her gaze slowly swept the current…

There!

A dark figure was cutting the water away from the Nubtukan ship, making for shore. On the deck, the drumbeat stopped as khopesh armed sailors rushed to the side.

Wurhi’s jaw dropped. “Mad bastard!”

After hurling a few curses, the oarsmen were already being ushered back to their seats with the crack of a whip. They gave no look back to the escapee, and Wurhi knew well why.

The crocodiles of the River of Scales would never pass so easy a meal.

The figure continued to crawl their way closer. Whoever they were, they were an adept swimmer, and obviously fully intent on living. She glanced to the south, toward the busier parts of the quay. If they managed to make it, far be it from her to let them be beaten by the guards of the wharf.

“Stranger!” she shouted, waving them over. “Over here! Over here!”

Splashing stopped. A head came out of the water, swivelling this way and that, too far to make out details

“Over here! Here!” she cried. “It’s safer!”

They paused. They seemed to have seen her.

“Hurry, fool! Before you’re some river gnasher’s breakfast!”

That got them moving toward her.

“That’s it! Quick! Quick!” she scanned the water for signs of giant, scaled bodies, though there’d be nothing she could do if they came. Wurhi didn’t much understand why she cared. Perhaps with her own life taking such an ill turn, she felt some kinship with the stranger’s struggle.

Then her eyes caught a massive figure gliding silently beneath the current.

“Look out!” she cried. “One’s coming for you! Swim! Swim!”

To their credit, the stranger only paused for a moment to digest her words before they started sprinting through the water as though every demon in the world was after them. Their splashing only seemed to invigorate their pursuer, though, which began to chase them at great speed.

“Faster! It’s coming! Swimswimswimswimswim!” she cupped her hands to her mouth, screaming.

It was no use.

Splash!

Wurhi groaned as long, crocodilian jaws flashed open above the current, then snapped shut. A man’s startled cry cut off beneath a torrent of water as the beast began to roll its body. The thief grimaced, looking away. She’d seen crocodiles in their death spiral before, and she had no interest in seeing those red waters again. Fighting her churning belly, she bent to pick up her cheese. She doubted she’d be able to finish it now.

BHROOM!

Tremendous heat buffeted her back. Water burst.

Wurhi spun about.