Thieves World 4 – Storm Season by Asprin, Robert

Hounds. Wrigglies-every last one of them: pompous and-“

“What manner of mercenaries?” Walegrin interrupted.

“Sacred Banders,” Thrusher admitted with noticible reluctance.

“Vashanka’s bastards. How many? And who leads them-if they’re led by a man?”

“Couldn’t say how many; they camp Downwind. Banders’re worse than Hounds; a

handful of ’em’s worse than a plague. Some say they belong to the Prince now

that their priest’s dead. Most say it’s Tempus at the root of it. They train for

the Nisibisi, but Tempus is building a new fortress Downwind.”

Walegrin looked away. He had no quarrel with Tempus Thales. True, he was

inclined to arrogance, sadism and he was treachery incarnate, but he moved in

the elite circles of power and, as such, Walegrin could only admire him. Like

everyone else he had heard the Tempus-tales of self-healing and psuedo-divinity;

he professed to doubt them-but had Tempus gone in search of Enlibar steel, no

one would have dared stand in his way.

“They call themselves Stepson-or something like that,” Thrusher continued.

“They’re all in Jubal’s turf; and neither hide nor hair of Jubal seen these last

months. No hawkmasks on the streets either, ‘cept the ones found nailed to posts

here and there.”

“Sacred Banders; Stepsons; Whoresons.” Walegrin shared the prejudices of most in

the Imperial army towards any elite, separate group. Sanctuary had been the

dead-end of the world as long as anyone could remember. No right-thinking Rankan

citizen passed time there. It boded ill if Sanctuary had become home to not only