Thieves World 4 – Storm Season by Asprin, Robert

the thunder cracked and the wind skirled, blowing debris along the shore.

Of a sudden something rose up in his way, a human form in the ubiquitous rags of

Downwind, but with an incongruous long blade shining pure as silver in the murk.

Haught shied and dodged, ex-dancer, leapt an unexpected bit of debris and darted

into the alley that offered itself, alley after alley, desperate, hearing

someone whistle behind him, a signal of some kind; and then someone blocked the

alley ahead.

He zigged and dodged, feinted and lost: the cloak caught, and the fastening

held; he hit the wall and the ground, and a hand closed at his throat.

* * *

“Escaped slave,” Moria said, crouching by the man they had knocked down. She had

her knife out, aimed for the ribs; but the throat was easier and quieter, and

Mradhon was in the way. “Kill him. We can’t afford the noise.”

“Something started him,” Mradhon said. The slave babbled a language not Rankan,

not Ilsigi, nothing she knew, sobbing for air. “Shut up,” Mradhon said, shaking

him and letting hishand from the man’s throat. Mradhon said something then, the

same way, and the slave stopped struggling and edged up against the wall. He

talked, an urgent hiss in the gloom, and Mradhon kept the knife at his throat.

“What’s that?” Moria asked, clenching her own hilt in a sweating fist. “What’s

that babble?”

“Keep still,” Mradhon said, reached with his fist and the hilt of his knife and

touched the slave gently on the side of the cheek. “Come show us, seh? Come show

us the place. Fast.”