Nico's side. The blow would do no more than sting, but it was enough of a distraction to force the man's guard to slip; his stance wavered. Li surged forward and thrust him away into a snowdrift. The man in the threadbare coat- Serg-was advancing again. With a snap of his wrist, Li flung his scabbard at him. Serg brushed it aside with his weapon, a stout club, but looked up to find Li whirling at him. He flinched and raised his club to meet the dao. Li just dropped and knocked his feet out from under him with a leg sweep.
'All at once!' cursed Lander. The thug was upright again. The torch had been planted in the snow and Lander had a sword out, a thin, fast blade. 'Ovel, Bor-get in there!' He began to close in cautiously himself.
At least he wasn't a rearguard leader. The two attackers who had been hanging back glanced at each other and stepped forward as well. Nico was staggering out of the snowdrift. Serg was slowly climbing to his feet. They still had him very nearly surrounded. Li drew a deep breath and stepped into the clear space between them, dao at the ready. 'I think Brin will be angry if you stop me,' he said. 'I have come a long way to meet him.'
Lander smiled like a wolf. 'Now, here's the thing. If Brin really wanted to meet you, you'd know where to find him. You wouldn't need to be asking for directions in places like the Wench's Ease. I don't think he's going to be angry if he never sees you.'
'You presume to know what Brin wants?'
'As it happens,' said Lander, 'I work for Brin. I do know what he wants. And he doesn't want to see every blood-mad lunatic who comes looking for revenge.' Li's breath hissed and Lander's smile grew wider. 'If you're smart, you'll give us everything you've got, get out of Spandeliyon, and forget Brin. What did he do to you? Kill someone?'
'Brin?' Li replied. 'No.'
This was no time to fight. He spun sharply. The men who had stayed back were Lander's weakest. Li threw himself at them with a vicious scream, dao slicing through the falling snow. Sure enough, the men's nerve broke and they scrambled aside. Li hurtled between them to freedom — and a snowdrift. Suddenly snow that had been barely above his ankles reached almost to his knees as his weight broke through the icy crust that fresh snow had hidden. Legs trapped, body still moving, Li fell flat. Ice crystals scraped against his face. Snow packed into his mouth and nose. Before he could do more than haul himself half-upright, a heavy mass slammed into him, forcing him back down into the snow. A club cracked against his right forearm and again, numbing it so that someone could seize his hand and wrench away his dao. Other hands slapped off his cap; the club came down across the back of his head in an explosion of pain. More pain came after. The weight-someone's body-rolled off his back and blows began to rain down on him, knocking him out of the snowdrift and tumbling him across the ground. Lander and his men were laughing and spitting insults at him. Li tried to shield himself, to roll back to his feet, but all that earned him were more blows. The end of a club jammed hard into his ribs. A fist slammed across his face. The snow that clung to him dulled some of the pain, but Li could taste blood on his lips.
'Hey!' Suddenly there was a cry out of the snow and a new figure moved into the circle of torchlight. Through eyes already swelling shut, Li caught a brief glimpse of a tough-looking woman in some kind of uniform, an emblem or crest bright on her coat. 'What's this-oh.' Lander spat something at her, but Li caught only '… Brin's business.' He flicked her a coin. The woman nodded and faded back into the shadows.
'No… help…' Li reached out for her. A foot came down hard on his hand. He looked up into Lander's face just as the thug's other foot swung forward and kicked him in the head.
Darkness fell on him. He was dimly aware of a tugging sensation and the cold touch of snow on his limbs. He was being stripped, just like the corpse hanging outside the Wench's Ease. He struggled again. Or at least he thought he did. Nothing seemed to happen. Comments reached him from a distance. 'This was his reward?' He heard the clinking of coins. 'That's it?'
A curse. 'Check his pack.' More cursing. 'Never mind, his things will fetch some more coin.' A kick rolled Li over. The press of cold snow against his bare belly forced a moan out of him and made him curl up. One of Lander's men must have thought it was a sign of recovery. Li received another kick.
'Dump him in the alley. They'll find him in spring. This has been a good night's work.' Lander laughed, his voice, punctuated by the hiss and click of a sword being returned to its scabbard. A sword-or his dao. Li's mouth worked in protest, but nothing came out. Hands grabbed him. His legs brushed through snow as he was dragged across the ground and thrown down. His head hit a wall, lighting the darkness with pain.
That light faded fast. No, he thought, not now. Not after so long, not when I'm so close…Lander's laughter faded.
Hot anger stirred. Li forced himself up and began to crawl after the sound. Or at least he thought he did. In the alley, snow settled on his body.
'Olore,' called Tycho as he stepped out through the door of the Wench's Ease. 'On the morrow!' Muire didn't even look up, just gave a vague grunt of farewell. Tycho didn't bother trying to coax anything more out of her. The night had been a failure. In spite of his best efforts, the crowd had never really recovered after the Shou's visit. Customers had finished their drinks and quickly left, their spirits done in. Only a couple of hours after the Shou's departure, the crowd had thinned down to those few patrons who had no need of music to encourage their drinking. Tycho had called himself finished and Muire had handed over his night's pay with a pained expression on her face. Two silver Sembian ravens and eight pennies.
Tycho looked up at the night sky. Snow was still falling, oblivious to the evening's events. In fact, enough had fallen to lay a good handspan on the ground. The churned ground of the yard was almost perfectly smooth now. Ardo's body was gone, he hoped taken by someone who would see it properly laid to rest. He hoped. There were some very desperate people on the dockside of Span — deliyon and there were rumors of necromancers and evil priests who would pay good coin for an unblessed body.
On another night, he might have walked in the dark. Rumored necromancers aside, the dockside streets held no fear for him. He knew them well. Tonight, though, the fresh snow would make footing treacherous. He checked the flap of leather that protected his strilling and reached into a pouch to extract a coin. He snorted when his fingers pulled up one of the silver ravens. Maybe it was a good sign. Focusing his concentration, he sang a few rippling words.
The coin shimmered and began to glow with the cool, unwavering light of magic. Tugging on his mitten and holding the shining coin carefully, Tycho began to make his way home.
When he had first left Spandeliyon, he had never thought he would be coming back. Had never thought that he'd have to suffer through another winter of snow and sea storms. He had pictured himself traveling with the seasons, spending the winter months in Amn or Tethyr or maybe even Calimshan then moving back north to pass summers in great northern cities such as glittering Waterdeep. Of course even through seven years of travel, he had never made it farther south than the Vilhon Reach or farther west than Cormyr. He had never visited Water-deep either, but he had seen cities enough to appreciate that each glittered in its own way. Except possibly for Spandeliyon.
He had, at least, spent winters in far more comfortable locations, singing songs and spinning tales in taverns much grander than the Wench's Ease. And most of the time he had walked out of them at the end of the night with more than two silver coins and a scant handful of pennies.
Seven years away and two years back. He was lucky he hadn't angered too many people when he left. Tycho turned off the street and cut down a narrow shortcut between two buildings. Too bad he hadn't kept more of the coin he had made then. Unfortunately, the life of a wandering bard wasn't one that tended to encourage saving coin. He'd found that out the hard way. He and his mentor both He was just stepping out into the next street when his foot went down into a snowdrift and hit something underneath. Something soft. Something that let out a quiet moan.
Tycho jumped back so fast that he landed on his backside in the snow, strilling jangling at the impact. His enchanted coin went flying from his grasp and up into the air. For a moment, light splashed around the alley, and then the coin plunged into the snow as well, choking off all but a dim glow. In that faint half-light, Tycho stared at the snowdrift. No, not a snow drift, he realized. A person buried by the falling snow. And if he had been lying there long enough to have snow piled that deep on top of him… Tycho scrambled across the alley to the glow that marked his coin and pulled it free. Clamping the cold metal between his teeth, he began shoveling with his hands at the snow-covered figure.
He found an arm and a hand-a man's hand-first, the naked flesh pale with cold. Almost miraculously, the fingers clenched as he touched them. They hadn't frozen and there was no sign of frostbite. 'That's good,' he
