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

“Randal?” The bristling jaw worked and Niko knew that he wasn’t going to like

what he was about to hear. “Strat was asking for him, three, four times. Seems

he was spirited right out of the Mageguild-or left on his own. You never know

with wizards, do ya, son? I mean, maybe he up and left. It was right after the

sack ofJubal’s old-of the Stepsons’ barracks, and it was so bad Strat took to

sleeping here with us until they got the place cleaned up.”

“Randal wouldn’t do that,” Niko said under his breath, rising to his feet.

“What’s that, soldier?”

“Nothing. Thanks for the work-and the advance.” The mercenary, who was older

than he looked, even with a beard to point up hard-won scars, patted the purse

hanging from his swordbelt. “I’ll see you after a while.”

Stealth needed to get out of there, ride perimeters, make sense of the worsened

chaos in a town which had been as bad, last time he’d been here, as Niko would

have thought a town could be.

And that got him to thinking, as he tacked up his horse and led it snorting into

the sulky air of a late dawn only a week shy of the year’s shortest day, about

the last tour he’d done here.

Two winters ago. Stealth, called Nikodemos, had lost his first partner in

Sanctuary-the man he’d partnered with according to Sacred Band rules for better

than a decade had been killed here. It had hurt like nothing since his childhood

servitude on Wizardwall had hurt; it had happened down on Wideway, in a

wharfside warehouse. Return to Sanctuary was bringing back too many memories,