Thieves World 4 – Storm Season by Asprin, Robert

salvageable, here, or even if he cared if girl or priest or child or town … or

god… were to be saved. But then he looked behind him, and saw his Stepsons,

Niko on the left and Janni with sword drawn, both ready to advance on hell

itself, would he but bid them, and he raised a hand and led them into the

lightfight, eyes squinted nearly shut and all his body tingling as his

preternatural abilities came into play.

Molin’s ouster was uppermost in his mind; he picked the glareblind priest up

bodily and threw him, wrenching the god’s golden icon from his frozen fist. He

heard a grunt, a snapping-in of breath, behind, but did not look around to see

reality fade away. He was fighting by himself, now, in a higher, colder place

full of day held at bay and Vashanka’s potent breath in his right ear. “It is

well you have come, manchild; I can use your help this day.” The left is the

place of attack in team battle; a shield-holding line drifts right, each trying

to protect his open side. He had Vashanka on his right, to support him, and a

shield, full-length and awful, came to be upon his own left arm. The thing he

fought here, the Stormbringer’s shape, was part cat, part manlike, and its sword

cut as hard as an avalanche. Its claws chilled his breath away. Behind, black

and gray was split with sunrise colors, Vashanka’s blazon snapping on a flag of

sky. He thrust at the clouds and was parried with cold that ran up his sword and

seared the skin of his palm so that his sweat froze to ice and layers of his