Nighttime on the Roof Tops

"We have to share a bed?" Shandra asked as they walked into their room. It was a plain room with only one window and one dirty mattress with a dirty sheet and blanket on it. No pillows.

"Would you rather sleep outside where rapist werewolves dance?" Raven asked, kicking off her boots.

"Yah and that little blanket is all we got, so we got to share." Bishop said, sitting down on the bed kicking off his boots as well. Raven slid off her pants and laid her weapons on top of her pants. She lay down next to Bishop, who had lie down and relaxed.

"I don't care how dirty the mattress is, it's comfy." Raven said, giving an ahh as her muscles relaxed. Casavir kicked off his boots and armor and lied down next to Raven. Shandra then laid down her armor and slept next to Casavir. "Let's just get some sleep." Raven said, examining her arm once more.

It was not a purplish blue and wrapped all the way around her arm. Her shoulders had already begun healing and were turning a lighter pink. Raven lay on Bishop's arm, which was very warm. When she laid her head on him, he flinched back.

"What?" she asked.

"Are in a fever?" he asked.

Shandra crawled over Casavir and laid a hand on Raven's forehead. "My god, you are." She said. "You're burning up."

"I told you the cake was bad." Bishop snorted.

"It's not the cake or we would all be sick, Raven just caught something from the children in the burning house or from that werewolf dude.

Raven pushed away Shandra's hand. "I'm fine."

But she wasn't fine, and later that night she spent some of her time throwing up out of a window. While everyone watched her butt up in the air and her head out the window, they sat quietly, watching… Eventually she stopped. She wiped her mouth and spit out the window.

"I'm fine!" She said as they gave her a troubled look. "I probly had too much to drink or something."

"Wont someone slip on your barf outside?" Shandra asked.

Raven shook her head. "Nah, I got it in a barrel full on water outside." Raven chuckled and lay back down next to Bishop. She fell asleep the fastest.

Raven awoke shivering. She left the window open. Her eyes were looking at Bishop's naked chest and she was cuddling with him in their sleep. Raven sometimes did that when she was an infant. She got up and closed the window. She looked out and saw shadows moving about. Raven sighed and grabbed a beer from her bag and slipped on her boots. She grabbed her dagger and buckled it around her waist, not caring if she had pants were on or not. She walked outside and leaned against the building, her fever noticeable now. She breathed heavy and opened her beer. She stood out there for a couple of minutes until the door opened, revealing Bishop. He leaned up against the wall of the tavern next to her and studied her. She was obviously paler than normal and looks tired and weighted down. She hand him the beer and he took it, taking a long swig from it then giving it back.

"Couldn't sleep either?" she asked.

"I was asleep until I noticed that my teifling-on-fire was gone and I was shivering like crazy." He said. "And I will never be too cold to cuddle with Casavir."

"Ha! I'd love to see that! …," Raven started a coughing fit. "… Couldn't sleep, too sick to care and too cold." Bishop wrapped his warm arm around her and she felt better. "Gods I wish we didn't come here." She said.

"If it were up to me, I would have left this village to rot." Bishop said.

"Yah, well, you leave everything to rot." Raven said, looking up at him.

Bishop grabbed Raven's ring and played with it near her breast. "You like this thing?"

"It's a present from Casavir." Raven said, "And it's very exotic and thoughtful."

"He was going to get you a dress and when he told me I started laughing." Bishop said. "He obviously doesn't know you as well as I do, to know that you hate dresses."

"I haven't been talking to him lately, being busy and all."

They sat there starring at each other, not knowing what to say next. Then there was a howl, which was nearby. They both looked to see a werewolf, standing there, looking at them on the rooftop of the building next to them. It howled again and three more came from behind.

"Crap." Raven muttered as she pulled out her dagger. Bishop drew back in the tavern and Raven got ready to fight. One dropped down and changed to its human form. It was Aris.

"My, my, don't you know it's dangerous to be out at night?" He asked. "You don't look well my dear, are you sick with fever?"

"Right, you can walk away, or I'll stab you in your smug face." Raven threated, dagger held tight in hand.

Aris laughed, his laugh sent a shiver down Raven's spine. "In your condition, it's amazing you can even stand, let alone fight."

"I've suffered worse." Raven said.

And she has. Back in West Harbor, when she was a little girl, she caught swamp fever, from a gas cloud that she inhaled while exploring the swamps. She remembered when Daughen never left her side, just giving her medicine or fed her food. But that was when he was a little more open, now he just was a gray blob. It gave her a dull pain in her chest that Daughen was once… happy. West Harbor was full of killer diseases but Harbormen grown accustom to them and resisted it.

"Well, if you ever survive the night, I'll be amazed, but I seriously doubt that." Aris said, vanishing into the shadows. Then one of the werewolves charged at her and Raven got ready to counter it, but it just flew helplessly beside her and died. An arrow was in its chest, right where the heart lay beneath the fur. Raven looked over to see Bishop with his wooden bow and arrow drawn, in the doorway.

"Nice shot." She whispered to him as the last two werewolves eyed them.

"I never miss." Bishop whisper, pulling back the arrow more as a werewolf made a slight move.

"Don't get too full of yourself, dearie." Raven said then threw her dagger in a smooth blur of a motion. It landed in the throat of the one on the right. The one on the left was about to lunge at her, but Bishop shot him in the leg and it collapsed off the roof, snapping its neck. Raven got her bow and quiver from Bishop. She climbed the roof tops and grabbed her knife.

As she retrieved it, another werewolf had surprised her and attacked. It tackled her and they fell on the other side of the house, so Bishop couldn't save her. She landed on her back, pushing the air out of her lungs. The werewolf got up, trying to catch its breath as well. Raven would have been defenseless in her state of no air, but she had trained herself how to move and regain air at the same time. She tackled the beast and they rolled up to the wall of another house and Raven landed on the chest of the beast. She then stabbed it in the heart and it struggled for a bit then went down. She pulled out the dagger and looked down, she was covered in blood.

"Where is she?" Casavir asked, panic evident in his tone.

"She went over the roof on the other side as some werewolf tackled her. I heard the struggle but she made it." Bishop answered, annoyed by the panicky questions of Casavir.

"This is bad." Shandra said, struggling not to let her voice shake. "If she start hallucinating or something she might die!"

"You guys really need to relax, she's on the other side, we just walk around the street and find her, drinking or something." Bishop said, calmly.

"How can you not worry?" Shandra asked. "She could be dead or kidnapped."

"Because she's a Harborman and they know how to survive, plus I know she can take care of herself." Bishop said.

"Let's just find her." Casavir said, leading the way around the street.

When they arrived, there was a dead werewolf, but no Raven. There was another corpse, hanging off the roof with a pierced neck where an arrow once was. Bishop climbed to the roof to be flooded with the images of dead werewolves everywhere on the roof, shot or stabbed.

"You guys better get up here." Bishop called down to them. As they got up they were amazed at how many werewolves one could kill.

"Damn." Shandra whispered. "You were right, Bishop."

"I always am." Bishop said, looking down for a trail. He leaped from the roof to one lower and so on. The others followed as he trailed Raven. Finally they heard battle in the street below them and saw Raven fighting off four other werewolves.

"How." Raven said, stabbing one of the werewolves. "Many." Another went down. "Damn." She then kicked one and it shuffled back a little. "Were…wolves." One lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her. Pinning her sides while one sharped his claws, ready to tear out her heart. It the stabbed forward and missed, instead it caught the arm of his brother behind her. "Are in." She slit the throat of the wounded one. "This town." One from behind lunged at her and she jumped back, landing on her burned shoulders and used her legs to plant its head in the ground. The last two ran away, realizing they lost the fight. Raven spat blood on the ground and was heaving like crazy. She was covered in sweat and blood. She retrieved her bow, which she dropped in the ground during the fight.

"Damn!" Shandra said aloud, making Raven jump a couple of feet. She glared at the farm girl and climbed up to the roof tops and sat next to them. She lay on the roof, looking up at the stars.

"Thirty-two." She said to Bishop.

"What?" He asked.

"I killed thirty-two. I win." She smiled. Her and Bishop had been having completions on who killed the most. Bishop mostly won, but not tonight…