The Jewel of Turmish - Mel Odom [67]
Frightened and near exhaustion, she sat with her back to the cave wall and kept watch over the entrance. The campfire flickered at the corner of her vision as she fought to keep her eyelids open. When she closed them, intending to rest for only a moment, sleep claimed her.
Wrapped in bloody priest's robes and shrouded in the night, Borran Kiosk walked Alaghфn's streets once more. Hunger and madness warred within him as what he saw conflicted with what he remembered.
Eldath's priests had trapped him for years. He had the sense of that from the changes in the city around him. Once familiar, Alaghфn had grown yet imploded as well. New buildings, taller and grander, stood where claptrap buildings once teetered. In other parts of the city, once grand buildings had been left to decay like bad teeth.
The storm continued to crackle and spit around him. Water sluiced through the uneven cobblestones and poured down the pitted iron grates to the sewers that ran beneath the city and out into the Sea of Fallen Stars.
Borran Kiosk walked with purpose. His skeletal feet clacked against the stones and splashed through the water. A passing wagon, laden with workers fresh up from the dockyards where men still labored to unload a ship, splashed muddy water over him. He kept walking, ignoring the dull, distant cold.
The deep, abiding hatred Borran Kiosk had for living men-and elves and dwarves and the rest-squirmed through the empty space where his stomach had once been. Even though he'd been without a stomach for years, he'd never lost the sense of it.
As he walked, the hate festering inside him, he gazed in at taverns and inns still open to the late-night trade from the docks. Even over the rumble of thunder and the crash of waves, he heard the laughter and conversations of the living. Their simpleminded joy, their very ignorance of his passage, angered him more.
He gave in to that anger, turning his steps toward a small tavern. The tavern was on the second floor, squeezed between storage space for the two shops on either side of it.
A fat dwarf with a dark beard guarded an iron-barred doorway. As Borran Kiosk neared, the dwarf came to attention. He kicked the big head of the double-bitted battle-axe at his feet, causing the heavy weapon to revolve in his palms and come to a natural grip in both his hands. The dwarf tried a grin, but his eyes remained hooded and wary.
"Hail and well met, traveler. Judgin' from the cut o' yer robes, ye've been up that well-known crick an' back down again, ye have."
Borran Kiosk said nothing. The wind slapped at the hood of his robe, but left it in place.
"Gonna cost ye a silver or two to get in," the dwarf warned. He shifted the battle-axe, his callused fingers rasping against the hand-tooled wood. "An' I'm gonna have to see the color of it afore I let ye in."
Without breaking stride, Borran Kiosk opened wide his jaws and spat out the long purple tongue. At that distance there was a chance the dwarf could have evaded the attack, but Borran Kiosk's tongue caught the dwarf flat-footed. The hard cartilage smashed through the dwarfs throat, tearing through the flesh with ease. Knocked backward, the dwarf slammed up against the iron-barred door blocking access to the stairs. The dwarfs face flexed as he tried to scream, but the sound died unborn in his mangled throat.
Borran Kiosk withdrew his tongue and caught the dwarfs falling body with one hand. The salty sweetness of the dwarfs blood filled the mohrg, taking the edge off his hunger. Borran Kiosk tossed the dwarfs corpse away. He tried the iron-barred door but found it locked. Bracing himself, the mohrg gripped the iron bars and yanked.
Metal screeched as the iron bars pulled free of their moorings. Ignoring the possibility that anyone had heard the door rip loose, Borran Kiosk flung the door aside and strode into the darkened chamber. From above, the sound of revelry continued