Brother Thief (Song of the Aura, Book One) (18 page)

  
“Not me,” the girl whimpered, “My un... uncle... wh... who I live with...” She was definitely in tears, Gribly could tell... and he thought he knew why.

  
“What did he bet on this fight?” Lauro asked, interrupting. His voice was strained, and Gribly caught a look in his eyes that told him the prince had guessed the same. Perhaps he wasn't so spoiled after all...

  
The girl looked up at Lauro fearfully. He obviously intimidated her, and she could barely choke out an answer.

  
“M...
me
.”

  
Suddenly a huge, beefy man with food-encrusted sideburns elbowed his way through the crowd and seized the girl roughly by the arm, dragging her away and cursing.

  
“Don't ever,
ever
run off on me again, you hear? Blast you, girl, you little
restavek
-” but the end of his tirade was cut off as the crowd surrounding the pit began to roar with excitement. The next fight was about to start. Gribly stiffened in shock as the man turned and stormed away, still swearing, the girl stumbling along in his grip, tearful but silent. In seconds they were lost in the press of the crowd.
Restavek
. Dirty slang for
child slave
.

  
The thief met his new friend's eyes as they were thrust together again, the mob instantly pushing to fill the tiny spot the girl had once stood in. Lauro's expression was white... but not with fear.

  
“Damnable man,” the Wind Strider hissed, enraged, and twisted around with an effort, intending to rescue the girl despite the pressing mass of people. Gribly stopped him with a fist pressed hard against the youth's chest.

  
“You can't do anything,” the thief said urgently. “This happens every day here,
prince
,” he snarled, anger at the senselessness of it all making him fiercer than he intended. He felt like crying or fighting, himself, but he knew it was useless. “Nothing can change that. Not a new ruler, not a new city... not a new hero. Nothing. So don't try! We don't even know her name...”

  
Lauro turned on him angrily, almost shouting over the noise of the crowd. “Then why are we here, Gribly??? Why are we watching any of this???”

  
“Because we've almost found what we want!” Gribly yelled.

  
“How?”

  
“Watch this fight,” the thief answered, right before the shouts of the crowd gave way to utter silence. “The winner is the one who can guide us to the Inkwell.”

  
Surprised at the sudden halt in noise, Lauro obeyed Gribly and turned to watch the fire-lit fight pit again. The two combatants had already entered, throwing the crowd into a frenzy. Now they were circling each other warily, waiting for an opening to exploit, and the bystanders were deathly silent in anticipation.

  
Longstrider was a man of prodigious talent and reputation, Gribly knew. Despite his pity for the nameless girl he'd just met, he knew anyone challenging the fighting legend of Ymeer's underworld was as good as dead. He'd actually even met the man once, when, to his utter surprise, the mysterious fighter had appeared in Murie's shop. In fact, Longstrider was the one who had provided Old Murie with her first sphere of healing balm.

  
This, among other facts, was a the reason for Gribly searching Longstrider out again, after all his years of keeping away from the seediest sides of Ymeer. If anyone could do what Lauro and Argoz needed, it would be Longstrider.

  
Swallowing down his unease about the slave girl, he forced himself to watch the fight.

  
Longstrider was a grizzled man of uncertain age. His hair and beard were doused with gray and cut short. His face reminded Gribly of a man aged beyond his years... or an old man who looked younger than his years... or both. He wasn't sure. The man had on great soft, leather boots, baggy pants, and an open, floppy canvas shirt that was cut off at the shoulders. Not exactly war gear, but Gribly knew from experience how many weapons could be hidden in such an outfit.

  
The only visible weapons Longstrider carried were the knife strapped to his chest, and the curious short staff he held in both hands, which sported a blade at the end. His face was the very mask of calm, but his eyes spat fire at his ill-fated challenger. Gribly didn't know who Shadow was, but one look at the newcomer told him all he needed to know, as the old street-smarts he had once memorized so well at the fight pits gradually came back to him.

  
The challenger was swathed in black clothing that was both comfortable and concealing. A mask of dark fabric veiled Shadow's face, and he carried a short, curved scimitar in each hand. This appearance, coupled with the dramatic slinking and sword-flourishing Shadow was doing, convinced Gribly that Longstrider's opponent was all show and little skill.

  
A few more seconds of tense anticipation followed as the two combatants edged slowly nearer, then apart, then nearer again.

  
Without warning, Shadow lashed out, leaping across the center of the pit with a high-pitched yell, his swinging blades glowing scarlet in the firelight. The crowd roared with applause, curses, shouts, and general mayhem.

  
Longstrider was there to meet his challenger, knocking the attack away with his pole-blade and swiftly retaliating. The next few seconds were a barely-discernible blur of sparks and shadows, grunts and calls as the two fighters danced the deadly dance of pit duelists. Shadow weaved and slashed, cut and twirled; Longstrider blocked and evaded, swung and stabbed.

  
In seconds, the veteran had gained the upper hand. Soon Shadow was being pushed steadily back across the open center of the pit, accumulating a number of painful cuts and harsh bruises inflicted by Longstrider's crude poleaxe. During one of his elaborate spinning maneuvers, the masked challenger had been caught across the neck with the haft of his opponent's weapon, ripping the black fabric and exposing a ragged tuft of longish brown hair.

  
Finally Shadow made a last-ditch lunge at his enemy, but the Longstrider easily knocked first one, then the other scimitar away, climaxing with a swift blow with the butt of the weapon to his opponent's shoulder. Shadow was thrown on his back so forcefully that he somersaulted and flopped over on one side, vainly struggling to rise under the pain of what was probably a broken collarbone. Longstrider was there in a moment, the blade of his weapon held confidently under his downed enemy's chin.

  
“KILL! KILL! KILL!” screamed the crowd. Gribly shook his head, and met Lauro's angry eye with a sad shrug.
That poor girl is as good as sold.

  
Suddenly the cheering, hooting, screaming mob fell silent, and Gribly turned back to the pit. Longstrider had drawn back from his opponent with a look of surprise and confusion on his normally placid face.

  
The force of Shadow's tumble had shaken the mask down from his face.

  
Shadow wasn't a
he
... long, disheveled brown hair tumbled down the back of the black robes, and there was no beard... Shadow was a woman.

  
“What the... what kind of place is this?” Lauro said, disgusted. The crowd, momentarily stunned, erupted into shouts of bloodthirsty vigor again.

  
“KILL HER! KILL THE WENCH!”

  
“Blast!” Gribly snarled. “I forgot how much I hated this place!” Any pit fighter who disobeyed the general whims of the spectators usually fell out of favor, and too many such losses could cost a man his life, down here. What in Vast was wrong with that woman, that she had challenged the leading fighter? Gribly doubted even Longstrider would let her live.

  
But he was wrong. The grizzled fight veteran stepped over the unmasked woman before she could get away, but instead of slaying her he merely stabbed his blade into the ground near her head.

  
Then he bent down and helped her up.

  
“At least
someone
has decency here,” Lauro growled in Gribly's ear.

  
Breathless from the excitement of the fight and the shock of its finale, the thief only nodded. “C'mon, let's get to the edge of the crowd. We need to catch Longstrider before he leaves the palisade- and that'll be hard enough without all these rabid fanatics swarming around.”

Chapter Fourteen:
Fortune Favors Rangers

  
The winning duelist was not swarmed by the crowd, after all. Gribly and Lauro found him moving slowly along towards the gate-like palisade exit from shadow to shadow, shunned by the crowds. They would have missed him, Gribly knew, if it hadn't been for the fact that he was supporting the injured Shadow on his arm.

  
“Hoi, Longstrider!” called the thief, jogging to catch up with the pair before they left the palisade. The fighter halted, helped Shadow to stand upright, and looked back grimly at the thief.

  
“What d'you want, boy?” the fighter snarled. “Throw stones at me like yer half-wit friends, an' I swear I'll cut yer throat!”

  
“No, it's not like that at all,” Lauro interrupted, coming up behind his friend. “We need your help, and we're willing to pay...”

  
It was the wrong thing to say. Longstrider grimaced and began to walk away with Shadow on his arm. “I've already been 'elping too much, lad... an' look where it's gotten me? Hated by th' idiot mob, 'is what.” Another second, and he was gone in the shadows beyond the palisade.

  
“But you knew Old Murie,” Gribly protested. “I thought...” he trailed off as the shuffling feet of the two wearied fighters halted immediately.

  
“Old Murie?” came a voice from the darkness.

  
“Yes, Old Murie,” Gribly repeated, relieved, “she raised me.”

  
Silence. Then...

  
“Follow me- you an' yer friend, too. We may 'ave t' talk.”

  
“Thank you, Longstrider,” Gribly said, not wanting to kill his chance.

  
“Byorne,” the man said, stepping back into the torchlight and extending his hand. “You kin' call me Byorne.”

~

  
The silent fight champion led the thief, the prince, and the woman Shadow past the garbage hills and through the slums, to where he and others like him made their quarters. It was not much more than a wide back-alley walled off by several wooden huts and a lean-to, but it was cleaner and snugger than the majority of the city. Along the way, Gribly and Lauro told him their needs, but he made no reply.

  
When the companions were seated around a low-burning bonfire, in the middle of a clearing between the shelters, and when the injured woman had been laid down on a rough blanket nearby, Longstrider- or, as he now wished to be called, apparently, Byorne- disappeared. It was several minutes before he returned, during which almost no noise reached the ears of the three silent folk by the fire.