He didn't have to wait very long before things started to happen. Not long after killing the bully, the door to the inn opened. Tarrin turned to look, and saw himself staring at four ki'zadun soldiers, with the massive body of a Troll blotting out the view of the area behind them. Behind the soldiers was a woman dressed in a black robe, a woman that looked young and vibrant, with honey colored hair and a tall, thin frame. She was Shacean by her features, a swallow-necked beauty with cold, dead blue eyes.

That one was a magician.

"It is in here," she reported in a serene tone, holding up one of her hands. Tarrin looked at it, and his heart moved about two spans behind him when he saw what she was holding.

A small shard of something that looked like thin stained glass. Tarrin recognized it immediately as a piece of a Faerie's wing.

The woman looked directly at him, and then those cold blue eyes turned hungry, and she gave him an evil smile.

They couldn't find him, so they were magically tracking Sarraya!

That Troll behind her told him everything he needed to know in one quick moment of lucidity. They had set up before coming in. They knew Sarraya was inside, and they knew she travelled with him, so that told them that he was also inside. And he didn't doubt that the building was surrounded by Trolls, to stop him when he tried to run.

There wasn't really any fear, just a relief that he didn't have to wait in suspense any longer. If they wanted a fight, he'd be glad to give them one.

He did it so quickly that it took the armed men by surprise. He stood even as he changed form, shedding his darkened Arakite skin and expanding to his full height. Before they could register that, register that he was acting, Tarrin grabbed the top of the square table before him and hefted it like it was a stick. By the time the first scream of surprise was issued, he turned and swept the table around his body, throwing it like a dinner plate at the group of soldiers and the magician they were protecting. It hit the lead man squarely, blasting him back and impacting those behind, knocking all five of them to the floor by the doorway in a spray of blood and a cacophony of shocked and pained cries.

Conscious thought yielded to the animalistic power of the Cat. Tarrin jumped up on another table and extended his claws as the Troll outside smashed its way through the door, breaking away the frame and a good portion of the wall to make a hole big enough to fit its massive bulk. Crouching, Tarrin roared at the Troll in challenge, claws out and held low, eyes blazing with their unholy greenish fire. The display made the Troll hesitate, then it brought up a huge wooden club and advanced on the ready Were-cat. Tarrin darted aside just as the club shattered the table, landing on the side of his foot and immediately turning on the Troll. But Trolls were deceptively fast and agile despite their bulk, and it managed to turn its club to meet the charge. It raised it and tried to smash the Were-cat into the floor-

– -but a loud smack heralded the impact of the club on Tarrin's open palms. The Were-cat caught the club and held it back, pushing it away as he rose up to his full height, a height that put his eyes at the Troll's collarbones. In that fleeting moment, despite the fact that he was engaged in a life and death battle with a Troll, he finally understood just how tall he had become.

The Troll looked genuinely shocked. It pushed down on the club, grabbing it with both hands and using its height as leverage, but it could not bring it down. Tarrin's strength, an awesome strength that was not apparent to the onlooker, held the club at bay, kept it from getting any closer. They pushed against one another as Tarrin's claws sank into the club, sank into the dirt floor beneath him. He bowed his back slightly, coming onto the heels of his feet, and it made the Troll growl in expectation and put everything it had into driving the club down, to bend the Were-cat's back and put him on his back.

It did not understand. It could not see, until it was too late.

Tarrin's tail whipped up in the blink of an eye, and the tip of it wrapped around the hilt of the sword strapped under the pack holding the Book of Ages. The member was more than twice as long as his arm, nearly as long as his body. The tail pulled up on the hilt, then snaked around the blade in a manner that allowed his tail to draw the weapon. It slithered down through the coil in Tarrin's tail, until the tip again wrapped around the hilt.

The Troll's eyes widened in shock and sudden terror as Tarrin shifted under its relentless press, shifted so the tail could come around his body and hit the Troll without obstacle. It tried to pull away, but the claws dug into the club prevented it from withdrawing the weapon when Tarrin shifted from pushing to pulling, and it stubbornly, dimly refused to let go. The shift allowed him to turn sideways, and the sword sliced around his body, sweeping up from the floor and digging into the underside of both of the Troll's forearms. The Troll released the club with a howl of agony, blood spraying from the bone-deep slashes in both forearms. It staggered back a step, and focused on the Were-cat just in time to see its own club driving towards its head. It saw a white flash, and then it saw no more.

Tarrin threw the club aside and pulled his sword from his tail, thanking everyone available that his tail was so flexible. He became aware of the frightened screams and chaos of the humans around him, then tuned it out as his conscious mind reasserted itself and dealt with the situation. The ki'zadun soldidrs and mage were either dead or unconscious. Blood pooled around the soldiers, and the mage, who had been behind them and not struck by the table, laid on her stomach and did not move. They were not a threat to him at the moment. They probably had the building surrounded, so he couldn't go out. He had to either get above them or below them, out of the reach of the Trolls. Below was out of the question with a dirt floor, so above was the only option. The inn had two floors, and it was a pattern Arakite structure, with a flat stone roof and most likely a trap door or staircase that led to it.

The buildings were not that far apart. He could easily jump from building to building, until he was close enough to the wall to come down to the ground, and race the Trolls to the escarpment. Tarrin claw's snapped out, and he picked up the closest human, a dirty-faced young woman too terrified to run. "Where are the stairs to the roof?" he demanded in a hot voice, glaring at the woman in a manner that told her that her life depended on her ability to answer.

She pointed dumbly to a door on the back wall.

Tarrin dropped her, let her fall the nearly two spans to the floor, and was out that door before her rump hit the ground.

He could hear them. He could smell them. Troll voices were suddenly barking, calling, outside the inn, as well as excited shouts and calls from others. But the others didn't concern him, it was the Trolls he had to worry about. Beyond the door was a kitchen, a kitchen almost stripped bare of anything edible. In the near corner was a steep staircase leading upstairs.

"Tarrin, what are you doing?" Sarraya demanded. He'd completely forgotten about her. He could hear her wings come up behind him; she must have gotten dislodged in his short exchange with the people in the common room.

"The roof," he replied in a hasty voice, moving towards the stairs. "I can get to the edge of the compound from the roof."

"Good idea," she agreed.

It took him a very short time to go up the stairs, see another set of stairs at the end of the hallway at the top, and then climb up onto the roof. The setting sun was just on the edge of the horizon of the desert, and there were Trolls everywhere. Trolls, men in black hauberks, men screamin and shouting and staying out from under the feet of the Trolls as they moved to encircle the compound. There were several shouts from them when Tarrin appeared a the top, looking towards the west, to see how far away the next roof was, and the Were-cat had to duck when a few arrows came after him, but not before he saw that the roof of the warehouse beside the inn was very close. It was just higher than the inn, making the jump a tricky one.