"Assassins!" Alden shouted as he stumbled back, the word drawing the undivided attention of the visiting mercenaries, traders and wanderers who had gathered for eveningfeast. Although the word had been spoken in Common and had counterparts in almost every language, the sight of Lucius Cardoc's still form, covered by the white sheet that was now soaked red, conveyed the meaning all too well. Hundreds of people bolted from their chairs and a panic erupted. Soldiers from the east spied emissaries from rival countries and attacked them without warning, deciding that they were the assassins in question. Once new blood was drawn, a frenzy began. Drawn swords, oaths to gods, and promises of agonizing death filled the outdoor eatery. Minor scuffles and disagreements sprang up as the walkways became congested with people trying to escape the random knife or arrow that certainly would be loosed by the assassins.

Only a handful of people within the crowd understood that there were no assassins; not the sort that had been imagined, anyway. These individuals were capable of the same emotions as the humans that flooded past, but, in truth, they were not human. They were emissaries of the Night Parade, and their moment of retribution had come.

Two members, a red-haired man whose flesh was covered in sweat and a lissome, dark-haired woman with eyes that housed terrible secrets, stood together in the shadows provided by the tents housing the chefs and their delicacies. The couple held hands and watched as their hand-picked warriors needled their way through the crowd and found Erin Shan-dower lying on the ground. The Slayer had been kicked and stepped on by the crowd that was hurrying to leave the killing ground.

Shandower had retained consciousness despite the toxins in his system. The gauntlet that was fused to his flesh burned with a blinding, blue-white luminescence. Cords of green energy erupted from his clenched fist and wove themselves about his body. He looked as if he were being attacked by an army of snakes composed of emerald fire. The crackling green strands of energy disappeared within his flesh, and his body was racked with convulsions. After a few seconds, the shuddering stopped and Shandower rose, his face pale, his legs uncertain. The magic of the apparatus had burned the poison from his body. He was jostled by several members of the panicked crowd, then he raised his glowing fist into the air and shouted, "Come for me now, you bastards!"

He was only vaguely aware of the figure that suddenly appeared at his back and the whistling of a sword through the air. Shandower heard something fall, a heavy object that dropped into a sack. Then he looked at his left arm and saw that his hand and half of his forearm were no longer there. The stump that remained spurted blood. Fighting off a tide of nausea, Shandower shoved his right hand over the wound, applying as much pressure as he could. The blood continued to flow, but not as quickly.

He turned to find the pair of monsters who had taken his weapon, wondering why they had not taken his head rather than his hand. A giddy excitement overcame him as he found himself sliding down into shock. Shandower congratulated himself on the calm manner in which he was taking the loss of his hand, the butchering of his body. In another moment, he was certain, he would start laughing, then the screaming would begin.

Suddenly another figure was beside him, a man.

"Shandower!" Reisz cried, his initial shock quickly fading as he grabbed a tablecloth, tore off several strips, and wrapped them around the man's bloody stump. Reisz hastily created a tourniquet by tying the edges around the wound and pulling them tight. He quickly explained that Myrmeen had left him to check on Krystin.

"Our guard was relaxed," Shandower said as he fought off the rising delirium that threatened to overcome him. "We didn't think they would attack in public, when it was light."

"They're still here," Reisz hissed. "There's no time."

Despite his pain, Shandower understood. They had to retreat as quickly and efficiently as possible.

"Join the crowd," Shandower said. "We must retrieve my weapon. Without it-"

"Stop talking. I'll get it," Reisz said as he threw his arm around Shandower's back and helped the man. They merged with the flow of people still trying to escape the pockets of violence that bloomed throughout the court.

At a more remote table, Myrmeen had arrived to find Krystin and Ord fighting for their lives against a pair of skinless monstrosities. Startled, Myrmeen saw that the creatures appeared to grow and diminish as they fought to rake open the throats of her daughter and the thin, brown-haired young man who tried to act as her defender. The inhuman creations that attacked the young pair looked like men whose flesh had been stripped from their bones then replaced with rotted chunks of spoiled meat. Their eyes burned with a dull, blood-red glow. Ord swung his sword in wide arcs, keeping the monsters at bay, while Krystin stood ready with a pair of daggers. A man lay at their feet, apparently an innocent who had wandered into the creatures' path in his attempt to flee.

Myrmeen noticed that Krystin's arm was bleeding from a very deep gash. The artery had not been severed, but the wound was a serious one. The girl looked as if she might faint at any moment.

Shouting her daughter's name, Myrmeen launched herself at the closest of the abominations, drawing her sword in mid-stride. She dropped to her knees and swung her sword at the monster's knees as the creature lashed out with its talons.

A sharp crack filled the air as Myrmeen's sword hit home, biting through the bone and cartilage of her victim's right knee and the hard, leathery muscle of its left thigh. Neither limb was severed outright, but the creature toppled backward as Myrmeen yanked her bloody sword from the monster. Before she could cross to the second creature, who had not allowed its partner's distress to deter it from its mission, Ord rushed forward, stepping between the creature still standing and Myrmeen, raised his own sword, and brought it down on the fallen abomination's neck.

"Krystin!" Myrmeen shouted helplessly. Because of Ord, the creature would be upon the girl before Myrmeen could reach her. For an instant her gaze locked with that of her daughter. The absolute dread that Myrmeen felt at the thought of losing the girl whom she had gone through so much to find-the child who eventually might fill the empty hollow that passed for her heart-translated into an expression of un-distilled love and primal fear. The expression startled Krystin, but she quickly recovered and moved forward to deal with the threat from which her mother could not save her.

In those critical seconds, as the monster raced at her, Krystin reacted as she had been trained to by Myrmeen. She bent her legs slightly at the knee and planted them with exactly the right amount of space between her feet. Then she flipped both of her blades so that she held them by the sharp, cold metal of their flats. Staring at the creature's eyes, she launched the daggers. Her wound made her flinch as she released them and only the first blade struck true, piercing the soft red orb of the creature's left eye. The second blade opened a bloody rivulet across the right side of its face, then clattered to the ground. The skinless creature threw its head back and howled in pain.

Myrmeen finally made her way past Ord and the member of the Night Parade that he had dispatched. Krystin was weaponless. Before the half-blind creature could retaliate for Krys-tin's attack, Myrmeen drove her sword through its torso. The dying thing grabbed the blade's hilt, and Myrmeen sawed it back and forth until the creature released its grip and fell back to lie beside its dead partner.

She wondered why it had been so easy to kill this pair. Compared to the monsters they had faced in the alley behind the counting house, these two seemed like little more than a distraction, though a potentially lethal one.