the hook. Whaddya say?'
Kali slipped the blackjack back into a pocket, relieved she hadn't needed to use it. 'You've got yourself a deal.'
'Whoa, careful, little lady,' another of the guards interjected. 'At the Dead Duck in Miramas they call Sarge the Ale Whale.'
Kali stared at the Ale Whale, hardly surprised. 'Phoo. Well, it won't be a problem, then, will it?'
''Ere, Sarge,' another said. 'You're supposed to be on duty.'
Kali smiled her most girlish smile. 'Surely he can hold his own against me? A thimbleful and I'm gone, remember?'
'Go orrrn, Sarge,' one of the other guards snickered dirtily. ''Old your own against 'er, eh?'
'Why not, eh?' the sergeant cackled. 'Why not indeed.'
Kali looked at the bar but Dolorosa was ahead of her, having the first drinks lined up in readiness — four flummoxes with ale chasers. She dipped her head towards Kali as she swept them up.
'Poor bastardo,' she whispered.
'Hush, woman.'
Kali and the Sarge retired to the nook, and it began. One drink. Two drinks. Three drinks, four. An hour later, the Sarge's mates had lost count.
''Ere, jush 'ang on a mo',' the Sarge said at last, slurring and straightening himself none too successfully in his chair. He made circles with his tankard, spilling great slops of ale over the side. 'If thish is your hosteryl… your hotslery… your hoslerurry…' He hiccupped and frowned, determined to get something out. 'If this is your pub, how am I to know your shour-faced wench ain't sherving you shome speshal watered-down muck?'
Kali looked down at her own ale, a thwack, triple the strength of his own. She'd tired of flummox and, besides, liked a challenge.
'Taste it for yourself,' she said, smiling and proffering her tankard, which he took and quaffed greedily. All that was left, just to be sure.
'Okay?' she asked.
'Ish very nishe, yesh. Blup. Orf.'
Nodding, Kali motioned to Dolorosa to bring two more of the same. None too keen on being referred to as a sour-faced wench — or, indeed, any kind of wench at all — the concavity of the tall woman's cheeks clearly signalled she was sucking up to deposit a small present into the guard's beer, until Kali shook her head subtly. Dolorosa shrugged — okay, maybe the man was suffering enough — and instead slammed his tankard down hard, soaking his lap with beer. The guard looked down vaguely, his head bobbing, as the ale penetrated the cloth of his pants.
'Gawds, ah fink arve gone un me pished meself.'
'No need to waste time going, then, is there?' Kali observed as he giggled. She raised her refreshed tankard to show she was still willing and able. 'Come on, Sarge, drink up.'
'Wha — ?' the guard said, startled. 'Oh, yeah. Cheershh!'
The Sarge raised his tankard to his lips and stared hard at Kali. Or at least as hard as he could when he had finally managed to pull her into focus. Almost got her now, he thought to himself. Ah mean, look at the state of the bloody woman… so betwattled she's blurred and swaying all over the place. Ey up, she was bringing on a reserve now, and all — another one who looked just like her. Nah, stood to reason that, as a gentleman, like, he was gonna have to say something for her own good, or she'd be off the bleedin' chair.
'Wimmin,' he bemoaned to himself. 'They jush can't take their drinksh.'
'Dolorosa!' Kali called. 'Another!'
'Dolorosha,' the sergeant repeated. 'Godsh, sheesh uggle… uggloo…' He gave up and jabbed a finger across the table — jabbed it everywhere, really, including into his eye. 'But you, Mish,' he warned, 'youse pretty an' oughts to givvup before youse lose your looksh… ow, bloody 'ell.' He looked stunned, suddenly, and then added, 'Oh gawds… oh, bluurrrfff!'
Kali's tankard froze in mid-air as the sergeant's head hit the table with a thud. She sat back with a smile then motioned to his men to take him away, which they did, bundling him out of the door while their heads shook in disbelief.
Another triumph for the Tavern Tot, Kali thought.
She bounced down the steps and slapped the now reseated Red on his back. 'Next time,' she advised, 'wait 'til longnight, eh? Dolorosa, get this man another ale. Me, too, while you're at it. Please.'
'You musta be hungry? You wanna some Surprise Stew?'
'Don't know. What's in it?'
'Oh, the beer hassa made the bossgirl funny, now! Hey, why not washa that outfit of yours because you steeeenk. Anda while you at it, sew uppa the pants because your bum it sticka out! Hoh, she smiles! Aldrededor, where issa my sharpeeest knife?'
Kali was halfway back up the steps when shadows darkened the windows again. Another group of men entered, clothed in common travellers' garb, but she recognised the leader of them immediately.
New recruits but same old story. The Munch Bunch.
But something was different. From the shapes that were barely concealed beneath his and his men's cloaks it was clear that they were more heavily armed this time. It wasn't the weapons themselves that worried Kali but the fact that their Final Faith talismans were absent from their sleeves, too. Munch and his cronies had obviously gone to lengths to distance themselves from looking like agents of the Final Faith, and that could mean only one thing. The gloves were off.
'Miss Hooper,' Munch said. 'You have been really quite difficult to track down.'
'I like it that way. How's tricks, Stan?'
'They will be better when I have recovered what belongs to me. The key, Miss Hooper? Please?'
'The key? Oh, that key. Little difficult — I don't have it any more.'
'You… don't… have it.' Munch repeated, slowly.
'That's right. I threw it away.'
Munch laughed out loud, spun to face the watching locals in the tavern. 'Did you hear that?' he shouted. 'She doesn't have it! She threw it away! Oh, well that's all right, then — we'll all just leave and go home to — '
Go on, Kali thought. Say it. Say Scholten and give yourself away. Let all these people know who you thugs really represent. But instead of continuing Munch slammed his fist down on the bar and with a roar swept away the drinks standing there. 'Hey, watch out there,' Red said, and made to move on him, but in under a second Munch had whipped a shiny new gutting knife from under his cloak and held it to the big man's throat. He pressed the point into Red's flesh until he was forced to sit back down.
Munch turned back to Kali. 'Go home?' he said again, as if pondering. 'No, I don't think so.'
'I already told you, I don't have the key,' Kali said. 'Now, why don't you just leave before I tell everyone here who you are?'
'That would not be wise,' Munch said. 'Because then we would have to kill them all.' As one, his cronies took crossbows from beneath their cloaks and trained them on the regulars.
'Miss Hooper, if you really do not have the key then I fear I have no choice but to change my plans again. This involves causing you great pain. Do you understand? Oh, and if you are thinking of fleeing from us as you did from the Sardenne Forest, I'm afraid that without the means that might prove a little problematic.' Munch smiled coldly. 'But if you doubt me, why don't you take a look outside?'
What the hells is he talking about? Kali wondered. Automatically her mind flicked back to her flight from the Spiral, the escape from its conflagration, the gallop away on Horse. No, she thought suddenly. No!
Surely even this bastard…
Kali pushed past Munch and his cronies and burst out of the door of the tavern into the stable-lined courtyard beyond. There she stopped dead. Horse was being led towards her by another of Munch's men. But something was wrong. Very wrong. Horse stumbled as he came, sweating, whinnying sadly, his eyes rolling as they always did, but this time in pain. As Kali fought to take in what it was that was wrong with him her eyes were drawn to the reason for Horse's weak and unsteady gait. The fetlocks on both of his hind legs had been cut almost through. Sinew and cartilage dangled from raw and sliced wounds that bled freely and left a trail behind them, like red ribbons on the
