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

you Stepsons think of me, I shall not even ask. But cheap I shall never come.’

Crit loosed his hold on the youth, who wriggled then, but Straton held him,

thinking that Ischade was without doubt the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen,

and the hawkmask was luckier than most. If death was the gateway to heaven, she

was the sort of gatekeep he’d like to admit him, when his time came.

She remarked, though he had not spoken aloud, that such could easily be

arranged.

Crit, at that, looked between them, then shook his head. ‘Go wait with the

horses, Straton. I thought I heard them, just now.’

So Straton never did find out exactly what was – or was not – arranged between

his task force leader and the vampire woman, but when he reached the horses, he

had his hands full calming them, as if his own had scented Niko’s black, whom

his grey detested above all other studs. When they’d both been stabled in the

same barn, the din had been terrible, and stallboards shattered as regularly as

stalls were mucked, from those two trying to get at each other. Horses, like

men, love .and hate, and those two stallions wanted a piece of each other the

way Strat wanted a chance at the garrison commander or Vashanka at the

Wrigglies’ Ils.

Soon after, Crit came sauntering down the walk, unscathed, alone, and silent.

Straton wanted to ask, but did not, what had been arranged: his leader’s sour

expression warned him off. And an hour later, at the Shambles Cross safe haven,

when one of the street men came running in saying there was a disturbance and