The Yellow Silk - Don Bassingthwaite [21]
"Lander," asked the halfling, "what's that?" He pointed. Lander reached down. His hand encountered the Shou curved saber.
For a moment, his heart jumped. "It belonged to the man who came looking for you," he said cautiously. "You told me I could keep weapons that caught my eye."
"I remember. Let me see it!"
Lander struggled with the saber for a heartbeat before he got it undipped from his belt. He handed it to Brin, Black Scratch following his every move like a trained guard dog. Brin examined the weapon and its scabbard closely. "The man who was looking for me was a Shou?"
"Yeah."
"Did he give his name?" His voice was sharp as a knife edge.
Lander's heart jumped again. "Kang-no, Kuang. Kuang Li Chien." The man's words came back to him. And yet you would anger Brin by robbing someone who is looking for him. He swallowed hard. "Brin, you said you wanted me to take care of anyone who came looking for you without an invitation!"
"I know what I said," Brin snapped. "What happened to the Shou?"
"I… my men and I took him for a walk. He put up a fight. We left him in an alley by Gold Lane."
"Go and get him. Bring him here." Brin rubbed his face with his free hand.
"Brin… " Lander hesitated then said, "he's probably dead by now."
Brin glanced up. There was anger in his eye. "Then bring me his body! I want to see him!" He thrust the saber back at him.
Lander snatched it and ran, following in Kiril's tracks. Filth from Brin's pigs splattered up around his boots. He ignored it. Out of the sty, out of the alley, twisting through the narrow gap that led back onto the street. Images of Kiril's mangled hand-of much worse things that he had seen Brin do to people who displeased him-kept popping into his mind. Lander tried to shove them away, concentrating instead on taking the shortest possible route back to Gold Lane. The snow dragged at his legs, making running hard. He didn't slow down.
At least Brin didn't need the Shou alive!
His legs were like lead and his throat and lungs raw from gulping cold air by the time he reached Gold Lane and slid to a stop at the mouth of the alley. There was a clear mound of snow in the shadows. Lander dropped the saber and plunged his arms into the snow, digging frantically for the Shou's frozen body. It only took a moment before he rocked back on his heels in dismay.
There was no body under the snow. He swung around and scanned the moonlit street. Whether Kuang Li Chien had managed to crawl away from his doom or some bodys-natcher had staggered off with his corpse, there was no sign of it now. His own footsteps were the only things marring the smooth surface of the snow.
Lander drew a shuddering breath and wondered how long he could stay out before he had to go back and face Brin.
CHAPTER 3
Li woke with a start to unfamiliar sensations. The smell of cold ashes in his nose and mouth. The feel of rough wool against his naked flesh. An aching stiffness through his entire body. A horrible grating, rumbling sound in his ears. His eyes snapped open.
Narrow beams of cold dawn light pierced between shutters, casting pale illumination on a cramped room. The whole place was little bigger than the cabin he had taken on the ship from Telflamm. A clutter of junk, indistinct in the dim light, made it seem even smaller. On a worn couch slept an old woman with a bird's nest of fine gray hair. Li himself lay on the floor before a small fireplace that put out only the vaguest whisper of warmth. The grating, snorting sound… Li raised his head just slightly and peered down the length of his body.
Sprawled on a cot at his feet, the singer from the Wench's Ease snored like a demon.
Li lowered his head and stared up at a ceiling of water-stained boards. What had happened? He remembered last night-remembered Lander's attack and being left by the thug to die in an alley. What then? Cold-then a wonderful warmth. And after that… Movement. Renewed flashes of pain in the darkness. And a sharp light that brought awareness flooding