Chapter 1

Telise

I n my world, if you don't eat first, you become the meal. You must have the fastest feet in the woods, the quickest slash with a knife, and the sharpest mind to survive.

Luckily, that's me. I live in shadows. I learned early how to walk silently, to disguise myself like part of the scenery. I kill before I'm killed. That's how I've lived this long, anyway.

I don't come out to the Sandteeth often, but there's just some things you can't get back home. Most importantly—the Wicke's Leopard. It's a tricky bastard to find, for the same reason that its hide is so valuable: Its fur is made to blend into any background perfectly, rendering the wearer of it invisible. If I could get lucky and lay my hands on one, maybe two specimens, the sale of a single cloak could clothe and feed me for a few years, and my trip will be completely worthwhile.

It wasn't a cheap or a quick trip, either: I took a caravan and did a two-week stint on a ship just to get to this forsaken place. The mountains are tall and pointed like fangs, and the landscape is unforgiving. I'm glad I brought my own supplies, or enough of them to last me a week before I'll have to turn around and restock in town.

I've had my eye on some droppings for a while. I found them last night and was certain they belonged to my leopard. There are wolves here too, but my hunter's sense says the shape and stink is right for a big cat.

And yet I've been standing in this one spot, watching, for most of the day now without any sign of my prey. Perhaps it was just passing through and doesn't plan to return this way again. Damn.

No, no, it's too soon to give up. I have to wait until after sunset, because that's when the leopards will become most active again.

Rustle .

The shaking of some leaves nearby gives me a start. I make sure the foliage is covering me, especially any metal parts that might reflect the light, and peer out.

Crunch .

It's a heavy footstep, certainly no leopard. From my vantage point all I can see are a pair of legs and big, thick boots. Another crunch as the heel sends a pebble flying toward me.

" Groken ," a voice says. It's low and guttural. I know who it belongs to right away. " Savegg kog."

Trollkin. I'd be able to pick out their barbaric language anywhere. It reminds me of mushy potatoes, all squished and slurred together until the words themselves are nearly indiscernible.

Someone else approaches from behind. One of his trollkin buddies. Supposedly there are differences among them, but to me, they're all the same: Enemies .

I've slit more than one trollkin throat, just like I've slit other human throats. My parents would certainly disapprove if they knew how often I found myself in a tete-a-tete with someone who wants to murder me. But that's how you make it big. You have to be willing to take risks, and I'm nothing if not a thrill-seeker.

The trollkin stomp onward, and now that they've disturbed this area, there's no way my leopard is coming back anytime soon. So I retreat into the bushes and head for a nearby tree. I want to get an idea of who they are and what they're carrying. Sometimes the easiest way to a good meal is by stealing it off of someone else.

One is blue and one is green, I can tell that much from here. And they're both carrying money and supplies. The green one is shorter, with little tusks that pull his lips back. The bluish one is taller, with wild, dark red hair and some of it braided, the rest falling into his eyes as he walks. His tusks are longer, more curled. He has a looseness to him, like he doesn't have a care in the world.

That beast will change his tune pretty soon.

I jog on ahead of them, aiming for a tree that they'll have to walk right underneath. I'm not sure why they're out here trekking through the woods, when the nearest road is a good five miles off—and then I wonder if perhaps they're here for the same reason that I am.

The last thing I need is competition. I'd better end this if I can.

Once I reach the tree, I clamber up as quickly and quietly as possible. Barely a leaf shivers under me. I gingerly walk out onto a branch, testing my balance as I go. When I'm as far as I think the branch can bear, I stop moving and reach down to steady myself .

In just a few moments, the two trollkin approach my position. One carries a blunderbuss, the other a rather large axe. The battle axe is both incredibly deadly and mighty unwieldy, so he'll have a hard time hitting me with it given how fast I can move. The blunderbuss might prove a more significant issue, but it's still big enough that he'll need time to ready it, and I'll have my window to escape.

I should take out the green one before the blue one can even pull out his weapon, but something tells me the blue one is more dangerous. It's the way he walks with a swagger, and holds himself like he's relaxing on the beach, but every bare inch of his body is hard muscle and tense sinew. He has large tusks that emerge from each side of his mouth at an angle, with deadly points that curl up in front of him. He could gut a pig with one of those. That's when I notice he's swinging a little hatchet around in his hand as if to entertain himself, and I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of it. It might only be the size of his hand, but it would easily cleave me through the chest and bring an end to my long series of wins.

Then, they're underneath me. Finally. I drop from the branch like one of my leopard prey, right onto the blue one's head. I aim with one foot, and he gets a real bonk to the noggin. He stumbles backwards, clutching his face.

" Kaggen!" He's irate as I drop to the ground. The green one is already pulling out his blunderbuss, but he's not fast enough. I swing one leg as hard as I can into the back of his knee. I wouldn't be strong enough on my own to take him down, but if you can aim for a weak spot...

The green one falls to the ground, also cursing. I leap at the blue one again as he struggles to regain his balance and bring the point of my knife to his throat.

Click .

Before I can bury the dagger into the troll's flesh, I find the big mouth of the blunderbuss right up against the side of my head.

Raz'jin

"Blizzek, are we any closer?" I'm growing impatient with all this tromping through the woods.

We make an unlikely pair of trollkin, Blizzek and I, but our partnership works well enough. He comes equipped with a handy ore detector, which he's holding up now to measure if we're still going the right way. The indicator wiggles around at the halfway point. When he turns it one direction, the indicator flies upward.

"That way," he says, pointing.

There had been talk of gold in this area, but it was just talk. I wanted to see it for myself and evaluate if we could strike it rich, so we took some horses and crossed the wide-open plains for these abysmal mountains.

We've been wandering around the woods for days now, and finally this morning we got a read. Now we just have to find where it's buried and hope it's not too far down to get to. If we find something but can't extract it, we might be able to sell off the mining rights for a pretty penny.

First come, first find and all.

There aren't a lot of creatures out in the Sandteeth besides birds, rabbits, and a few big cats, but I could swear that I see something move out of the corner of my eye. A flash of something metallic, a small face. But before I can turn my head, it's gone.

Must have been a deer.

But a few paces later, I realize it was no deer. There's a ball of something dark falling from above, and I receive a massive blow to the head that sends me stumbling backwards. Pain shoots through my skull. When I regain my balance, there's a tiny, metal point pressed against my throat.

I stop moving instantly. There's a human woman standing in front of me, her dagger ready to plunge through my neck. I've taken a lot of hits—my scars are my proof—but I wouldn't survive that one.

Blizzek is on one knee, blunderbuss held out with the horn pressed against the side of the human's head.

Stalemate.

The human is panting, her bright green eyes glowing like whole emeralds. Not much of her skin is visible under her jerkin and long leather pants, but what I can see is pale and freckled. She hollers something in her language at us, first at me, and then at Blizzek.

"Can't understand a word," I say to him, pretending there's not a dagger pointed at my throat. I can't let her think she's got me scared.

"Probably bargaining for her life," he says. He presses the blunderbuss more firmly against the woman's head, and she falls still. Some of her red hair slips out of the tie at the top of her head, tumbling in front of her eyes. The fierce look on her face shows me that she's a killer; that she's taken before and will take again if we give her the chance.

Damn. She's kind of hot.

"It'd be my life, too," I say. "You shoot that gun and I'm gutted like a fish."

Blizzek cocks the gun, but the girl doesn't flinch.

"That was a bad call on your part, Raz," he says. "Letting a little thing get one over on you like that."

My only option might be to work something out with her. Convince her we're going to let her go, and then go in for the kill when she thinks she's free. I might not even end her life right away. Someone back in Hargoth might want to buy her. It would be up to them what to do with her after that.

Such a pretty creature, though. It would be a shame to see her covered in mud with a chain around her ankle or tied to some orc's bed.

I slowly raise my hands in surrender. The tip of the dagger presses even further in, barely nicking my skin. She's quite serious, I can tell that much.

"Can we figure this out?" I ask her. "A truce, maybe?"

She just narrows her eyes at me, clearly not understanding what I'm asking. I'm sure she only speaks Freysian, the language the humans have always used.

I gesture to the ground. The human never takes her eyes off of me.

"Put down weapons," I say slower, as if that will help her understand. "Go our separate ways."

I reach for my hand axe, and she digs deeper with her knife. I choke a little.

"It's all right." I try to use a soothing voice. When I slide the axe out of its holster, I drop it to the ground. Then I hold out a hand. "Let's put the weapons down. Okay?"

She would be an idiot to fall for this, but I can see she's considering it. She doesn't have a way out of this, either. The only one who might survive would be Blizzek. This would be a really stupid way to go out—a tiny pretty thing getting a dagger through my esophagus.

Then she says something I can't distinguish, and releases some of the tension between the dagger and my flesh.

"I think she's going to back off," I say to Blizzek. "Make it seem like you're going to put your gun down."

He frowns at me. "What? No way. "

"If you don't, one of us is going to die, and I will haunt you for the rest of your life if I'm the one who goes down."

Suddenly the human shouts something at me. She doesn't like us talking past her. She gestures with the dagger, and I swallow hard, hoping she doesn't make a mistake that close to my jugular.

Blizzek gives me one last withering look before he starts to remove the horn of his gun from the girl's head.

She's quicker than lightning. The moment the gun isn't on top of her, she's already moving, and she kicks Blizzek square in the balls. He shouts and drops his gun, like a giant idiot.

I reach out and grab whatever I can—and my hand wraps around her tiny arm. The girl looks up at me, green eyes wild, and snarls something in her language. I reach for the axe over my back. Her time on this plane is over. That's when she grabs one of my tusks in her other hand and yanks my head towards hers.

For a split second, I'm looking deep into her green eyes, right before she presses her lips to mine. They're pliable and small, and I find my hand freezing on the handle of my axe.

In that one lost second, she pulls away from me, her skinny wrist slipping out of my hand. And then she's running. Before either of us can recover, she dives into the woods at twice the speed we could chase her and vanishes like a shadow.

"Raz'jin!" Blizzek waves his arms at me. Then he clutches his crotch in agony. "What the hell?"

"I don't know. Ask her!" I'm enraged. Right in front of Blizzek, a human woman kissed me ? And then she used my surprise to escape.

"You let her get away." He scowls deeply. "She pulled a stupid, easy trick and you let her get away with it."

"I'm sorry that I didn't expect that ."

Blizzek rolls his eyes, and when he's finally recovered, we keep on in the direction of our gold. He kicks a rock. "Would have made a nice trophy," he says.

But I'm rattled. She was so soft, but so warm, too. I found that more than anything, I wanted to bury my hands in her, and smash her body against mine.

What a dirty, nasty trick from a dirty, nasty creature.