Sandcats of Rhyl Read Free Page B

his forearm stopped the man as surely as the cold words, “Don’t even think of hitting him again,” pouring like melted snow from Nightwind’s thin lips.
    “Nobody says what he did to Dhal Shu-tri!” the man cried.
    “Says what?”
    “He said I reeked!”
    Heuser raised himself to his full one-and-six-tenths-meter height and looked completely ineffectual. Nightwind knew his friend would be able to bend steel bars in his current rage.
    “I’m sure he didn’t mean it quite the way you seem to have taken it. He could’ve been more diplomatic.”
    “What’ya mean?” Dhal bellowed.
    Nightwind said sweetly, a smile lingering on his lips, “He might have recommended the ship’s excellent sanitary facilities to a person obviously not fully availing himself of them.”
    “Huh?”
    “Okay, mister,” Nightwind said, losing patience. “You reek. And it was a fool mistake hitting someone half your size.” Nightwind felt the muscles of the forearm tense and knew what was coming.
    He easily ducked the awkward swing. As Dhal’s fist cut the air centimeters over his head, Nightwind’s arms encircled the man’s body. Without any display of strain on his part, Nightwind lifted Dhal and tossed him to the far end of the bar.
    In a deceptively soft voice, he told Dhal, “Leave before you get hurt. You’re outclassed, Dhal Shu-tri.”
    The use of the man’s name seemed to shock, then enrage. Dhal recovered, bellowed like a bull and charged. Nightwind waited until the last possible moment before acting. Reaching out almost tenderly, he gripped Dhal’s right arm and lapel, stuck a foot out that caught the attacking man’s kneecap, then twisted to the left. Nightwind watched Dhal cartwheeling to the other side of the room. Before the man could regain his feet, Nightwind grabbed both ankles and quickly dragged him from the room. In less than a minute, the thin man returned looking as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
    He leaned on the bar and said in a controlled voice, “Lemonade, please. Hazmal VI is fine.”
    The robot bartender buzzed and produced another goblet. Nightwind sardonically nodded his thanks to the machine and went back to Steorra’s table.
    “Now that’s over and done with, where were we?” he asked, as if bouncing obnoxious drunks was all in a day’s business.
    “You … you handled him so easily!” the girl blurted out.
    “No matter. He was drunk. At least, I think he was.” Nightwind analyzed the woman’s reaction. The abortive attack on Heuser seemed more than just a drunk making trouble for another customer. Dhal hadn’t moved or acted like he was intoxicated, not as much as if he were intentionally looking for a fight. And Steorra acted as if she knew what was going to happen — up to the point where Dhal was bounced like a rubber ball.
    Nightwind shrugged it off. Maybe Dhal was merely a bully looking for someone to beat up. If so, he’d picked the wrong one. Heuser had no sense of propriety; he would have killed his attacker with little sense of loss or guilt.
    “You seem to be quite expert at taking care of yourself,” the woman pressed. “You must have positively exciting tales to tell.” Again the blatant request for him to spill — what? There was only one thing Nightwind had to discuss that could be of interest to the lovely, brown-tressed Steorra.
    The diary and maps of Dr. Alfen. How had she found out he had them? Did she know for certain or was she probing for information? Was she positive and merely looking for confirmation? What
was
Steorra’s game?
    “I lead a dull life.”
    A voice from behind angrily bellowed, “Your life’s about over! Nobody beats up my friend and lives to brag about it!”
    Nightwind swiveled and looked over his shoulder at another hulk of a man. Tall, well muscled, but lacking the massiveness of Dhal. Nightwind could sense they were two of a kind. He wondered if he would have to kill this one as an object lesson.
    “What’s your