The Dead of Winter- - Thieves World 07 Read Free Page B

being where they had no right to be and housepets slit from jaws to tails, their entrails already out at Vashanka's field altar of handhewn stones, ready to be offered to the god.
    Ischade walked with him, inky eyes agleam within her hood. He'd promised Ischade something, one night last autumn. He wondered if this was it-if the killing had gotten out of hand because Ischade was there, and not because Zip's Popular Front for the Liberation of Sanctuary knew nothing of restraint and Sync's 3rd Commando, not to be outdone, forsook all thoughts of proper measure once it was clear that the ersatz Stepsons had been keeping dogs on grounds consecrated to Vashanka, the Rankan god of rape and pillage.
    Rape, of course, was still under way in the stables and in the long low barracks. Strat saw Ischade turn her head away at the piteous cries of women who'd been where women had no right to be and now paid the soldiers' tithe. Around them, PFLS rebels ran to and fro, heavy sacks or gleaming tack upon their shoulders-pillaging had begun.
    Strat didn't move to stop the stealing or the defilement of the luckless few who'd been comely enough to live a little longer than their fellows. He was the ranking officer and his was the burden of command-even when, as now, he didn't like it.
    Crit, Strat's absent partner, might have foreseen and forestalled the moment when the 3rd's bloodthirsty nature surfaced and Zip's rabble followed suit, and blood began to spill like Vashanka's rains or a whore's tears. But he hadn't. Not until it was far too late. And then, knowing that if he tried to stop them he'd lose only his command, he'd had to let the bloodlust work through the assault force like dysentery works through those fool enough to drink from the White Foal River.
    Ischade knew his pain; her hand was on his arm. But the necromant was wise-she said not one word to the Stepsons' chief interrogator and line commander as they came upon Randal-the Tysian Hazard who was the only magical ally besides herself the Stepsons tolerated-quartering a dog to roast and bury at the barracks'
    compass points.
    "For luck, Witchy-Ears?" Straton growled to Randal, and Ischade relaxed. "It's hardly lucky for that pup."
    He must take his anguish out on someone, vent his spleen. She'd thought while they walked among the corpses askew on training grounds and open-legged in doorways that the "someone" might be her. She'd raised shades to help the siege even one named Janni who'd been a Stepson before his death. And Strat, who'd known Janni and Stilcho and others among Ischade's part-living cadre when they'd laid a clearer claim to life, had had shadows in his eyes. The same shadows of disgust scoured his mouth now as the big Stepson spat over his shoulder and demanded, "Randal, give me an answer." But Randal, the big-eared, freckled mage who was so cautious and yet no man's fool or pawn despite his slight and unassuming person, knew that Straton wanted more than a reason for the sacrifice of a cur. Strat wanted someone to tell him that the massacre he walked through fit somehow into the Stepsons' code of honor.
    But it didn't. Not in any way at all. It was war out of hand and blood begetting blood and the only justification or reason for it was the nature of Sanctuary itself-Sanctuary was out of balance, gnawing on its own leg while it frothed at the mouth, beset by enemies from within and without. The town was full of factions among men and among gods and among sorcerers, so full that even Ischade, who had interests here, had to come out into daylight to protect them, and to throw in her lot with Straton's Sacred Band and Sync's amoral 3rd Commando.
    When Randal didn't answer, just favored Strat with an eloquent sickened look full of accusation, since Strat was putatively in command, Ischade said to the officer beside her, "Order is its own reward. And reason makes its bed with us, not with the Beysib interlopers who have the Prince enthralled, or with the quasi-mages