Thieves World 7 – The Dead of Winter by Asprin, Robert

Molin forced himself deeper into the blazing aureole until he could grab the

child and lift him from the floor.

“Gyskouras,” he bellowed countless times.

The boy fought with the determination of a street urchin: biting, kicking,

flailing with the straw-sword until Molin’s damp clothes began to steam. But

Molin persisted, imprisoning the child’s legs first, then trapping his arms

beneath his own.

“Gyskouras,” he said more gently, as the radiance flickered and the sword fell

from the child’s hand.

‘”Kouras?” the other child echoed, clinging now to both of them.

The light flared once and was gone. Gyskouras became only a frightened child

wracked with sobs. Molin stroked the boy’s hair, patted him between the

shoulders, and glanced down where one of his priests lay in a crumpled heap.

With a gesture and a nod of his head, Torchholder commanded the others to do

what had to be done. When he and the children were alone he sat down on a low

stool and stood the child in front of him.

“What happened, Gyskouras?”

“He brought porridge,” the boy said between sobs and sniffles. “Arton said he

had candy but he gave me porridge.”

“You are growing very fast, Gyskouras. When you don’t eat you don’t feel good.”

Since they’d brought Arton into the nursery some four months earlier, both

children had grown the length of a man’s hand from wrist to fingertips. Growing

pains were a living nightmare for all concerned. “If you had eaten the porridge

I’m sure Aldwist would have given you the candy.”

“I wished him dead,” Gyskouras said evenly, though when the words were safely