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

met glance shocked him like icy water and made his limbs to shake.

‘Stealth! Did you see that?’

‘What?’ Niko snapped, defensive over interfering in Crit’s operation. ‘See

what?’

‘That – thing …’Nothing was there, where he had seen it. ‘Nothing… I’m

seeing things.’ Crit and Straton had reached their horses; they heard hoof beats

receding in the night.

‘Show me where, and tell me what.’

Janni swung up on his mount and led the way; when they got there they found a

crumpled body, a youth with bloated tongue outstuck and rolled up eyes as if a

fit had taken him, dead as Abarsis in the street. ‘Oh, no …” Niko, dismounted,

rolled the corpse. ‘It’s one of Tamzen’s friends.’ The silk-and-linened body

came clearer as Janni’s eyes accustomed themselves to moonlight after the glare

of the torch. They heaved the corpse up upon Janni’s horse who snorted to bear a

dead thing but forbore to refuse outright. ‘Let’s take it somewhere. Stealth. We

can’t carry it about all night.’ Only then did Janni remember they’d failed to

report to Crit their evening’s plan.

At his insistence, Niko agreed to ride by the Shambles Cross safe haven, caulked

and shuttered in iron, where Stepsons and street men and IIsig/Rankan garrison

personnel, engaged in chasing hawkmasks and other covert enterprises, made their

slum reports in situ.

They managed to leave the body there, but not to alert the task force leader;

Crit had taken the hawkmask wherever he thought the catch would serve them best;

nothing was in the room but the interrogation wheel and bags of lime to tie on