Robert Asprin – Thieves World 09 – Blood Ties

The rest were emerging now: at least twenty fighters-the 3rd never traveled light.

The sight of Kama in her battle dress, with the 3rd’s red insignia burned into hardened leather above her right breast and campaign designators scratched below it, made his stomach lurch.

She was unfinished business, would always be. He said, “So, here I am. Talk,” and found his tongue unwieldy.

Around her, he realized (as his eyes accustomed themselves to something other than the dead man, handless and footless, who still flopped helplessly in his inner sight), were others of the uptown gangs who masqueraded as authority in

Sanctuary: Critias, a covert actionist from the Sacred Band who seldom ventured forth in uniform and never in daylight; Straton, his wide-shouldered, witch ridden partner; Jubal, black as Ischade’s cloak and with a look on his face much blacker; Walegrin, the regular army’s garrison commander and brother of the

S’danzo whose child Zip’s men had killed; and a blond woman he didn’t know, who wore arena leathers and had a bird perched on her shoulder.

He ought to be wary, he realized-this sort of crowd hadn’t gathered for something as mundane as his execution. But his eyes kept sliding back to Kama and trying to fit the persona of her father over the woman who’d taught him things about lovemaking he’d never dreamed were possible.

And then he realized why these uptown hotshots were down in Ratfall; Kama’s father. Tempus’s minions, all of these were, some by choice, some by duty, some by coercion. And none of them with a good word to say of Zip, except perhaps for the Riddler’s daughter.