Trickster Sun was leaving for the night, its red face already hidden behind the buildings, and the sky took on a deep maroon shade. Nua watched the square adjacent to the physician’s house. Several hourglasses ago, it was crowded with passersby who were spending the long, warm evening in the nearby shops and alehouses. Right now the city was preparing for the sunless part of the night, and people dispersed. An occasional patrol of two vigiles passed in the distance, paying no heed to the group of armed men who directed their steps straight to the medic’s front door.

They did not see Nua or Shadow, both hidden in the backyard. The black-scaled musushu faded into twilight with ease, as her name suggested. The girl heard a clunky noise coming from her side – it was the medic, who withdrew into the house and was now locking the door with a chain.

“Opportunist,” muttered Anki.

Nua noted the new, fancy insult and decided to ask about its meaning later. She fished out her fighting stick from the supplies and then, clinging to the shadows, she approached the group.

There were five of them, all large and much taller than she was. Their leader, a bald muscular guy with a generous mustache, started by banging at the medic’s door.

“Lucanus!” He yelled. “Open up! We heard you have a beast-eyed in there.”

“Give us the Forsaken one!” added another, younger and with a wide berth, clad in dark blue garments laced with gold and silver thread. Nua frowned. This one’s clothes looked expensive.

“The whole hospital’s defiled now,” growled the one who looked wiry and middle-aged. “Lucanus! You whoreson! Give us the cursed one or we’ll purify the place with fire!”

“I haven’t seen that level of hatred yet,” Anki muttered.

“I should have predicted that,” said Nua. “We’re in a good district. It’s not safe.”

“So, the guards are not our friends, I gather?”

“If I call them, they will put me in shackles. You heard the medic. Unsagga are thieves.”

“You aren’t going to attack those people, are you?”

“Not quite,” she said. “I have a plan. It’s a dumb plan, but I have no smart ones left.”

“Well, let me hear it.”

“You see, there’s a part where they get pissed off, and there’s the other part. That’s where it becomes tricky...”

A few weeks ago, Nua would do all in her power to keep her distance and avoid confrontation. Right now, she was comparing the attackers to the mercenaries she was sparring daily with. Yes, they looked strong. They were equipped with torches and wooden bats or empty bottles. But they were also untrained, and by their movements and the slight slur in their speech, it looked like they spent the last few hours happily downing alcohol.

She could, as the medic suggested, frighten them with Shadow’s help, but she was worried about the steed. Five armed men were a threat to a musushu, no matter how well-trained and fierce it was. She needed to engage them herself and draw them into the back alley, where the darkness was at her side.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Hey! Turds!” Nua stepped out of the shadows. No one even looked at her. She made a few more steps and took a deep breath.

“Ghoul fornicators!”

The leader turned his head.

“Get lost, pipsqueak. We do not have a quarrel with you.”

The girl was clutching her weapon.

“Yeah? Then why so angry? Did you sit on hot sand and get your balls burned?

“Good! Now insult their mothers,” Anki instructed.

As a native denizen of the Bottoms, and one that spent the last weeks explosively expanding her vocabulary, Nua didn’t need help from an ancient king to come up with invectives.

“Or is it because you drank date wine with your rear end? Oh, no, I’m so sorry. How could I mistake your face for an ass? Do you have a bashmu in your nearest family, or you’re just that ugly?”

One of the men actually chuckled. That made the leader turn red like a beet.

“Shut your trap, beast eyes.” He advanced.

“Or what? Are you going to put your last hair on the line?”

The man made a wide, clumsy lunge. Nua stepped aside and swirled her baton.

Now, Hessa had warned her that drunks can be deceptively hard to fight because they don’t feel as much pain. Strike to incapacitate, she said. Use the dirtiest tricks at your disposal.

Contrary to popular opinion, it is not easy to hit an opponent in the nether regions. The need to protect them is deeply instinctual. There are other painful and less guarded spots, where a well-measured hit can incapacitate an adult man. For example, the back of the knee.

The leader went down with a grunt. The torch he was holding rolled on the pavement. Before the others reacted, Nua picked it up, then threw it into the nearby gutter.

“Why, thank you for kneeling!” she jumped back. “I didn’t know I made such an impression!”

She didn’t need to taunt them more. The man in expensive clothing went after her first. She found an opening and smashed his nose. While he was holding his face, she added a generous hit between his knees. Then she backed away. The older, wiry one was less drunk and more troublesome. Apparently, he had experience in bar fights, and Nua was still not an expert with her baton. She dodged him for a while, all that time drawing the fight back and back into the alley. For them, it seemed that she overestimated her abilities and was trying to disengage.

“Pass me the light!” The older man ordered. “I can’t see the wretched kid.”

“You should’ve listened to your mom and eaten carrots,” called Nua, whose sight in the dark was unimpeded.

“There she is!” He took the torch from his accomplice. This was what Nua waited for. She gritted her teeth and jumped from behind a crate in an attempt to smack his wrist. She missed, then spend a frightening moment avoiding two of her opponents at once.

Then, she got lucky and struck his elbow.

The man’s arm went limp, and a shriek of agony permeated the air. Nua hopped around, trying to get the torch away from his reach and not get hit by the others. At this point, three of them were engaged in a fight at once. Finally, she succeeded at catching it. Then, it was a matter of running into the backyard and smothering the torch in the trash crate. The three goons found themselves behind the building, in what their eyes interpreted as near-total darkness. There was a low growl coming from behind the crate, then a large reptilian shape – to them, barely visible – slowly emerged.

Nua could see them just fine.

From there, she made a short work of them. They started backing away, so she made sure to smack at the ear of the wiry one and break the nose of another, while Shadow lunged in an all-out assault on her pack’s enemies. The steed dealt at least one nasty bite and locked her front paws on her opponent when Nua called her back. She didn’t want any of the goons to stay in the backyard, and – gods forfend – attract the medic. They retreated in haste.

“Follow them, Anki, as far as you can.” She sat on the ground, exhaustion getting to her. Shadow, who was still circling the backyard’s perimeter in an anxious stride, trotted back and gave her a worried nudge. “They aren’t really wounded. They can return.”

“I highly doubt it,” the king said. “You gave them a good scare.”

She got up, then patted Shadow on her neck. The musushu was tired, too. She was a desert animal, but she still needed to drink at some point. She was also starting to develop a bad limp. They settled back near the garbage pile, and Nua looked for more snacks. “I will stay up until morning,” she said, but her eyes were already closing.

Anki let her sleep.