shoulders, giving him a humpbacked look. Vox's cruel axe had ripped the man's belly. Curled in pain, he spilled gallons of blood in a black pool.
Squinting by candlelight, Vox searched at the man's throat but found no wooden or bone whistle, which meant the doghandler whistled through his teeth. The hillman carried only a short club drilled and weighted with lead and a long knife. A squirrel-hide purse dangled from his belt, and Vox used the long knife to cut it loose. Finding nothing else, the veteran spiked the man's windpipe and left him for dead.
'You hardly need loot the man, Vox.' Tamlin's voice shook. He didn't often witness death, and his bodyguard's simple savagery always startled him. 'Leave the chap some coins so his kinsfolk can bury him.'
Glaring under dark brows, Vox touched his own forehead, then flicked his fingers away. He pointed to his eyes, then to the dead man, and spread his fingers wide. Used to the mute's sign language, the young men read Have you lost your mind? There's more to this assassination attempt than meets the eye.
Moving on, Vox examined a dead dog-or dog-monster. Similar in shape, the creatures proved more squat than dogs, almost humpbacked, with short thick legs. Vox pinched shaggy fur, stroked his breast, and pointed at the dead man. The young men realized the hillman's furred vest was dog-hide. Square skulls of bone bore tiny lop ears and teeth like jagged glass. The rancid smell came from stale sweat, crumbs of dung, and fetid blood on their muzzles.
A second carcass sprang a surprise. Bending, Vox unfolded a leather membrane that stretched from the brute's hocks to its hunch: a lump of muscle to power the stubby wings. Escevar tugged the wing and jerked a dead leg. 'It's like a bat's wing! But flying dogs? I never heard of such a thing!'
Vox yanked the wing to test the dog's weight, and found it heavy. He scooped a hand along the ground to say, More like gliding dogs. A quick check with the fading candle showed another dog had vestigial wings no bigger than a pigeon's, and a third had no wings at all. Then the candle sputtered out and plunged them into night.
'They're not devil dogs, nor phantom hounds, from what I've heard in pubs,' said Escevar. 'Wheels of fire! This city's gotten stranger than usual lately. All kinds of oddities crop up!'
'Blame the Soargyls and their necromancers,' said Tamlin absently. 'Should we alert the Hulorn's Guards?'
'No. They'd ask a thousand questions and we'd have no answers. And I'm freezing.' Between battle fatigue, a wounded wrist, shorn clothes, and a lost cape, Escevar shivered uncontrollably. 'Let's get somewhere inside.'
'What about my sword?'
A nudge from behind was Vox's way of saying, Leave it.
Leaving the dead dogs and lone handler, they left the winter-dead park for lighted streets, and safety, and warmth.
'Master Tam,' piped the girl. 'You're wounded!'
'Eh? Oh, no, Dolly.' Tamlin shrugged off torn clothes as the maid assisted. 'It's Escevar who got hurt. I'm fine.'
'No, you're not.' Despite the late hour and hushed halls, Dolly still wore her uniform and waited up for her master. In the Uskevren household, servants wore a blue shift under a white smock, a gold vest, and a gold turban that set off Dolly's short dark hair. Laying Tamlin's clothing aside, she touched his cheek gently. The master started at a twinge, and Dolly's finger showed red. 'This sword cut must be treated right away.'
Behind Dolly's back, Escevar and Vox rolled their eyes.
'Sword cut?' Tamlin felt the wound, thrilled at a badge of honor. 'My, my. Will it leave a rakish scar?'
'Dolly, if it's not too much trouble?' Escevar hissed as he shucked his calfskin glove. Punctures in the crescent of a toothy jaw leaked red. 'Could you summon Cale and his magic box of healing gook? While you dab Deuce's chin, they can lop off my hand and seal the stump with burning pitch.'
Thamalon Uskevren the Second, called Tamlin or Deuce, studied his chin scar in a silver mirror. Seven sleepy servants shuffled into the echoing hall bearing hot food, mulled wine, bandages, and fresh clothes. Newly built, Stormweather Towers already felt ancient with jumbled rambling rooms with lofty ceilings that ate any heat and stone walls that echoed every cough and murmur. A fireplace big enough to roast an ox was kicked up, and the three ramblers crowded to the blaze. Gratefully they gulped warm mugs of Usk Fine Old, the sharp and spicy wine that Tamlin's father had originated in his vineyard vats.
Seen in firelight, Tamlin resembled his father, being middling in height and sporting wavy dark hair and deep green eyes. Escevar was rail-thin, red-haired, and profusely freckled, and looked underfed and twittery, which he was not. Vox was a hulk whose single black eyebrow and fierce beard hid a dark face that hinted at orcish or ogre blood. A black braid hung over his left shoulder to mask the white scar that had robbed him of speech. Hired years ago as Tamlin's fightmaster, Vox now served as his bodyguard. The foundling Escevar had been bought off the streets at a bargain, originally to be Tamlin's whipping boy and schoolchum, but now his companion, guard, secretary, and best friend.
As the trio were bandaged and brushed, Escevar asked in a hush, 'Is the old owl still up hooting?'
Servants piffed to hear Thamalon Uskevren the First so nicknamed. Dolly, who kept the pulse of the mansion, recited, 'The master and mistress have retired. Master Talbot has embarked on a short hunting trip to the hills. He hopes to fetch a hart to the table for the Moon Festival. Mistress Tazi attends a play at Quickley's.'
Escevar frowned. 'Deuce, maybe we should stay within walls 'til daylight and see what your father advises. Those kill-crazy dog-creatures, whatever they be, were sicced on us by human huntsmen. If we meet Zarrin-'
'We shall meet her.' Tamlin pointed his toe as a kitchen boy yanked on his knee-high boot. 'Father's entrusted me with a mission, and I'll see it carried out, and damn the riffraff.'
Escevar and Vox sighed in mutual suffering. The youth said, 'Damning riffraff can lead to early death, friend. Why can't the meeting wait until dawn, though that's hours off since it's winter.'
'Father insisted on secret.' Tamlin tugged on a quilted doublet of red embroidered with the gold horsehead- and-fouled-anchor badge of the Uskevren clan. Over it he strapped a broad black belt with scabbards for sword and smatchet. An armorer's apprentice roused from bed had fetched a new sword. Servants silently waited for the master to leave so they could return to bed. Dolly brushed Tamlin's dark unruly hair.
The Young Master went on, 'Of course, everything in Selgaunt is done in secret. What with the Soargyls dropping out of sight, now's the time to snatch up their neglected properties and contracts, Father says. And so we shall, once we strike the stockyards. Uh, where are the stockyards, anyway?'
Escevar rubbed his face and muttered under his breath.
The looming Vox raised a finger for a short lesson, then borrowed Escevar's smatchet. Thick-bladed, with a checkered grip of teak and a thong to circle the wrist, it looked like a gardener's tool for slashing brush. The blade's throat was queerly cut with a deep slot. As an old weapons master, Vox hated the groove for weakening the blade, but new experiments in swordfighting were the rage with Selgaunt's youngsters. This 'blade-breaker' slot was designed to replace a cumbersome shield. Carried left-handed, a fighter slashed down to both fend back an opponent and to hook his blade in the groove. Twisting the smatchet locked or broke the enemy blade, thus exposing him to the right-hand long sword. Escevar and Tamlin had practiced the maneuver, but Vox had proclaimed that 'clowning around with toys by day' was no real test of alley fighting in pitch darkness when half- drunk.
Vox demonstrated once more how to cock the smatchet up while pointing the long sword down, and how to windmill a 'circle of steel' in lieu of a shield. Obeying the fightmaster, Escevar practiced a while, swiping and slashing the length of the hall.
Tamlin fussed with pins and medallions brought on a velvet pillow. As a frequent target of kidnappers and assassins, he had a superstitious awe of good luck charms. One gewgaw featured an imp clutching a gold coin, a charm for business, and that one Tamlin pinned over his heart. From his baldric buckle he hung a tiny chain with a gauntlet symbolizing strength, and to his hat pinned a silver arrow spearing two hearts, in hopes Zarrin succumbed to his own charms. Tamlin donned the round blue hat with a gay pheasant feather and swirled around his shoulders a blue cloak edged with ermine, then struck a pose, hands on his swordbelt. Servants clapped at his smart appearance, and Tamlin smiled and bowed.
'What do you think?'
Vox swiped hands down his front, then mimed circles around his eyes. Escevar interpreted, 'I agree. The white fur will make you luminous in the dark.'
