"You're smarter than I was led to believe," the thug said. "Maybe I'll let you live, give you a chance to work for me," he added, smiling. "But then, you already did. You just don't know it."

He recentered Vambran in his sights.

At that moment, a mist began to rise from the street, much to the surprise and dismay of the thugs gathered in a cluster near Kovrim. Their shouts distracted their leader enough to cause him to turn around to see what the fuss was about. At the same instant, Vambran brought his crossbow bolt up so that it rested freely atop his open palm, with him looking down its length at his opponent. He spoke a quick phrase, enchanting the bolt with arcane dweomers. The bolt flew from his hand, straight toward the leader, just as he was turning around again.

The thug must have had cat's blood running in his veins, for he somehow managed to shift his weight enough at the last possible moment, so that the bolt struck him in the arm rather than squarely in the chest. As the thug reeled from the blow, staggering wide-eyed back a step, he reflexively pulled the trigger on his own crossbow, letting the missile fly. Vambran had anticipated the possibility and slid off to the side, but he'd guessed wrong, turning into the wild shot rather than away from it. The bolt struck him in the shoulder, just below the edge of his armor, sinking into his flesh.

The mercenary cried out, dropping to one knee from the pain. He looked over at the leader and saw that the man had dropped as well, clutching at his own arm. Behind him, there were shouts of confusion and pain, but the other thugs were enveloped in a thick mist that engulfed them completely. Vambran could see nothing. He took a deep breath and rose to both feet again, reaching down with his good arm to retrieve his sword. He grasped it and walked with a purpose over to the wounded leader, who was warily watching him approach.

"I told you," Vambran said, raising high his blade, "that I would see your blood spilled tonight. Too bad you didn't listen." The mercenary officer loomed over his foe, his eyes narrowed dangerously. "Who told you about it?" he demanded.

The thug laughed and said, "No one, foolish boy. I watched it with my own eyes."

Vambran snarled in fury and swung his sword down, aiming for the thug's neck, but at that moment, the man uttered some arcane phrase and simply vanished before Vambran's eyes. The mercenary's blade sliced through thin air.

"Damnation!" the lieutenant screamed, spinning around, trying to see where his would-be opponent had fled.

There was no sign of the man.

At that point, another one of the thugs staggered out of the obscuring vapors and, seeing Vambran, the man hefted his own sword and came at the mercenary. Growling, Vambran turned to fight. As they danced on the cobblestones, the lieutenant tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his shoulder where the bolt still protruded. Several times, the thug lunged in toward that side, perhaps hoping to force Vambran to jerk back out of the way and cause himself pain. On the third such lunge, though, Vambran was ready for it and spun completely around so that he ended up behind the thug, slashing into the small of the man's back with his own blade. Vambran's foe cried out in pain and fell to the street.

Vambran was already turning to look for another opponent to vent his anger on, noticing then that the misty vapors had begun to dissipate, drifting away with the perpetual breezes that blew through Arrabar. The lieutenant could see more figures, many of them surrounding Kovrim, who had summoned a cloud of coins with which to fight. Kovrim kept the glowing, incorporeal weapons dancing before himself, using them exclusively defensively. Vambran also noticed that Xaphira had managed to slip inside the circle of thugs and was standing back to back with Kovrim, using only her hands and feet to keep the approaching thugs at bay. Several of the attackers were lying about the alley, some of them still, others moaning in pain. Six or seven still stood, though, and they seemed to have gotten the idea that if they timed their attacks to occur simultaneously they might get inside the pair's defenses.

Vambran was just squaring himself to jump in and attack one or more of the thugs from behind when he heard a shout from the opposite direction. Turning, he spotted a host of men at the mouth of the alley running toward him. He groaned, thinking at first that those were reinforcements for the thugs, sent to come in from behind him and keep him from escaping. But then, he got a better look at the soldiers' markings and saw that they were members of the Sapphire Crescent.

Most of the mercenaries rushed past him, crashing into the remaining thugs who, realizing they were outnumbered by a sizable margin then, turned and fled. Vambran doubted any of them would reach the far end of the alley.

Two of the mercenaries pulled up short, though, stopping to face Vambran and salute him.

"Looks like you needed a bit of help, sir," Adyan drawled, that scar on his chin glowing in the moonlight. "Glad we happened to hear your scuffle."

"We've been sent to bring you back to the temple," Horial added, a smirk on his face. "I couldn't think of a better reason to gather the platoon and come see if you needed some assistance."

Vambran looked back and forth between the two men and started to laugh.

"Well met," he said, offering his hand. "Well met!"

Emriana continued to tug against the strips of cloth that Denrick had used to bind her into one of the high-backed chairs in her own room. He'd torn them from her dress, which lay in a discarded heap on the floor nearby. Wearing only her chemise, she glared at the young man, who was sitting on the edge of her bed, watching her with a glare of his own and rubbing a spot on his forearm where she'd managed to bite him. That was before he'd wedged a thick knot of more cloth into her mouth and tied it in place with yet another strip. So she was confined to the chair, her legs and arms strapped down. Denrick had managed it with the guard's help, of course.

"That wasn't very nice," Denrick grumbled, examining his wound.

Emriana had barely broken the skin, but watching her captor fuss over the fresh wound gave her some small level of satisfaction. She glanced over to where Jaleene sat next to her, tied to another chair in a similar fashion. The handmaiden's eyes were wide with fear, and she'd said nothing since awakening. Emriana pitied the woman a bit, but not so much that she had forgotten to be afraid for her own well-being.

Despite her bravado, Emriana knew that she was helpless against whatever Denrick ultimately wanted to do to her, and his intentions seemed pretty clear as he studied her, that wolfish grin slowly returning. She desperately wished the dress were still on, no matter that it had been a rather uncomfortable thing to wear. She refused to let her fear show through, though, and kept her malevolent gaze right on his face the entire time.

Denrick stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of the two women. He placed his hands behind his back as he did, as though deep in contemplative thought. He began to speak.

"If this marriage is going to work at all, we're going to have to establish some ground rules. You know, some guidelines by which you can keep from getting into trouble, which you most definitely are in right now."

Emriana simply snorted through her gag, showing what she thought of the older boy's guidelines.

"Deride them if you want, but at your own peril," Denrick said. "For I might begin to grow tired of you if this foolish resistance keeps up for much longer. I had hoped for a more amicable marriage, but I will take what I need from you less amicably, if necessary."