Aftermath- - Thieves World 10 (7 page)

"But—" Raif started again, but this time he shut up when he saw the flash in Cade's eyes.

"You've had your revenge, boy. Your information, your help has set this thing up. Now leave it to us to finish it." He turned to Targ, but the

mercenary just nodded. Cade could handle himself, and Targ's prey, well, they were as good as dead. Targ could live with this. Cade never asked him to do something his conscience would forbid. Targ's honor would not suffer from this.

Unconsciously, he bared his teeth, the sharp edges of his canines already beginning to show. Too bad it couldn't be a cleaner fight. But he hadn't succumbed to his particular curse in so long, and this night—

well,

these bastards deserved it.

Cade stood up. He wore leather armor stained black, a bow in one hand, various other weapons strapped on tightly. Targ pushed his chair back and faced the other. He wore only an old faded kilt, his sword strapped to his back. The two clasped arms.

"I'll take the others out," Targ said. "None will escape." Cade gave him a hard smile.

"Good hunting," he said softly. Targ's face twisted for a moment at Cade's choice of words, but the bloodlust was on him and he was eager to go. Neither said anything to Raif as Cade opened the door and they

moved into the night. Raif stared at the open doorway for several minutes. Then he, too, got up and walked into the night's embrace. Cade moved through the shadows to the waterfront district, taking care that no one followed him. The meeting was set up in a large ware-house there. The streets were quiet tonight. The moon was waning and a light cloud cover shielded the starlight-It was a perfect night for death.

There were four of the Sharp Side on outside guard duty, one on the roof, two in front, and one in the back. They were well hidden, but they moved about a lot. Sloppy. They were getting arrogant in their success. It

was only a matter of time until someone took them out. The one on the roof was first and easiest. An arrow through the eye killed him instantly. No one heard the body fall. Cade moved to the roof,

looking down on the dark silhouettes of the two guards in front. Another bolt, through the neck, and one was down. The second heard something. He didn't move. Smart.

Cade silently climbed down the side of the building until he was ten feet above his prey. He leaped. The guard was fast,^but caught by surprise. Even as he reached for his weapon. Cade drew a "knife across his throat. Cade stared down at the crumpled body, watching the blood pump from the neck, staining the ground liquid black. He shook his head; a waste of talent. This man had once been very good. The guard in back was careless. Cade dropped a rope from the roof, caught the man around the throat, and lifted him up. His neck broke in the first five feet. Cade anchored him to the building. The body dangled ten feet off the ground. Cade was making an example.

He moved to the inside, through a trap door. The warehouse was full of boxes and crates, which surprised Cade. Since when did Sanctuary do enough business to fill a warehouse? There were things in town he did not

know and could not understand. Silently he reconnoitered the building. There were five left. Two with bows watched the remaining three. Amuuth, the Beast, and another waited at a table in the middle of the warehouse, a small lamp on the table giving the only light in the building.

It took Cade ten minutes to kill both the bowmen; the others were not alerted.

Cade lay on top of several crates, next to the body of the second bowman. From this vantage point he studied the remaining targets. Amuuth sat at the table, facing the front entrance. His clothes were Sue though dirty. His two gnarled hands ceaselessly played with the long

^Uace he wore. His black hair was worn short, in Rankan fashion; his ward was well trimmed. Cade could not see his eyes.

To the left of his leader stood the last of the regular gang members. He 42

was a large man, big-boned and heavily muscled. He wore an expensive chainmail corset and carried a two-handed sword. From his hiding place Cade could see the blue eyes reflect the light of the lamp. No Ilsigi this

one. Hired help, and by all appearances well worth whatever his pay was. The last of the three stood to the right ofAmuuth. Cade was surprised at how small the feared Beast was. A little man, all huddled in his stained

cloak. The torturer's face was hidden by a cowl; a knife glinted in his pale

hands. The Beast ignored the others, his attention on something else. As Cade watched, the torturer began to hum to himself and slowly rock from side to side. Amuuth gave his servant a dirty look, but said nothing.

It was time to move. Cade rolled away from the ledge. From a leather sheath on his side he pulled out three thin black cylinders. Deftly he put

the three together, forming one tube six feet long. He placed the object on

his right. Reaching into a pouch at his belt he withdrew a three-inch needle. He twisted a bit of fleece about one end of the needle, then laid it

beside the tube.

He rolled onto his back and slowly drew his sword, making sure those below him could see no gleam off the blade. Then he checked his bow, placing it and the sword on his right. Once again he moved to the edge of

the crates.

He was about eight feet above the men, fifteen feet away. An easy shot. He held the tube to his lips, carefully balancing it. No one noticed the long tube sticking over the edge of a crate. Cade took the fleece side of

the needle in his mouth, took a deep breath, and spat the needle through the tube.

The noise he made was covered by Amuuth's reaction. He swatted at his neck, tried to rise, went rigid, and fell over, chair and all. The Beast

just stared. The guard turned quickly to his employer then spun to face the sound of the blowgun landing behind him.

The mercenary turned at just the right time for Cade's shot to catch him full in the neck, severing the jugular vein. Cade had time to feel a quick stab of remorse at this. It was no way to kill a warrior. Even as he

thought it, he was leaping down off the crates, his sword now in hand. The Beast hopped from one foot to the other, apparently at a loss as to what to do. Amuuth lay huddled, unmoving; the guard was dead. What was he supposed to do? He looked at the grinning Cade, tall in the lamplight, his sword held steady and pointing at the Sharp Side's tor-turer.

"Uh," he said, "uh, guards!" He shouted, "Guards! Attack! Murder!

Guards!" Cade let him go on for a while, smiling the whole time, the

"The guards are all dead," he said finally. The Beast stood to his full height, swinging his thin shoulders back. Cade could still not see his face.

"So," the torturer said, "so. All gone, ah, well." He did a little dance,

then moved closer. "All dead. Well, dead." On the second "dead," he moved quickly and a knife appeared out of his long sleeves and spun toward Cade. But Cade was ready and knocked the weapon out of the air with his sword. The Beast just stood there, his other knife still dancing in

his hands.

"Uh, so," he said. "Who are you?" he shouted.

"I am Cade."

"So."

"Terrel was my brother."

"Uh, so."

"Terrel was the man you tortured, the man whose bones you broke. All of them." The other was silent for a moment, digesting the information. Then he laughed, a high-pitched squeal.

"Oh, yes. Lovely bit of work, that." The madman's head moved to a song only he heard. "Yes, oh yes. Too bad, though. Only for fun, you realize. There was no information to get or anything/Still, nice bit of work. Spell was a nice touch, I thought." The Beast smiled, showing crooked and browning teeth. "He screamed and screamed, but the sound didn't carry don't you know. Magic." He snapped his fingers. "Yes, well, you know—"

But Cade could hear no more. With a roar he leaped at the torturer. The other's knife tried to parry his blade, but it was shoved aside by the

power behind Cade's swing. The sword crashed into the Beast's head, cutting deep into the skull, splitting it nearly in two. The Beast crashed to

the ground, dead.

Cade moved closer to see the face. It was hard to distinguish among tfie purplish-red remains. The face was split to the nose. Cade made out watery brown eyes, quickly filming over, and the face of an old man. He looked like someone's grandfather, the silver-white hair now dyed with red streaks. Cade spat on the corpse. This looked like no beast. Hell was

a funny place.

Cade heard the noise behind him, though few others would have. He spun in a crouch, his sword held before him, a throwing dagger already in the palm of the other hand. Who? All nine were taken care of. Slowly, a slight form moved out of the shadows and Cade relaxed"I told you to stay away, Raif."

**I thought you might need some help," the boy answered, looking

•round. He grinned at Cade, though his face was pale. "I guess you

44

"This is no place for you."

Raif bit his lip, darting glimpses at the bodies around him. He slowly sheathed his knife.

"You said you would teach me to be a warrior," he said. He gestured at the dead mercenary. "I've seen death before. Cade." Cade's eyes went dark. He grabbed the boy and pushed him to the ground by the corpse of the Beast. Grabbing the old man's collar, he pulled the corpse up to face the boy.

"This is death," he said, ignoring the still warm fluids sliding down his

wrist. "Look at it, boy, see it for what it is." Raif tried to pull away but

Cade held him firm. The smell of the blood was covered by the horrid stench of the corpse. The bladder and bowels had emptied at death, and their horrid mixture slowly leaked toward Raif's sandaled feet. The split

face smiled at him, its dull eyes seeming to search him out.

"No," Raif gasped, pulling away. He got two steps before he vomited. Cade held the boy while Raif emptied his stomach.

"The life of a warrior is the path of death," Cade whispered in Raif's ear. "This is the truth of it, boy: old men's brains spilling at your feet."

He turned Raif to face the dead mercenary. Cade pointed. "That's where it ends, boy. An arrow in the dark in a dirty warehouse, in a town all decent people have long ago forgotten about. What is so noble, boy, what is so grand about being a warrior?"

"But you're a warrior."

"No, boy, I am no warrior, because I choose not to be. I kill those who need it, or those who deserve it. I kill those I choose, not those others tell

me to. People pay me to kill, Raif. Pay me to do what I was born to do. But don't you realize that I know that I lost my soul because of it?" Raif said nothing, his voice lost in sobs he tried to hold in. Cade clasped the boy to him for a moment, then let go.

"I will teach you to fight, to protect yourself, nothing more. You needn't see this ever again. I will give you the chance to be free of hell

forever." This was the moment: kill the boy now and he would be free. He would find that warm safe world that Cade's mother now danced in. Free him. Free him, his mind chanted.

But Cade could not. It wasn't the risk of being wrong about Raif; he knew the boy was good. It was something else. A chance. Give the boy a chance to lead a life Cade could never have had. The life Targ dreamed of, but his curse kept him from. It was a hard thing to live in hell and dream of heroes.

"Ah, the gentle sounds of lovers' passion," a voice said. Raif leaped and drew his blade but Cade showed no alarm. He walked over to Amuuth and bent down on one knee.

"So," he said, "starting to come out of it?" He rifled through the other's clothes.

Amuuth glared up at him.

"What did you do to me?"

"Thomneft," Cade answered. "Paralyzes you for about ten minutes." Cade withdrew a knife from the other's clothes. The blade was doubleedged and sharp. The handle was abnormally thick, allowing the gang leader to wield the weapon with his crippled fingers. Cade picked up the chair and lifted Amuuth onto it. He moved across the table to stand by Raif.

"You'll come out of it in a moment."

"Why didn't you just kill me?" Amuuth hissed. His face showed no fear. With the black eyes and hawk nose, he looked fierce. Cade could see

why this one was the leader.

"I wanted to talk to you."

"About your brother?" came the quick answer. Cade just lifted an eyebrow. "Oh, I know of you. Cade. The local boy made good. I was warned you were dangerous. I misjudged you. I didnH think you'd make the connection between—"

"Between you and Terrel," Cade finished.

"Precisely." Amuuth shifted his shoulders; feeling was beginning to come back, but it was painful. He would not show that. He had lived with the pain in his hands all these years.

"So you've come to avenge your brother?"

"Why did you break his bones?" Cade replied.

"I thought I would finish the job I started so many years ago." Amuuth kept watching the other's eyes; the boy was no threat. Surely some of his own people must still be about. They would hear. He held onto that hope; he knew it was his only chance.

•That's why I didn't kill you."

"What?"

"I wanted to finish the job I started so long ago." Amuuth gasped. He could not help it. Cade couldn't mean—

"It was me, Amuuth. Sixteen years ago I hunted you and the other three, with my brick and rope." Cade shrugged. "I don't know which one you were. When I caught you, I guess I should have killed you."

"You," Amuuth shouted, "you did this!" He held out his hands, trying to stand up, but his legs wouldn't move yet.

Cade smiled. "The legs take longer."

Amuuth said nothing. He knew there would be no help, no rescue. He

^as dead. He looked up at Cade, his eyes burning with hate. This is the

®an. The shadow he still woke up screaming from. The shadow from 46

that night. Unseen, unheard. The whistling noise, the agony in his side, in