Robert Asprin – Thieves World 09 – Blood Ties

She put fingers to her lips and gave a high whistle of her own. While he was free and unjessed, Reyk was trained to follow wherever she went. The falcon dropped from the sky to perch on her arm. She took the jess and a small hood from her belt, stroked her pet a few times, and passed him into Dismas’s care.

Then she took Walegrin by the arm. “Come up to the house. Commander. There’s more wine and a bite to eat.” She called back to the two former thieves. “Wake all the others,” she instructed. “Daphne, too. They’re all involved.”

These were treasonous times, and it was time to talk treason.

Eight men. That was all that remained of the Popular Front for the Liberation of

Sanctuary, Zip assured her. There were no more. And looking him straight in the eye, she believed him.

They were a rag-tag lot, some even without sandals or boots. But they carried good Nisibisi metal or equally well-crafted weapons recovered from Rankans and

Beysibs they had murdered. They were young, the eight, but as they huddled in the deep shadows of the old stables off Granary Road, their armament was cold reminder of the treachery and chaos they had inspired.

It was time, though, for her treachery, and she led them swiftly down Granary

Road, past a comer of her own estate to the Avenue of Temples. Noiselessly, they stole up to the Gate of the Gods, wide-eyed rats, eager for a taste of cheese.

She looked at Zip’s face, barely visible in the shadows, feeling something that bordered on regret. He, of all these cutthroats, seemed sincere in his quest for llsig liberation. But he had murdered Rankans-her people-and so many others, done such evil in freedom’s name. She turned away from him and rapped quietly on the sealed gate, glad that Sabellia had not yet risen to shine on this moment.