Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [23]
Cauvin was brooding about the future when he heard scuffling in the temple shadows. Froggin’ dogs hunting rats, he told himself, and tugged on Flower’s lead. But rats didn’t groan …
Any man who put himself in the middle of someone else’s fight froggin’ sure deserved all the trouble he got; still, Cauvin left Flower’s lead dangling. On his way up the uneven steps of the soot-streaked Imperial temple, he reached inside his shirt and tugged on the lump of bronze he wore suspended around his neck. The slipknot loosened, the way it was supposed to. He closed his fist around the only token he’d kept from his days among the Bloody Hand of Dyareela.
By then Cauvin could see a bravo from the hillside quarter behind the temples deep in dead-end shadows rousting someone who wasn’t putting up a fight. The Hiller sensed Cauvin’s approach. Hunched over his victim like a wolf, he raised his head and snarled a warning: “Back your froggin’ arse out of here, pud.”
There was enough light to assure Cauvin that he didn’t know the Hiller and, more significantly, to reveal the knife in the Hiller’s hand. With two corpses in the crossing and the murderer still loose, a prudent man might have gone looking for Gorge and Ustic, but a clever man thought of the reward Lord Serripines’ would froggin’ surely give to whoever caught his froggin’ son’s killer. Cauvin figured he could put those coins to better use than any sheep-shite guard.
“Froggin’ after you,” Cauvin snarled back, and came closer.
Cauvin didn’t much care if the Hiller bolted. One Hillside pud was as good as another as far as the Serripines’ reward was concerned. If he couldn’t have the Hiller, Cauvin would happily drag the Hiller’s victim back to Gorge and Ustic as his first stride toward riches.
At least Cauvin hadn’t cared who ran and who remained until he got a better look at what was lying in the temple rubble. The Hiller’s victim had to be the froggin’ oldest man in Sanctuary. His head looked like a parchment-covered skull. But he wasn’t dead, and he wasn’t done. With the Hiller distracted, the old geezer actually made a grab for the froggin’ knife.
The geezer didn’t have a sheep-shite prayer of getting anything away from the Hiller, and he was froggin’ sure lucky that he didn’t get his wrinkly throat slit for his efforts; but two things became clear to Cauvin. First, the geezer wasn’t a murderer. Second, if he wanted a reward from Land’s End, he’d have to best the Hiller.
When Cauvin had halved the distance between them, the Hiller got to his feet and made a threatening pass with his knife. Cauvin just shook his head. They were about the same size, and his weighted fist had gotten the better of bigger men, bigger knives.
The geezer—gods rot him—didn’t have the sense to lie still but tried to crawl away. The Hiller booted him in the ribs and something snapped inside Cauvin. He might have shouted as he surged toward the Hiller; he sometimes did when his temper got the better of him, or so he’d been told. Once his rage had boiled over, Cauvin’s thoughts were in his fists.
Warding the Hiller’s knife with his empty hand, Cauvin delivered two quick, bronze-filled punches to the Hiller’s gut and a third to his chin that sent him reeling backward. The Hiller spit blood at Cauvin’s face, squared his shoulders, and surged forward, leading with the knife. Cauvin dodged; he caught the Hiller’s wrist as it passed and gave it a vicious twist. The knife landed in the rubble. The Hiller landed on his knees with a wide-eyed, worried look on his face. He eyed the corridor and the weeds of the Promise of Heaven, but Cauvin straight-armed him against the moldy wall before he could make his escape.
Cauvin didn’t count his punches, but when he let go, the wall couldn’t keep the Hiller upright.
“Take the damn thing,” the Hiller wheezed, tossing a nut-sized object into the rubble.
It rang like metal before it disappeared, but Cauvin wasn’t interested in some trinket the Hiller had lifted from his victim;