felled stood up, shaking his head to clear it, and plunged back into the fray.
Skif shook himself out of his trance and flung two more bowls. Neither connected as well as the first; the first man remaining was hit in the shoulder, and the second in the back. But the distraction was their undoing, for they lost the initiative and Alberich managed to get out of their trap, nor could they pin him between them again.
The fight moved closer to the Guildmaster — Alberich got the second man in the leg, leaving his dagger in the man's thigh, and the bodyguard staggered back.
Skif threw his last bowl, which hit the man nearest the Guildmaster in the side of the face. Alberich saw his opening, and took it, with an all-or-nothing lunge that carried him halfway across the room.
Skif let out a strangled cry of horror —
If any fighter Skif had ever seen before had tried that move, it would have ended differently. But this was Alberich, and he came in under the man's sword and inside his dagger, and the next thing Skif knew, the point of Alberich's sword was sticking out of the man's back, and the man was gazing down at Alberich with an utterly stupefied expression on his face.
Then he toppled over slowly —
But he took Alberich's sword with him.
And now the Guildmaster struck.
Because he had done nothing all this time, Skif had virtually forgotten he was there, and had assumed that he was harmless. Perhaps Alberich had done the same. It was a mistaken assumption on both their parts.
The Guildmaster moved like a ferret, so fast that he seemed to blur, and too fast for Alberich, exhausted as he was, to react. The Guildmaster didn't have a weapon.
He didn't need one.
Skif didn't, couldn't see how it happened. One moment, Alberich was still extended in his lunge; the next, the Guildmaster had him pinned somehow, trapped. The Guildmaster's back was to the wall, his arm was across Alberich's throat with Alberich's body protecting his. Both of Alberich's hands were free, and he clawed ineffectually at the arm across his throat. The Weaponsmaster's face was already turning an unhealthy shade of pale blue.
“Kash,” the Guildmaster said, in a tight voice. “Get the brat.”
But the last man was in no condition to grab anyone. “Can't,” he coughed. “Leg's out.”
Given the fact that his leg had been opened from thigh to knee, with Alberich's dagger still in the wound, he had a point. The Guildmaster's gaze snapped back onto Skif.
“Well,” he said, in that condescending voice he'd used with Jass, “I wouldn't have expected the Heralds to use bait. It's not like them to put a child in danger.”
Skif bristled. “Ain't a child,” he said flatly.
“Oh? You're a little young to be a Herald,” the man countered in a sarcastic tone. Then he punched Alberich's shoulder wound with his free hand, making him gasp, and putting a stop to Alberich's attempts to claw himself free. “Stop that. You're only making things more difficult for yourself.”
“What has age to do with being a Herald?” Alberich rasped.
Skif said nothing, and the man's eyes narrowed as his arm tightened a little more on Alberich's throat. “Be still, or I will snap your foolish neck for you. A Trainee, then. But still — that's quite out of character — unless — ”
He stared at Skif then, with a calculating expression, and Skif sensed that he was thinking very hard, very hard indeed.
It was, after all, no secret that the latest Trainee was a thief. But what that would mean to this wealthy villain — and whether he'd heard that —
Then the Guildmaster's eyes widened. “Well,” he said, and his mouth quirked up at one corner. “Who would have thought it. The Heralds making common cause with a common thief. Oh, excuse me — you're quite an uncommon thief. Old Bazie's boy, aren't you? Skif, is it?”
Skif went cold with shock and stared at the Guildmaster with his mouth dropping open. How'd he know — how —
The Guildmaster smirked. “I make it my business to know what goes on in my properties, as any good
