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

one, which had some living warders, but not all that patrolled the streets

beyond were alive, and the Shambles suffered horrors and the malicious whimsy of

Roxane’s creatures. “Listen,” Stilcho said, “listen, you don’t understand. He’s

not like the dead when he’s like this. Dead are everywhere. Janni’s tied to one

thing, he’s got an attachment, and he’s like the living in that regard. No good

news for what he’s attached to-But you can’t find him like the rest of the dead.

He’s got place, where applies to him same as you and me-“

“Don’t lump me in your category.” Haught brushed imaginary dust from his cloak.

“I’ve no intention of joining you. And whatever you told the mistress about that

business with the rosebush-“

“Nothing, I told her nothing.”

“Liar. You’d tell anything you were asked, you’d hand her your mother if she

asked-“

“Leave my mother out of this.”

“She down in hell?” Haught wondered, with a sudden wolfish sharpness that sent

another icy chill through Stilcho’s gut. “Maybe she could help.”

Stilcho said nothing. The hate Haught had toward Stepsons was palpable, a joke

most of the time, but not when they were alone. Not when there was something

Haught could hold over him. But Stilcho glared back. He had been a marsh-brat

and a Sanctuary drayman before the Stepsons recruited him, neither occupation

lending itself to bright, sharp acts of courage. He was slow to anger as his

lumbering team had been. But there was a point past which not, the same as there

had been with his plodding horses. The beggar-king who tortured him had found