Thieves World 8 – Soul of the City by Asprin, Robert

Am I alive? Am I like that poor sod Stilcho, alive-dead, killed and brought back

out of hell, o gods-

A door opened downstairs; wind sucked in a chill gust from the window.

“Ischade,” he yelled, and flung himself past Tasfalen’s corpse, out the door,

toward the stairs. He caught himself at the top, looking down on Moria in a torn

and muddy gown, on Stilcho standing there ghastly as the truth in that bedroom.

He came down the stairs, broke through between them and headed out the door

where the bay horse stood curiously nosing the remnants of an apple core on the

walk. He ran for it, took the reins in his hand with no idea in heaven or hell

where he was going.

To Crit, maybe, to that place where Crit was waiting for him.

He got his foot in the stirrup and heard a sound he had heard on a score of

battlefields and a hundred ambushes. An arrow hit the wall and shattered. He

dropped from the stirrup, whacked the bay to get it out of fire, already knowing

it was stupid; he should have the horse for cover, the damned, foolish horse

which was the only thing in all the world which had never betrayed him.

It snorted and shied up and stayed. That was what made him hesitate in his dive

for cover, one half-heartbeat of disbelief…

… that persisted when the arrow smashed high into his chest and he staggered

back and fell on the pavings. There was a smell of apples. The pavings were

cold. The sky showed a clear, strange glow, going lavenders and white, and the

upper stories of the buildings went all dim. It did not particularly hurt. They