Assassins' Dawn by Stephen Leigh Page A

corners of her mouth. Teasing, her eyes danced.
    The Thane rolled over on his back so that her roving hands had access to all of him. His gaze moved from her face and down the lean tautness of Valdisa’s body. He stroked the upper swell of her breasts softly, and smiled as her eyes closed.
    “Damn you,” she said, a velvet growl, and her hand found him. Laughing, they kissed. Still laughing, she straddled him.
    The chanters had finished the descant. Ric d’Mannberg began a short reading from the annals of She of the Five Limbs, one of the more violent passages. His droning voice spoke of kin slaying kin, of disembowelments and cannibalism. The Thane woke from his reverie and found Cranmer engrossed in the account of She. “You find this fascinating, scholar?” he whispered.
    Cranmer leaned toward the Thane, whispering in return. “Only in the sheer number of gods with which Neweden, for all her poverty, is, ahh, blessed with having. It’s staggering. All the various guilds, and few of them sharing the same patrons . . . Neweden must have been a crowded world during the days of these gods.”
    “Until She of the Five Limbs banished most.”
    “For an ippicator, even one of such power, that must have been an amazing feat.” Cranmer glanced at the Altar, where d’Mannberg had closed the book and nodded in salutation. “And I notice that your attention wanders, Thane. I’m curious—your true father was an offworlder by birth, and came to Neweden’s religions as a convert. Do you believe, or is it simply convenient?”
    “Do you have faith, Cranmer?”
    “In gods? No.”
    “Too bad.” The Thane leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes again. D’Mannberg opened the Annals once more. His voice droned on.
    His real parents, lassari, had brought the boy to Hoorka. The Thane had glared down at the thin, wiry child of . . . thirteen? And the boy had glared back, uncowed. The Thane had liked the defiance of the child and took the young Aldhelm as kin. The parents, over-grateful, and perhaps pleased to be rid of the extra mouth, had taken a quick leave. They had never again inquired after their son. He now had kin—parents were unimportant.
    “Watch your opponent’s hips,” he’d said to the new apprentice one day, during a training session. “Other parts of the body may feint—the legs, the arms, the head, the eyes. But where the hips go, the body must follow.”
    Aldhelm shook his head. His hands toying with the hilt of his vibro, he’d stared at the Thane. “No, that seems wrong. I watch the hands and feet. They do the damage.”
    “You don’t have four eyes to watch each.”
    “Two are sufficient.”
    Something in the boy’s stubbornness and insistence touched a response in the Thane. He’d stripped and joined the youngster on the practice floor. “Defend yourself, then,” he’d said. He circled the apprentice, watching the vibro and the hips. It took much longer than he’d anticipated—the Thane was slick with sweat when they’d finished—but he found the flaws in Aldhelm’s defense, disarmed and pinned the boy to the floor of Underasgard. Still, he was impressed by Aldhelm’s raw, untutored skill.
    “You see,” he said, getting to his feet and releasing the boy. “Had you watched me correctly, that would not have happened. In a fight, you’d have been very dead, boy, despite your thoughts on what to watch.”
    “I’ll think about it, sirrah.” That was as much admission as Aldhelm would give the Thane.
    The dance to Hag Death had begun. Brilliant in scarlet robes and satin ribbons, blue hairplumes bobbing with movement, the dancers circled each other. Steel blades in their hands glinted in the lights. A sackbutt snorted a chorus, joined by a trio of recorders. There were two dancers of each sex, and their bare feet slapped the stones of Underasgard as they went through the ritualistic steps, a choreographed battle representing the strife between Dame Fate and the Hag. Blades