The Ghost's Crusade

XXIII. Tiernan (cont.)

Looking around the empty room Tiernan noted the storm still raging madly outside. "I think this is the worst one I've seen in the Oribian yet."

"You should visit Warsfenn if ever a hurricane reaches the shore," laughed Akkali, shaking her head. "This is nothing compared to staying in a tavern whose walls are being impaled by fishing rods and oars like an archer's target."

He frowned at her predictable and slightly cynical remark. "You certainly enjoy one-upping people don't you."

Glancing at him from the corners of her eyes she replied, "Every time someone runs screaming at the mere hint of something frightening you don't have even the slightest urge to point out that you know exactly what true terror is just to shut them up?"

"Occasionally," he answered after a pause. "But I don't. That would be... rude. And not at all helpful. You catch more flies with honey, as they say."

Akkali's face twisted up in disgust. "Why you people want to catch flies is a knot that will never be untied."

"It's a saying, Akkali. No one goes around actually collecting flies. No one normal, at any rate."

She opened her mouth to contest his point but her eyes fixed on the door behind the bar as it opened and a sopping figure shuffled in hurriedly. Tiernan turned and saw it was James, the tanned and tousle-headed young man who had escorted him in earlier. He looked significantly more pale, though it was likely just due to the freezing rain he had obviously been standing out in.

"You said there were werewolves on the road in?" said James in a rush, ducking behind the bar and lifting a plank of wood up out of the floor to prop it up on the bar.

"Three. I burned them to ashes." The Enkiri rose to her feet quickly and hopped the counter to join the Inferi in digging through whatever he had uncovered. "Did you find where they came from?"

"Njall—my partner—he sensed a growing Pandemonium focus while I was sleeping outside. Alaric is tracing its origin and it seems to be coming from the noble's quarter."

"Shit," muttered Akkali. "How many Inferi are there here right now?"

"Just four." James' head reappeared and he hopped over the bar counter bearing two shortswords at his sides and a brace of knives across his chest. "Myself, Alaric, the Senior Inferi, and Brandon coming in from the shire. He should be here in ten minutes or so."

Concerned by the dire look on the Inferi's face Tiernan rose to his feet. "What's going on now?"

"Oh, the usual," replied James with a mocking smirk and nonchalant lilt in his voice. "Fiends of Pandemonium about to break down a door into Eral and suck out the souls of the more vain immortality-seeking nobility." His eyes began to shift from a hazel brown color into a bright and unnatural scarlet shade as he continued. "We'd leave them to be snacked upon but Senior Inferi Garret always yells at us when we let that happen. He gets so testy when there's collateral damage."

Akkali stood up from behind the counter, similarly armed with knives though she bore no swords. "Is he coming?"

Turning to her with a bit of surprise he said, "Are you?"

"I've nothing better to do at the moment," she replied with a shrug. "May as well kill another demon. It's always good fun."

The Inferi turned back towards Tiernan. "What of you, Inquisitor?"

He looked from Akkali to James for a moment, then asked, "Exactly how dangerous is this... demon?"

"Njall is pretty sure someone's trying to make another werewolf, so it's likely to be a faolryth," replied James. "Normally they're apathetic little bastards, lazy as bears in winter. But to become a werewolf you have to kill it and eat it, and they really don't like it when people try to eat them. Think... rampaging acid-drooling dog with the ability to ignore natural laws and walk on the ceiling."