gutted, and maybe she did not – and he railed at his comrade. The latter, on his
knees, behaved as Athavul had when Hanse shouted at him. He fell over and rolled
away, assuming the foetal posture while he wept and pled.
The killer spat several expletives and whirled back to his victim. She was
twitching, dying. Yanking open the vermilion cloak, he jerked off her necklace,
ripped a twisted silver loop out of each ear, and yanked at the scantling purse
on her girdle. It refused to come free. He sliced it with the swift single
movement of a practised expert. Straightening, he glanced in every direction,
said something to his partner – who rolled foetally, sobbing.
‘Theba take you, then,’ the thief said, and ran.
Back into the shadows of the market building’s west corner he fled, and one of
the shadows tripped him. As he fell, an elbow thumped the back of his neck.
‘I want what you’ve got, you murdering bastard,’ a shadow-voice said from the
shadows, while the footpad twisted to roll over. ‘Your kind gives thieves a bad
name.’
‘Take it then!’ The fallen man rammed the white staff into the shadow’s thigh as
it started to bend over him.
Instantly fear seized Hanse. Viced him; encompassed him; possessed him.
Sickening, stomach-fluttering fear. His armpits flooded and his sphincter
fluttered.
Unlike the stick’s victims he had seen, he was in darkness, and he was
Shadowspawn. He did not fall to his knees.
He fled, desperately afraid, snivelling, clutching his gut, babbling. Tears
flowed to blind him, but he was in darkness anyhow. Staggering, weeping,