City of Daggers (The Iron Teeth Book 2) by Scott Straughan

Author:Scott Straughan [Straughan, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-09-11T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Blacknail growled as he made his way around the building. He sounded like a beast from the deepest corner of the Green, because that was what he was. He was headed toward the building’s back exit. The way was familiar, and he’d been here enough times now that he wasn’t really paying attention, and thus he almost walked right into a pair of guards. He heard them coming only seconds before they turned the corner. Startled, Blacknail immediately ducked behind a large barrel of rainwater and out of sight. A man and a woman with sheathed swords and leather armor stepped into view and headed his way.

Blacknail’s stomach twisted as he watched them from concealment. He wasn’t in a very good hiding spot, and if the two thugs got too close or walked behind the barrel, they would see him. The hobgoblin cursed himself for not paying attention. He held his breath as the two humans walked right by him. One of the pair suddenly stopped walking and threw a look backward at the barrel. She stared at it for a few seconds and frowned when she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“What are you doing?” her partner asked.

“Nothing, I thought I heard something, but there’s nothing there,” she replied before turning back around and walking away.

“This is Daggerpoint. If you jump at every shadow, you’ll be spending the entire day on your toes,” the man remarked.

“Maybe, but that means it’s also one of the places where you’re most likely to get a knife in your back,” she replied before they both turned the corner and disappeared again.

Blacknail sighed with relief as soon as they were gone. When the humans had passed him by and he’d become exposed, he’d instinctively crept around to the other side of the barrel and back out of sight. His instincts had served him well, but then again, they almost always did. They weren’t terrible and useless like those of a human.

The hobgoblin stood back up and continued on his way. He still burned with anger, but now he was struggling to keep it contained. Nothing good ever came from letting his fury loose. He prowled through the alley and toward Luphera’s window. When he got to the corner that overlooked the passage behind the building, he stopped and peered stealthily around it.

The sun was now starting to rise. The tips of its rays had just begun to shine over the grungy buildings of the city. This gave Blacknail a very good view of the two guards that were standing by the back entrance of his destination. Both of them were large, armed men with purple vests, and one of them had placed a lit lantern on top of a nearby crate. The windows of the building behind them also shed light out on the back street. None of the sources of illumination were that strong, so together they cast a confusing maze of shadows onto the dirty cobblestones and mud of the alley.

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