Read Online The Inquisitives [2] Night of Long Shadows by Paul Crilley - Free Book Online

he had left it. He stood at the foot of her bed and tried to think it through.
    She was still out there somewhere. But where? It made sense that she would return here to Cutter. He could protect her.
    Unless she thought she was being followed or she feared the warforged would be waiting for her.
    So where else could she be? She had no family. Her only brother had been killed last year in a tavern brawl. She had nohome. All her friends lived around the district.
    Unless she was already—
    No. He couldn’t think that way. The warforged had asked Cutter where she was, so she must have escaped the professor’s rooms. All he had to do was find her and they could sort this whole thing out. In the meantime, he needed to figure out what had happened in the professor’s rooms. And Salkith was the key. Cutter needed to track down the courier to find out the part he played in the night’s events.
    He returned to his room and changed his clothes, slipping on a leather vest beneath a clean shirt. It didn’t offer much protection, but it was better than nothing, and he preferred its flexibility to any kind of mail shirt. He located his short-hafted war hammer and attached its loop of leather to his belt. It weighed him down. He preferred the Khutai blades, but the heavy hammer would be more useful against the warforged. One side of it was spiked, and he reckoned he’d do more damage with it than the Valenar knives. Cutter took a small money pouch from the drawer and weighed it in his hands. Tiel hadn’t paid him for the last month’s work, so he had been dipping into his meager savings. Not much left.
    Tiel. He’d be wondering where Cutter was with his money. Regardless, Cutter couldn’t spare the time to seek him out and tell him what had happened. He’d have to leave it for the moment. There were more important things to think about.
    A knock came at the door, soft and hesitant.
    Cutter froze, then looked around his room to make sure he had everything he needed. He unhooked the hammer and crept across the wooden boards to the door. He took a deep breath, then yanked it open.
    A woman was standing there. She stifled a scream and stepped backward, staring at Cutter with wide eyes. It wasRenaia, a courtesan from a brothel over in the Firelight District. He lowered the hammer and stepped backward, opening his mouth to apologize.
    At the same moment, the window behind him exploded inward, showering the room and Cutter’s back with shards of glass.
    Cutter spun, slamming the door shut as he did so, and saw the warforged landing on the floor at the foot of his bed. Cutter swung the hammer in an overhand arc. It slammed into the warforged with a dull clang, driving it to its knees. The warforged lashed out with an arm, punching Cutter hard in the stomach. His leather vest absorbed some of the blow, but it still sent him staggering back into the wall, gasping for breath.
    The warforged straightened and surveyed the room. It must have followed Cutter, hoping to find Rowen.
    Cutter flipped the hammer around and pushed himself away from the wall. The warforged was ignoring him for the moment while it searched for Rowen. Big mistake.
    Cutter swung the hammer as hard as he could and felt the spike punch through the metal plating on the warforged’s back. The ‘forged arched its back with an animal-like cry of agony and jabbed its elbow into Cutter’s cheek. His head jerked back. Cutter felt a bloom of red-tinged pain as the skin split and blood flowed.
    Cutter staggered backward, blinking to clear the flashes before his eyes. The warforged reached over its shoulder and pulled the hammer free. Blinking, Cutter managed to focus just in time to see the hammer flying end over end toward him. He dropped, and it smashed into the wall, punching a deep hole in the plaster.
    The warforged sniffed the air, but when it decided Rowen wasn’t hiding anywhere, it turned its attention to Cutter. It heldits arms out at its sides. Cutter heard the