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

this way: children taken, sold north and never seen again.

‘It’s safe here, then?’ Tamzen blurted, her teeth chattering but the krrf

making her bold and angry. She strode ahead, not waiting to see them follow;

they would; she knew this bunch better than their mothers. The thing to do, she

was sure, was to stride bravely on until they came upon the Square and found the

streets home, or came upon some Hell Hounds, palace soldiers, or Stepsons.

Niko’s friends would ride them home on horseback if they found some; Tamzen’s

acquaintance among the men of steel was her fondest prize.

Niko … If he were here, she’d have no fear, nor need to pretend to valour…

Her eyes filled with tears, thinking what he’d say when he heard. She was never

going to convince him she was grown if all her attempts to do so made her seem

the more a child. A child’s error, this, for sure … and one dead on her

account. Her father would beat her rump to blue and he’d keep her in her room

for a month. She began to fret – the krrf’s doing, though she was too far gone

in the drug’s sway to tell – and saw an alley from which torchlight shone. She

took it; the others followed, she heard them close behind. They had money

aplenty; they would hire an escort, perhaps with a wagon, to take them home. All

taverns had men looking for hire in them; if they chanced Caravan Square, and

fell afoul of slavers, she’d never see her poppa or Niko or her room filled with

stuffed toys and ruffles again.

The inn was called the Sow’s Ear, and it was foul. In its doorway, one of the