going to wait the year out as a mortal, perhaps you would consider staying on in
Sanctuary. We are sore in need of fighting women this season.”
She clutched his arm; he winced. “Do not offer me a sinecure,” she said. “And,
consider: I will have you, too, should I stay.”
Promise or threat, he was not certain, but he was reasonably sure that he could
deal with her, either way.
GODSON
by Andrew J. Offutt
Hanse did not want to be a soldier or a member of the Sacred Band ofTempus, the
Stepsons, and most especially not a Stepson-in-training or any other dam’ thing
in-training. He wanted most definitely and most desperately to be Shadowspawn;
to be Hanse. That remained elusive. It was a problem, just being. He did not
know that many spent their lives looking for whoever or whatever it was that
they were or might be, and if he had known it would not have helped a midge
worth. He was Hanse, by Ils! Not Hons or Honz or Hanz; I am Hanse?
The problem was that he was not sure what that meant.
Who was Hanse? What was Hanse?
0 Cudget, if only they had not slain you! You’d have shown me and told me,
wouldn’t you?
It had used to be so simple. Life was simple. There was the city called
Sanctuary, and in it were empty bellies, and some that were full. That was
simple: it described lions (or jackals, but never mind that) and prey. And there
was Cudget Swearoath, and Hanse his apprentice in whom he was well pleased, and
there were the marks-the human sheep. And the shadows, to facilitate their
fleecing.
It was all the world there was or needed be; a microcosm, a thieves’ world.