Thieves World 3 – Shadows of Sanctuary by Asprin, Robert

VASHANKA, however, abruptly disappeared from the facade of that structure,

which was the Governor’s Palace.

4

Oh damn, but my damned head aches!

Pox and plague, that’s rain on my face and I’m getting soaked!

Holy cess- I’m alive!

None of these thoughts prompted Hanse to move, not for a longish while. Then he

tried opening his mouth to let rain assuage a sore throat, and choked on the

fifth or sixth drop. He sat up hurriedly. His grunt was not from his head, which

felt fat and swollen and stuffed to bursting. He rolled swiftly leftward off a

source of sharper pain. He had been lying on his back. Under him, thonged to his

belt, had been the ruins of a nice leathern bag of broken pottery.

If I don’t bleed to death I’ll be picking pieces of pottery out of my tail for a

week!

That thought made him angry and with a low groan he rose to glare triumphantly

on the faintly smoking remnant of a destroyed shrub. Its neighbour looked almost

as bad. Shadowspawn took no chances with it. Avoiding shrubs and indeed anything

herbaceous that was larger than a blade of grass, he went to the nearest window.

Just as he completed his slow slicing of the sheet of pig’s bladder stretched

over the opening, he heard the awful sound from within. A groan, long and wavery

and hideous. Hanse went all over gooseflesh and considered heading for home.

He did not. He peeled aside the ruined window and peered into a dark room

containing neither bed nor person. Mindful of his punctured and lacerated

buttock, he went in. There was nothing to do about his head. He had, after all,