I should have seen it right away. The humans have left a message for Elftown, a message that mimics with eerie accuracy the message that I left at Calmorien's warehouse. Shoved into the rainworn stone blocks of Cross Way is a short stick - a spike, on which is impaled an elven head. On both sides of the alley entrance behind the head is a message, scratched into the wall and painted in elven blood which drips down the wall in rain-diffused rivulets.
The message is simple and clear.
"There is no authority in Elftown but human authority."
The head is Jet's. He looks angry and surprised. I guess I would too. His ears have been cut off. Behind the spike are three pisspots, each one filled to bloody overflowing with severed elven ears. Knife ears, as the humans say.
"Goddess," whispers Enturi from behind me.
There's no light at all on Cross Way. Not one candlelit window. Not one person to be seen, and no sound but the rain. But suddenly I feel very exposed.
"Come on," I whisper. "Let's get off the street." I pull Enturi into the alley and lead him deeper in, out of sight of any watching eyes.
There are five or six dead elven guards neatly stacked in the alcove where the three alleys intersect. Probably the door guards and the ambushers Jet kept in the alley for extra security. I don't look too closely. Close enough to see that their ears have been chopped off, though. Behind the bodies, what had once been a carefully concealed door is a pile of rubble and a twisted and battered metal frame, hanging askew against the wall just inside the doorway.
I check the alleys again for any sign of movement or watching eyes. Nothing. I nod to Enturi and enter the little vestibule. The other secret door, on the inside wall just to the right of the outer door, has also been kicked in. That door leads to a small landing next to stone stairs heading down into the main hallway of the hideout, underneath the building. Light from an oil lamp shines up from below. From the top of the stairs I can see the first few paces of the hallway running through the center of Jet's hideout.
"The humans took Jet out," I whisper. "If what happened at the Red Meadow and the Bouncy Tart is representative, they cut him out of Elftown like they were gutting a fish. They hit his safehouses. They killed his guards at the places they were protecting. And they fought their way into Jet's hall and cut his head off. What if no one survived?"
"We survived," Enturi replies. "And if we did, others might have as well. We should go in and look. Maybe it's not that bad."
I shake my head.
"Maybe it's a filthy trap, with a half-score of guards and maybe even one of their damned priests, waiting to slay any of Jet's elves they missed that are foolish enough to come poking around in there."
"Maybe. But I don't think so. Why leave the warning if they wanted to lure us in to murder us?"
"Who knows why humans do anything?" I hiss. "They're inconsistent. They're ethical and they're amoral, they're kind and they're vicious, they seek knowledge and exalt ignorance. Don't ask for reason in their actions. Every one of those bastards is different, like a new creature made out of mud and hunger. Water holds its shape better than human nature."
Enturi stares at me like I've gone goblin.
"What?" I ask. "I'm just saying."
"Saying - what? That because we don't know if there are humans inside we should just turn around and walk away and that's the end of it?"
"It's not like we have a choice, is it? We work for Jet. Jet is dead."
And all of Enturi's bootlicking has netted him exactly nothing. I am tempted to laugh. But then I realize why Enturi may want to explore the presumably ruined headquarters. Maybe he has salvage in mind. Salvage of money and materials. Salvage of men. Maybe the sly little pretty boy sees this as an opportunity to set up his own organization, to fill the power gap left by Jet's execution.
I am not going to risk my neck to further his underworld ambitions. Everything of value that working for Jet held for me - good pay, security, flexibility - is as dead as he is. There is nothing of value to me in there now.
And then I think of Lynae.
Was she murdered as well? Could she have escaped? For some reason I can't explain even to myself, I have to know. I have to find out what happened to her.
"All right, fine," I say to Enturi. "I've changed my mind. Let's go."
As an enforcer for Jet, a petty elven crime boss, Arq has it better than most in Elftown, the prisoner of war slum of a human city. It's violent work, but it provides him with a little more money than he needs to survive, a little status, and a little free time.
When a prostitute under Jet's protection is brutally murdered, Jet sends Arq and a team of enforcers - including his creepy, ambitious rival; Jet's dangerously alluring girlfriend; and a chatty dwarf-of-all-trades - to find the killer and make an example of him. But when they uncover the dark reason for the murder, the delicate balance of power in Elftown begins to crumble.
To avenge a friend's murder, Arq must contend with betrayal, warring crime bosses, deadly monsters, underworld plots, and forbidden magic that, if discovered by the humans, will send a red tide of death through Elftown. His greatest challenges, though, will be grappling with his own bitter, violent nature, and trying to figure out what it means to be an elf in a place where the humans have taken away everything that makes life worth living for elvenkind.
Author: A. Harris Lanning
Cover Art: Xavier Ward
(c)2016, 2023
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