Then she remembered the automatic weapon Inch had given her, still stuck in a pocket of her coat. She reached down and drew it out. It was a short-barreled, stubby black killing tool, one that used metal projectiles like they had during the Great Wars. The name on the barrel, raised in tiny letters, said FLANGE 350. Inch had called it an automatic. Twelve shots. Just pull the trigger and it would fire them one at a time or all at once. She studied it dubiously. She had never seen a weapon of this sort, never held one before, and certainly never fired one. She supposed she could use it if she had to, but she found herself hoping it wouldn’t come to that. She would be happier with a bow and arrows, if she could find them. The metal weapon felt uncomfortable, as if it were as much a danger to her as to anyone she might try to use it against.

It gave her no sense of satisfaction at all to know she had it. She stuffed it back in her pocket and went back downstairs to sleep.

WHEN SHE WOKE, she was heavy-eyed and disoriented, brought out of her sleep mostly by a sense that something wasn’t right. For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was. She pushed herself upright and peered about in a darkness lit only by gray light seeping through a ventilation opening high up on the wall behind her. She remembered then she was in Deladion Inch’s fortress lair, cocooned away from the rest of the world, sealed off from the Drouj.

She rose and yawned, stretching her arms over her head. She had slept, but felt as if she hadn’t gotten much rest. She switched on the torch, scanned the room in a perfunctory way, and then climbed the steps to the exterior overlook.

This time when she emerged, she did so much more cautiously, crouching down so that she couldn’t be seen from below. The sun was overhead; it must have been somewhere close to midday. She slipped through the door and made her way on hands and knees to the edge of the overlook, keeping the wall between herself and whatever or whoever might be looking up. She found a split in the stone blocks and peered out, searching the landscape below.

She didn’t see anyone.

She kept looking anyway, then shifted her position, moving to one of the sidewalls. This time when she peered over the edge, she saw a Troll moving up through the rocks, scanning the walls of the keep.

They were still hunting her.