The price of victory- - Thieves World 13 by Robert Asprin, Lynn Abbey
Authors: Robert Asprin, Lynn Abbey
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fart?
The latter, most likely. She was going to try to do the same. Try not to care. Try to understand and overcome the trial that was Sanctuary, the Page 113
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punishment of being stationed here. But because she was stationed here, assigned like any of his men to onerous duty, she hadn't had the heart to refuse to tarry. That would have been playing on her blood relationship, asking special favors, admitting that she, a woman, couldn't handle hard duty like the men.
Help the garrison commander and the hierarchy restore some order here, that's your job. You're a good intelligence collector. Collect, her fa ther had said to her, but nothing more. Nothing personal, nothing be yond what was said in that meeting where the rear guard was singled out.
And Crit had stared boldly at her across the table in the safe house, knowing already whom Tempus was intending to name as commander in-chief of Sanctuary's disparate armed forces. Knowing she'd have to come to him, be under his command.
It stank. She kicked her roan and slapped its poll and, under diverse and punitive instruction, it settled down. Jogging beside the half-drunken Straton toward the river, she wished she was anywhere else, doing any thing else. Trying to keep Zip from making this sort of mistake wasn't her job, but Crit's.
Straton knew that, too, but hadn't voiced it. Crit was head of the combined militias, including the fifty grunts that made up Walegrin's regular army barracks, but Zip, like Aye-Gophlan, was an undercom mander, responsible for the second and third shifts each day. Page 114
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Only Crit, or someone from the palace hierarchy, could tell Zip to leave the riverside altar be and make it stick.
But Kama would die before she went to Crit and asked him to solve a problem she couldn't. Bringing Strat into it made the message she was sending the more clear: We who love you won't be treated this way. You've snubbed us both for your precious command, now live with it. But don't expect us to bow and scrape.
Strat had wanted Sanctuary's commission, should have had it. Crit
WAKE OF THE RIDDLER 59
couldn't have wanted it less, so he got it. And that kept the vampire with her hidden agenda out of things, but at a personal cost only Tempus could have decreed. Only Tempus, who had no conscience, could split a Sacred Band pair like he'd split the love-match that had once been Kama and Critias.
Suddenly, she found her eyes blurry. She swiped impatiently at them with the back of her forearm. She couldn't afford emotion now; it clouded her judgment. Her anticipation of men was generally good. Of Critias, it was woefully inadequate.
Page 115
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Of Strat, her forewarning was little better. Or maybe it was just the fact that Strat was drunk and his horse a numinous creature that caused them to take a shortcut over the White Foal Bridge and down a road leading past Ischade's Foalside home.
Zip was transported, in an altered state where every night noise was new and hostile, down by the White Foal's edge where he could barely see the eerie lights from Ischade's house up the bank. He had a wheelbar row and, at the bank's crest, a wagon. He had three of his militia guard ing the wagon, but he'd permitted none to come down here. Not to the shrine.
No one should touch the piled stones but him, the thing he served had told him. As it had told him to bring it blood, and worse, it had decreed the time and manner of its uptown move. It wanted to live on the Street of Temples, with the gods. Zip had found it a place, an alley behind the Rankan Storm God's temple, and there it swore it would be content to stay.
And he'd found it a new sacrifice, a special gift that one of his girls had brought him. The girl wanted a job on the Street
The latter, most likely. She was going to try to do the same. Try not to care. Try to understand and overcome the trial that was Sanctuary, the Page 113
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
punishment of being stationed here. But because she was stationed here, assigned like any of his men to onerous duty, she hadn't had the heart to refuse to tarry. That would have been playing on her blood relationship, asking special favors, admitting that she, a woman, couldn't handle hard duty like the men.
Help the garrison commander and the hierarchy restore some order here, that's your job. You're a good intelligence collector. Collect, her fa ther had said to her, but nothing more. Nothing personal, nothing be yond what was said in that meeting where the rear guard was singled out.
And Crit had stared boldly at her across the table in the safe house, knowing already whom Tempus was intending to name as commander in-chief of Sanctuary's disparate armed forces. Knowing she'd have to come to him, be under his command.
It stank. She kicked her roan and slapped its poll and, under diverse and punitive instruction, it settled down. Jogging beside the half-drunken Straton toward the river, she wished she was anywhere else, doing any thing else. Trying to keep Zip from making this sort of mistake wasn't her job, but Crit's.
Straton knew that, too, but hadn't voiced it. Crit was head of the combined militias, including the fifty grunts that made up Walegrin's regular army barracks, but Zip, like Aye-Gophlan, was an undercom mander, responsible for the second and third shifts each day. Page 114
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Only Crit, or someone from the palace hierarchy, could tell Zip to leave the riverside altar be and make it stick.
But Kama would die before she went to Crit and asked him to solve a problem she couldn't. Bringing Strat into it made the message she was sending the more clear: We who love you won't be treated this way. You've snubbed us both for your precious command, now live with it. But don't expect us to bow and scrape.
Strat had wanted Sanctuary's commission, should have had it. Crit
WAKE OF THE RIDDLER 59
couldn't have wanted it less, so he got it. And that kept the vampire with her hidden agenda out of things, but at a personal cost only Tempus could have decreed. Only Tempus, who had no conscience, could split a Sacred Band pair like he'd split the love-match that had once been Kama and Critias.
Suddenly, she found her eyes blurry. She swiped impatiently at them with the back of her forearm. She couldn't afford emotion now; it clouded her judgment. Her anticipation of men was generally good. Of Critias, it was woefully inadequate.
Page 115
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Of Strat, her forewarning was little better. Or maybe it was just the fact that Strat was drunk and his horse a numinous creature that caused them to take a shortcut over the White Foal Bridge and down a road leading past Ischade's Foalside home.
Zip was transported, in an altered state where every night noise was new and hostile, down by the White Foal's edge where he could barely see the eerie lights from Ischade's house up the bank. He had a wheelbar row and, at the bank's crest, a wagon. He had three of his militia guard ing the wagon, but he'd permitted none to come down here. Not to the shrine.
No one should touch the piled stones but him, the thing he served had told him. As it had told him to bring it blood, and worse, it had decreed the time and manner of its uptown move. It wanted to live on the Street of Temples, with the gods. Zip had found it a place, an alley behind the Rankan Storm God's temple, and there it swore it would be content to stay.
And he'd found it a new sacrifice, a special gift that one of his girls had brought him. The girl wanted a job on the Street
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