He felt the figure's other hand driving his head sideways and down. He thought he smelled spices—perhaps cinnamon—and dust. Then his skull smashed against the counter's edge, hammering the side of his jaw.
Darkness swallowed Chane's sight as he felt the folio ripped from his hand.
Wynn struggled, kicking back at her captor, until she heard him shout, "Move, all of you!"
The voice behind her head was deafening, but she recognized it. Captain Rodian held her off the ground with one arm.
"Take the back door first," he called.
Three red-surcoated Shyldfälches ran into sight with swords drawn. One took position at the shop's front door while the other two watched the front windows. Wynn heard more running feet and the sound of battering and breaking wood from somewhere at the shop's rear.
A grating hiss rose into a hollow wail inside the shop.
Wynn shivered inside, wanting to cover her ears.
"Move, all of you!"
Chane barely heard the shout through the ache in his head. He tried to push himself up, but gouged his hand on a piece of broken wood. His balance failed, and he toppled against the second door behind the counter. He had no idea what was happening, but he heard that voice again outside the shop.
Take the back first!"
Chane crawled to his knees and peered into the rear workroom. The back door bucked and crackled as something heavy struck it from the outside. It had been locked but not barred, which would slow any escape but still make it possible to force entry from the outside. Chane grabbed his sword off the floor and struggled to his feet.
The figure stood just beyond the counter.
Its cloak and robe were quiet and still, and the folio remained gripped in its hand. Its hood turned slowly, as if whoever hid within it looked from one front window to the door.
How could this thing be solid and then not, at the same time? Yet it never showed a sign of that change.
Finally it fixed upon the other window—the one where Chane had seen Wynn—and it stopped.
Another slam hit the rear door, and Chane heard wood splintering sharply. Someone had set a trap here—but to catch him or this thing? He threw himself over the countertop's remains, rolling to the far side. As he lunged for the folio, the figure slipped beyond reach. It flew straight at the window like whipping cloth driven on a windstorm—and passed straight through.
No glass shattered; no wallboards broke. Not even the shutters beyond the panes swung in its passing. Then the folio in its grip hit against glass—and did not pass through.
The black figure might be noncorporeal, but the folio was solid.
Chane lunged for it.
An angry wailing shriek echoed outside, and the window shattered outward.
The shop filled with the sound of breaking glass. Then the noise of breaking wood and shouts carried from the rear workroom.
Chane bolted for the broken window as a scream erupted outside the shop.
Rodian watched something blacker than night bleed through the shop's front wall. He still held on to Wynn, but the sage had ceased struggling.
The blot spread quickly over the shop's wood planks, blocking out one window. Then it bulged like a shroud cloth in a gale. It took shape in something he'd seen once before.
The black-cloaked and — robed figure halted, one arm stretched out behind it. Its hand was still beyond one pane of the window. And Rodian saw what it held in its trailing grip.
It held a folio, still stuck behind the window, inside the shop.
The pane creaked and began to crack.
Rodian dropped Wynn and shoved her out of the way, and the window exploded outward.
He raised his sword arm before his face. Glass fragments tinkled off steel and across his glove. A wailing scream rose before his sight line cleared.
Then Wynn cried out, "Captain!"
He'd kept three guardsmen with him out front: Shâth, Ecgbryht, and Ruben.
And Shâth was rushing toward the black figure.
"Stay back!" Rodian ordered, raising his sword.
The figure stood before the shop, folio in one hand, as its cloak writhed around its robed form. But its other hand…
Black fingers lanced through Shâth's chest and out his back, like barbs of shadow emerging from the guardsman's body. The rest of its hand followed instantly as Ruben and Ecgbryht closed in. Shâth hung impaled and shuddering as the figure's hand clenched into a fist.
Mute crackling rose as Shâth choked, but he never screamed. A dark stain spread across the back of his tabard around the figure's protruding wrist. The robed figure wrenched its arm back.
Shâth arched as the black fist ripped back through his torso.
Blood spattered over Ecgbryht as Shâth collapsed. His body hit the street hard, with his face frozen into a gaping mouth and eyes.
The front of his tabard and hauberk were torn around a mangled hole.
It happened so fast.
A low hiss rose all around in the street. The dark space of the figure's wide hood turned toward Rodian—no, beyond him, toward Wynn. And it rushed her like some coal-colored ghost, solid and real and yet not.
