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

big Stepson feel.

An hour later, outside her door, stationed like a sentry, he began to wonder if

her creature hadn’t lied. Then his big bay, tied at her low gate, let out a

challenge and some horse answered from the dark.

Sword drawn, he sidled down to calm the beast, wondering what in hell he was

supposed to do about something she hadn’t explained, when a darkness separated

from the midnight chill and a tiny coal, red-hot, seemed to bobble toward him in

midair.

Closer it came, until the soft radiance of Ischade’s hedges caught its edges and

he made out a mounted man smoking something-pulcis, by the smell of it, laced

with krrf and rolled in broadleaf.

“Hold and state your business, stranger,” Strat called out.

“Strat?” said a soft voice full of distaste and some measure of disbelief. “Ace,

if it’s really you, tell me something a man would have had to fight on

Wizardwall to know.”

“Ha! Bashir can’t hold his liquor, is what-not even laced with blood and water,”

Strat responded, then added, “Stealth? Niko, is that you?”

The little coal of red grew brighter as the smoker inhaled and in its flare

Strat could see the face of Nikodemos-bearded, but with scars showing like white

tracks among the hair, just where those scars should be.

A surge of joy went through the Stepsons’ leader. “Is Crit with you? The

Riddler-is Tempus come back?” Then he sobered: Niko was the problem Ischade’d

sent him out here to deal with. Now her distress, and her cautions, made good

sense.

“No, I’m alone,” came Niko’s voice soft as a winter gust as sounds and the