‘You talk to much to worry me, boy’

Snarling, the cultist lunged. Temper was almost caught off guard. He hadn’t believed he’d actually attack. The blade caught the edge of a cracked iron scale, nearly reaching the gap in the hauberk’s underarm. Temper clamped one gauntleted hand at the fellow’s neck and squeezed. The knife racked his side. He grabbed the hand and twisted the blade free, then pushed it into the youth’s stomach. The knife slid in just below the ribs. The cultist shuddered, gagged a half-throttled scream.

Temper shook him by his neck, then let him drop in a heap. The youth lay curled around the knife like an impaled insect. He moaned. Temper faced the other. ‘Let’s go,’ and he started down toward Cutter’s Strait. After a few moments footfalls announced the stocky one following.

Long before Temper reached the houses of the old quarter surrounding the Deadhouse and the Hanged Man Inn, he saw signs of the battle ahead. The frigid night fog had thickened-unnaturally so – but through it bursts of phosphorescence flickered. Hidden beyond, the hounds howled, a number of them, drowning out the brittle crackle of raw energy and small eruptions.

It reminded Temper of the worst kind of engagement he’d known: mage duels where more died from the side-blasts of unleashed Warrens than from sharp iron. Ahead, a cultist emerged from the fog and stood motionless, apparently waiting for him. The figure motioned him forward into the churning wall. Clenching his jaw, Temper continued on and the cultist fell into step at his side. His old escort stopped outside the barrier, implying a hierarchy within the organization. Perhaps those inside were initiated into higher secrets. Or, Temper reflected, maybe they were those the cult wouldn’t mind losing if this gambit went to the Abyss.

The opaque fog obscured everything. Buildings vanished, then the cultist at his side. He wondered if perhaps he’d just been escorted into a portion of the Warren itself. Musing on that, he was unprepared when something like a bat launched itself out of the mist. He yelped, ducking, and the ghostly shape of his escort appeared at his side, gesturing. The thing folded up upon itself and flapped off. Temper was shaken: it appeared to be nothing more than a patch of fluttering shadow. He leaned close to the cultist who smiled back from within his hood. ‘Where are we?’ he growled.

His escort shrugged. ‘Nowhere, strictly speaking.’ He waved Temper on: ‘Come, we haven’t much time.’

As they walked on Temper was startled to find himself climbing the slow rise of a cobbled road. Here the fog was thinner, and after a few more paces he and his escort emerged from the worst of it. Ahead, at the top of the shallow grade, sat the Deadhouse and the crumbling wall surrounding it. All around waited cultists. As for the rest of the town, it was nowhere in sight, erased by the haze. It was as if he, the assassins, and the House had been transported to another isle. High clouds masked the sky, making the light eerie and diffuse like early dawn, spilling from no discernible direction. At the front gate a knot of cultists had gathered and his escort led him to them.