Then I notice the window. Small, in the corner by the desk, the other window looking out over Dockside. Shutters open. And the metal hooks of a portable rope ladder hanging on the lower sill. 

"Out the window!" I yell and run to it. I look out over the edge. Below me, a human jumps the last few feet to the street. Jeamo. He looks up, his face contorted by anger and fear. I grin down at him. "Gotcha!" I say. He turns and begins to run down Dockside, patrician robes flapping. I squeeze out the window and begin to climb down the rope ladder after him.

A few rungs down, I hear Jeamo cry out in pain and turn my head to see him lying flat on his stomach in the street, a tiny dagger haft sticking out of his lower back. He struggles to his feet and begins to run again.

"Yes!" yells Lynae triumphantly from above me. Nice aim. I wouldn't mind working with her again.

When I hit the street a few moments later, Jeamo is slipping around the corner onto a narrow side street leading away from the bay and deeper into Elftown. Bad move. Dockside is a busy street and there are often human guard patrols on it. If he got within shouting distance of one, we would have to fade away and disappear. Brandishing an open blade against a human is immediate death. Of course, maybe Jeamo has his own reasons for avoiding the guards. Doesn't really matter though. He has just made it that much easier for us.

I round the corner. The alley is short and empty. Jeamo has already reached the next street and turned onto it. I run down the alley, noting a few fresh blotches of wet blood on the hard-packed, grimy dirt. I burst out into the street and half a block away, I see Jeamo shoving aside a stone sewer grate. He sees me round the corner and drops into the sewers. Great. Because a nice coating of shit is just what I need to make this day better.

On the other hand, there is some symmetry in killing the rotten filth that is Jeamo in the sewers.

I reach the grate and peer down the hole, wary of ambush. No need. I hear the patrician's panicked sloshing down the tunnel. Lynae runs up. I glance behind her. She's alone.

"Where's Enturi?" I ask. She shrugs.

"I don't think he came down the rope ladder."

"All right, then, it's you and me." I say. "I think the two of us can take out a wounded patrician. We better hurry, though. He's heading for the sea wall." I lower myself into the sewer. Fortunately, the muck in the bottom is only ankle deep. As I head down the tunnel, Lynae drops down behind me. If the stench and filth bother her, she doesn't let on. Together we pursue Jeamo.

There is little light coming down from the periodic grates, but we're elves. We see fairly well in the dark, anyway. We move down the sewer, quieter than the human, but not silent, the muck sucking softly at our boots. The air is heavy, combining the salty odor of tidal rot with the decaying smell of elven effluent. Apparently, it's my day to visit every one of the most foul-smelling shit holes of this stinking slum.

A cry - of surprise or fear - echoes from ahead of us. What has Jeamo run into? The tunnel is briefly illuminated by a flash of light. Magic? I pause for my eyes to readjust and hear a second cry - the cut-off gasp of pain of someone receiving a serious chest or abdominal wound. Then I hear the skittering.

"Damn it!" I curse, starting to run. "Come on! A bug's got him!"

A half block ahead, there is a hole in the left side of the tunnel, where the stones have been dug out. A few of the stones remain in the tunnel, washed a few feet toward the sea by the sewage current. The hole is large enough for an elf - or human - to walk through. Large enough for an egg stalker to ambush from. I approach warily, weapons ready. The muck of the sewer floor is disturbed. It doesn't take a tracker to see that something was just dragged into the opening. Or someone, to be more precise.

I wish I had a torch. The bugs hate fire and light. But I don't. And I'll be damned if a stinking insect is going to take my trophy.

"Watch the stinger - one hit and you won't be able to move," I whisper to Lynae.

Then I slip into the hole.