The Excalibur (Space Lore Book 2) Read Free Page B

task. A short, hairy Ppollop poured hot water down a storm drain after closing up his restaurant for the night. Morgan raced past him without the Ppollop acknowledging that someone had even been there, let alone rushed past. An Ignis Moris was stacking wooden crates on top of each other behind his store. The fiery alien had to wear special gloves so that each crate didn’t burst into flames when he touched them. A pair of feathery, dainty aliens stood face to face in the middle of a lover’s argument. Morgan raced past these as well.
    At the next intersection of alleys she paused just long enough to see which way Fastolf and his companion had gone. Turning right, she bolted after them. By the time she got to the next crossing she had cut their lead in half. At the next intersection, they turned left, she followed, and she was only twenty yards behind them. She laughed, knowing Fastolf was tiring and didn’t have much more left in him.
    Racing down the next alleyway, she was almost upon them. But that was when, still running, Fastolf’s companion smacked a large, ogre-like alien on the back of the head as they ran past. When the Crunklin turned around, already growling and ready to kill whatever had hit it, Fastolf and his fellow thief were well past it and turning the next corner. The only thing it saw was Morgan.
    She skidded to a halt and sheathed her sword, holding her hands out to show she didn’t mean trouble. The Crunklin was hunched over but was still a foot taller than her. Its arms were as thick as her waist. When it roared its displeasure, she saw thick teeth as long as her fingers.
    “I don’t want trouble,” she said.
    It growled at her but didn’t move forward.
    To be safe she withdrew her Meursault blade again. A circle of dark mist made its way around her as she twirled the sword into a defensive position.
    “I don’t want trouble,” she said again. “It was them, not me.” She pointed in the direction of the two figures that had disappeared into the distance.
    The Crunklin turned and listened to the footsteps racing away, then gave a softer, lower growl.
    “Are we okay?” Morgan asked.
    The Crunklin gave a hum and backed away to let her pass.
    The race was back on.
    Even with the extra time to get away, it only took another three blocks for her to see Fastolf again. The man was hunched over, still trying to get away, but too out of breath to do anything but hobble forward. His fellow thief, just as wide as Fastolf, stood next to him, urging him forward.
    “You don’t even know how bad I’m going to hurt you,” Morgan shouted as she closed the distance between them.
    Fastolf looked at her racing toward him, then groaned. His companion waited a moment longer to see whether the fat man would attempt to climb over the next fence. Then, seeing that Fastolf was done for, the other thief began scaling the fence and was almost all the way over when Morgan got there.
    She yanked on the first thing her fingers found: a bit of fabric. Instead of pulling the other thief off the fence, she came away with a cloak that was full of thick padding.
    In the shadows, safely out of reach, the other thief stopped to look back at Morgan, and Morgan noticed the person Fastolf had been with wasn’t as big as him at all. Not even half his weight. Knowing that she had to choose between going after the other thief or remaining near Fastolf, she stopped the chase. She was alone with the one person she managed to like and detest at the same time.
    “Fastolf, Fastolf, Fastolf. What am I going to do with you?”
    After running farther than he had run in his entire adult life, he was still too exhausted to say anything. Each time he sucked in a new breath of oxygen he sounded like a ship’s engine struggling to start. Gasping, he couldn’t form clear words. Instead of saying anything intelligible, he whimpered a series of noises like a newborn baby. As he did, he raised his eyebrows as if she would understand what he