Amber glanced at the door, then back to Simeon. Her dagger never wavered.

“Friends of yours?”

“Beastlings!” Simeon hissed.

When Simeon had arrived in town three days earlier, he had considered renting a room – or even a suite – in one of the high-priced inns in the noble quarter. He could have lived like a lord for few weeks, bathed by Tarnian slave girls and dining on the best that Ohnland had to offer. But he thought it best to avoid the gossip-mills of the upper classes and lie low instead.

He couldn’t lie much lower than the Lamb’s Head.

The Lamb’s Head was not so much an inn as it was a tavern with rooms where, for a reasonable price, drunks could sleep off their stupors and prostitutes could ply their trade. Simeon rented a room in the attic. It was no match for his fine apartment in Potor, but it was better than the caves he’d slept in on Haverness. Its door was thick, with a sturdy lock, and its single window small but clean.

As the scratching turned to slamming, Simeon wished the door were thicker and the window larger.

“What’s a beastling?” Amber asked. She tossed the dagger from her right hand to her left, then unsheathed her sword. She turned from Simeon to face the door, a blade in each hand.

“It’s man — but with beast parts. Claws. Fangs. And fur. They usually have fur.”

Slam. The door shuddered.

“And they’re trying to kill you.”

Slam.

“That seems to be the case.”

Slam. The door’s wood began to crack.

Simeon reached under the bed and grabbed his travel bag.

“If you only get paid for bringing me in alive…” He said.

“Yeah, yeah. Get going. I’ll try to hold them off while you squeeze yourself out that window. Anything else I should know about these beasties before-“

Slam. Crack.

“Aim for their mark!” Simeon’s voice was muffled. He was already in the window.

“Mark? What do you-“

But Simeon was gone, the door was in long wooden shards on the floor, and the beastlings were in the room.