little street. He’d found a few days’ work, of a sort, as a bouncer, but that was at an end now. He didn’t know who the Krahana-cursed idiot was or why he’d tried to stick a knife in Bahzell’s back, and no one ever would know now. The Guard seldom ventured into the Broken Bucket, and no one had seemed inclined to summon them when his attacker landed in the sawdust with a broken spine, but the bar’s halfling owner had decided he could manage without Bahzell’s services after all. So here he was, picking his way back home to Brandark with no more than a few miserable silvers in his pouch, and-

He paused in one of the many shadows, ears cocking as a sound came from in front of him, and his jaw clenched.

His ears went slowly flat in the blackness, and a vast sense of ill-use suffused him as he heard snarling male voices and a lighter, more breathless female one that tried to hide its fear. They came from an alley ahead of him, and he raised his head to glare at the low clouds.

“Why me, damn it?” he demanded. “Why in the name of all of Fiendark’s Furies is it always being me?!

The clouds returned no answer, and he snarled at their silence. The voices grew louder, and then there was a sudden scream of pain-a man’s, not a woman’s-and the male voices were abruptly uglier and far more vicious. The Horse Stealer lowered his eyes from the clouds and swore vilely. This wasn’t even Navahk, and he’d spent long enough among the other Races of Man now to know rape was a far more common crime among “civilized” people than any hradani clan would tolerate. If they didn’t want to stop it, it was certainly none of his business-and the woman was probably no more than one of the whores who worked these wretched streets, anyway!

He wrestled with himself, and as he did, he heard the sudden patter of light, quick feet fleeing while heavier feet thundered in pursuit. Another scream split the night-this one female-and Bahzell Bahnakson spat one last, despairing oath at his own invincible stupidity, and charged.

Someone looked up with a startled cry as the huge hradani appeared out of the night. Dim bands of light spilled through a shuttered window high in one wall, patching the alley’s shadows with bleary illumination, and Bahzell swore again as he realized there were at least a dozen of them. Probably more, and three of them had hold of a kicking, scratching, hissing wildcat below the window. Cloth tore, a soprano voice spat a curse, and hoarse laughter answered it even as he turned the corner, and he wasted no time on words.

The closest man had time for one, strangled cry as an enormous hand reached for him. Then he thudded headfirst against the alley wall and oozed down it while his companions whirled in astonishment. Knives glinted, but Bahzell wore his scale mail, and he was in no mind to make this any more of a killing matter than he could help. Gods knew the authorities were more likely to hang a hradani than thank him for saving some whore’s problematical virtue, he told himself bitterly, and smashed a fist into the nearest face.

His target flew backward, taking two of its fellows down with it, and someone else dashed at him. Perhaps he meant only to dart past the hradani and flee, or perhaps he hadn’t realized how large Bahzell was when he started, but his feet skidded as he suddenly found himself all alone and tried too late to change his mind. Bahzell caught his right wrist and twisted, a knife rang as it fell to the paving, and the man screamed-first in pain, then in raw panic-as he was plucked off the ground by his wrist. But a scale mail-armored elbow drove up into his jaw from below, bone crunched audibly, the scream was cut off as if by an axe, and Bahzell dropped him and reached for another one.

A knife slashed the back of his hand, but the cut was shallow, and he bellowed as his other fist came down on top of the knife-wielder’s head like a maul. Another body slithered to the paving, and a bass-voiced curse turned into a falsetto scream on the far side of the crowd. Bahzell had no time to wonder why, for a knife grated on his mail from behind, then withdrew and came up from below. The stiletto-thin blade was narrow enough to find a gap between scales, but it hung for just a second, and he reached back for a handful of cloth and heaved. His assailant cried out as he flew forward, but then he hit the alley on the back of his neck and flopped with the total inertness of a dead man, and Bahzell stepped over the body as another knife thrust at him.

He caught two more men by the fronts of their tunics, slammed their heads together, and tossed them aside as a figure tried to dash past him in the confusion. An out-thrust boot brought the would-be escapee to the ground, and a savage kick bounced him off a wall and left him curled in a sobbing knot around splintered ribs. Three of his fellows threw themselves on the hradani, swinging desperately with loaded truncheons, and Bahzell roared in fury. He caught one of them up and used him to smash the other two to the ground before he hurled his makeshift bludgeon into the alley wall. There was another scream and a torrent of curses from the crowd ahead of him, and the entire alley dissolved into a frantic confusion of shouts, thudding blows, and grunts of pain.

Bahzell’s enemies outnumbered him, but the quarters were too close for them to mob him. They could come at him only in twos and threes, and if they had knives, he was bigger than any two of them and armored to boot, and a wild glee filled him. It wasn’t the Rage, but a sort of fierce delight in paying back all the slights and insults he and Brandark had endured in Riverside, and suddenly he was roaring with laughter as he waded through them.

The last few toughs heard that bellowing laughter as their fellows flew away from the hulking titan, and they turned as one. They abandoned their plans for the night’s entertainment and took to their heels, praying the alley had an open end . . . and that they could reach it before he reached them .

Bahzell heard them go and opened his left hand. The man he’d been punching with his bleeding right fist sagged bonelessly to the pavement, and he looked around quickly for the whore.

No, he corrected himself, not a whore. The woman with her back to the greasy alley wall was too plainly dressed for that. A whore would have shown more flesh, even on a night this cold, and she wore none of the cheap trinkets of the prostitute. He heard her fearful breathing and saw the gleam of her wide eyes, but she held a short dagger as if she knew which end was sharp. More to the point, there was blood on the blade and two dead men at her feet.

His own chest heaved, and his ears pricked in surprise as he studied her. Her clothing was drab, and her heavy skirt was badly ripped under her cheap cloak, yet it was also painfully clean. She was a small thing, even for a human, and young, but there was a lean, poised readiness about her. She looked like a peasant, but she didn’t stand like one, and she was neither a half-starved waif of the streets nor a fine lady.

He frowned as he tried to decide just what it was she was , and then she lowered the dagger with a taut smile and nodded to him.

“My thanks, friend,” she said in accented Axeman. “Lillinara knows I never expected anyone to come running in a place like this-and a hradani to boot!-but . . . many thanks.”

“Aye, well, I couldn’t just be walking on by,” he said uncomfortably in the same language.

“Most people around here could have, and would.” She gave him another flickering smile and stooped to clean her dagger on a cloak. Then the blade vanished somewhere about her clothing, and she tugged at her torn skirt in a futile effort to straighten it.

“My name is Zarantha,” she said, abandoning her efforts. Her accent gave her Axeman a strange, musical lilt, and she held out her hand.

“Bahzell,” Bahzell muttered, bemused by her composure, and his eyebrows rose as he felt his forearm gripped in a warrior’s clasp. “Bahzell Bahnakson, of the Horse Stealers.”

“Horse Stealers?” It was Zarantha’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “You’re a long way from home, Bahzell Bahnakson.”

“That I am,” Bahzell agreed. She released his arm and he stood back, ankle-deep in bodies-unconscious and otherwise-and his mouth twitched in wry amusement. “And so, I’m thinking, are you, from your accent.”

“True enough. I’m from Sherhan, near Alfroma in the South Weald.”

“A Spearman, are you? Or should I be saying a Spearwoman?” Bahzell asked in Spearman, and she laughed out loud.

“Spearmen is what they call us, man, woman, and child,” she replied in the same language. “And what does a Horse Stealer hradani know of us? You’re-what, from up near Sothoii lands?”

“Well, as to that, we’re thinking the Sothoii are from up near Horse Stealer lands,” he said, and she laughed again.

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