Cloak and Spider: A Shadowdance Novella by David Dalglish

late.”
    Thren nodded. Feeling like a stranger in his own body, he stepped out into the other room. Grayson huddled over Marion’s body, cradling her in his massive arms. Her eyes were closed. She did not move.
    “Grayson…” Thren said. “I’m sorry. I should have known better. I should have…”
    The man looked up.
    “Damn it, Thren,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You’re not as good as you think you are. No one is, and now my Marion…now my little…”
    Still holding his sister’s body, he yanked the gray cloak off his shoulders and tossed it to the floor.
    “I’m done with you,” he said, rising to his feet, Marion’s weight seemingly nothing as he held her. “You never listened, you bastard. Never thought someone could beat you. Maybe you’ll learn again, maybe not, but I won’t be here to find out. Take the whole damn city if you want. I’m gone.”
    He stormed out of the house, leaving Thren alone with the handful of his men.
    Thren’s fists shook as he closed his eyes and collected himself.
    “What happened?” he asked.
    “Warehouse was empty,” Senke said. “Grayson didn’t seem surprised at all. After that, we were going to return back to our hideout, but then we found this…”
    Thren opened his eyes and accepted the offered item. It was a gray cloak, stained red and cut into several pieces.
    “Grayson sent a runner to the safe house we had Carr’s family locked up in, found it smashed open. The cloak belonged to one of the men stationed there. That’s when Grayson sent us hurrying here. Managed to kill the rest of the Scorpions, at least those that didn’t get away.”
    Thren crumpled the cloak in his hands. No doubt Carr had expected to get in and out of the home without being noticed, taking Marion with him. The cloak at the warehouse had been his way of taunting Thren, making sure he knew every single step of his plan had been expected or countered in some way.
    “How many of you are there?” he asked Senke.
    “Fifteen of us,” the man said.
    Thren drew one of his swords and scanned the faces of those with him. When he saw one in particular, he couldn’t believe the audacity. Taking a step forward, he grabbed Pennell by the neck, yanked him to his knees, and then jammed a knee into the man’s stomach.
    “Carr tell you to stay and watch?” he asked as Pennell lay on the ground, clutching his waist. “He want you to tell him how miserable and beaten I was?”
    “I don’t know what you’re…”
    Thren kicked him in the teeth, silencing the lie. Reaching down, he grabbed Pennell’s left hand, stretched it out, and then slammed his sword through the palm. It pierced the wood of the floor as Pennell screamed. The rest of the Spiders stepped away, some stunned by the revelation, others furious.
    “Listen to me, you little shit,” Thren whispered into the man’s ear. “Someone will suffer my wrath tonight. It can be you, or it can be Carr. Now you fucking think long and hard about who you’d rather it be.”
    “The Raven’s Claw,” Pennell said, his face turning pale. “The upper levels, they’re all Carr’s. He’ll be there, I swear!”
    Thren stood, flipped his other short sword so he could grab the hilt with the blade downward, and jammed the blade down through Pennell’s mouth. He let go of both his swords so he could stand and watch as Pennell convulsed. At last, when he was dead, Thren freed both weapons and cleaned off the blades.
    “The Raven’s Claw is a tavern in the far south,” he told the men with him. His face felt flushed, yet his hands and feet like ice. “We’re going there, now. I don’t care who you see when we attack, whether or not you think them innocent. When we step inside their door, everyone dies. Everyone but Carr and his family. We take them alive. Do you understand?”
    The hard eyes of hard men met his gaze, and they all nodded.
    “Good,” Thren said. “Then let’s go.”
    They ran through the dark night streets,