"I think my countrymen are taking a shine to you," Emmaline noted with a carefully concealed smile. Amal laughed, drawing the eye of a group of Fraus as they rode by.

"I always though you a unique pearl, I just didn't realize how unique," Amal snickered. The cobblestone streets began to rise as they reached the bottom of the hill. Predictably as they got further from the waterfront and higher the houses grew more elaborate and prosperous, and riverside dives gave way to neat taverns and chophouses. 

"This looks like a nice place," Emmaline said as they reached a stone walled coaching inn.

__________

Emmaline awoke with a start as Amal's hand clamped down over her mouth. She twisted and purred in the sheets imagining this to be a renewal of their previous activities. The room was suddenly light by a flash of lightning and she froze at the expression on Amal's face. Outside rain, which had begun after dinner, slashed down on the slate roof tiles in a continuous roar. Emmaline's hand traveled slowly to the side of the bed where Asp lay among Emmaline's discarded dress. The snake shifted at her touch and then slithered silently up her arm, coiling around her wrist. Without warning the window exploded inwards a figure tumbling through it, Amal was already leaping from the bed, knives which must have been hidden under his pillow appeared in his hands as if by magic. Emmaline screamed and something flashed past her and buried itself in the headboard of the bed with a sound like an axe striking a log. She rolled out of bed and hit the ground, as another bolt of lightning lit the darkness beyond the window of their third floor room. For a heart beat she could see a figure standing on peak of the roof across the street, the squat powerful form a crossbow in his hand. She pressed herself up on both knees and one hand, lifting the staff that was suddenly in her hand. Lightning struck from the heavens, bathing the figure in light for a moment before he vanished in the ensuing darkness. Wind and rain poured through the open windows, whipping the curtains like the tentacles of a flailing sea creature. 

Amal stood for a moment, kneeling over the first dark figure who was yet to rise. Emmaline whispered a spell and the oil lamps burst to life, bathing the room in flickering light as the wind struggled to extinguish the flames. The figure, was a man, and he was clearly dead. Blood ran sluggishly around a crossbow quarrel in his throat and his eyes were glazed. He was dressed in dark clothing and a cloak and in his hand he clutched a short iron cylinder. It was wrapped with a chain of dark metal from which depended an amulet depicting crossed fingers. An urgent pounding began to sound from the hall outside as Emmaline scrambled across the floor and snatched up the rod, stuffing it hastily into a draw before a key rattled in the door and it cracked open to reveal the wide eyed innkeeper.

"Mien Herr are you all..." he trailed off as he realized both Emmaline and Amal were naked and hastily averted his budging eyes. 

"Are you alright?" he asked, raising his voice over the storm, "what happened?"