Outside, the street was black. Sunbright had been told the mission, a raid on a butcher in a district where nobles' servants shopped. This shop preserved meats like ham, bacon, and sausages. Good for the larder, Knucklebones explained, good to trade with other scavengers. Sunbright thought it simple enough, but Knucklebones seemed tense as a bowstring-though the barbarian had barely said a dozen words to her, so he couldn't claim to know her. Neither could Mother, she said, who'd known her for four years.
Sunbright picked up his feet and crossed the black street after the part-elf. The twins occupied opposite doorways with thin pipes in hand. Mother had somehow climbed atop a stone lintel, and hunkered on arthritic knees like a weather-beaten gargoyle. The barbarian couldn't see Rolon, but heard the clink of his new weighted chain. The sound drew a sharp hiss from their leader. The man Hute was out of sight. Sunbright felt a small hand on his belt buckle, was guided into a niche between buildings. Strong fingers signaled he was to draw Harvester and hold it ready, then Knucklebones was gone.
Sunbright tuned his ears until he heard ringing and probed with his eyes until he felt blind. He was used to night hunting in a forest, where he could feel hooves fall against soil and boot soles, smell oncoming game by fur and musk, and sense the wind on his cheek lessen as game closed. But this city was alien, bound by stone flags and hard walls that cut and trapped the wind. He could only guess what his teammates were doing.
He heard a fizz and saw a white light outline Knucklebones's tousled head for a second. Some magic lock defused? Then he heard the clattering of a key.
A savage growl, deep and low-throated, from a wolf or big dog, echoed around them. The growl stopped as the dog's mouth clamped down, then changed to a frenzied snarling as the beast worried flesh and bone. Knucklebones gasped.
Keeping quiet as he could, Sunbright streaked across the narrow street. By sound he located the thief, on her back, straddled by a mastiff.
There was more movement. Mother was suddenly across from him; one of the twins scooted past, bent low. They didn't seem to be doing anything so, still silently, Sunbright hoisted Harvester, aimed as best he could, sent up a prayer, and struck.
The heavy, keen blade cleft the dog's spine with a meaty smack. The animal flopped limp atop Knucklebones, who grunted at the weight. But before Sunbright could jerk the brindled hound loose, slicking his hand and forearm with blood, the thief had wriggled loose. She whapped at his elbow and whispered urgently, 'Go back! There were two of them!'
'Two of what?' he whispered.
But she was pattering for the disused bookbinders', rallying her troops with chitters and low whistles.
A voice behind Sunbright stage-whispered, 'Stand or die!'
The barbarian whirled. He hadn't even heard the enemy approach. It was a pair of city guards, starlight and the glow of distant gasglobes flaring on polished helmets. Ahead galloped a tongue-lolling mastiff, twin to the dead one at Sunbright's feet.
Oh, he thought. Two dogs, one to attack and one to fetch help. But why need the city officials be silent too?
Then he had his hands full, and his feet.
The dog bounded, mouth open, and snapped for Sunbright's knees even as the guards split to bracket him. No clubs now, but short swords. Instinctively the barbarian dropped to a fighting stance, feet braced and pointed out to allow him to swivel to both flanks. His boot thumped the dog's big foot and almost tumbled him. The guards, partners in practice, swung at the same time.
To shrink from one blow was to drive into the other, so Sunbright gritted his teeth and took it. Flicking Harvester at the right-hand guard, he deflected the blow with a tiny ting of blades. He'd ducked his shoulder and curled to avoid the other swipe, but felt the cold, bloodcurdling kiss of steel as it sliced open the muscle of his upper arm.
Sucking wind, he swung his left heel up hard to kick the dog in the stomach or crotch, to get it from underfoot. The mastiff yipped at the thud and skipped its bony back up, jarring Sunbright's own rump. But as it hopped clear, he decided to use the beast in defense. Hooking his foot, he caught the dog above the hock to stop it and stepped back alongside its head. The maneuver put the dog between Sunbright and the left-hand guard for just a second. In that second, the barbarian lashed at the guard on his right.
Eager to strike, the man came too close and overreached to thrust straight with his short sword. The whole weapon wasn't as long as Harvester's blade. Sunbright aimed below the guard's blade and arm, and drove the wicked hooked point into the man's armpit. The guard gasped, whimpered, but Sunbright used the sword's great weight to free it, adding his own muscle to wrench down. The barbed hook tore tendons and arteries. Hot blood gushed along the blade as the man's heart emptied.
At the same time, the other guard struck. Sunbright felt the blade split his goatskin vest, pierce his shirt, and slice his skin above the shoulder blade. It was a glancing blow, but one that burned like cold fire. Sunbright even used that advantage, whipping around so the short blade fetched for a second in his leather. Seeing his mistake, the guard let go of his weapon. Too late. Harvester slammed into his belly, bowling the man back and spilling his guts. Another blow sheared half through the falling man's neck. Sunbright wrenched his blade free, and the guard fell like a tree. His polished helmet slammed the flagstones with a crunch.
Panting, throat wheezing, wounds aching, blood singing, and ears ringing with a battle high, Sunbright tracked back and forth with his sword, wary, seeking another enemy. But there were none, as part of him had known. The guard dog was gone. So was Knucklebones. In fact…
He stepped away from pools of blood and cooling bodies, put his back against a shop front. Where was everybody? The whole battle had been waged in an eerie silence that he still didn't understand. He was used to hollering war cries and epithets, and just plain noise. Now the whole block seemed deserted. It was as if Sunbright and the guards were ghosts who waged war in a dead city.
Scanning, listening, peering, he found no one. Thoughts of ghosts and barbarian superstition caught up with him. It had been in just such a dead block that he'd once crashed into the Underdark, a misty non-world where a wraith had almost sucked the life and soul out of him. He still wasn't recovered from its effects, and sometimes wondered if that wraith still hunted and haunted him across leagues and years 'Sunbright!'
The barbarian jumped so high his sword point tinked on the stone lintel over his head. The voice had come from alongside his elbow, sudden as a panther attack.
It was Rolon, the skinny boy. 'That way.'
'Right! Yes.' Leaving ghosts and dead men behind, Sunbright shuffled in the direction that the boy had pointed. Behind him he heard stealthy chinking as the boy looted the guards' bodies. Sunbright was content to get his breath back.
Another tiny shadow hustled people into the ruined bindery. Sunbright was last in, but Knucklebones paused to fix the door and erase all sign of their passing. Their last act was for Sunbright to hold Mother up through the hole. With her finger-sweeping cantra, she scattered the trash and dust evenly across the floor again, and replaced the dead cockroaches.
It was only after they'd passed deep into more twisting tunnels, some so low the barbarian had to go through them doubled over, that he realized they hadn't accomplished their goal of stealing meat. They'd gotten nothing except a handful of coins and wounds.
And more. For when they reached a pocket with stone walls where Sunbright could stand erect, he caught hell.
The party was lit by the strange blue-white stripes that Knucklebones employed. Now, in this small space, some disused cellar or stone foundation, the small thief whirled on him.
'How could you be so stupid?' Her face was hard, her one eye glaring, her lips pulled back from her teeth. She rapped with her brass knuckles on his chest, yet still kept her voice pitched at a whisper. 'How could you endanger us so? You've doomed every person in this party!'
'What?' Sunbright had cleaned and sheathed Harvester, and stood with his left hand across the slice on his shoulder. 'I saved your life!'
'Temporarily! We never kill city guards. It's insanity! You'll bring sniffers down on our heads! They'll hunt us down like terriers after rats.'
'Sniffers?'
More damned city magic, he supposed. His ignorance angered him, but her attitude angered him even
