An immense column of boiling water and steam had exploded and was now raining back down over the river. Chunks of scalded and pulped reptile dropped into the water, washing red and black with blood and ash.

Wurhi gaped openly.

Splash!

She yelped, jumping back.

A man was climbing out of the water by way of one of the poles of the old dock, which groaned worryingly with his weight. Spluttering and coughing, he pulled himself above the edge and rolled onto the boards, only to immediately turn around and begin retching over the side.

“Th-” he paused, gagging. “Thank you!”

He promptly returned to dry heaving into the river.

“What in every hell are you!?” Wurhi demanded, scurrying to the far end of the dock, her dagger drawn and glinting. The man only wore a loincloth, though he had a great, oiled bundle tied to his back. He was very thin, with slender shoulders narrowing into a leaner torso and hips, but also corded in defined, wiry muscle.

If she were to judge by appearances alone, then his dark complexion and short, tightly curled, black hair would have marked him as from one of the lands far south of Nubtuka. Perhaps Mabatia, but he was even darker than Kashta had been.

Yet, the features that drew her eye most belonged to no tribe, realm, or land she’d ever heard of. His ears narrowed into sharp points and though his eyes were nearly human, their colours were a bloody crimson.

“Answer me!” she brandished her dagger. “If you’re some demon then I’ll put you back in the river with your throat open! What are you?!” He coughed a few more times before panting and slowly rising to his feet. River water trickled down his frame.

She stepped back further.

He was taller than she’d first thought and a narrow, straight-bladed sword glinted at his waist. The hilt and cross guard were of ivory and the blade shone not with the yellow of bronze, but the silver of steel. The stranger held his hands away from it.

“I am a man,” he declared in slightly accented Makkadian, the tongue of the Zabyallans. “One very much not wanting to get stabbed.”

He gave her a nervous smile.

She did not return it.

“What sort of man has eyes like blood and ears like knives?” she stepped back further, shifting her weight to her back foot. “What sort of man explodes crocodiles and burns water?”

If he went for his sword or tried whatever he did to that beast, she would be inside his reach with her dagger planted in his heart before he had a chance. At least, she hoped so.

His smiled dropped. “I am no demon,” he insisted. “My mother was of the dark elves who dwell far north in the caverns beneath the earth. That is what my father told me, and I am not going to attack the woman who helped me get to shore. Kyembe of Sengezi knows gratitude.”

“And I don’t know you at all,” she growled back. “Even if what you say is true, if you’re no demon then you’re some kind of wizard, and that’s near as bad!”

The man called Kyembe groaned. “I suppose if I stood where you stood, I would not trust me either. Fine, let me sit here awhile to get my breath, and then I will go and we will never meet again. Alright?”

Her thoughts raced, looking for any sort of trap in his words.

Guilt began to gnaw at her. He had only thanked her for guiding him to shore, after all. The man obviously had gone through trying times and if he were a demon, why would he stowaway on a ship and then come attack her at random?

She looked again to his inhuman features. Besides, she was one of the last people who could judge someone based on those. “Alright, I’m sorry I called you a demon. You startled me.”

He shrugged, then unceremoniously dropped down on his rump. “It is all well, after all, you did not stab me,” he looked at her closely, his head lolling lazily to the side. He moved like water, she noticed. “May I have your name?”

Her stomach grumbled quietly, and she found her thoughts returning to the cheese on her cloak. She began cursing herself for needlessly dropping the bread. “Wurhi,” she cautiously sheathed her dagger. “Wurhi of Zabyalla.”

Kyembe froze, those inhuman eyes growing wide. They were very large, and the features around them symmetrical and somewhat feminine. She thought his face would have been quite at home on a handsome woman. Minus the eyes, of course. It was too bad.

Had it been a woman that crawled from the water, Wurhi might have propositioned her right there. With only a few hours of freedom or life ahead, she was feeling a little bold. Not to mention desperate.

“Wurhi of Zabyalla…” he said slowly. “…do folk call you Wurhi the Rat?”

Her mind hadn’t left the cheese. “Some do.”

Kyembe let out a deep laugh. “By the stars! I did not expect the first person I meet here to be a woman of reputation!”

Now her thoughts shifted from her meal. “What reputation? Where? Where? Where do they speak of Wurhi the Rat?”

“Many places!” he spread his arms wide. She noticed a ring shining on one of his fingers. “The thieves of Nubtuka toast you over beer! The merchants of Lexondael curse you over wine! The mercenaries of the dragon princes say you follow Kashta the Talon-”

“No,” she cut him off, frowning. “I didn’t follow anyone. Kashta and I were equal partners. Equal! Equal!”

“Ah, well that is just what they said-wait,” he paused. “‘Were’?”

“Kashta of Mabatia is dead,” she said flatly.

Kyembe stiffened, sucking in a breath. “That is awful. I wished to cross swords with ‘The Talon’ at least once. And you have lost a partner. I am sorry,” he bowed his head. “May his spirit find solace.”

She spit over the dock into the foul waters, then laughed bitterly. “Kashta of Mabatia betrayed me before he was killed. I don’t mourn for him.”

“Oh, well that is different,” Kyembe straightened. “May his spirit be eaten by worms.”

She snorted in amusement. “What was your name again?”

“Kyembe of Sengezi.”

“Right…wait,” she looked at him more closely. “The same Kyembe that folk call ‘The Spirit Killer’?”

He gave a languid shrug. “I cannot say who ‘that folk’ speak of for sure; maybe another ‘Kyembe of Sengezi’ has taken up travel since I last looked, but that is probably me.” He gave a somewhat mischievous smile. “Only the good things, though. If they speak ill of Kyembe, then it must be this other Kyembe of Sengezi they refer to.”

“Hah!” she scoffed. “And what if I tell folk that I found you climbing out of the River of Scales, looking like a half-drowned mouse?”

His smile widened, and he spread his hands in mock helplessness. “Then I could only say that Wurhi the Rat must have seen this other ‘Kyembe of Sengezi’, for I would never be brought so low.”

“Pfft!” she chuckled. “That’s something only an ass would say.”

“Aaaaah, ‘Kyembe the Ass’,” he nodded in a sagely manner. “Another name I am known by, though it was only regularly used by my father.”

In spite of recent troubles, Wurhi found herself breaking down into low, but genuine laughter. “I didn’t expect a man of reputation to come crawling out of the water to jest with me.”

“Sometimes life gives us happy accidents,” he said, his eyes falling beside her. “Wurhi, I hate to ask more of my saviour, but would you spare some of that cheese? I have had no food for days.”

She gave a brief glance at her breakfast, internally calculating how much it would take to fill her stomach. Part of her balked at giving any of it away, but she was small and, even without the bread, had more than enough to fill her belly. No reason to be cruel to a starving man. “I’ll give you half, but no more.”

He chuckled. “Half sounds like a feast.”

Wurhi cautiously approached, but the Sengezian made no sudden movements as she carefully broke the crumbly goat cheese. He watched it like a cat would a mouse, then quickly snatched his half as soon as she offered it, biting down with fervour. He groaned in appreciation.

She watched him with half-amusement, half-astonishment. “You weren’t lying about not having eaten, were you? How’d you come to be hiding on that scow with no food?”

“Mmp…had to…mmph,” he chewed and swallowed between massive bites. “Leave Nubtuka quickly.”

“Oh?” her head cocked in professional interest. Her eyes subtly darted toward his oiled bundle. “What’d you steal?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. I angered Wizard-Priest Buneb’s followers.”

“Oh,” she barely hid her disappointment. “Never heard of him. How’d you do that?”

He tore away another piece and swallowed quickly. “First Buneb learned that Priestess Takhat had slept with me.”

“Why would he care? That his daughter?”

He shook his head. “His wife.”

She grimaced. “That’d do it.”

“And as it happened,” he continued. “He’d bound a greater demon as a pet. He decided to set it upon me,” his lips drew together. “Foul thing. Buneb amused himself by feeding it slaves who displeased him.”

Wurhi stared at him.

He took another bite. “I took offence to that, so I burnt it alive with hellfire.”

She continued to stare at him.

“After that, I was still somewhat offended, so I broke into the temple, cut Buneb open and hung him by his guts,” he laughed darkly. “No more demons for him.” He swallowed. “But Priestess Takhat was less than amused, as were his acolytes. I hid on that ship for three days while they searched before it finally left harbour, and kept stowing away until here.”

She continued to stare at him.

“What? It happens.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

He paused. “Fair enough,” he conceded, taking another bite of cheese.

She shook her head and returned to her own meal. A quiet settled over the two, broken only by the lap of water on the dock and their chewing. After a time, Kyembe opened his bundle and began inspecting the contents, which turned out to be his clothes protected from the water and the filth of the ship.

He shrugged on a white knee-length tunic, then gingerly pulled out an old, frayed cloak that looked like it would crumble to tattered thread at any moment. Whatever colour it had once been, it was now a dull brown-grey. He eyed it critically. “I need a new one,” he muttered.

He pulled out a coin purse from the bundle, and Wurhi noticed a distinct lack of metal clinking. He opened it, peered inside, and then made a face of disgust. “I do not know why I bothered,” he tossed it to the dock.

Seeing that returned Wurhi’s thoughts to her current troubles.

A wild idea began to form in her mind.

She’d heard things about Kyembe the Spirit Killer.

Among them was that he kept his oaths.

“Hey.”

“Hm?” he finished licking the last bits of cheese from his fingers.

“How would you feel about getting rich, Kyembe of Sengezi?”

He looked down at the sad, empty purse beside him. Then he looked back up at her. “How do you think?”

Wurhi grinned widely. “Is Kyembe the Spirit Killer above theft?”

“Depends on who one is stealing from.”

“What if it was from the filthiest, most fatted sow of a merchant in Zabyalla? One who uses magic to give the whole city filthy nightmares every night just so he can get richer?”

“Hmmmm,” Kyembe rubbed his chin. “Then I would say that is not so much theft as it is a rescue. A man like that would abuse his fortune as surely as a drunk farmer would his ox. That is too shameful to let stand. I am sure Wurhi of Zabyalla and Kyembe of Sengezi could give it a better home.”

“It’ll be dangerous.”

He grinned back. “Rescues always are.”

“Half each of whatever we carry?”

“That’s only fair unless one of us brings a mule. When are we going?”

She looked at him seriously. “It has to be tonight.”

“Then you’d better hurry and explain all the details.”

Wurhi the Rat chuckled. “Let’s make an oath.”

She balled her hand into a fist, kissed it, then extended it toward Kyembe. “I, Wurhi of Zabyalla, will not betray you, dishonour you, or steal your share.”

Kyembe made a fist of his own and kissed it. “I, Kyembe of Sengezi will not betray you, dishonour you, or steal your share.”

The two pressed their knuckles to each other.

The oath was sealed.