“Sorry it’s all squished,” she grimaced. “I had an incident earlier today.”

“Mmfffittsss fokay,” he said through a mouth full of food. When he had swallowed his mouthful, he carefully split his pastry in two and set it aside to save it. Looking at me wearily he asked, “So, who’s your friend?”

“Pim this is Thalia, Thalia – Pim,” she said making the introductions while perched on her crate, legs swinging in contentment. Looking around she asked, “Where’s Jury?”

“Right HEEERRRREEE!” someone shouted, and I heard a small giggle as a little tow headed girl dropped down from what appeared to be an attic door in a side building of the alley to land in a wheelbarrow of straw. The crates we were sitting on were stacked so they could easily access the door and pull it closed behind them.

Rolling out of the straw, Jury was a little thing wearing a dress in about the same shape as Pim’s clothes. With pieces of straw sticking out of her hair and clothes every which way, she resembled a moving scarecrow as she ran over and grabbed the other half of Pim’s pastry; eating it in two bites.

“Do you live here?” I asked in the kindest way I could.

“Yeah,” Pim stated nonchalantly. “It beats being put in a workhouse or orphanage. There would be a good chance Jury and I would be split up if we went there.” So that explained it; they were orphans.

Avina leaned over to me and whispered, “Jury is a Denai and neither one wants to be separated from each other yet. So no matter what I do, I can’t convince either one to come back with me to the Citadel.”

I didn’t want to ask them how they survived, because it would seem like I didn’t think they could, so I asked something less intrusive. “So how do you get along out here?”

“Oh, Pim works odd jobs doing deliveries,” Jury piped up.

I was just about to ask more questions when I heard a low growl from behind us. Looking over my shoulder I froze in mid-sentence as five of the largest dogs I have ever seen approached us, teeth baring. Each dog looked like it outweighed me by at least 50 pounds and blocked the exit out of the alley.

Never in my life had I seen a mixed breed like these; they were size of a Dane, the build of a Doberman and the jaw of a Bulldog. I moved across the alley to stand in front of Pim and Jury protectively. The dogs growled threateningly at my movement, the biggest one moved away from the pack and shadowed my movements.

“Avina! I whispered urgently. “Get them up the crates and into the attic, NOW!”

As soon as she moved to help Jury climb, the dogs charged. I grabbed a broken piece of crate, the splinters digging in my palms and swung at the lead dog as it leaped for Jury’s leg hitting him squarely on the nose.

Yelping, the dog backed off and pawed his nose before turning on me again, an angry red gleam in its eye. The other dogs began to try and climb the crates after Avina and Jury.

One lunged forward and latched onto my leg and I could feel teeth tear through muscle and heard a sickening crunch. Screaming, I tried to kick the dog in the face with my other leg.

Pim raced to my rescue with a large stick and swung it madly at the dog’s face. The dog didn’t release until Pim used the end to gouge the dog’s eye, and it spurted blood. Scrambling up from the ground and leaning most of my weight on my good leg, I tried to block the other dogs from approaching the crates.

Pim was distracted as a larger dog pounced on him from behind, knocking him to the ground. Screaming at the dog, I swung my stick wildly in an arc forcing him to back away from the boy and trying to widen the space. “Get up there!” I ordered.

Pim scampered up the crates as Avina leaned out of the attic, her arms reaching out to grab him. One of the pack dogs, alerted by the movement of fleeing prey, lunged after Pim snapping and snarling. The dog scrambled up the first crate and then the second as he tried to reach the top and Pim.

“JUMP NOW!” I warned as I knocked the crates down onto the dogs. Yelping in pain they scrambled out of the mess of crates, making it impossible for them to get the children.

Glancing up I saw that Pim had jumped and Avina had caught his arm. She was even now with Jury’s help pulling him into the safety of the attic. I had succeeded at knocking the crates down and saving the kids, but I had inadvertently blocked my only chance for escape. Now between me and the exit were the pile of crates and a pack of dogs that were now mad with blood lust.

Snarling, with drool dripping from their canines, they circled me. I realized too late that I only faced four dogs instead of five. I heard Avina scream my name when a huge weight jumped onto my back knocking me to the ground. My head smacked into the street hard enough so that I saw stars. Instinctively I curled into a fetal position to try and protect the exposed nape of my neck as I waited for the sting of five pairs of raging teeth on my flesh.

Hearing the snarling, I thought this was the end except that nothing touched me. A hurt yelp reached my ears and I opened my eyes to a knife inches away from my face dripping with blood. I gasped, but then realized it wasn’t coming closer. The knife was held by a black dressed man who was hunched down in a fighting stance protecting me from the pack of dogs. Two feet away a dog lay prone, blood pooling around him, eyes glazing over in death. Another dog charged leaping in the air aiming for the man’s throat. The man brought his arm down, knocking the dog to the ground while at the same time bringing his knife down into the back of the neck.

Pulling the blade out of the dog the man spared me a look and I exhaled as I recognized the intense blue eyes of Kael. My heart sung in joy that he was alive, and sorrow as the remaining three dogs leaped as one unit toward him. With a flick of his wrist Kael flung a throwing knife from his arm sheath. The brown haired dog stopped midair and fell to the ground, the handle protruding from its chest.

The other two dogs landed on Kael, pulling him to the ground. Using the knife in his left hand, he slashed the smaller dog in the face while the bloodied-eyed leader locked his jaws around his right arm, shaking his head back and forth.

Kael grunted in pain, keeping the leader at bay with his arm and away from his throat, devoting his attention to the smaller dog that was making quick dashes for his jugular. Kael wasn’t giving in and slashed at both dogs until the smaller one having personally felt the sting of the blade one too many times finally backed away, running tailed tucked between his legs down the alley.

With only one opponent left and his arm being jerked and his torso shredded by the enraged dog’s paws, I cried out Kael's name in worry. In one fluid motion Kael flipped the handle of the knife changing his grip and blade direction downward and stabbed the dog in his already gouged and bloody eye, forcing the tip into his brain. The dog twitched once, twice and then quit moving all together.

Feeling the blood rush back into my body, I breathed a sigh of relief and watched Kael sit up and push the dog’s lifeless corpse off of his body.

Kael had put on muscle in the last month and even covered in blood still looked handsome; not to mention dangerous. The difference this time was that Kael was armed to the teeth with knives, blades and arm sheaths. I wondered briefly where he had gotten them because they looked like they belonged on him. His black vest survived the but the dogs shredded the under shirt and from the amount of blood coming from that area no doubt that his torso was equally shredded.