that he could stand upright in these tunnels.
Her examination of her comrade's leg complete, the leader instructed Sunbright to pull Lothar's leg while the giant held on. Tugging the leg muscles straight, then the bone ends into line, they got the limb splinted with rags and fragments of wood they'd picked up along the way. Only then did the leader sit back and accept some stolen food.
Sunbright could contain himself no longer. 'Who are you people? Did you lead that raid on the marketplace, or was it just an unplanned uprising? Where are we? Where are we going? What are all these passages down here?'
The leader sat back on her heels and glared with her one good eye. It was green, Sunbright thought, though the confusing glowing light made it hard to say for sure. Blank faced, she studied him. Sunbright doubted she'd ever seen anyone like him before: tall and tanned and topknotted, dressed in far northern clothes, laden with a sword almost as big as she was. But he could read nothing in her face; it had been schooled to reveal naught. Instead she shot back, 'Why did you help us?'
Her voice was surprisingly low for so small a thing. The others munched.
Sunbright waved a hand and said, 'You needed help. I haven't been here long, but I don't like the city guards.'
'Where are you from?' She shot the questions like darts, her good eye boring into his face.
'The tundra, though lately the high sierra.'
'What are those?'
'Eh?'
'What are those places?'
'Oh, uh…' He'd been asked about his distant homeland before. 'The tundra lies in the far north, where the land is flat to the horizon, with no trees, and cold most of the year. The high sierra is the slopes of the Barren Mountains. Pine forest, red pines, and chert.'
The woman glanced at her comrades. Reaching in the crone's pouch, she withdrew a thawing fish and skinned it with a long knife plucked from a back sheath. The crone croaked, 'Down on the ground.'
'Yes,' he said, then suddenly it struck Sunbright. 'Haven't any of you ever been on the ground?'
The leader asked, 'So you only followed us to escape the guards?'
'Wait a moment!' Sunbright growled, spreading a broad hand, outlined darkly against the blue-white eldritch light. 'Why do my questions go unanswered? Who are you people? What're your names? And where do they get frozen fish in the height of summer?'
The leader sliced fish into raw strips, handed them around. Sunbright took one absently, munched the cold, rubbery flesh. It sang of sea salt, another mystery, for they were easily a hundred leagues from the ocean.
The woman said, 'We'll lead you to a pipe that leads outside. You can return to your friends above.'
'I don't have any friends in this city!' he snapped. 'Well, one, perhaps, but he's caught up with Karsus.'
Silence crashed down. They even stopped chewing.
'You're a friend to Karsus?' asked the leader, her voice low.
Sunbright swore under his breath, then said, 'Would someone answer my questions? Who are you? Why do you wear these knucklebones around your necks? I see you all bear them. I've got one too!'
Digging in a belt pouch, he produced the polished knucklebone drilled as a pendant. 'I found it on the body of a fellow who swung a weighted chain like this man's. I wondered…'
Sunbright let his words trail off. The silence that had fallen over the strange band seemed to thicken, though the barbarian never would have thought that possible. One of the children-the little girl-took a step back, glancing meaningfully at the leader. The little girl was afraid. A cold chill went down Sunbright's back. Now what had he done?
'You're the one!' shrilled the leader. She exploded to her feet like a startled cat, blade outthrust. 'Rise and draw, you bastard! Defend yourself!'
Chapter 8
Hunkered on his heels, Sunbright snapped up nearly as quickly as this hellcat. He held out both hands, fingers spread, saying, 'I don't have a knife. And I'm the one who did what?'
The one-eyed woman lunged. Her knife-the black blade was a foot long and tapered to nothing-stabbed for Sunbright's middle. Instinctively he slapped to knock her arm wide. But she'd anticipated that and, dipping her hand under his, whipped in close. Surprised by the catlike riposte, Sunbright jumped back, but his back rapped a projection of the tunnel corner and his head banged a pipe in the ceiling. He felt a bee sting. Her blade had pinked his red shirt and belly.
Her hand jerked back to thrust again, but the barbarian batted hard and low, cuffed her head, and staggered her. Still, she'd seen even that move coming, and had almost ducked out of the way. Squatting low as a toad, she flicked in and sliced his inner thigh just above the knee. Sunbright knew that strategy: a few deft cuts would weaken his legs and topple him. He was still pinned against the wall and the low ceiling, and still unarmed. Harvester's pommel ground on stone.
The thief sashayed back and forth, hypnotic as a snake, ready to strike. Her face and ragged hair were illuminated by her glowing vest. She muttered curses under her breath, and Sunbright knew they were not mere bravado. She was truly angry with him, wanted to gut him. Why? Because he'd killed some mugger up in a city street?
Before he could even frame a question, she lashed out again.
Straightening her back, she struck high to stab at his face. He flinched back and smacked his head on stone again, though he tried to slap her hand aside. Instead he felt searing, grating pain as the blade slid through his left palm. For a second he saw almost a foot of needlelike steel jutting from the back of his hand, then he whipped his hand off the blade. A good thing, too, for she twisted the blade deftly to sever his tendons. If he weren't so quick, she'd have destroyed the hand.
He was like a bear swatting at a hummingbird. One good clip would kill her, but it needed pure luck to land. He forced himself to ignore the bleeding cuts and watch instead the blade, which he now realized was of elven craftsmanship. Where had she gotten it?
The woman stooped and jabbed for his left knee. He crooked the knee aside, smashed down with a fist for her head, and hit only air.
He could draw his own knife, but no, she'd still carve him like mutton. She was hot to fight, and he wasn't. Some kind of shield would be better, a chair or net, or even a pair of sticks. Despite her mad ferocity, he didn't want to kill her. Rather, he wanted to question her. More likely she'd cut his throat.
Wary, fumbling with his right hand, he drew Dorlas's warhammer and held it close by the steel head. By flipping the leather-wrapped handle he might deflect the blade sideways and get in a shot with a fist or boot. He'd hoped that, with only one eye, her depth perception would be poor, but she seemed to know exactly how far to thrust and how to keep clear.
But he was thinking too much, and needed to react. Battle-lust cooling, she hesitated to get within his grasp. After two rapid feints, she scored with a long cut down his left forearm. Blood welled, ran down his arm, dripped from his elbow. Red wetness from his punctured hand had already flowed there.
Sunbright didn't mind the blood, he had plenty. But a few more cuts would weaken him. Her anger was mystifying, puzzling. He fought to keep himself from getting angry at this blind attack.
Shuffling awkwardly in the semidarkness, eyes tracking everything, the fighters-one reluctant, one determined-assessed their chances. The one-eyed woman continued to curse, breath whistling. Sunbright wondered if he should waste breath on reason.
A flicker, and he was pinked on the back of his right hand. A snap of the hammer handle, and her blade clicked aside, then again. A thrust at his knee and he sidestepped, returned with a quick kick of a boot too thick to pierce. Aiming true, she slit his knee just above the leather. A punch from the hammer made her hook her head aside. A feint at his throbbing, bleeding left wrist again, then a lunge for his guts. A move to block with the hammer handle — and his bloody left fist came down like a boulder from a mountaintop to smash on the back of her
