Thieves World 5 – The Face of Chaos by Asprin, Robert

to take you home, now.’ The punt’s flat bottom jounced easily over the stone as

if the executioner’s death had doubled the rescuer’s strength.

‘Are you taking me back to Mama Reia?’ Star asked. She had watched Tudhaliya die

with great eyes, which she now focused on Samlor.

The man splashed beside the boat for a few paces while the shingle foamed. Then

he hopped aboard and thrust outwards for the length of the pole. Since the tide

had turned, there was no longer need to fend off from the corniche. When they

were thirty feet out, the Cirdonian set down the pole and worried loose the

lashings of his oars with his spike-bladed push dagger. ‘Star,’ he said, now

that he had leisure for an answer, ‘Maybe we’ll send for Reia. But we’re going

back to your real home – Cirdon. Do you remember Cirdon?’ Inexpertly, the

caravan-master began to fit the looms through the rope bights that served the

punt for oarlocks.

Star nodded with solemn enthusiasm. She said, ‘Are you really my uncle?’

Poling had raised and burst blisters on both Samlor’s hands. The salt-crusted

oar handles ground like acid-tipped glass as he began the unfamiliar task of

rowing. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I promised your mother – your real mother. Star, my

sister … I promised her -‘ and this was true, though Samlane was two years

dead when her brother shouted the words to the sky – ‘that I’d take care of oh.

Oh, Mother Heqt. Oh, to have brought us so close.’

Lord Tudhaliya had not trusted his men on the shore to sweep up the cultists.

Someone in the boat Tudhaliya had stationed off the headland had seen the man