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

sarcastic by the witch-blood appetites.

“No. I will free Randal, but your priests will free me. I will be Roxane’s

champion-facing your priests-one man against many. You will arrange to capture

me unharmed, but you’ll make it look good. She must never suspect my allegiance.

She must think it’s all your doing: priest-power against witchery.”

“We are ever eager to serve,” the priest agreed.

“And the timing. It must be Mid-Winter’s Eve at midnight-exactly. Timing is

everything, Hierarch. You know that. When you’re dealing with Death’s Queen,

timing is everything.”

Molin nodded, his face a rigid mask of obedience lest his laughter emerge.

“And I’ll need a place to stay afterwards. Wherever you’ve been keeping those

children and their mother will do. It’s time they had the proper influences

around them.”

It was all Molin could do to keep silent. Whatever maat gave a man, it wasn’t a

sense of irony. Stormbringer and the rest of his Storm-kind were leaning hard on

this drunk mercenary. His picayune demands became prophecy the moment they

slurred out of his mouth. His babble trapped Stormbringer in Sanctuary like a

fly in a spider’s web. Already Molin could feel the necessary strategies and

tactics crowding into his thoughts. Success was inevitable -with one,

unfortunate, shortcoming: Molin would become Roxane’s personal enemy, and what

she would do when she found out who had been his mother was beyond even a Storm

God’s guess.

Niko was still drunk. He bumped into the carriage as he headed back inside the