The tapster had crooked a finger toward a dun-colored man at a comer table. Samlor would not have noticed the summons had he not been sure it was coming, but the two men began to talk in low voices at the far end of the bar.
The tavern was lighted by a lantern behind the bar and a trio of lamps hanging from a hoop in the center of the room. The terra-cotta lamps had been molded for good luck into the shape of penises.
There was no sign that the clientele of this place was particularly fortunate, and the gods knew they were not well lighted. The cheap lamp oil gave off as much smoke as flame, so that the tavern drifted in a haze as bitter as the faces of its denizens.
"Really, Master Samlor," said the stranger, "you must look at this dagger."
The Cirdonian's name made time freeze for him, though no one else in the Vulgar Unicorn appeared to take undue notice. The flat of the weapon was toward Samlor. The slim man held the hilt between thumb and forefinger and balanced the lower edge of the blade near the tip of his other forefinger-not even a razor will cut with no more force than gravity driving it.
Samlor's own belt knife was clear of its sheath, drawn by reflex without need for his conscious mind to reach to the danger. But the stranger was smiling and immobile, and the dagger he held ...
The dagger was very interesting at that.
Its pommel was faceted with the ruddy luster of copper. The butt itself was flat and narrow, angling wider for a finger's breadth toward the hilt and narrowing again in a smooth concave arc. The effect was that of a coffin, narrow for the corpse's head and wider for his shoulders until it tapered toward his feet again.
The hilt was unusual and perhaps not attractive, but the true wonder of the weapon was its blade.
Steel becomes more brittle as it becomes harder. The greatest mystery of the swordsmith's art is the tempering that permits blades to strike without shattering while remaining hard enough to cleave armor or an Opponent's weapon.
A way around the problem is to weld a billet of soft iron to a billet of steel hardened with the highest possible carbon content. The fused bar can then be hammered flat and folded back on itself, the process repeated until iron and steel are intermingled in thousands of layers thinner than the edge of a razor.
Done correctly, the result is a blade whose hardness is sandwiched within malleable layers that absorb shock and give the whole resilience; but the operation requires the flats to be cleaned before each refolding, lest oxide scale weaken the core and cause it to split on impact like a wand of whalebone. Few smiths had the skill and patience to forge such blades; few purchasers had the wealth to pay for so much expert labor.
But this stranger seemed to think Samlor fell into the latter category- as the caravan master indeed did, if he wanted a thing badly enough-
The blade was beautiful. It was double-edged and a foot long, with the sharpened surfaces describing flat curves instead of being straight tapers like those of the knife in Samlor's hand. The blade sloped toward either edge from the deep keel in the center which gave it stiffness-and all along the flat, the surface danced and shimmered with the polished, acid- etched whorls of the dissimilar metals which comprised it.
Because of their multiple hammered refoldings, the join lines between layers of iron and steel were as complex as the sutures of a human skull. After the bar had been forged and ground into a blade, the smith pol- ished it and dipped it into strong acid which he quickly flushed away.
The steel resisted the biting fluid, but some of the softer iron was eaten by even the brief touch. The iron became a shadow of incredible delicacy against which the ripples of bright steel stood out like sunlight on moun- tain rapids. Even without its functional purpose, the watermarked blade would have commanded a high price for its appearance.
Samlor's eyes stung. He blinked, because in the wavering lamplight the spidery lines of iron against steel looked like writing.
The stranger smiled more broadly.
"Unc-" began Star with a tug on the caravan master's left sleeve.
The iron shadows in the heart of the blade read "He will attack" in Cirdonian script. A moment before they had been only swirls of metal.
The stranger's hand slid fully onto the hilt he had been pinching to display. He twisted it in a slashing stroke toward Samlor's eyes.
Samlor didn't believe the words written on steel. He didn't even believe he had seen them. But part of his nervous system-"mind" would be too formal a term for reflex at so primitive a level-reacted to the strangeness with explosive activity.
The Cirdonian's left hand shot out and crushed the stranger's fingers against the grip of his weapon, easily turning the stroke into a harmless upward sweep- The metal that Samlor touched-the copper buttcap and the tang to which scales of dark wood were pinned to complete the hilt- were cooler than air temperature despite having been carried beneath the stranger's cape.
Samlor's right hand slammed his own dagger up and through the stranger's ribcage till the crosshilt stopped at the breastbone. The cara- van master could have disarmed his opponent without putting a foot of steel through his chest, but reflex didn't know that and instinct didn't care.
The stranger-the dead man, now, with steel from his diaphragm to the back of his throat-lifted at the short, powerful blow. His head snapped back-his mouth was still smiling-and hammered the hoop which suspended the lamps. They sloshed and went out as the heavy oil doused their wicks.
"Star, keep behind-" Samlor ordered as the light dimmed and his right hand jerked down to clear his weapon from the torso in which he had just imbedded it. The stranger flopped forward loosely, but the blade remained stuck.
Somebody's hurled beer mug smashed the lantern behind the bar. The Vulgar Unicorn was as dark as the bowels of hell.
Samlor ducked and hunched back against the bar while he tugged at his knife hilt with enough strength to have forced a camel to its knees.
There was a grunt and an oak-topped table crashed over. Somebody screamed as if he were being opened from groin to gullet-as may have been the case. Darkness in a place like this was both an opportunity and a source of panic. Either could lead to slaughter.
Samlor's dagger wouldn't come free. He hadn't felt it grate bone as it went in, and it didn't feel now as if the top were caught on ribs or the stranger's vertebrae. The blade didn't flex at all, the way it should have done if it were held at one point. It was more as if Samlor had thrust the steel into fresh concrete and were coming back a day later in a vain attempt to withdraw it.
One advantage to winning a knife fight is that you have the choice of your opponent's weapon if something's happened to yours. The Cirdoni- an's left hand snatched the hilt from the unresisting fingers of the man he had just killed, while his right arm swept behind him to gather up his niece.
A thrown weapon plucked his sleeve much the way the child had done a moment before. The point was too blunt to stick in the bar panel against which it crashed like a crossbow bolt.
Star wasn't there. She wasn't anywhere within the sweep of Samlor's arm, and there was no response when he desperately called the child's name.
Steel hit steel across the room with a clang and a shower of angry orange sparks. Someone outside the tavern called a warning, but there was already a murderous scuffle blocking the only door to the street.
That left the door to the alley on the opposite side of the tavern; stairs to the upper floor-which Samlor couldn't locate in the dark and which were probably worth his life to attempt anyway; and a third option which was faster and safer than the other two, though it was neither fast nor safe on any sane scale.
Samlor gripped the body of his victim beneath both armpits and rushed forward, using the corpse as a shield and a battering ram.
His niece might still be inside the Vulgar Unicorn, but he couldn't find her in the darkness if she didn't-or couldn't-answer his call. Star was a level-headed girl who might have screamed but wouldn't have panicked to silence when Samlor shouted for her.
He was much more concerned that she had bolted for the door the instant the lights went out, and that she was now in the arms of someone with a good idea of the price a virgin of her age would fetch in this hellhole-
Somebody brushed Samlor from the side-backed into him-and caromed off, wailing in terror. Samlor did not cut with his new dagger at the contact because Star could still be within reach of his blade ... He was willing to be stabbed himself to avoid making that sort of mistake.
Samlor stumbled on an outstretched limb which gave but did not twitch beneath his boot. Then the corpse hit the screen to the right of the door and the Cirdonian used all the strength of his back and shoulders to smash the wickerwork out into the street.
The screen was dry with age, and many of the individuals withies were already splitting away from the tiny trenails that pinned them to the frame. The wicker still retained a springy strength greater than that of thin board shutters, and Samlor felt a hint of infuriating backthrust against his push.
The frame snapped away from the sash, letting the corpse carry the collapsing wickerwork ahead of it into the street.
There was enough haze to hide the stars and silver moon, but the sky glow was enough to fill the window sash after the lattice had been torn away. Samlor dived over the sill, keeping his body as low as possible. He could have boosted himself with his empty right hand so that he landed feet first instead of slamming the street with his shoulder ...
But if he had done that, the knife that flicked through the air above his rolling body would instead have punched between his shoulder blades.
Some brawlers, like sharks in a feeding frenzy, don't need a reason to kill; only a target.
"Star!" the caravan master bellowed as he hit, the shock of impact turning the word into more of a gasp than he had expected. His cloak and shoulder muscles had to break the fall, because his left hand, the downside hand, held the long knife that could be the margin of survival in the next instants.
The door of the tavern beside Samlor was blocked by two men, the larger holding the smaller and stabbing with mindless repetition. The only sound the victim made now was the squelch of his flesh parting before the steel.
A watchman had stepped from a door down the street. The lantern he raised did not illuminate figures, but its light wavered from metal in the hands of half a dozen men scurrying toward the altercation.
Samlor had heard that there were local militias raised from every few blocks of the Old City. They differed from street gangs in their expressed determination to keep order and protect their enclaves-but that didn't mean it would be healthy for an outsider to fall into their hands after starting a brawl on their turf. Militiamen rarely saw the need for a trial when there was already a rope or a sword handy.
The squad marching toward the noise from the other direction was paid to enforce the law, but the priorities of the men comprising the unit tended to be more personal- They were regular army, and the quicker they silenced the trouble, the quicker they could get the fuck back to the patrol station where they didn't have to worry about showers of bricks and roofing tiles.
I One of the soldiers carried a lantern on a pole. The glazing was pro- tected by wire mesh, and similar metal curtains depended stiffly from the brims of the squad's dented helmets. They carried pole arms, halberds, and short pikes, and they shuffled forward with such noisy deliberation that it was obvious they hoped the problem would go away without any need for them to deal with it.
Samlor was wilting enough to do that. The problem was how. Star wasn't in the street and wasn't answering him. He'd find her if he ad to wash Sanctuary away in the blood of its denizens, but first he had to get clear of this mess into which Fate seemed to have dropped him tirough no fault of his own.
Why had that clumsy, suicidal stranger attacked him? Why had the silow even accosted him? But first, survival.
Samlor switched the dagger to his right, master hand, and dodged into an alley nearest him.
The passageway was scarcely the width of his shoulders, but a door- strapped and studded with metal-gave onto it from the building on the other side. The Cirdonian slapped the panel as he dodged past it. Had it opened, he would have dived in and dealt with those inside in whatever fashion seemed advisable.
But he didn't expect that; and, as he expected, the door was as solid as the stone to either side of it,
The alley jogged, though Samlor didn't recall an angle from inside the Vulgar Unicorn's taproom. He slid past the facet of masonry, into an instant of pitch darkness before someone within the tavern reignited a lamp.
There were two slit windows serving this side of the taproom. The grating still covered one, but the light silhouetted the crisp rectangle of the other from which the wickerwork had been torn since the caravan master last saw it inside- Even so, the opening was too narrow to pass an adult.
Samlor's mouth opened to call, but the child in the midst of four men was already screaming, "Uncle Samlor"
There were three of them between him and Star, packed into the pas- sageway so that the child's dust-whitened garments were only a shimmer past their legs. They were the punks from the table by the door. Beyond them was a fourth man, tall and hooded, closing Star's escape route.
Light in the passageway was only the ghost filtering through the tavern windows and reflected from the filth-blackened wall opposite, but it was enough for Samlor's business. He drew the push dagger from its sheath under the back of his collar and held it so that its narrow point jutted out between the fourth and middle fingers of his left hand.
Before the caravan master could lunge into action, the hooded man stepped past the cringing Star and held his staff vertically to confront the trio of toughs. Either the hood was flapping loose or something tiny capered on the fellow's shoulder.
"What are you doing with this child?" he demanded in a clear voice. "Begone!"
"Hey," said the nearest thug, doubtful enough to step back and jostle a companion.
The staff glowed pale blue, a hazy color which seemed to hang in the air as the object trembled. The face beneath the hood was set with deter- mination which controlled but did not eliminate the underlying fear. The staff shook because the man holding it was terrified.
Reasonably enough.
Samlor paused. If the toughs did turn away in fear of what confronted them, he didn't want to be launched into an attack intended for their backs.
He didn't know what was going on. Sometimes you had to act anyway -but just now, Star was out of immediate danger, so there was no point in going off half-cocked.
Something-a man, there was no damned doubt about it, but he was only a hand span tall-stood on the right shoulder of the man with the glowing staff. The little fellow hopped up and down, then piped, "Do not be afraid to do that in which you are right!"
A thug swore and swung his weapon at the staff.
Instead of blades or ordinary clubs, this trio of street toughs carried weighted chains which Samlor had mistaken in the tavern for items of armor or adornment when they were coiled through an epaulette loop on each youth's shoulder. Each chain was about a yard long, made up of fine links which slipped over one another like drops of water. They were polished glass-smooth and then plated for looks-silver for two of the thugs, gold for the third who now swung his weapon in a glittering arc.
Both ends of the chain were weighted by lead knobs the size of large walnuts, armed with steel spikes. The knobs were heavy enough to stun or kill but still so light that they could be directed handily and with blinding speed. A skilled man in the right situation could pulp an oppos- ing knife artist, and he could do so with the sort of flashy display which on the street counted for more than success.
It was the wrong weapon for an alleyway which even at its widest point was straighter than the span of the chain fully extended, but the hooded man seemed to have no idea of how to defend himself. The weighted end of the chain wrapped itself tight against the staff-it clacked like wood, despite the glow which sugg
ested it was of some eerie material-and the tough jerked it toward him.
The hopping manikin disappeared with a high-pitched shriek of terror. The hooded man staggered forward, managing to keep a hold on his staff only by lurching toward the punk whose weapon had snatched it. The blue glow was snuffed out as if the gold-plated chain had strangled the life from the wood.
The hooded man was a magician, had to be with his staff and capering manikin. Samlor-and probably the street toughs as well, though psy- chotic pride ruled the actions of their leader-expected magical retribu- tion for the attack. A thunderbolt might shatter them, or icy needles from nowhere might lace their bodies into bloody sieves.
Nothing happened except that the leading thug gripped his opponent by the throat and shouted, "Finish 'im, dungbrains!" to his fellows as the victim struggled to free his chain-wrapped staff.
The caravan master waded in to do the job that magic wouldn't take care of after all.
One of the three youths hung a half step behind his fellows. Samlor punched the base of his skull left-handed. The steel cap concealed be- neath the bright bandanna rapped the knuckle of the Cirdonian's index finger, but the bodkin point of Samlor's push dagger plunged in to its full length.
The youth turned and cried out, pulling clear of the two-inch blade that left a trickle of gore crawling toward the collar of his studded vest. He'd been spinning his chain between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, waiting for an opening to slap the weight into the hooded man. One of the balls gouged Samlor's thigh, but that was accident rather than deliberate counterattack.
The youth dropped his weapon and stumbled off down the alleyway, kicked in passing by the man still struggling for his staff- Star flattened herself against the wall to let him go. Her eyes and the white swirl in her hair were pools of reflected light as she stared at her uncle.
Aftermath tw-10 Page 11
