Hawk (Vlad) Read Free

some more time back East.”
    “That’d be good.”
    “Or maybe the Kanefthali Mountains.”
    “I’ve always wanted to see those.”
    “Or—”
    “Oh, stop it, Boss. If we’re just going to wait here until you’re killed, at least don’t pretend—”
    “Damn, Loiosh. Getting a little bitchy in our old age, are we? Ouch. Cut it out. I’m not saying we’re going to stay here—”
    “No, you just don’t plan to leave.”
    I didn’t answer him, a policy I should have adopted several minutes before. Or maybe years.
    “Ha,” he said.
    Rocza, who’d been flying around for the last minute or so, landed on my shoulder again, shifting from foot to foot, which was her way of saying she was hungry. We found a bakery, where I paid too much for a couple of buns stuffed with too little kethna that was too sweet. The baker’s assistant tried very hard to keep his eyes off the weapon at my side. I didn’t speak to him. I picked up a can of weak beer from a street vendor nearby and walked, looking around.
    Eventually I found what passes for a park in South Adrilankha—a place where some grass and weeds had grown up in a large vacant lot with a few low bushes and couple of scrawny trees. I sat down and leaned against one, and ate the buns and fed some to Loiosh and Rocza. It was a good place, because no one could sneak up on me without my familiar seeing him. Although here, in the middle of the Easterners’ district, I should be safe enough.
    When we were done eating I relaxed for a while. There was a nice breeze coming in from the City, so for once South Adrilankha didn’t smell like the slaughterhouses to the southeast. My mind kept coming back to the conversation with Loiosh, and I kept shoving it aside. What I needed to be thinking about was how I’d been found in that flophouse. There were very few possibilities, and all of them were bad. Or it was something I hadn’t even considered possible, and that was worse.
    Okay, relax. Let’s look at all the possibilities, one at a time, and figure out—
    “Boss,” said Loiosh. “You’re being watched.”
    “Yeah?” I said, looking around. “Where? Who?”
    “Other end of the park. Sight-spell. Dragaeran. Jhereg colors.”
    I felt my breath catch, and my heart gave a couple of test thuds to make sure it was ready. I was in South Adrilankha. I was in the Easterners’ quarter. I had walked away from the flophouse and gotten lost among back streets and unmarked alleys. There’s no way the Jhereg could have found me here. No way.
    Except that they had.
    I didn’t reach for a weapon; I didn’t even move. Not yet.
    “I need to see,” I said. “And send Rocza on a sweep of the area in case there’s more than one.”
    “Already doing it, Boss.”
    “Good. Here I come.”
    Colors swam; some of them disappeared, new ones occurred. My vision wavered, steadied, and I could see the man he’d spoken of. We moved closer. He was staring into something in his palm, then glancing in the direction where my body waited.
    And, for just a second, his eyes flicked up toward me. It wasn’t much, he didn’t hold it for long, but it was enough. I returned to my body.
    “Loiosh! You and Rocza, out of there now! ”
    “Boss, what—?”
    “Get height and distance. Move!”
    And I could feel Loiosh’s response—the jolt of fear—and could only assume Rocza had been given the message as well.
    I had, it seemed, gotten to my feet, and drawn Lady Teldra. I was walking toward the Jhereg. I was aware that there was probably another assassin around, maybe more. I hoped so. I was suddenly in a mood to kill as many of them as presented themselves. I had just enough presence of mind to have Lady Teldra stay alert for the minuscule wavering around objects that tells you that someone is using an invisibility spell. It’s always the little things that bite you in the ass.
    The Jhereg turned and ran. It was very undignified. I was never going to catch him, and I had no intention of