Thieves World 4 – Storm Season by Asprin, Robert

in the streets.

A pair of Stepsons-mercenary special forces whom the prince’s marshal, Tempus,

commanded-was caught out in the storm, but it could not be said that the weather

killed one: the team had been investigating uncorroborated reports that a

warehouse conveniently situated at a juncture of three major sewers was being

used by an alchemist to concoct and store incendiaries. The surviving partner

guessed that his teammate must have lit a torch, despite the cautions of

research: human wastes, flour, sulphur and more had gone in through those now

nonexistent doors. Though the problem the team had been dispatched to

investigate was solved by a con-cussive fireball that threw the second Stepson,

Nikodemos, through a window into an intersection, singeing his beard and brows

and eyelashes, the young Sacred Band member relived the circumstances leading to

his partner’s death repeatedly, agonizing over the possibility that he was to

blame throughout the night, alone in the pair’s billet. So consumed was he with

grief at the death of his mate, he did not even realize that his friend had

saved his life: the fireball and ensuing conflagration had blown back the mist

and made an oven of the wharfside; Wideway was freed from the vicious fog for

half its length. He had ridden at a devil’s pace out of Sanctuary home to the

Stepsons’ barracks, which once had been a slaver’s estate and thus had rooms

enough for Tempus to allow his hard won mercenaries the luxury of privacy:

ten pairs plus thirty single agents comprised the team’score group-until this