The roar sent a tremor down the street, and set off several alarming noises that ‘Tj’Chin’Ker could tell came from the odd carts humans usually drove distances in this city that they should have been walking. But the sleek, rounded oval vehicles sat parked along the sides of the street, and now all cried out in offended fear, like the panicked belling of elk when trolls closed them into a wicket lined glen to be slaughtered. And at the moment ‘Ker thought he could commiserate with both the elk, and these autocars. This second bellow of rage from the predator who had emerged from the little shop he had been in was now slowly following his own trail.

Not certain if the thing that Amra’s men were using was tracking him by scent, sight, or by some sense more arcane in nature, ‘Ker looked around the street, and made a mad dash at the tall green metal pole that stood at the corner of the street he was on where it intersected another. With a heave, he sent his body hurtling towards the middle length of the pole. Grabbing ahold of the then roughly four of his own strides above the ground, ‘Ker swung himself up to the graceful arc of the pole that hung over the street with a bulbous, leaf shaped eye, the kind of which he had seen emitting light the night before as he had traveled about the city when first meeting with his ultimate forebear.

With another straining heave, he sent himself up and over the side of the storefront on the corner, trying to gain higher ground from which to either defend himself, or to at least offer more directions in which he might flee. With a rattling clatter, he landed on the roof of the little building.

…and now I am thinking of this as “little”... what a world this has become that has me judging a place that could hold several families as “little”... he thought as he rolled, and grabbed at his right shin where it had painfully struck the top edge of the structure.

Looking at his leg, he saw that the pant leg was barely torn at all, and none of its fabric had been lost as it had torn. He knew his leg would be bruised later, but that required his not dying now, and so up to his feet he leapt.

Crouching at the raised lip of the building’s facade, ‘Ker checked his pockets with his hands as he checked the streets below with his eyes. Two and a half blocks back to the East, he could see the white suits of three men as they moved slowly up the street behind a much larger shambling brute of a thing wearing the tattered remains of the slovenly kept white suit that “other” had been wearing when it had pretended at humanity.

What had been a tall, shabby human with an unkempt beard and shaggy hair was now a brutish thing that looked as much bear as it did simian. Long arms, overly muscled and covered in coarse hair that looked almost like quills. The thing’s hands were long clawed horrors made more for tearing down trees than hunting, and his face had lost almost all traces of the humanity that it had hid behind earlier, with a fanged muzzle, and large, dark eyes that protruded slightly from the sides of the thing’s head.

The thing’s pelt was browns and darker hues, though from his perch on the roof two blocks away he was not certain that he was seeing it properly, but it had a blaze of white hair in a diamond pattern on its forehead and trailing down the top of its muzzle.

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…I’ve had a few dogs with that exact same blaze… and more than a few horses… It was a weird thought to have about a monster striding up the street looking to kill you, but he would admit that this was not a usual day for ‘Tj’Chin’Ker, and hadn’t been since he was taken prisoner by Father’s personal guards.

Keeping crouched as low as he could, he watched as the thing slowly moved his snout back and forth in the morning air, turning its long neck to allow a better view with one eye, and then the other. As it took a halting step forward, one of Amra’s men yelled something at it and pointed up the street.

He had come too close to the behemoth, and a long, rudderlike tail he hadn’t noticed before quickly lashed out to the side, sweeping the man in the white suit off his feet and sending his limp form crashing into the side of some poor person’s autocar. The remaining three men all made the same gesture, and arcane sigils in gold stitched the air between themselves and the hulking thing.

It roared again.

Several nearby windows, on both businesses and autocars, cracked and splintered.

‘Ker then heard several screams. Humans.

Slowly the behemoth turned back toward the path he had run up the sidewalks and began to trudge toward him, or at least toward where he had last been. He knew he needed weapons of some kind, and desperately wished for a good bow and at least a dozen broadhead arrows.

He had his two bone knives.

But they required him to get close, and he didn’t want to do that with the thing who’s paws were the size of his chest.

Looking around the roof, he couldn’t see a thing that he might use to his advantage. Not even a chimney from which he could have levered away some bricks or stones to throw. Nothing… He began to wonder how these humans got anything done.

Not that they got nothing done, none of the businesses here looked like the people inside were as cold as he was now, but they kept their places warm in the winter here without fireplaces, hearths, and smoke and fire.

Impressive any other day.

Vexing as all fuck today, however.

Looking to the back of the building, he saw a gap between his rooftop and the roof of another building that must have faced the street just to the north, and the alley between the two buildings just needed to be leapt, and he could make his way from roof to roof without leaving a scent trail on the street and sidewalks.

If the thing following him was as good at tracking as a hound that wouldn’t work, he knew. But, it was a chance.

Scooting back further from the edge, he then stood, turned, and ran at the back of the building. Feeling the wind on his face, and the pounding of his feet on the roof matched the blood being pushed through his body by his laboring heart.

“Ker smiled.

A small leaping step put his foot on the back parapet.

A bunching of his leg muscles… and release!

He was flying over the alley, and three body lengths away was another roof. Safety, for a little while longer. And every extra moment one can cadge means another chance. Ne opportunities.

BANG!

Blackness...

Falling...