your way. I owe you too much to make an issue of what’s right and wrong between
us.” Niko’s hand went to his belt and Straton stiffened: Niko was an expert with
throwing stars and poisoned metal blossoms and every kind of edged weapon Strat
knew enough to name. The two were thought to be, by Banders, of nearly equal
prowess, though Strat’s was fading as he aged, Niko’s coming on.
“Whatever I’m doing. Stealth, is worse than what you’ve done? Don’t I remember
some fight up at the Festival, one in which you protected the Nisibisi witch
from a priestess of Enlil?”
That stopped Niko’s hand, about to lever a bolt to ready in his crossbow.
“That’s not fair, Ace.”
“We’re not talking fair-we’re talking women. Or womanish avatars, or whatever
they are. You leave this one alone-she’s on our side; she’s fought with us, for
us … saved Sync from Roxane, for one thing.” Suspicion leaped into Straton’s
mind, suspicion enough to chase the memory of Janni’s tortured shade. “Roxane
didn’t put you up to this, did she? Did she, Stealth?”
Niko, a flint in one hand, naphtha bladder in the other, paused with the bladder
poised above the rags on his arrow’s tip. “What difference does that make?
What’s going on here, anyway? Randal’s disappeared and no one’s looking for him?
You’re sleeping with a necromant and no one gives a damn?”
“You stay around, and you’ll find out. But I can guarantee you’re not going to
like it. I don’t. Crit wouldn’t. Tempus would bust all our butts. But he’s not
here, is he? It’s you and me. And I’m bound to protect this … lady, here.”