Warst 17, 3252

Riposte.

"You know," Pertuli huffed next to me. "If we had lackeys they could distract the lizards while we fetched the silver. Better yet, we could hire henchmen. Ooh! Men-at-arms! We could hire men-at—"

"Not now," I interrupted, my voice a warning growl. I wasn't as winded, and my voice sounded more bestial than intended. "You have no intention of hiring a servant."

"Ah," he answered, "but you would make a marvelous taskmaster, supposing you pledged not to eat the hypothetical fellow... and we could share! Again, for errands, not eating, I mean."

This time, the growl bubbling up in my throat was not unwarranted. Spots of red rage bloomed at the edges of my vision. I struggled to concentrate, to ignore my friend's jibes.

I visualized fencing stances, mentally slipping through the forms, attacks and guards. "First position: guard... advance... lunge..." I breathed to myself as we ran, feeling the movements in my mind as if practicing in body.

"Ya blokes are weird," Ivy griped, running at Pertuli's other side.

There weren't many who could be described as less verbose than I, yet Ivy was markedly silent during our rapid jog to the Market Ward. She smelled uncertain in addition to her usual scent of leather and ale, and she was tainted by the heady scent of Balina's perfume from their struggle at Orluz manor.

The reminder nauseated me. Could she really be dead? At my hand?

Yes, but surely Paolo deserved some of the blame; he'd turned us both into monsters. Thinking about it was like a scarlet rage blanketing my mind ... and yet I could still feel my sword driving into her twisted body; glancing off a rib and her spine as I stole her life. If her life was even hers, at that point.

My poor, sweet, rebellious Balina. Her fang-filled mouth gaped, a shocked expression on strangely dark eyes as she gasped my name with her final breath. "Koray?"

It was a nightmare from which I would never awake.

The rage closed around me, nourished by memory. I was barely aware of Pertuli's ceaseless commentary, and struggled to concentrate on the stances. "Second position; guard... advance... lunge..."

A mass of people surrounded us as we turned from Palace Wall Road onto Market Street. Their screams flooded over me as if they could see the images I saw, and the chaos was almost too much to bear.

What am I doing? The curse will make me a killer. It is inevitable. I want to kill. Need to kill ... myself, before I destroy my friends and my city!

I froze, feeling the gorge rising in my throat, and fought the urge to snap my teeth at passersby.

"Rip?" Pertuli called again, more loudly this time so his voice actually tore into my awareness. "D'Argent's shop is this way!"

I nodded and numbly stumbled toward the corner where he and Ivy had changed directions.

"How are we even going to find the cursed in this?" I growled, gesturing at the general chaos. The far side of the market was on fire and the brisk evening breeze was fanning the flames towards us, blinding my radiance vision.

"We'll advantage ourselves of your peculiar talent for drawing mayhem," Pertuli quipped, panting. "They're probably converging on us as we speak. Now, hurry! I saw radiance casting back there, and though it would be a blessing if the Wizard Guild got involved, even the Baron of Gilsetton himself would need our help."

"Bah," I scoffed. "Wizards." I left it at that. It was hard to form words with my blood boiling and mind racing.

Pertuli smelled nervous, but he was right. A weresaur was a hulking, physical brute that healed quickly and moved impossibly fast. If a wizard wasn't comfortable with close combat, raw power wouldn't save him. The weresaur would charge through most spells and kill the caster without slowing down.

Their only true weakness was silver.

Somehow we had navigated the maze of streets on the far side of the market to the D'Argent Silver shop, just south of the Harbor Road. My addled awareness was skipping time. How much time do I have?

My head pounded. It was several long drips before I realized there was also pounding outside my head. The door to the shop swung inward.

"Pertuli Ill'Enniniess," a surprised but placid tilwenor voice said. I caught a whiff of smoke, oils, floral soap, and above all, the thrilling violence of silver. "Sillaree goss, fli'bal kennsor. My sister is not at home..." A silver-haired tilwenor poked his head briefly out at us, then looked quickly up and down the street. "But fire colors the dusk, you are winded, and you have brought friends. I suspect your visit is not of the usual kind. Chir, kalan rillist."

"Fa! Sairee, pathin," Pertuli answered, and rushed inside with Ivy close on his heels.

Silver. I found my heart racing in irrational terror at the thought of entering the building.

"Riposte Clasicant?" our host asked, through the partially open door as I stood there panting, willing myself to enter. "En'nri'srillan fflen kalan rillist?"

"Don't waste breath trying to be polite, Ginnilis," Pertuli called. "Neither of my friends here are native born. Best to speak in Weighs."

I ground my teeth audibly and stepped inside. If only to break Pertuli's nose, if he lets his tongue wag too freely.

The room was lit by a few bright lamps. The storefront was warmly furnished in aged oak and polished with beeswax. Old tapestries retained the warmth and livened the room with tasteful spring themes. A cooling wood stove smoldered in the corner, its embers still burning down since the close of business. The counters were empty, their wares in the vault for the night, but the entire place reeked of silver. My cursed skin crawled.

Ivy gasped audibly as Ginnilis turned and she saw our host's face for the first time. She covered her slip immediately, pretending to have banged her hand against a counter, but no one was fooled. The noble D'Argent siblings were famed for their beauty. The brother's handsome face made even Pertuli look plain, and he was only outdone by his sister.

Her beauty was rivaled, in all the world, only by my Tyella. Oh Ella, where are you?

Ginnilis smiled graciously, resigned to strong reactions when meeting people. Pertuli moved, almost imperceptibly, to stand between the two.

"Ivy, Riposte, may I introduce Ginnilis D'Argent," Pertuli said, "the preeminent silversmith in Dragoskala."

"Ginnilis," I muttered in greeting.

I'd known Ginnilis as long as Pertuli had, which meant the introduction was for Ivy's benefit, and that Pertuli was trying to break her line of sight by waving at each of us in turn. Such a posturing rooster.

D'Argent, for his part, ignored me in an effort to set Ivy at ease, reaching across Pertuli's interceding body in a way that gently moved him aside so he could take the mercenary's hand.

"Delighted to make your acquaintance, Ivy," he said, and brought her fingers lightly to his lips.

"Same," she said, sounding unusually demure. Her smirk deepened and she shot a sort of triumphant glare at Pertuli. I rolled my eyes.

"Let's get on with it," I growled, "We have a city to save." This was no time for flirty games.

"Yes!" Pertuli said, on my side for once. I blinked in shock. "Ginnillis, I need to pick up my order... immediately. And you may want to strap on your sword. There are lycanthropes in the city tonight. Big ones."

"Oh?" Ginnillis drawled, making a spectacle of drawing his eyes reluctantly away from Ivy's. She blushed—blushed!—and covered her cheeks with gauntleted hands like she couldn't believe it either. The tilwenor affected not to notice. "Lycanthropes, you say? How dire. One moment."

He stepped to the back of the shop and spoke a few soft words in a musical, many-syllabled language. His words were answered in the same tongue by a much higher pitched voice.

He returned shortly, carrying a beautiful sheathed sword. One I didn't recognize, which meant 'Tuli had been holding out on me. As he received it and drew it forth, I could tell from across the room that it was a masterpiece of smithing, and every surface was plated in gleaming silver.

"It is stunning," he breathed, probably intoxicated more by the mirror-like surface than its obvious quality. "Listen brother, if the fate of the city depended on it, how quickly could you plate another?"

Ginnilis raised a finger.

"Midgidelipu?" he called toward the rear of the room. "Could we do another sword?"

He turned back, bemused. "Isn't Riposte's sword silver-plated already?" he asked. "We did his a fortnight ago—just after this one."

"I need one too," Ivy said. "Doesn't have to be perfect—just give me enough silver to finish a weresaur."

"A... weresaur?" Ginnilis asked, his amber eyes glancing from her to Pertuli and back. "That sounds hazardous."

"Long story," I interjected. We had no time for explanations. I caught the A'shee's scent just before he entered the room, walking with a stoop and tired from a long day growing longer still. He was just over knee-height and balding, and wore a gray wool cover-all. Over this hung a leather apron that clattered and dangled with a collection of tools and small vials, all connected, bolted or tied to the garment in various ways.

"Yevini hügili-ama-beem, hiniwig..." he said in Sheemit before seeing our quartet filling the front of the room and switching to Weighs. He pronounced the words with the thick staccato accent and high pitched voice characteristic to his race. "Serry, I did net knewee hid Tilweniyee in Ster. I meen ti say I weell dawit neew if ye went—the cindelsticky ere finish."

"Excellent, right this way, please," Ginnilis said graciously, following the little craftsman through the open doorway in the back. I took up the rear, muttering about our absolute lack of time to fool around.

The smell of silver overwhelmed me as I entered, almost blinding my other senses. It was a small workroom, with tables filled with various alchemical instruments and tools. Empty shelves everywhere spoke of projects and repaired pieces placed in the vault for the night.

There were a few odd grasping devices on segmented arms that held objects while the jewelers worked on them. And a large container made of thick glass on the workbench was filled with a noxious pool of liquid that itself smelled distinctly of silver. Near the pot were two copper wires connected to an A'shee machine.

Midgidelipu clipped the copper wires to Ivy's sword and dipped it into the bath. He then climbed onto the machine.

"My business benefits greatly from a wonderful system of silver plating that my friend Midgidelipu has invented, Ginnilis explained. "It works far more quickly and efficiently than the dwarven silver bath method—watch!"

"I can't," I groaned, my stomach heaving. "The smell is making me sick... I'll wait at the door."

"I don't smell anything," Ivy frowned as I left.

I paused in the storefront long enough to hear the A'shee inventor's contraption start up as he began pedaling. A'Shee legs were exceedingly short but powerful. Every machine they invented seemed to involve pedaling as a source of power. The cogs and gears of his machine whirred noisily and sent sparks skittering across the floor. The smell of silver grew stronger and I dove gagging through the outer door.

With the poisonous silver fumes behind me, I immediately felt better ... until the swipe of a massive black claw sent me flying across the street.