They came for Rathann in the hour of the wolf, when the twin moons were low on the horizon and his small tower room was plunged into deep shadow. He had been asleep for barely an hour, sunk in exhausted slumber, when the sound of splintering wood split the silence in the small antechamber beyond.

The attackers were swift and highly skilled. Rathann’s only slave, a scarred human male that slept on the floor just beyond the doorway, slowed them for barely a moment. A startled shout echoed from the darkness, cut short by the thudding of heavy blows and the brittle crunch of bone, and then Rathann heard the soft whisper of footsteps racing through the darkness towards his bedchamber.