Marco slipped his spare knife from his belt, feeling the hilt like a slip of ice in his hand, and passed it wordlessly to Benito. Then he shifted his own knife to his left hand and felt in his pocket for his sling and a stone. He got the stone into the pocket of the sling one-handed, and without taking his attention off the gang. With the sling loose and ready in his right hand, he shifted his weight from side to side, planting himself a little more firmly in the treacherous, icy mud. And prayed his numb feet wouldn't fail him.
'Hear ye finished off Big Gianni, Marco.'
One of the least ragged of the gang members stepped forward. Marco recognized the leader, Grimaldi, by his shock of wild reddish hair.
'Hear yer got pretty good wi' that sticker.' The redhead made a vaguely threatening gesture with his own thin-bladed knife.
Marco's hopes rose a little--if he could somehow convince them to go one-on-one with him, they might have a chance. Benito would, anyway, if he could talk the kid into running for it while the gang's attention was on the fight.
'Good enough to take you, Grimaldi,' he said, raising the knife defiantly. 'You want to dance?'
'Maybe, maybe--' the filth-caked, scrawny gang leader replied, swaying a little where he stood, knee-deep in muddy water, wisps of greasy red hair weaving around his face.
'What's the matter, Grim? What's matter? You scared?' Marco taunted, as the blood drained out of Benito's face and his eyes got big and frightened. 'I'm not a kid anymore, that it? Afraid to take me on now?'
'Marco--' Benito hissed, tugging urgently at his soggy sleeve. 'Marco, I don't think that's too smart--'
The gang leader hesitated--and his own followers began jeering at him, waving their arms around and making obscene gestures. Under cover of their catcalls, Marco whispered harshly to his younger brother.
'Benito--don't argue. For once, don't. I know what I'm doing, dammit! When you figure they're all watching me, you light out for deep water. You swim--'
'No! I'm not leavin' you!'
'You'll damn well do as I say!'
'No way!'
'Shut up!' Grimaldi roared, effectively silencing all of them. He sloshed forward a pace or two and grinned. 'I ain't afraid, Marco, but I ain't stupid, neither. I ain't gonna get myself cut up for nothin'--not when we can take both o' ye, an' make a little bargain with the Dandelo buyers for two nice young eunuchs--' His knife described a fast nasty low flick.
He sloshed forward another step--his last.
Marco's right hand blurred, and Grimaldi toppled sideways into the mud, wearing a rather surprised expression, a rock imbedded in his temple.
There was a moment of stunned silence, then the rest of the gang surged forward like a feeding-frenzy of weasels.
* * *
Harrow lost the boy as soon as he slid into the reeds. It took him longer than he liked to get to the place where the boy had vanished. If this had been the mountains, or a forest or a city--even a weird city like Venice--he'd have had no trouble tracking the kid. Here in this foul wilderness he was at something of a loss. He floundered around in the mud, feeling unnaturally helpless. Fine vessel of the Goddess, he was--he couldn't even keep track of a dumb kid!
Then he heard the shouting; there was enough noise so that he had no trouble pinpointing the source even through the misleading echoes out there. It sounded like trouble; and where there was trouble, he somehow had no doubt he'd find the boy.
But getting there . . . was a painfully slow process; he literally had to feel his way, step by cold, slippery step. Waterweeds reached out for him, snagging him, so that he had to fight his way through them. The noise echoed ahead of him, driving him into a frenzy of anxiety as he floundered on, past treacherous washouts and deposits of mud and silty sand that sucked at him.
Until he was suddenly and unexpectedly in the clearing.
He blinked--there was the boy--no, two boys, standing at bay, side by side on a hummock of flattened reeds. They were holding off--barely--a gang of mud-smeared, tattered marsh-vermin. One boy was Marco--
