The face of chaos - Thieves World 05 Read Free Page A

her naked, with his dogs. She cast a curse without word or effort, refiexively, giving him a social disease no Sanctuary mage or barber-surgeon could cure, complete with running sores upon lips and member, and a virus in control of it which buried itself in the brainstem and came out when it chose. She hardly took note of it; it was a small show of temper, like for like: let him exhibit the condition of his soul, she had decreed.
    To banish her leggy nakedness from the surface of her wine, she said straight out; 'You know the other bar owners. The Alekeep's proprietor has a girl about to graduate from school. Arrange to host her party, let it be known that you will sell those children krrf - Tamzen is the child I mean. Then have your flunky lead her down to Shambles Cross. Leave them there - up to half a dozen youngsters, it may be - lost in the drug and the slum.'
    'That will tame two vicious Stepsons? You do know the men I mean? Janni? And Stealth? They bugger each other, Stepsons. Girls are beside the point. And Stealth - he's a/wzzbuster-I've seen him with no woman old enough for breasts. Surely -'
    'Surely,' she cut in smoothly, 'you don't want to know more than that - in case it goes awry. Protection in these matters lies in ignorance.' She would not tell him more - not that Stealth, called Nikodemos, had come out of Azehur, where he'd earned his war name and worked his way towards Syr in search of a Tros horse via Mygdonia, hiring on as a caravan guard and general roustabout, or that a dispute over a consignment lost to mountain bandits had made him bond-servant for a year to a Nisibisi mage - her lover-lord. There was a string on Nikodemos, ready to be pulled.
    And when he felt it, it would be too late, and she would be at the end of it. Tempus had allowed Niko to breed his sorrel mare to his own Tros stallion to quell mutters among knowledgeable Stepsons that assigning Niko and Janni to hazardous duty in the town was their commander's way of punishing the slate haired fighter who had declined Tempus's offered pairbond in favour of Janni's and had subsequently quit their ranks.
    Now the mare was pregnant and Tempus was curious as to what kind of foal the union might produce, but rumours of foul play still abounded. Critias, Tempus's second in command, had paused in his dour report and now stirred his posset of cooling wine and barley and goat's cheese with a finger, then wiped the finger on his bossed cuirass, burnished from years of use. They were meeting in the mercenaries' guild hostel, in its common room, dark as congealing blood and safe as a grave, where Tempus had bade the veteran mercenary lodge - an operations officer charged with secret actions could be no part of the Stepsons' barracks cohort. They met covertly, on occasion; most times, coded messages brought by unwitting couriers were enough. Crit, too, it seemed, thought Tempus wrong in sending Janni, a guileless cavalryman, and Niko, the youngest of the Stepsons, to spy upon the witch: clandestine schemes were Crit's province, and Tempus had usurped, overstepped the bounds of their agreement. Tempus had allowed that Crit might take over management of the fielded team and Crit had grunted wryly, saying he'd run them but not take the blame if they lost both men to the witch's wiles. Tempus had agreed with the pleasant-looking Syrese agent and they had gone on to other business: Prince/Governor Kadakithis was insistent upon contacting Jubal, the slaver whose estate the Stepsons sacked and made their home. 'But when we had the black bastard, you said to let him crawl away.'
    'Kadakithis expressed no interest.' Tempus shrugged. 'He has changed his mind, perhaps in light of the appearance of these mysterious death squads your people haven't been able to identify or apprehend. If your teams can't deliver Jubal or turn up a hawkmask who is in contact with him, I'll find another way.'
    'Ischade, the vampire woman who lives in Shambles Cross, is still our best