Theriseus shrugged. “That doesn’t sound too different from the regular watch. They clubbed that one drunkard to death after he wouldn’t put down the knife.”
“Oh, it’s different,” Randal said. Even if he was vague on exactly how. “So, are you up to it, or are you too scared?”
“I’ll help,” Theriseus said, as Randal had known he would. The lanky blond boy might think a little differently than his fellows, but he prized his membership in the Black Wasps just as highly. In the rookeries where their families lived, if you weren’t in a gang, you weren’t anything. And you couldn’t belong to the Wasps if you were scared to take a dare.
Randal led his fellows down an alley choked with slippery, ripe-smelling refuse. Up ahead, the passage met a street. Having studied their routine, he knew a sellsword patrol would march across the intersection in just a little while.
Sure enough, here came the clink of armor and the thump of feet striding in unison. The other Black Wasps pulled stones from their pockets and the bags and pouches on their belts.
Randal could go them one better because his father had taught him to use a sling, and he’d borrowed it from the chest where the old man kept it. And a sling could throw a stone hard. His father said it was a genuine weapon of war, although Randal suspected that had been truer in olden times than it was today.
The soldiers tramped into view. A dwarf with a spear in his hand and some sort of axe strapped to his back was in the lead.
Randal’s father said dwarves were as evil as wizards. They practiced the same sort of diabolical arts. So Randal whipped his rock at the small warrior, and his friends threw theirs too.
The missiles clattered on shields, helmets, and mail. Some of the sellswords staggered, although to Randal’s disappointment nobody fell down.
“There they are!” said the dwarf. He reversed his grip on the spear-so he could strike with the butt, presumably. Then he and several of the human soldiers charged.
Randal and his friends turned and ran. He felt excited, not scared, because he was sure they’d get away. They weren’t carrying the weight of armor, and they knew the back alleys of the ropemakers’ precinct like no outsider ever would.
They rounded several turns, and then he glanced back. The sellswords were nowhere in sight. He waved the hand with the sling over his head and gasped out that the others should stop.
Everybody grinned and, once they caught their breaths, slapped their comrades on the back. Even Theriseus, who also asked, “What now?”
“What do you think?” answered Randal, pushing sweaty hair back from his forehead. “The same again!”
They sneaked through the alleys, staged a second ambush, and once again escaped. If anything, the new assault was even more exhilarating, yet still not entirely satisfactory. Because even after two volleys, some of the armored warriors were bruised and bloodied, but every one of them was still on his feet. Surely the sling could do better. In practice, it had smashed chips loose from a stone wall.
“Once more,” Randal said.
“Are you sure?” Theriseus asked. “This time they’ll be expecting us.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Randal said. “We’re smarter and faster than they are.” And that really did seem to be the case. It made you wonder how these Brotherhood of the Griffon ever won a battle.
He and the other Wasps crept through the narrow, shadowed space between two tenements. Up ahead, the first rank of outlanders prowled into view. Randal kissed his stone and offered a curt, silent prayer to Loviatar, goddess of punishment, for luck, then let the missile fly.
His target clapped a hand to his eye. Blood welled between the soldier’s fingers, and then he pitched forward.
Randal whooped. He and the other Wasps whirled to flee, then faltered. Somehow the dwarf and three of his men had sneaked up right behind them.
It would be useless to turn back around, because the rest of the sellswords were blocking the other end of the passage. All the Wasps could do was try to dart by the dwarf and his allies.
Theriseus and another boy made it. The outlanders beat others to the ground. Some swung the same sort of truncheons as the regular watch. The rest struck and jabbed with the shafts of their spears. It seemed unfair that they wielded the long weapons so nimbly in the crowded space.
Randal faked left, then lunged right, but the sellsword in front of him wasn’t fooled. He kept himself in the way, dropping his cudgel and snatching a long, thin dagger from his belt.
He and Randal slammed together. A sort of shock jolted Randal. His legs gave way and dumped him on his back in the dirt. He heard a rattling, whistling sound. Something wet was in his throat and mouth, choking him, and he coughed a glob of it out.
The dwarf discarded his spear and shield, kneeled down, and pressed his hands against Randal’s torso. Randal, whose thoughts seemed murky and slow, realized the human sellsword had stabbed him, and the dwarf-the evil, magic-loving dwarf!-was trying to stanch the bleeding.
“Curse it!” snarled the dwarf. “They’re just boys. How do you think the town will react to this?”
“That’s the little bastard who put Fodek’s eye out,” said the warrior gripping the bloody blade. “He had a sling, and a sling is a deadly weapon.”
As he retched more blood, Randal was glad that his father had been right about something.
Jhesrhi tossed and turned until she couldn’t bear it anymore. Then she cursed, rose from her narrow, sagging bed, winced at the chill that pervaded her room, and dressed quickly.
Now what? The shabby little house was silent except for the snores of one of the family who had billeted her at the war hero’s command. Jhesrhi hesitated to busy herself inside their home for fear of waking them. Her presence was enough of an inconvenience without that.
But the only alternative was to go outside, and the prospect made her mouth go dry and her fingers tremble. And then she hated herself for her fear.
Luthcheq was a genuinely dangerous place despite all the Brotherhood was trying to do to keep the lid on. And it despised her kind. But she wasn’t a helpless child anymore. She was a master wizard and veteran soldier who’d survived the horrors of Thay itself, and she wouldn’t let this miserable cesspit daunt her.
She put on her tabard, wrapped herself in her cloak, and picked up her blackwood staff with its inlaid golden runes. Then she took a deep breath and opened the door.
Scar, her griffon, slept curled beneath an overhang on the side of the house. She felt an urge to wake the steed and go flying, but she realized that would be a way of hiding just like cringing inside the house. And she was done cringing. She meant to walk the streets all by herself until they didn’t frighten her anymore.
She set forth beneath a brilliant scatter of stars that made the shuttered grime and decay of the wizards’ quarter seem even sadder. The iron cap on the butt of her staff thumped almost inaudibly against the frozen mud. She asked the wind to warn her of anyone moving around outdoors anywhere nearby, and it whispered that it would.
And after another heartbeat or two, it did. It didn’t speak in any mortal tongue or even think in mortal concepts, but after years of practice, Jhesrhi had no difficulty understanding it.
And she liked what it had to say. Because while it might be a sad commentary on human nature, one effective remedy for fear was instilling a dose of it in someone else.
The wind led her to a narrow three-story house at the edge of the wizards’ precinct. Two dark figures were just climbing out a gable window.
Some might have thought it odd that the burglars of a town that supposedly feared mages would choose them for their victims. But the skilled professionals of Luthcheq’s thieves’ guild likely knew which residents of the quarter wielded true power and which only possessed enough to turn them into outcasts. They also knew that the city’s homegrown watchmen rarely investigated crimes against wizards with any particular zeal.
Standing unnoticed in the darkness, Jhesrhi was eager to strike. But she recognized that a three-story fall could kill or cripple a man. So she waited for the burglars to climb partway down the wall before telling the wind to gust hard enough to knock them from their perches.
