'Damn.' Holsley took the stairs two at a time. 'Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.'

Breathless, he looked down. Fox was standing right there. From the werecreature's super casual demeanour, Holsley guessed he'd probably been there for a few seconds, too. Well, that wasn't good. Fox leapt up the steps, his teeth bared, and Holsley had just enough time to kick at the pile of wooden crates they'd placed nearby and send them careening down the steps.

'Come here, you little brat!' Fox hissed, opening his claws and using the walls to dodge the oncoming obstacles. 'We've got a score to settle.'

If that had been a tubhead or even another thief, those crates would have bought Holsley at least a few moments, precious seconds he could use manoeuvring himself out of the window and up towards an easy escape. This was Fox, though, and Fox was fast. As Holsley hit the next corner hard, Fox pivoted around the top of the stairs.

The door to the bedroom was already open. Holsley flew through it at record speed and slammed it shut. The lock fell into place a mere millisecond before Fox arrived. Banging ensued, and when fists weren't enough, ten equally painful-looking claws shot through the wood.

Fortunately, they had planned for this. Well, not this specifically, but something like this. A wardrobe had been carefully balanced near the door.

Without a moment to lose, Holsley threw himself into the gap between it and the wall and pushed as if his life depended on it, which it did. The wardrobe itself was already teetering on two legs, so it was fairly easy to get the whole thing over. It fell with a heavy thud and bought Holsley at least three more moments.

A loud growl echoed from the other side, proceeded by more banging.

'Who is it?' Holsley cooed. 'You'll have to wait a minute. I'm just getting out of the shower.'

'Open this door!' Fox demanded. 'When I get my hands on you—'

'I'm very sorry, but we don't accept cold callers at this address,' Holsley interrupted him. 'You might have better luck next door.'

He couldn't see it, but Holsley could hear it. Fox was ripping the door apart with his claws. It was time to go.

Holsley bounded to the open window and climbed outside. He hesitated. The window hovered on the first floor and some distance from the ground. That wasn't what worried him, though, not after dangling off the Old Stone Keep. It was the scaffold beams below. The fall would be quite painful if he were to slip.

There was a thud from behind. Holsley looked back just in time to see the wardrobe inch forward. Fox was seconds away from entering the room. Holsley stepped over the window's ledge and put a foot onto the scaffolding. From there, he edged his way along it. When he found the right purchase, he would climb up onto the roof for a daring escape.

Disconcerting bashes and thuds came from the room behind him as he ascended the awkwardly placed wooden rafters. His stomach sank. He hadn't noticed it before, but the scaffolding had been here for some time. Most of the wood was bloated and moss-ridden, making the planks slippery, and whenever he put his weight on one, he heard a worrying creak.

There was a final crash in the room below him, and Holsley knew Fox had gotten inside.

This realisation matched with his sudden panic forced him to move quicker, but it was by doing this that he made a damn near fatal mistake. Holsley rushed towards a ladder that would ascend to the roof, but his foot caught something, and he stumbled. Hand out, he reached for a beam nearby. It slipped off easily.

Holsley fell.

'Oh!'

He crashed through not one, but two planks. Crunch. Crunch. He then landed awkwardly on a wooden rafter that hovered about ten feet from the floor. With a wince of pain, he looked up and saw Fox staring down at him. The creature must have had a sixth sense, too, because by the way he was looking at Holsley, the young bard could tell he knew his fall hadn't been part of the plan.

Fox licked his blackened lips, rolling his tongue along the fangs.

There was no time to focus on the pain from where his body had landed on the rafter, which was everywhere by the way, he now had to run. The young bard dropped the last ten feet and made a choking sound. His chest hurt the most, but he was pretty sure nothing was broken.

Fortunately, Fox didn't seem too eager to drop down into the many scaffolds choking the alleyway, which gave Holsley a head start. Not much of a head start, but he'd take what he could get. Holsley shuffled through the many wooden beams set at all kinds of awkward angles. It was like a spider's web of wood, which, he supposed, made him the fly.

Holsley had done this before as a child. A few times, actually. He and Roland would race one another from one end of the alley to the other. He smiled. Even back then, Roland could breeze through most challenges, while Holsley was always left behind. It had been okay, though. Holsley had never played to win.

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Now, he needed to be the victor.

'I-I don't suppose we can just forget about this?' Holsley called over his shoulder as he hurdled over another low beam just before ducking beneath another. He was breathless already. Pathetic. 'Why don't we just c-call it a—'

URK!

With a surprising lurch, Holsley suddenly came to a stop. Something had grabbed hold of him. Looking back, he half expected it to be Fox. Instead, he found the redrose lute had become trapped between the two beams he had just squirrelled through. The strap that kept the lute around his shoulders was now keeping him locked in place.

Holsley gave the strap a yank, but it became more taught.

'Uh oh,' he whispered, tugging it again.

'Having a little trouble?' Fox was closing in. The young bard could see him through the criss-cross of beams. 'This has to be the easiest chase I've ever been a part of.'

'Uh, no,' replied Holsley, tugging the lute. 'No trouble. Thanks for asking, though.'

Fox had slowed down significantly and had even taken to showing off. Holsley didn't know why he wanted the ring in the first place; he seemed to get by well enough without it. The werefox hopped from one beam to another and squeezed through the gaps of others with very little effort.

'I've got to ask,' Fox called to him, ducking beneath another beam. 'Why are you helping Roland this much?'

'He's my friend.' Holsley was getting sick of explaining this. 'That's why.'

'You mentioned the same at the tavern,' replied Fox. 'What's in it for you, though? Is he paying you?'

'No,' Holsley said, a little affronted by the suggestion. 'I saw his poster and came to his rescue. He would have done the same for me.'

Fox grinned. He was ever so close now, no more than a few feet away, watching the young bard continue to struggle with the trapped lute. Holsley changed tactics. Instead of trying to pull the lute free, he tried pushing it back through the gap instead. It gave an inch, then another. Slowly, he ground it towards freedom.

'Can I give you some advice?'

'What's that?'

Pop.

The lute came free in such a sudden motion that Holsley found himself falling again. This time backwards. He hit another beam and felt the wind rush out of him. He groaned as he pushed himself back up.

A silhouette blocked out the sun, and when he looked up, he saw Fox.

'You should ditch Roland before he ditches you,' Fox snarled. 'That's my advice.'

'You know,' Holsley said breathlessly, holding the lute tight. 'People keep telling me to do that. What exactly do you think he's going to do to me?'

'The same thing he did to me.' Fox leaned forward, his head only a few inches away. Holsley stared up into those beady eyes and tensed. 'Your friend abandoned me. He cost me my life. I was finally going to pay off my debts and leave Tressa for good, but then Roland stepped in, and I got the brunt of it.'

'The brunt of what?'

'Alas, if only there were time to get into it,' Fox sighed. 'I'd love to tell you all about what Roland did, but I need to be getting on. Just trust me when I say that Roland uses people and then discards them. You're just the next one in line.'

'I don't believe you,' said Holsley, although he didn't sound too sure anymore. There had been a lot of opinions floating around about Roland lately, and it was growing increasingly harder to ignore them all.

'Doesn't matter either way.' Fox raised his paw, those dagger-like claws on full display. Holsley thought about running, but he was stuck here. By the time he moved, he would be cut to ribbons. 'Now, you're going to hand over my ring, my lute, and then I'm going to hand you over to the guards.'

Holsley backed up, hitting a wooden beam behind him. There was no way out.

'I don't have your ring,' he said quickly.

'Oh, please,' Fox replied with a grin. 'You think I'm stupid? I know you're a spellcaster, and I know you conjured an image of it to trick me into chasing after Roland.'

'Uh,' Holsley mumbled.

An arrow came out of nowhere.

Fox let out a howl as the projectile hit him square through the shoulder with enough force to come out on the other side. Holsley looked up to where the shot had come from and caught sight of a group of tubheads on the rooftops. They were each holding crossbows and aiming them in their direction.

Two of them were shouting that they had found Holsley, while the others let more arrows loose.

'We're on the same side, you idiots!' Fox barked at them.

Holsley saw then that he had one chance.

A thousand ideas assailed him all at once. He could charm Fox with a spell. How many spells did he have left? He had one left. Oh yeah, he had healed Roland earlier when he'd collapsed in through the door.

Holsley could cast a charming spell, but he knew Fox had too strong a will. Maybe he could put Fox to sleep, but the bard had never cast the spell successfully. Perhaps he could commune to Fox's, uh, vulpine side, but that wouldn't work. He had to act quickly; he only had a few seconds of distraction.

Holsley did what he did best in these situations: he panicked.

Fox had probably expected Holsley to do any number of things, but when he turned back, the bard had apparently picked the only one he hadn't thought of. The large drum of the indestructible lute let out a single excited twang as it connected with the rogue's elongated snout. Holsley heard a crunch, saw the blood rush out of Fox's nose as the swing of his attack caught the creature. Fox stumbled, dumbstruck, and spun backwards over a nearby beam.

His head connected with the ground, knocking the consciousness right out of him.

Holsley was stunned. He couldn't move. He couldn't believe that had worked. The young bard hadn't held back. He honestly didn't know how to. This was perhaps the third time he'd ever hit anyone in his entire life, but it did the trick.

'Maybe I should be a barbarian instead?' he said to himself, then chuckled. 'Ha. A bard-barian. Classic.'

An arrow struck the wooden beam directly next to him.

Holsley snapped out of his pride. He had just enough sense to grab hold of Fox's satchel — the one containing the ruby, and then suddenly the bard was vaulting over wooden beams again. The tubheads above him didn't let up. Arrow after arrow came flying in his direction, but he had plenty of cover thanks to the scaffolding.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

The arrows rained down upon him, but not one of them hit. He flew across the last few beams blocking his way out of the alley and turned on his heel around the next corner. Holsley had made it to the streets and, thank the Gods, there were no tubheads on the ground. They must all be on the rooftops.

More arrows came, but he was quickly down another alley and out of range.

Before this had happened, he, Merhim, and Roland had all agreed on a rendezvous point, each knowing that they were going to split up in their race across the rooftops. It was just a few streets away, and he didn't stop moving his legs until he arrived.

The Grey Corridor was a piece of the Unending Alley that no one went down, making it the perfect place to meet up without being seen. Holsley rounded the last corner, Fox's satchel held close to his chest.

His breath caught. Roland wasn't there yet.

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