"We must be getting close," gasps Enturi. He and Lynae are struggling a bit. Not used to prolonged physical labor, I expect. We have to push the wagon ourselves; there are no beasts of burden in Elftown. Wagons and carts are equipped with wooden rods, like oar handles, protruding from the sides. The dwarf's fine, of course. Stinkin' beards are built like pier pilings - thick, solid, and strong. The gods shorted dwarves on pretty but threw in extra muscle to compensate.

I hope my fellow enforcer is right. We've been pushing hard, but we got a late start. Calmorien had almost been ready to load the wagon when we interrupted him. Between killing him and his guards, the healing, the coin distribution and my message, we lost some time. Now, the afternoon mist is starting to dissipate. The procurer had timed his delivery to take advantage of the mist's concealment. I am hoping to do the same. If the mist's gone before we get to Jeamo's studio, it will be obvious to whoever is waiting that we are not Calmorien and his henchmen.

It is still foggy enough on Dockside that the warehouses to the left are vague dark shapes. To my right, piers stretch out into the bay like stiff hairs from an ogre's back. I can hear the faint rhythmic sounds of the waves slapping against the stones below. We are shielded by the mists from the elven dockworkers that occasionally cross our path carrying cargo to and from the hidden ships.

A long black bulk looms to the right side of the wagon like a wall, shifting in the water. Merchant ship. On the other side of it come muffled voices and the thumps and clangs of unloading cargo.

Looks like Enturi was right.

"Skin dock," I announce quietly. It's an L-shaped pier jutting out from the seawall, one of the busier docks in Elftown. Hides come in. Leather goes out. To the left, the dark shapes become buildings, clearly visible through the thinning mist. Enturi pauses, peering toward them. 

"This is it," he whispers, gesturing to a two-story square building, indistinguishable from the other warehouses but for the fact that it has two sets of wide cargo doors on the first floor. It is weathered and unprepossessing, with tarred walls and only two small windows facing the street from the second floor. Someone must be looking out one of them, though. As we approach, the door on the right slides creakily to the side, leaving an entrance just wider than our wagon.

I can feel the tension of the others. Flaying children for pleasure is pretty grim, even for Elftown. We all want to kill Jeamo, and I think even the dwarf would slay him without compunction. I, for one, am sick of the humans using Elftown to breed their perverse and violent tendencies. I swear to myself that before the sun drops and the rains begin again there will be one less filthy human bastard preying on the weak.

We push the wagon through the door. I glance around, confused. There is no door out of the chamber. There is no sign of a ladder or stairs. Just the door we came through and three tarred walls. Behind us, the door slides back into place with a click, leaving us in darkness.

"Slime," I mutter. "What now?"

I am answered by the sound of guttural grunting above us. I look up to the ceiling and see a large trapdoor opening. Weak candlelight from above barely penetrates down to the wagon. Good. The longer we can be mistaken for Calmorien and his guards, the better.

"Yer late!" rumbles a deep voice from above like a bastard child of the god of thunder. "Load up!" Jeamo has a dwarf working for him?

There is a series of thumps, followed by the sound of clanking metal. The trapdoor is actually a platform, suspended on four thick chains ending in hooks. The platform slowly descends toward us, swinging slightly, then landing with a thump on the floor timbers in front of the wagon. In the half-light, Enturi gestures toward the barrels, and we quickly move them from the wagon to the platform. When the barrels are loaded and we are crouched among them, I reach up and rattle the nearest chain.

The grunting begins again and there is a series of clicks as the chains tighten and then slowly rise, lifting the platform off the floor. Looks like we're all going up. That must be one strong dwarf. The wooden platform creaks and swings as it is lifted. Next to me, Bolin's eyes are wide with apprehension. He crouches down low, holding tight to one of the barrels. Heh. Stupid dwarf is afraid of falling. Of course, if I were as clumsy as a dwarf and had nice heavy armor like his, I might be too.

I look up, trying to get an idea of what waits for us. I can't see anything other than the wooden ceiling of the room above. The chains go through a metal-rimmed aperture in the ceiling.

As the trapdoor is pulled up into the room, I see I was wrong. It wasn't a dwarf that spoke. Against the wall, a massive hulk of a creature is bent over, grunting and turning a winch. If it stood straight up it would be more than eight cubits tall, its skin a sickly mixture of green and gray, its body a bulbous sack of muscle and fat. Some sort of foul orc-ogre mix, by the look of it.

It might just be my lucky day after all.

"At last," I mutter, "something worth killing."