Book One – Chapter 15

By now, Yu had encountered all six resident guards stationed at the guild, except for Terbert. Terbert was supposedly integral to the guild’s operation, though Yu had no idea what he actually did. No one had offered any details beyond his name, not even his race. The only other thing Yu had been told was that Terbert “lived in the walls” and would appear “when the time was right”. You either saw him or you did not. Whatever the fuck that meant.

Meeting the other five had been a string of awkward encounters that had turned into an exercise in discomfort. Gurs Farr-Rah, a borman, had been as coarse and disdainful as any of his kind Yu had ever met. Built like a beast of burden, with dense muscle packed onto a squat frame, Gurs carried the air of something feral, something never fully tamed. His thick fur was the colour of riverbed clay. His face and paws were of a much darker brown, though marred by jagged white scars. The low-set, black eyes beneath his heavy brow made no effort to disguise their contempt. He had barely spoken during their introduction, but words had not been necessary. Yu had seen the curled lip, the stiff posture, the subtle flare of the nostrils. The disgust. So much for politeness.

Tirran, who had been the first to meet Yu’s party at the guild entrance, seemed to rank second only to the watch-captain. Unlike the borman’s open hostility, Tirran had been civil, measured, even, though that did not make him any less unnerving.

He was the first omira that Yu had ever seen up close. They were a beastkin race Yu found particularly unsettling — tall, sinewy gestalten draped in bristling fur that stood in stark contrast to their unnatural poise. Their bodies and features were not beast-like, but monstrous: Their elongated limbs were powerfully built, and their almost skeletal hands ended in sharp, semi-retractable claws that clicked sharply as they shifted. It was a subtle yet distinct sound that struck the deepest chord of discomfort in Yu.