time, he began to see canopied stalls and hear muted haggling, and dismounted to
lead his horse among the splintered crates and rotten fruit at the bazaar’s
edge.
“PsstJ Stealth!” Hanse called him by his war-name, and dropped, soundless as a
phantom, from a shuttered balcony into his path. Startled, Niko’s horse
scrabbled backward, hind hooves kicking crates and stanchions over so that a row
ensued with the stall’s enraged proprietor. When that was done, the dark
slumhawk still waited, eyes glittering with unsaid words sharper than any of the
secreted blades he wore, a triumphant smile fierce as his scarlet sash fading to
his more customary street-hauteur as he turned figs in his fingers, pronounced
them unfit for human consumption, and eased Niko’s way.
“I was out there this morning,” Niko heard, bent down over his horse’s left hind
hoof, checking for splinters caught in its shoe; “heard your team lost a member,
but not who. Pissass weird weather, these days. You know something I should
know?”
“Possibly.” Niko, putting down the hoof, brushed dust from his thighs and stood
up. “Once when I was wandering around the backstreets of a coastal city-never
mind which one-with an arrow in my gut and afraid to seek a surgeon’s help there
was weather like this. A man who took me in told me to stay off the streets at
night until the weather’d been clear a full day-something to do with dead adepts
and souls to pay their way out of purgatory. Tell your friends, if you’ve got
any. And do me a favor, fair exchange?” He gathered up his reins and took a