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This section was the original Farnsbeck/Magenta storyline leading up to the ambush. It was removed because it raised so many questions that had to be answered before the ambush, it got confusing that pacing was horrible. I'll miss having Magenta play that big of a role, but Ockham's Razor wins.

Magenta cut him off. "If you had met up with them, it'd have been you against those ten bounty hunters waiting for her. I've been trying to keep an eye out, but just standing there watching would raise a lot of suspicion."

"Ten?" Farnsbeck said desperately.

"They seem to be mostly watching the road from the north, but there's always at least one at the south and east roads. You said those two wolves are coming from the east?"

The black vykati nodded. "I'm positive of that. Blade must have done something to throw the pursuit off if they're expecting Sajani to arrive from the north."

"Wow," Magenta said. Her voice was full of awe. "Blade's here? In Rhidayar?"

Farnsbeck nodded. "I didn't know either, but it makes sense Lord Mishil would have him here listening." He paused. "But there're much more urgent matters than following lost operatives. I'm not comfortable fighting five to one."

The she-wolf smiled slyly. "I'm pretty sure I can convince a couple to come here. Them leaving is optional..."

"Don't you think they'll be missed?" The black wolf was thinking four to one might be a little more doable, but if the other hunters were alerted to something happening...

The lady vykati shrugged. "These guys are all from Zenache and Dargaleck. They'd sell their mother for five gold if they could. If a few are missing, they'll assume someone didn't want to split the reward." Before he could say anymore she smiled and added, "And this room comes with a great way to dispose of the bodies."

Farnsbeck rolled his eyes. "I'm sure I don't want to know."

"Whoever had this place before me had," she paused and winked "...similar needs." Her smile turned his stomach. It took all kinds for this line of work, but that didn't mean he had to agree with them.

Pretending not to hear seemed like the best option. "Since they're not traveling on the road, I don't want to chance passing them yet again. Do you have a way I can signal you if I see them?"

"Signal you?" she sounded upset. "Cyan you're not going out there alone."

"Look Magenta," Farnsbeck started, "don't make me order..."

"No!" she nearly shouted. "You can't pull rank on me, we're even." She reached up and grabbed him by the snout. "And nothing about seniority either."

The male vykati tried to say something, but she held his snout tightly. He could take her in a fair fight...maybe...

"You wait here. I'll bring back some bounty hunters, one or two at a time. We get rid of them. I'll bring up a bunch of food to make it look like I'll have those guests for an extended stay and then we sneak out the corpse disposal and wait for them ahead of the rest of the bad guys."

It sounded like a good plan, except the part where she said "corpse disposal."

It took Magenta a long time to get back. She'd handed Farnsbeck a blackjack and told him to wait behind the door. That was hours before. If Sajani was travelling at night, like he suspected since he'd missed them riding in the day, then they were safe for the moment.

He still worried, but he worried more about taking on all of the hunters together. When the sound of the door being unlocked came, he readied a spell. There was no way he'd stoop to using something as base as a mere club.

It wasn't necessary. Magenta, in her human form, was alone and carrying a few bags of groceries. His stomach growled. He could smell baked meat and a few other things in there. "I made sure lots of people saw me coming up here with these, so we should be good for a couple days before people start really wondering."

"Where're your friends?" the black wolf asked.

She removed her mask and tossed it to the side. "Heathens!" she said with much disgust. "That and eleven of them were women, so no good..."

"Eleven?" Farnsbeck gasped.

"Yeah," Magenta sighed. "Five more showed up, all women. So probably all from the Way of the Rose."

"Why would a bunch of assassins care about the bounty for an escaped slave?"

"Well," the she-wolf told him as she handed him a sheet of paper, "It could have something to do with what one of them happened to have in her pocket."

What it said shocked the male wolf. It was a contract, but without either party being named. "One thousand gold!" he exclaimed. "Has Brown gone crazy? It could be kept quiet as long as the reward stayed under a hundred, but this..."

Magenta nodded. "And the Way isn't the only one hired, I'm sure.

"Great!" Farnsbeck whined, "not only will they be showing up here, but they'll also be in Nashtalli as well. Even if we get them on that caravan tomorrow, we'd be hard pressed to get them through the city."

"Nah," Magenta dismissed his complaint, "This is a pretty honest merchant, but she has no problem with cheating Rhidayan customs."

"You've already talked to her?" the male wolf asked.

His fellow agent looked disgusted. "Are you crazy?" She changed her voice to sound like someone much less educated. "Hi there nice merchant lady, would you be interested in smuggling a couple of convicts, please?"

Farnsbeck rolled his eyes. "Our immediate concern is just getting Sajani out of here, but if there's something to be arranged...What company is this merchant with?"

"You mean," Magenta said slowly, "what company does this merchant own." At a normal tempo she added, "The company is Qistara Imports."

"Big enough to not raise any questions over working a deal with local customs..."

"She pays full when she gets to Vharkylia. Very honest--at home. But word is she has the Nashtalli customs manager on her payroll."

Farnsbeck was rolling some of the possibilities over in his mind. "What time will they be leaving?"

"I hear it'll be early morning, but it isn't something I've been actively looking into." Magenta said. Her voice got urgent. "Look," she told him, "I realize that all this is important in the future, but right now we need to see what we can do about those bounty hunters and assassins."

"Indeed," he answered. "You got their positions?"

The she-wolf smiled, "They split into shifts or they did before the Way arrived. Looked like eight on the day shift and seven on the night shift."

That seemed rather odd. "Why are they cooperating so well?"

Magenta shrugged, "At a guess, the bragging rights of taking down a copper wolf are worth more than the reward."

Taking out Sajani would definitely make some people back home very angry. "You said they're all foreigners?"

Magenta nodded.

"Hmm. They probably want to make sure they can blame someone else if someone _does_kill Sajani."

"True, but we need to be worrying more what to do to them, not why they're doing it,' Magenta said quickly.

The comment put Farnsbeck deep in thought. "So," he asked, "where are the ones that are on shift now?"

"One is south, two are east, and the other five are north."

An idea started form in his head. "Where are the Way assassins?"

Magenta seemed to catch on very fast. "They seem convinced the pair will come from the north, so all three of their day people are there. I know where the night people are all sleeping. Shouldn't take much to pick up a couple daggers from the Way. Do you still carry that graverobber's friend with you?"

He nodded. "That, my spoon, and my mask. I hardly ever need anything else."

The inn was bland with white walls and dark wood in odd places. It was also nearly empty and very quiet--normal for that time of day. One of the two assassins was awake and outside her room. Magenta pointed her out as they were passing the inn's common room. They went up the stairs and stopped when the she-wolf motioned towards a door. Both were in human form.

Farnsbeck reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a small cylindrical object. It had brass edges, sides of redwood, and a glass top. He raised it slightly above his hand, reached under and pulled to extend a spyglass. The male wolf placed it to his eye and started turning the eyepiece. The device gave him a clear view of what was on the other side of the door. Adjusting the small end allowed him to move his view closer or further away.

"Empty," he told his fellow agent.

Magenta pulled a small black pouch from somewhere in her choli. Opening it revealed a set of complex metal tools. She set it on the ground and pulled out two long picks. It didn't take her long to have the door open. She picked up her tools, wrapped them back up, and put them away while he stepped into the room and looked around. It was obvious that the two that stayed here were recent arrivals. One of the suitcases wasn't even open. The other was and he went through it quickly. The first thing he came across was a whistle. The Way had a special use for those, so he was tempted to take it, but decided that since he didn't know exactly how they worked, it might not be a good idea. He couldn't find a dagger, but he did find a set of very high-quality throwing knives. Pocketing a couple of those, he returned to Magenta, locking the door behind him. A single nod let his partner know he'd accomplished his purpose.

"The closest bounty hunter room is two doors down," she told him. Checking again with his spyglass, he could tell there was a single human in the room sleeping. He had blond hair and was wearing a basic tunic and pants. His feet were bare. "You're sure about this?" he whispered. "No sense killing an innocent."

A snide expression crossed Magenta's face, "So, instead of the bounty hunters wanting to kill the Way assassins, the whole town will want to kill the Way assassins. We win either way."

Farnsbeck sighed. She picked the lock on the door. When she was done he handed her the two knives he'd taken. She hadn't completely passed the door when they both heard a voice from the bottom of the stairs. The person was speaking in Zenache. "Just need to grab a couple things," he said.

They both quietly ducked through the door and locked it again quickly. The human stayed asleep. Magenta didn't waste any time. She drew a knife and carefully moved it over the man's body, calculating where to strike.

Farnsbeck closed his eyes when he heard the sound of the weapon being thrust. The human hadn't made a sound. Now they just needed to wait until the hall was clear. He started to pull out his spyglass but stopped when the latch on the door started to move.

Not much time. Reaching across to where his partner was standing, he clasped her shoulder and began summoning the shadows. He made sure that they didn't surround the knives, since they were still in Magenta's hands. The door had just begun to open when the two vykati slipped into the enveloping darkness. The knives fell ownerless to the floor.

The two landed hard in the alley behind the inn. Farnsbeck was ready for the one-meter drop, but Magenta wasn't. The she-wolf tumbled, and her dupatta fell down over her face. She started sputtering and swearing. "Couldn't just land us on the ground?"

Farnsbeck started to explain as he helped her up, but she cut him off. Something on her hand had caught her attention.

"Aw. Now I broke a nail." She shot him a very stern look. "Do you have any idea how hard these things are to grow out? I don't how humans do it."

Farnsbeck just smiled at her. "Anything solid where we're supposed to land, and it doesn't work. I erred on the side of caution."

"Erred at any rate," she complained, snapping her dupatta back over her head and briefly getting it caught on one of her earrings. "We should probably just lay low at my place for a bit. I had to go with things that don't need cooking, but I did manage to get some already baked chicken and pastola. Ready for dinner?"

Farnsbeck fell into his snooty Riteyai persona. "My dear, that sounds simply divine," he told her.

The "corpse disposal" was under the bed. Farnsbeck had to admit that something like that would have been very helpful more than once in his job. "I'm impressed," he told Magenta. "That wasn't cheap to build. Who had this place before you?"

The she-wolf shrugged. "Someone that died very happy. It was a real risk in her profession. I just helped."

The male wolf shuddered slightly. "I'm sure I don't..."

The other agent grabbed his muzzle lightly. "No. You're right. You don't." As soon as she finished, she released his snout. "You'll want to be in human form once we pass through. The scent will still be horrible, but not quite as bad. We can change back once we're outside the walls."

Farnsbeck nodded. "I'm not sure we'll want to do that. The guards are looking for a couple of vykati and they're not being specific."

"True," she said quickly. "Hold onto that food real tight. I've lost some more than once going through." What they hadn't eaten when they first arrived back was now in two large cloth sacks. The bags were large enough to hold a body, so Farnsbeck didn't ask where she got them.

"I will," he reassured her. "I've had quite enough of that spoon food."

"You know they don't even issue those anymore. I think you're the only agent that still uses one."

Budget cuts. The Council and Lords were diverting money from anywhere they could to step up the military after Altaza. It wasn't that he liked the food, but it allowed him travel very light if necessary. The spoon's other purpose, conjuring a suicide poison, wasn't something he needed. "It got me here. Since we have no idea how far out they are or how fast they're moving, we might end up relying on it."

Magenta shuddered. "Ug. I might try to figure out a way to get back here without drawing attention if it comes to that." She looked up at him, "Ready?"

He nodded and watched as she lifted a trap door to reveal what looked like a small drop in the floor ending with a wooden picture frame. The inside of the frame was black. She placed her feet in the opening and held onto the side with both hands. The frame seemed to absorb her as she lowered herself through it. Her head and shoulders were all that was left when she let go of the sides and turned towards him. "Be a dear and put the bed back before you go." She winked at him and dropped down into the shadows.

It didn't take him long to figure out she was joking. There was no way to move the bed that he could see, although it had slid very easily out of the way earlier. He dropped himself and his bag of food down through the frame and was just pulling the trapdoor closed when he heard the sound of something moving above him. The opening grew darker. Okay, so she was only partially joking.

Once he finished crouching through, he was very glad he wasn't in vykati form. The smell was like a slap in the face. It was so bad that he started to gag. Trying to control himself, he loosened his grip on the food and would have dropped it, if it hadn't been taken from him at the last moment.

Magenta's voice with a noticeable nasal echo came from right next to him. "Told ya."

He took her cue and pinched his nose. The smell weakened but was still there. "We might have to lose the masks for a moment anyway. I can't see a thing."

"Give me your hand," she whispered.

He reached it out and felt it touch her skin.

"Hey there, that's for after the work is done," she told him. Her hand grasped his and moved it onto her shoulder. "Try to step exactly where I do. I'll do my best to stay out of the messier places." While she was saying that, he felt her fist against his stomach. "Oh..." she said slyly. "I think we might be even now."

Farnsbeck sighed. "Can you stop flirting and get us out of here?"

"Settle down," she told him calmly. "I was handing the food back. You can read into that whatever you want."

To take the bag, he had to either let go of her shoulder or his nose. Given the mood the other agent was in, he opted for his nose. He held his breath while he slung it over his shoulder and again returned his hand to where it'd been.

"Ah," she said with disappointment, "I was hoping for another game of 'find the she-wolf's shoulder.'"

Farnsbeck didn't say anything. He just nudged her slightly to let her know he was ready to start walking.

After a few turns some light became visible. While it did allow him to remove his hand from Magenta's shoulder (she sighed when he did that) he almost wished he could go back to the dark. They were walking along a path that stood about five meters above a large mass. The area was a sewer of sorts, but there wasn't much flow to it. "How does this even work?" he asked. "It can't just gather below the city forever." As he was asking his question he noticed a large body shaped lump near them.

"They have a really efficient way of catching the rain water and it flushes all that out," she sounded slightly annoyed. In her regular tone she added. "Don't go north-east of here by the way."

Farnsbeck was pretty sure he could guess the source of her annoyance. "Waste the water to water the waste?" he asked.

"Exactly. It's not too bad as long as there's at least a slight breeze, but when the wind dies down..."

"It does give that disposal of yours another reason be a one-way opening," he said.

"I know," she said emphatically. "I'd have to find a whole new place. Convenient or not it'd sure put a damper on my work." She turned and winked at him.

After rounding a corner, the area got much brighter. They were near a huge outlet. There were large metal bars running vertically, but there was enough space between them to allow the faux humans to walk through side by side.

"We should probably scout them out first," Magenta suggested.

"I'll take care of that, dear lady," Farnsbeck said in his best Riteyai drawl. "You may wait here." He flicked his wrist and disappeared into the shadows.

She stuck her tongue out at him as he was leaving. He had no idea why.

It looked like Magenta saw him at the same time he saw her. It felt like his spell was still working, but she continued to follow his movement.

When he was a few paces away she winked at him and said in a sultry voice, "If you want to try something on me while you're not visible, please do. The last few days have been so lonely." She put her arms over her head and stretched.

He dismissed the spell and resisted the urge to ask her how she'd managed to see him.

"Oh, it's just you," she said happily, "I thought one of those bulky bounty hunters was trying to sneak up on me."

"The earrings?" he asked.

She nodded. "Let's just say I know way more about some of my neighbors' habits than I should." She added anxiously, "What'd you learn."

He smiled and winked at her. "Seems to have been a bit of a ruckus while we were eating. There's one bounty hunter and one assassin on the north road and they're staying very far apart."

"And the rest?" she prompted.

"One at each."

"Damn," she said with a low whistle. "And here I was regretting there wasn't time to take out more of their night shift."

"It was a rather good plan," he said modestly, "but there is one small complication."

"We can handle small, now that we're dealing with half as many," Magenta said confidently.

Farnsbeck nodded his agreement. "They must have made some kind of truce, because the ones west and south now have those whistles that the Way likes to use."

"Whistles?" she asked. "Let's pretend for a moment that I've only worked in Rhidayar and never been in Jzianrhun."

"They call them dog whistles. If they blow on one, any others nearby alert their owners. Rumor is they can teleport people as well, but I doubt it."

Magenta sighed, "And since we know those pups are coming on the west road, the other three will converge pretty fast, even without a teleport."

"Right," he said, "but with only one or two at each place, it shouldn't be too hard to just take them out singly."

"I'd say grab the one on the west road on the way out, but that might draw attention to the correct road." Her face lit up. "We've delayed long enough. Since we don't know when those two will arrive, we really need to be out there, but...' she winked at him. "Let's take out the one south on our way."

Farnsbeck nodded, "Good idea, except for one thing."

She pouted.

"Those whistles won't just alert the awake and sleeping people they might allow their holders to teleport. At the very least, there has to be something that tells them where to go."

"Won't that be a worry when we see the pups anyway?"

Farnsbeck sighed. "You're probably right. I'm not thrilled about taking on that many, but once they're out of the way, we won't have any trouble getting those two safely away from the city." His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of war drums and the trumpeting of many elephants.

The two made their way to the entrance and carefully looked out. A large group of soldiers were marching around the walls. The male wolf made several quick calculations and then nearly shrieked, "A battalion...They brought a_whole_ battalion of militia?" He wasn't one to panic, but this was making that reaction very tempting.

Magenta let out a low whistle. "I've heard them drilling before but didn't realize there were so many. They make once pass around the city each evening."

"New arrivals?" he asked sullenly.

Magenta shrugged. "Probably not. You had to go past them at the gate, so I figured you knew."

Farnsbeck shook his head. "It does make up my mind though. If Rhidayar wants to claim non-involvement, like we talked about earlier, then they'll keep them near the city and let the bounty hunters handle it."

"We can hope, but it does mean we have to leave the bounty hunters and assassins alive," Magenta said sagely. "I don't want to face the backup."

The book had a note on the Vykati language at it's start. The original intent was to explain the usage of some generative nouns. Making those "historically accurate" ended up being very confusing to the reader, so they were changed back. This part was then modified to explain that the usage wasn't historically accurate, but eventually, it just seemed pretty superfluous.

The Vykati language has its roots in ancient Rhahahadam (an early version of the modern language spoken in Rhidayar) and the dialect of the northern Jzianrhun mountains. These are the languages spoken by the two armies that were transformed into vykati. It's believed that originally it was a pidgin language developed from words from both languages, with many repetitive concepts and using a unique word order. Almost all words spoken in modern Vykati can be traced to one of these two languages.

For reasons that even the Vykati are unaware, they did make two major changes. The first, the use of possessives, is so difficult to translate in any language, that it's often just dropped completely. Every noun and verb in their language can have a possessive attached to it. While there are over one-hundred different possessives only five are used regularly. In simple terms, these possessives denote ownership by the individual, ownership by the person being addressed, family ownership, communal ownership (which only applies to other vykati), and no ownership. Translating the common phrase Kra'la al'ark: Kra is a general pronoun that means an object being referenced (This). The suffix 'la is the communal possessive. The prefix al' is an uncommon possessive. When used on a verb, it means, "I <verb> with all that I possess." So the long translation, taking into account our language's word order is: "I will use everything I have to defend everything that the vykati possess."

The other unique change to the original languages is to generative nouns. For example, in Rhidayan the word for a male carpenter is "kanehela" and a female carpenter is "fondosabo." In Vykati the word for carpenter was always "tisbanda," no matter to whom it's being applied. A single word was always used to denote the profession or practice of either sex. This includes noble titles that are not royal. That's not to say that Vykati didn't have generative nouns. For thousands of years, the only generative nouns all resided within the descriptions given to family members. So "mother" and "father" are separate words. The same distinction in sex is true of any family relation including cousins.

In 1470 (now 2 BH), Sajani Adida became the Minister of War for the nation of Vharkylia. While she isn't the first female Minister of War, she is the first to bear the title of "Lady General." Prior to that the title was always "Lord General" regardless of sex.

This wasn't because of some ancient chauvinism, it was because Vykati only had one word for "person with a minor noble title." In the most strict sense Lady General refers to a female vykati holding that military position, while Lord General refers to anyone holding that position. So it's perfectly correct to address Sajani as Lord Sajani (the Riteyai Lords do that with each other all the time, since half of them are female). Since that time generative nouns have crept their way into the language, although in most cases it means adding "drt" as a prefix to denote a female.

This book takes place thirteen years prior to the change in language and was originally written to reflect that, however, there were quite a few areas where it became rather confusing. Because of that, the only case where a single generative is used is with the Riteyai Lords, since they never adopted that part of the language.