THE TILEAN RAT 
by Sandy Mitchell 
	
	It was one of those Marienburg fogs, the kind you get when the year isn't sure if it's time to be winter yet, and alternates sunshine and drizzle with sharp, dagger frosts. Then at dusk, when the freeze comes, hardening the puddles till they crack underfoot, the mist starts rising from the waterways that flow through the city like blood through its veins.
	It always starts slowly, a smooth, even layer above the water, so the ships and the riverboats choking the channels look as if they're floating on clouds, and the hundreds of bridges stitching the isles of the Reikmouth together seem to rise unsupported between them. Then the breeze starts to form ripples in the vapour, sculpting strange shapes that slip away when you look at them. As it rises the turbulence grows, lapping around the pilings of the wharves, then higher still, until it begins to flow gently through the streets like the ghost of the river itself.
	Once that happens, the city changes. If you walk the streets then you move like a ghost yourself, wrapped in your own shroud. Torches flare, their light swallowed by the smothering grey, and the voices of the people around you become hushed, huddled close to their speakers for comfort.
	None of which mattered to Buttermere Warble. He was comfortably settled in his favourite corner of Esmeralda's Apron, a halfling dive on the edge of the Elven Quarter, working his way steadily through the menu. Right then his biggest problem in life was deciding between walnut souffle and cherries Bretonnaise for dessert; so when the door banged open, to leave trouble hovering diffidently on the threshold, it took him a moment to notice her.
	She didn't look like trouble then, of course, not to the casual eye, but Warble had a nose for it. So he glanced up as she pushed the door closed, snipping off a tendril of fog that had wandered in with her to see what all the noise was about.
	There wasn't anything obvious about her he could put his finger on to account for the sudden sense of foreboding he felt then. Elves were a common enough sight in the Apron; it was close to their own part of town, and the food was well worth the detour. There were several in the tavern already, their knees jammed awkwardly under the halfling-sized tables, and at first he thought she was there to meet friends; she stayed close to the door, sweeping her eyes across the room, as though looking for someone.
	But the pit of his stomach told him otherwise, so when their eyes met, and she started across the room towards him, he barely felt a flicker of surprise.
	The Apron was always crowded at that time of night, so Warble had time for a good, long look at her before she made it to the table. Her clothes were well made, but nondescript: a black leather tabard over a woollen tunic and trews, both green; strong but muddy boots; and a black, heavy cloak. She had pointy ears, green eyes, all the usual features; the only thing that surprised him was her hair, which curled thickly down to her shoulders, and was the colour of a freshly-minted penny. Redheads were almost unknown among elves; Warble had certainly never seen one before, and if something didn't exist in Marienburg, the saying went, it probably didn't exist anywhere.
	"Mr Warble?" Her voice was a warm contralto, like melting syrup. He nodded, and motioned for her to sit. She still towered over him, but at least he could talk to her now without breaking his neck.
	"Call me Sam," he said. Nobody called him Buttermere, except his mother, who's fault it was.
	"Sam." The way she said it was like drowning in chocolate. "I need help."
	"Everyone does," he said, deciding on the souffle. "It's that kind of world."
	"It is if you come from Feiss Mabdon," she said bitterly. Warble paused, his arm half raised to signal the waitress, and tilted his head back to look her straight in the eyes. He'd seen the handful of tattered refugees who'd made it to the Wasteland a few months before, picked up in mid ocean by trading vessels; what news they'd brought had been garbled in the telling as it raced from street to street, but he was sure he was about to hear something that would put him off his meal if he let it.
	"Go on," he said finally, curiosity outweighing his more physical appetites. She paused for a moment, marshalling her thoughts.
	Her name was Astra, and most of what she told him matched the story Warble had already pieced together for himself. It was common knowledge the Dark Elves had overrun the northern isles of the elven kingdom, and that most of the population of Feiss Mabdon had drowned after taking to the sea, fleeing from the armies marching on their city. What he hadn't been prepared for were her tales of the atrocities committed by the invaders, which had made the near certainty of death in mid ocean seem infinitely preferable to the wretched refugees. He'd been right, he did lose his appetite.
	"So where do you fit in to all this?" he asked eventually. "You seem to have survived, at least."
	"I wasn't there." Her eyes flashed, bright, cold emeralds boring into his own. "I was on a trading voyage to Lustria. When I returned..." She paused. "You can still see the smoke where the city was. All I can hope is that my family drowned cleanly. Instead of..."
	"I'm sorry." Warble nodded. "But I still don't see why you've come to me."
	"There's only one thing left, of all that my family once owned. A small statuette of a rat. It's almost worthless in itself, but it's very precious to me." Her voice dropped. "I took it with me, to Lustria. But just after we docked here, it was... it was stolen." Her voice wavered a little, and Warble found himself patting her hand.
	"That's tough," he said. She sniffed, and forced a smile.
	"I asked around. Everyone said go to Sam Warble. They said if anyone in Marienburg could find it, it was you."
	The halfling nodded slowly.
	"I'll do my best," he said. "But I can't promise anything. It's a big city. And I don't come cheap."
	"I can pay." Her smile became genuine, dazzling, like sunshine bouncing from the harbour on a midwinter morning.
	"I charge thirty a day, plus expenses," he said, expecting her to argue. Astra just nodded, took out a purse that would have choked a troll, and started to count. Warble's thirty crowns barely made a dent in it.
	"Trade must be good," he said.
	"Good enough. When can you start?"
	"I already have." He pushed the empty plate aside. "Where can I find you?"
	"The Flying Swan. Do you know it?" Knowing every inn in Marienburg, Warble nodded. "Ask for me there."
	"Is that where you lost the statue?"
	"Yes. I'd spent the day in the market, trading. When I got back, the room had been ransacked."
	"Makes sense," Warble said. "Word gets around fast when someone's raking it in. Was anything else missing?"
	"No." Astra shook her head. "Just the statue. Luckily I'd had my money with me."
	"Can you describe it?" Warble asked. She thought for a moment.
	"It's a statuette of a rat, about eighteen inches high." She held her hand above the tabletop, the palm downwards, to demonstrate. "It's made of solid brass, so it weighs quite a bit. It's up on its hind legs, wearing armour, and carrying a sword. And it's standing on a piece of red quartz, with its talons clenched to hold it in place." Her eyes lost their focus, and her voice became dreamy. "My father bought it in Tilea, years ago, before I was born. I used to play with it as a child. I thought it looked silly."
	Warble nodded. He didn't rate his chances very highly, but he'd do his best.
	He started looking in earnest the next day, and, as he'd expected, he drew a blank. None of the regular fences had anything; he saw enough brass rodents to fill a sewer, but none of them were perched on a red quartz base. He came closest with Old Harald, a decrepit human of indeterminate age, who kept a curio shop down by the Fisherman's Steps. You had to know where it was; in that narrow tangle of streets it was easy to lose your way, and sometimes it seemed the place wasn't there at all when you set out to find it.
	"Looking for it too, are you?" he said, once Warble had finished describing the creature for what felt like the two-thousandth time. Harald's eyes flashed blue in the musty-smelling shop, reflecting the light from the candles he'd scattered at random among the tumbled profusion of his stock, and for a moment it was easy to believe the street stories of strange, magical artifacts that sometimes fell into his hands. It was nearly noon outside, but the fog was as thick as ever; the only difference daylight had made was that Warble moved through the streets in a tiny bubble of milk-coloured air, instead of the bruise-purple gloom of the previous night. He tilted his head back to look at the man.
	"Who else is asking?" he said. Harald shrugged, wiping a hank of greasy white hair from his eyes.
	"You know me, Sam. I'm getting forgetful in my old age." He sniffed, a droplet of moisture disappearing back up his nose just as Warble had expected it to make a bid for freedom. "Business is bad at the moment. Perhaps if I wasn't so worried about things..."
	"Yeah, right." The halfling took out a couple of crowns, spinning them idly on the lid of a nearby chest. Then he wandered over to look at a rust-pitted astrolabe that squeaked on its bearings, and showed constellations unmatched by any stars in the skies over Marienburg. Harald was standing in exactly the same place when he turned back, but the coins had disappeared.
	"Bit of a gentleman, he was." Harald nodded to himself. "Well dressed, if you see what I mean." He meant ostentatiously expensive, which was the only benchmark of quality he recognized.
	"Can you describe him?" asked Warble. Harald nodded, stroking his chin, which rasped loudly under his fingertips.
	"Fairly short. About a head under average, I'd say." Short for a human was still tall for Warble; he corrected the picture mentally. "And corpulent. There's a man fond of the good things in life, I remember thinking at the time. Maybe a bit too fond, if you know what I mean. Decidedly corpulent, to tell you the truth."
	Warble thought about it. A little of the unease he'd felt listening to Astra started worming its way to the surface again. Something about her story didn't add up. At the time he'd dismissed it, happy to take her money, but it still didn't taste right. If she'd really been tagged by the Guild we don't talk about, why would they knock over her room while she was carrying all that gold around the streets? Besides which, the Swan paid good money to avoid that kind of inconvenience to its guests.
	Of course that would explain who the fat man was; if someone was knocking over protected premises, the Guild would want to administer a firm rebuke. But he couldn't have looked like a dagger, or Harald would have said, or, more likely, been too scared even to mention him, and anyhow they had better ways of tracking people down than trying to trace them back through their loot.
	Stranger and stranger. He decided to let it simmer for a while, and see what boiled away.
	"That's all you can tell me?" he asked. Harald nodded.
	"He was the only one I spoke to. The little one never said a thing."
	"What little one?" For a moment the old shopkeeper hesitated, visibly debating with himself whether or not to hold out for more money, then he got a good long look at Warble's eyes and decided against it.
	"I hardly even saw him, and that's the truth. They came in together, but the fat one did all the talking. The little one just stayed back among the shadows." His voice took on overtones of desperate sincerity. "You know my eyes aren't what they were."
	"I know." Warble nodded sympathetically. "But you said he was small. Like a halfling, maybe?"
	"Could be. Or a child."
	"Or a dwarf?"
	Harald shook his head.
	"No. I'd have noticed a beard."
	"Fine." Warble flicked him another coin anyway; it was all on expenses, and Astra could afford it. "If they come back, you know where to find me."
	The rest of his regular contacts came up clean, although a couple of them had also had a visit from the fat man. No one had anything to add to Harald's description of him, except that he paid well for his information. No one else had seen his diminutive sidekick, but that didn't mean much; they could have split up to cover more ground, or he might have stayed outside to cover the door. With the fog still thick enough to burn, he would have been invisible a yard up the street.
	Warble started glancing back over his shoulder, and keeping to the centre of the thoroughfares. By this time it was a more than even bet they'd have heard Sam Warble was after the rat too. That gave them an edge; he was a known face around town, while they were strangers. They wouldn't take long to find him, if they wanted to, while Warble didn't even have a name to go on.
	No point worrying about it, then. He'd just have to wait for them to make the first move, and in the meantime he could check a couple of sources they didn't have access to.
	Gil Roland was his favourite Captain of the city watch. Unusually honest for a man in his position, but not enough to compromise his efficiency, he liked to hang around with lowlifes like Warble who owed him favours and get his goodwill back in liquid form. The Blind Eye was almost opposite the watch headquarters, and attracted a large and faithful clientele of off-duty watchmen and petty hustlers in more or less equal proportions.
	The taproom was dark and smoky, the way the customers liked it, and Warble began to relax in the convivial atmosphere. He wove his way through a forest of legs to Gil's usual table, and hoisted a couple of tankards onto it. The watchman took the nearest one, and drank deeply, while Warble clambered laboriously onto the bench opposite.
	"Thanks Sam." He belched. "Long time no see. What have you been up to?"
	"Nothing I want you to know about, Captain."
	He laughed.
	"Nothing changes. What are you after, then?"
	"I just thought it was time to see my old friend, and express a bit of gratitude for the fine job you and your lads are doing in making the city safe for honest folk."
	"Yeah, right." He drank again. "Seriously, Sam, if you're in trouble..."
	"Nothing I can't handle," Warble said, remembering the fat man and his friend. "At least I think so." His hand went reflexively to the hilt of his dagger. Gil noticed the movement, but said nothing, faint lines appearing between his eyebrows. His florid face moved smoothly forward, his body, clad in the well worn leather jerkin of his trade, tilting with it across the tabletop. The hilt of his sword clanked quietly against the battered wood, and his voice dropped.
	"What is it, then?"
	"I just want a little information," Warble said. "Something's going on..."
	"Something I should know about?"
	"I don't know. Maybe you can tell me." Gil began to relax. He knew he wasn't going to get the whole story, but he wasn't stupid. He'd work it out for himself, given the time and a reason to.
	"I've been hired to find some stolen property," Warble told him. "But the story doesn't quite hang together. And someone else is after the... item." Gil nodded, without interruption, and Warble began to see why he was so good at his job. "I just need to know if there's been any trouble at the Flying Swan recently."
	"The Swan?" He shook his head. "You'd have to be crazy to steal from there."
	"I know. Every latcher in Marienburg knows." Warble paused. "But the other interested parties in this are from out of town. Perhaps our putative thief was too."
	"We haven't found anyone floating in the harbour recently." Gil looked reflective, having answered the obvious question without it needing to be asked.
	"And no one's left town since the fog started." That went without saying. The watch had closed the gates as a matter of course, and there wasn't a skipper alive willing to put to sea or set off upriver in those conditions. Warble nodded.
	"And you've heard nothing about any trouble at the Swan."
	"That's right. I've heard nothing." The emphasis on the penultimate word was so faint it was almost lost, and all the more eloquent because of it. He finished his drink in a single swallow.
	"What about a fat man? Well dressed, well off, might have a child or a halfling in tow."
	"Nothing springs to mind." Gil shrugged. "But it's a big city, Sam. We can't be everywhere." He hesitated. "Try to remember that."
	After talking to the official face of law and order, the obvious thing to do was spin the coin. So half an hour later Warble found himself standing in the back room of a leather merchant in the prosperous commercial district close to the southern docks. The smell of tanned hides was everywhere, permeating the brickwork, rising from piles of hides and the racks full of the finished products. He picked up a jacket, soft as the fog, black as a goblin's soul.
	"Try it on, Sam. It's your size."
	He put it down slowly, and turned.
	"Way too expensive," he said. Lisette smiled, her teeth a white crescent in the shadows, and slipped her stiletto back up her sleeve. She favoured black, matching her hair, and blending her into the corners of a room.
	"What brings you here?" she asked. Her eyes flashed orange in the dim light, hard and predatory. There were stories about her on the streets too, but no one ever repeated them.
	"Information," Warble said. She stepped forward, eyes narrowed, looking down at him.
	"Buying or selling?"
	"Maybe trade," he said. Lisette settled slowly onto a bale of cowhide, her right ankle resting on a leather-clad knee, and leaned forward, bringing her face level with his.
	"I'm listening," she said at last.
	"There's something going on I don't like."
	"That's your problem." Her voice was neutral, devoid of inflection. Talking to Lisette always gave Warble the shivers. He tried to match her tone, but halflings aren't really equipped for it.
	"Maybe not. You know some people with an... interest in the Flying Swan, don't you?"
	"I never discuss my business arrangements." He knew that already. He didn't even know for sure if she was a member of the Guild, let alone as high up in it as he suspected, but he did know from past experience that anything he told her would get back to them.
	"I hear one of their guests was turned over the other day." That scored a hit; her eyes narrowed, just a fraction.
	"Who told you that?"
	"The guest. I've been hired to recover the missing item."
	"I'll ask about it. What else?"
	"A fat man. Also after the item. Hangs out with a child or a halfling, I'm told. One of your... contacts?"
	"No." A faint shake of the head left highlights rippling in her hair. Warble hadn't been expecting a straight answer, and was left floundering for a moment; he'd never seen her so agitated before. That alone was enough to convince him she was telling the truth, and that none of this had anything to do with the Guild.
	That should have made him feel better, but it didn't. He just kept wondering who could be stupid enough, or powerful enough, not to care about antagonizing them.
	Warble had just turned the corner into Tanner's Alley when the fat man loomed up out of the fog, like a ship in full sail. The halfling spun on his heel, just in time to see a small figure with a big knife slip into the alley behind him. It wore a large floppy hat with a long feather, which effectively hid its face, and a velvet suit sprouting lace in strange directions. It took him a stunned moment to realize the hat was roughly level with his chest, before pulling his own weapon and backing against the nearest wall.
	"All right," he said. "Who's first? The monkey or the organ grinder?"
	To his astonishment the fat man laughed, in a loud, reverberating gurgle, like someone pouring a gallon of syrup into the harbour.
	"By all the powers, Mr Warble, you are a fellow of mettle and no mistake. Your reputation seems less than exaggerated, indeed it does. Har har har."
	"Glad to hear it," he said, keeping the blade up. The little figure to the right chimed in with a nervous, high-pitched giggle, and Warble shifted his weight ready for a kick to the chin. If he took him fast enough...
	"Leppo, my dear fellow, please put that away." The fat man har-hared again, and patted him on the head. "You're quite spoiling Mr Warble's digestion, and we really can't have that."
	The little figure nodded vigorously, giggled to itself again, and sheathed the knife. Warble hesitated for a moment, then put his own away, sure he could take these clowns if he had to.
	"That's much better, har har." The fat man extended a hand wrapped in a velvet glove, and Warble shook it carefully. It felt like a small, furtive cushion. "Allow me to introduce myself. Erasmus Ferrara, antiquarian of note, if not notoriety, har har har. My associate and I have been most keen to make your acquaintance."
	"Likewise," he said. Ferrara nodded, and poured out more treacle.
	"Of course, my dear fellow, of course. A man of your sagacity and resource must have become aware of our own interest in the rodent very early on. Almost from the moment of our arrival, perhaps."
	"Perhaps," Warble said. He didn't like the man; an air of almost palpable decadence hung around him, from his elaborately coiffured hair to the exquisitely worked embroidery of his overstrained shirt. "And perhaps you'd like to come to the point?"
	That was a mistake. He had to ride out another paroxysm of gurgling laughter, echoed for the most part by the tittering of the fat man's tiny companion.
	"By Sigmar's hammer, sir, you're a sharp one and no mistake. A man of business, sir, a man after my own heart. No beating about the bush for you, Mr Warble, but straight to the point, sir, straight to the point. Har har har." Warble began to think about getting him to the point of his dagger. "The point, Mr Warble, is that we'd like to engage your services."
	"I've already got a client," he said. Ferrara nodded.
	"Of course, my dear fellow, of course you have. The lovely Astra, no doubt. And no doubt she spun you a fine yarn."
	"I can't discuss my clients, or their business," Warble said. Ferrara chortled for a while, like a pot preparing to boil over.
	"Of course not, my dear sir. You're a fellow of principle, and I admire that in a man, indeed I do. But perhaps our interests coincide. Did she tell you what the rodent was worth?"
	"A great deal to her," Warble said. They must have known that much already. Ferrara nodded.
	"And suppose I were to offer you an equal share, should the creature fall into your hands before dear Astra seeks you out again?"
	"What would I want with half a brass statue?" he asked. The fat man shook his head, tears of laughter squeezing themselves from between his eyelids.
	"Brass, my dear fellow. She really told you it was made of brass?" Then he choked on his own hilarity, and couldn't speak again for what seemed like forever.
	"Perhaps you'd like to share the joke," Warble snapped, feeling heartily sick of the pair of them. "What do you think it's made of?"
	"Why, gold, my dear sir, solid gold." Ferrara finally managed to get himself under control. "The figure is worth an absolute fortune."
	Suddenly a lot of things started to make sense.
	"Tell me about it."
	"Gladly, my dear sir. Gladly." Ferrara paused for breath. "But I can only offer you a third of the spoils. Poor Leppo would be most put out." The tiny figure bared its teeth, and hissed its agreement. Warble nodded.
	"Fair enough."
	"The statue was found in the Blighted Marshes of Tilea, close to the city of Miragliano, about four hunded years ago. Unfortunately, before its origins could be determined, the creature was stolen by unknown miscreants. Its whereabouts remained a mystery for centuries."
	"Until now."
	"Quite, my dear sir, quite. About fifteen years ago, in fact, when I stumbled across a reference to it in some old records in Tobaro. I won't bore you with the details, har har, but suffice it to say that I have been energetically pursuing it ever since, from city to city across the face of the known world. And now, it seems, the rat has gone to ground here, in Marienburg."
	"Fascinating," Warble said. "And where does Astra fit in to all this?"
	"Why, my dear fellow, precisely where you would expect her to." Ferrara chuckled again. "My young friend and I are by no means the only ones searching for this reclusive rodent. By now the city would be crawling with our rivals, were it not for this fortuitous fog."
	"I see." Warble nodded slowly.
	"Indeed you do, my dear sir, indeed you do. It's apparent we've given you much to think about. Har har." Ferrara turned, and took his tiny companion by the hand. "We'll speak again, sir, when you've had time to consider where your best interests lie. Come, Leppo. Time, I think, to fortify the inner man."
	They vanished as quickly as they'd appeared, leaving a trail of turbulence in the muffling fog. A moment later a faint burst of oleagenous laughter erupted briefly, before fading away towards the Shoemaker's Square.
	Warble turned slowly, and made his way thoughtfully back to the Apron.
	Entering the familiar taproom felt like coming home. In a way it was; he'd spent a lot of time there over the years, and knew every pattern of grain in the tabletops. Warble sank into his usual seat with a deep sigh of contentment; simply being able to sit down at a table with his feet still touching the floor, and see over it without asking for a cushion, were luxuries most folk could never fully appreciate. He waved a weary hand for the menu.
	"You are looking I think for the rat statue, yah?"
	Warble leapt to his feet, twisting aside, and sent the chair flying. The clatter seemed to fill the room in the sudden silence, and he had a brief, embarrassed glimpse of all the faces staring in his direction before his eyes reached the belt buckle of the blonde giant standing behind him. After a moment the conversations resumed.
	"Sorry. Did I startle you?"
	"Just a bit," Warble said, tucking his dagger away. It wasn't a giant at all, now he came to look at him properly, just a very big human. His build and accent marked him out as a Norscan, probably from one of the merchant ships in the harbour. "What do you know about the rat?"
	"I know who has it." He grinned. "And who wants it. Tell the lady to meet me tonight, at the sandbar. She knows where."
	"I see." Warble nodded slowly. "And that's it? No demands? No threats?"
	"What is the need for them?" The grin stretched. "Either she buys, or the fat man does. An honest trade, yah?"
	"Yah," Warble said.
	To his immense lack of surprise, Astra's room at the Swan showed no signs at all of recent burglary. Like all of them, it was clean, spacious and well-furnished; Warble could have lived for a week on what they charged for a night's lodging. Astra greeted him with a show of fluttering nervousness that might have taken him in the night before, but which seemed to him now to be an obvious and shallow charade.
	"Well," she asked breathlessly. "Have you got it?"
	"Not yet." Warble hesitated. "But I may have a line on who does."
	"Who?" She grabbed his arm, her fingers digging painfully into the muscle fibres. Warble twisted free, and stepped back a pace.
	"In a minute," he said. "First I want some answers."
	"About what?" She regained her self control with a visible effort, and sat down on the bed. Her eyes, level with Warble's now, were wide and ingenuous. "Look, I'm sorry I got excited. But you know how important it is to me..."
	"And to a lot of other people," Warble said. "I've been talking to the fat man."
	Her lips drew back from her teeth, and she hissed like an angry cat. The halfling stepped back another pace, feeling his blood chill.
	"What did he tell you?"
	"That the statue's solid gold," he said. He was in too deep to back out now. "And that you never had your hands on it either."
	"He's lying. Surely you can see that." She was forcing herself to remain calm. Her voice was conciliatory, but her fingers were twitching as though they were already embedded in his guts.
	"That had crossed my mind," he admitted. "But so are you. This inn's protected; nobody steals from it. But you wouldn't have known that, would you?"
	"No. You're right." Astra hesitated. "The truth is, the rat is valuable. Not as valuable as Ferrara said, but worth a lot to a collector. Both of us have contacts back in Tilea who'd pay through the nose to get their hands on it."
	"Go on," Warble said. "You still haven't explained why you came to me."
	"It turned up in Norsca, about six months ago. The owner agreed to meet both of us in Marienburg, and sell to the highest bidder." "Let me guess. He just happened to have a fatal accident on the way." Astra nodded.
	"A perfectly genuine one, believe it or not. But the statue disappeared; the ship's captain thought it was worthless, and let one of the crew take it when he signed off."
	Warble considered the story. It made perfect sense, and he still didn't believe a word of it. He nodded, slowly.
	"Suppose I'd gone back to Ferrara?"
	"Once he'd got his hands on it, you'd never have made it out of the door."
	That much he did believe. The only thing he was sure of by now was that he wanted nothing more to do with the whole business.
	"I've got a message from your sailor," he said at last. Astra tensed, her eyes fixed on his face.
	"I'm listening."
	"Not so fast," Warble said. "I don't work for nothing, remember?"
	"All right." Her voice made the frost outside seem positively cosy. "Let's negotiate. How much do you want?"
	"Eight crowns. I told you, I charge for expenses."
	An interesting range of expressions flickered across her face, ending in what looked like genuine amusement.
	"Eight crowns." She excavated them from her purse, like an indulgent adult distributing sweets. "You're an intriguing fellow, Sam. Why not try to cut yourself in?"
	"We had an agreement," he said.
	At least he thought they did. His sense of wellbeing, not unmixed with relief at the thought of never seeing any of these people again, lasted no longer than the walk back to the Apron. He'd barely set foot in the place when Harald leapt up from a table by the door, intercepting him neatly on his way to the bar.
	"Is this your idea of a joke? Cheating a poor, harmless old man?" He waved something under the halfling's nose, spluttering incoherently. Warble grabbed it on the third or fourth pass.
	"What are you on about now?" he snapped, then got a good, long look at it. It was one of the coins he'd given the old man that morning, the crisp, yellow surface scarred by a deep, silver rut. Sudden understanding punched him in the gut. "Holy Ranald, that's lead!"
	"Absolutely. Counterfeit. And to think of all I've done for you, the times I've..."
	"Shut up, Harald." He spilled the contents of his purse across the nearest tabletop, and pulled his dagger, his hands trembling. An ominous foreboding tightened in the pit of his stomach as he drew the blade across the first coin.
	"Lead! The bitch!" The coins rattled and rolled beneath the blade as he stabbed and slashed at them, scarring the wood beneath. Every single one of them was counterfeit. After a while Harald stopped whining, and patted him sorrowfully on the shoulder.
	"We've been done, boy. Best just to face it."
	"Not yet we haven't." By now Warble was riding on a wave of incandescent rage. "I still know where to find her." He paused, counting to ten like his mother used to tell him to do. It didn't help. "And I want you to find someone else for me."
	Trailing Astra from the Swan was a snap. The fog seemed denser than ever, and as night fell the thoroughfares faded into shadow-sketched phantoms. Warble felt he could almost have walked alongside her undetected, but an intimate knowledge of the local geography meant he didn't have to. Instead he hung back, doubling through gaps between buildings most folk didn't even know were there, getting close enough to make sure it was still Astra ahead of him once every minute or so. Before long he tasted salt in the air, cutting through the usual city odours of rotting waste and bad cooking.
	The sandbar was one of the northernmost points of the city, facing the ocean; as Marienburg grew, commerce had shifted to the larger, more sheltered wharves further upstream, and the older, shallower basins had been allowed to silt up. Now hardly anyone used them, except for the deep-sea fishermen and a handful of smugglers.
	As the ill-matched pair moved further into the region of mouldering dereliction, and signs of habitation became scarcer, Warble began to move a little more cautiously. He lost sight of Astra several times, but the tapping of her boot-heels gave her position away as effectively as if she'd been blowing a foghorn.
	The rustle of his own bare soles against the cobbles was almost inaudible, but he strained his ears anyway; the fog carried sound in strange directions, and the abandoned warehouses around them created peculiar echoes. Several times he stopped dead, listening, convinced he could hear other footsteps, until reason reasserted itself and allowed him to believe it was merely the sound of Astra's progress rebounding from the rotting timber walls.
	A moment later, he froze. Astra was talking to someone, out of sight behind a crumbling wall, through the chinks of which a flicker of lamplight was visible. The voices were low, the words inaudible, but the cadence was familiar; after a moment he recognized the tones of the Norscan sailor he'd met at the Apron.
	Negotiations didn't seem to be going too well. The voices got louder for a moment, then the conversation ended in a single, choked-off scream.
	Warble edged forward, his palms tingling, and felt something warm, wet and sticky underfoot. The old wharf was deserted now, but he could hear the familiar rhythm of Astra's boot-heels receding in the night. The sailor was lying a few feet away, steaming gently, so the halfling picked up the lantern and trotted across to examine him.
	One look was enough to make him wish he hadn't. The man was very dead indeed, most of his intestines straggling across the cobbles.
	Warble dropped the lantern, which shattered on the ground, and spent an interesting minute or two trying to hold on to his lunch. Then he listened hard, locating the distant footsteps, and set out after the delinquent elf.
	He closed on her rapidly, his footfalls padding almost silently, while Astra's grew louder with each successive step. Suddenly she stopped.
	Warble froze, certain she'd heard him. But he was wrong. Her voice was raised, and for a moment was drowned entirely by a familiar gurgling laugh.
	The halfling edged forward again, keeping close to the shadows, feeling a peculiar sense of deja vu. Gradually the scene ahead began to resolve itself.
	The light appeared first, brighter than the sailor's lantern, seeping through the fog like oil in water. Gradually, as he moved closer, it sketched the outline of a derelict warehouse, leaking from the missing planks in the roof and walls. One of the gaps was about head height; Warble flattened himself against the rotting timbers, and peered through it.
	The building was well lit, but filthy, hissing torches hanging from brackets in the walls. Strange designs had been daubed on the woodwork in brownish red paint, and an intricately carved wooden chest stood on a raised dais at the far end. At first he thought the stringy things hanging from the beams were ropes of some kind; then he got a good look at them, realized the paint wasn't paint, and this time his last meal won the race to escape before he could catch it. He was in deeper trouble than he'd ever thought possible.
	Everyone on the streets had heard stories of a secret temple to Khaine hidden somewhere in the city, and, like Warble, had laughed at the absurdity of the idea even as they eyed the shadows with sudden unease. Now he knew the ridiculous rumours were true; but whether he'd survive to tell anyone was in serious doubt. Gripped by a horrified fascination, unable to tear himself away, he watched the drama unfolding within.
	Astra and Ferrara were arguing fiercely; encumbered by the statuette, she'd been unable to draw a weapon. Ferrara stood beyond her reach, a cocked crossbow in his hand, while his tiny companion sidled forward to take the rat. He'd discarded the hat, to reveal high, pointed ears embellished with gaudy ribbons.
	Under any other circumstances the sight of a clean snotling, let alone one so fancifully dressed, would have astonished Warble; tonight it seemed perfectly reasonable.
	"Believe me, dear lady, we've no wish to kill you. Certainly not here, har har, that would really go against the grain, would it not? But you must appreciate, we simply can't allow you to use the stone against us."
	"I'll bathe in your blood, Ferrara. I'll make your death seem an eternity of torment." The words hissed from her hate-contorted visage, so strangled by rage they were barely coherent. Ferrara laughed.
	"Why, my dear Astra. I never knew you cared." He blew her an exaggerated kiss. "And they say the Witch Elves have no sense of fun."
	Screaming with a beserker's fury, Astra sprang forward, swinging the statuette like a club. It struck the little snotling on the side of the head. With a sickening crunch of shattered bone, the diminutive catamite flew across the floor of the temple.
	"Leppo!" Ferrara fired as he screamed, the bolt catching Astra in mid charge. She spun with the impact, the fletchings protruding from her chest, and staggered towards the altar. Ferrara flung the weapon after her, and ran to the inert body of his companion. Large, greasy tears were running down his face as he cradled the tiny form. "You've killed him!"
	Astra said nothing, weaving from side to side as though drunk, intent only on reaching her goal. A few paces from it she began chanting, then swung the statue by the head to shatter the red stone against the surface of the altar.
	Ferrara was chanting too by now, his face suffused with gleeful malice, and the thunderstorm tension of magic began to crackle in the air.
	It was then that Warble became aware of the scuffling of footsteps around him in the fog, and rolled for cover into the shadows. Faint figures loomed in the mist, running for the building, their outlines distorted by the enveloping vapours. At least, that's what Warble preferred to think. From the direction of the main doors came the clash of weapons, and the incohate shrieking of damned souls locked in mortal combat. Of course, he thought numbly, neither antagonist would have gone to the temple alone.
	Mrs Warble hadn't raised any stupid kids, apart from his brother Tinfang, who was dead; Warble was up and running as soon as the coast was clear. Propelled by blind panic, he never noticed what direction he was taking, just so long as it was away from the warehouse, and had only the vaguest idea of how long it was before he collided with something warm and yielding that swore at him.
	"Sam! In here!" Lisette dragged him into a side alley, an instant before the night erupted around them. An eldritch glow suffused the darkness, punching through the muffling fog, and a demented howling rose to tear at the very roots of his sanity.
	"What the hell's going on?" he demanded.
	"I thought you might need some help." Lisette held out a small flask; Warble gulped at it, finding a Bretonnian brandy that should really have been savoured under happier circumstances. "I made some enquiries. Your lady friend was lying about a theft from the Swan."
	"I know," he said. "Thanks for the drink."
	"Pay me back later. So I had her followed, and asked some more questions. She's a dark elf."
	"I know that too. That's a temple of Khaine back there."
	"Really." Her eyebrow twitched. "That explains a lot." Warble didn't ask what; if she wanted him to know, she'd have told him.
	"The whole rat thing was a blind," he said. "Everyone was after the base it was mounted on. It's some kind of magic stone."
	"A bloodstone. Someone like your lady friend can use it to summon daemons." Lisette nodded. "Go on."
	"The fat man seemed to know what it was. He was trying to stop her from getting her hands on it."
	"He would. There's another cult active in the city. We don't know much about it, but they're just as bad for business. It seems they're in some sort of feud with the Khaine one."
	"They won't be active for much longer," Warble said. "They're tearing each other to pieces back there."
	"Good." Gradually the magical light faded, to be replaced by the familiar red and yellow flicker of leaping flames. "I think we'll let Captain Roland have the credit for mopping them up."
	"What?" Warble turned, listening to the clatter of approaching footsteps, and when he glanced back she was gone.
	"Sam." Gil appeared at the mouth of the alley a moment later, a squad of his watchmen behind him. Harald was somewhere in the middle of the group, clutching a battered pike from his shop, and puffing energetically. "We missed you at the Swan. What's happening?"
	"It's a long story." Warble took another pull of Lisette's brandy, and sagged gratefully against the supporting wall. "And I bet you thirty lead crowns you don't believe a word of it."