Robert Asprin – Thieves World 09 – Blood Ties

Whur’s it from at?”

“Firaqa,” Strick told him. “Way up northwest. Not part of Ranke’s Empire. Mints its own coins, with the sign of the Flame. It will spend; it’s silver.”

Immediately after his last word came the sound of his clucking to his horse.

Fulcris swallowed, but at once made the same sound in his cheek. That worked; the horses moved forward and the two accosters stepped back on either side. The speaker extended a number of armbands.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” he told Strick, as the latter accepted the

“passes.”

“Fulcris,” Strick said, and passed one to the caravaner. “Noble Shafralain?”

The nobleman would not turn or glance at the proffering hand. “I had far rather chop the arm off that arrogant snot than put one of his dirty rags on my arm!”

“Me too,” Strick said, equably as ever. “But while we did that, the other would have flicked his trigger and sent a crossbow bolt into… one of us.”

“Those boys?! Likelier he’d have missed!”

“Father-r…”

“Agreed,” the quiet voice said from behind stiff-backed Shafralain, “and alone,

Fulcris and I might have taken that chance. I’m very aware of being in the presence of a noble of this city-and of two women.”

The only way out of that one was for Shafralain to take offense by pretending to have been accused of cowardice. Either he chose not to do or he didn’t think of it. “Hmp,” he muttered. “What has become of my city while I have been out of it?”

Coincidence or that goddess known as Lady Chance chose to let Strick and milady answer in chorus: “We had better find out,” and she went on, “and be careful the while.”