Guardian of the Night

6

From the site of the first fire, she found herself returned to the place of the incident that required far more of her attention than she wished to give. The stink of the Shcnep accosted her nostrils, filled by effluent and waste from the thousands of folks upon its banks. The Senator had come here for a reason, though she could not, for the life of her, understand why. Nor why she had received orders to investigate it. The man had shown himself a fool by coming to The Sprawl at night, alone, to meet with several, thuggish, unknown individuals. He could not have expected a better outcome.

Again, though, her thoughts turned to that shadow figure. Here, Little Mim had seen them. She was the first to report the shadow figure. No-one had reported an appearance any earlier. Bilain looked up to the perch where Mim had laid, watching the Senator's murder and then the beating and killing of the thugs. That girl could get where water could not, yet the shadow figure had reached that spot with ease.

No-one had bothered to clean away the blood and Bilain ran through the events as Mim had related them with the blood showing those events. She stood where the Senator stood and looked around. He had not given himself a way to escape. Not easily. He knew these men and felt, after a fashion Bilain supposed, safe around them. From here, she could see out across the river toward the Old City, where balconies on run-down, once opulent palaces, stretched out over the river, giving them a sense of floating along with the sluggish waters.

The Senator had fallen where he stood after the first attack. Then, if Bilain had surmised correctly from seeing his wounds, others had continued the attack, even though Yiladry had most like died from the first wound. The entire attack was brutal beyond any need other than as spectacle. As a warning, perhaps, and, if so, to whom? The other Senators of The Sprawl? Bilain would need to speak to them at their earliest opportunity to understand that.

Once dead, or once the thugs had finished slashing at a body that no longer felt the strikes, something had attacked the men. Something fast, strong, as violent as they. More so. Violent enough to break bones, smash skulls and twist heads so hard, they almost took the head from the shoulders. That something, that shadow figure, had attacked with speed, slamming one thug's head into the wall opposite.

Bilain moved to that wall to see the blood and the damage upon it. Low, though none of the dead men could be at all considered short, and the head scraped downwards, along the wall toward the ground. To the other side, the blood was higher, the cracks in the once white mud wall above the height of an average man. A good two feet higher. One attack had come down upon a man, another from below, casting the victim high into the air with some not so little force.

The other thugs were attacked, beaten and killed under more normal circumstances. Taken to the ground where blows rained down from above. Punch after punch until all the men lay dead. If they fought back, their defences were ineffective. If they had tried to run, they had failed. This shadow figure had taken on several strong men all at once and had more than prevailed, they had destroyed the thugs. And yet, something nagged at Bilain's mind.

No weapon. She cursed herself for not seeing it before. Several bloodied knives were found, one for each of the thugs. None of the knives belonged to the Senator. Too simple, not intricate enough, or of the absolute best quality, as any Senator would demand. Knives for the thugs, none for the Senator and none for the shadow figure. They had beaten all these armed men with their bare hands.

That meant training. A lot of training and a dedication to the fighting arts that even most soldiers did not adhere to. She knew she should spend more time thinking about the reasons behind the Senator's murder, but this shadow figure both fascinated and terrified her. The Senator was a fool, in over his head in some political twist or turn. A rival had had him killed, or some prostitute's pimp for the Senator going too far with one of the pimp's girls. The shadow? The shadow prayed upon Bilain's own people and she would not have it.