LITMIR.BIZ

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like being on the business end of a blade.’

      There was a blur of motion, an action so quick and fluid the others couldn’t follow it.

      Now the stranger had the knife. He held it by the blade, hilt up. Dazed, empty-handed, the captain gaped at him.

      ‘I think this belongs to you,’ the stranger said, and just as swiftly lobbed it. But his target wasn’t the watch captain.

      The knife winged to the sorcerer. It punctured his chest, driving deep. Whiskered mouth in an O of surprise, the wizard gawked, bewildered, at the blade quivering in his breast. He went down in a swirl of robes.

      What had been a glacial scene instantly thawed.

      Everyone bar the stranger seemed to be shouting. There was a confusion of movement. Weapons were deployed, lanterns discarded.

      ‘What is it?’ the youth pleaded, twisting in the chaos. ‘What’s happening?’

      The stranger shoved him aside. The youth tottered, and fell.

      From beneath his billowing cloak the stranger quickly drew a pair of swords. Then the patrol moved in to engage him.

      On hands and knees, head low, the young man scurried away from the sound of ringing steel. Bumping into a wall, he huddled with his back against its coarse surface, making himself small.

      A watchman circled the stranger to seize him from behind. He met the smartly delivered backward thrust of a granite-hard elbow. There was the audible crack of a breaking nose. Palms to face, the watchman reeled clear. The stranger resumed fencing with barely a pause.

      He faced the captain and the third patrolman. His most dangerous opponent by far, the paladin, knelt beside the sorcerer. He was feeling the wizard’s neck for a pulse, but his eyes were on the fight.

      Anger rode the captain. It made him unruly. He fought with wild swings and a reckless stance. His companion was more sober. He came in with measured passes and well-aimed strokes. The stranger met both with equal vigour, his twin blades flashing smoothly from one to the other.

      The alley was lit by an eerie gleam from the cast-off lanterns. It threw enormous shadows of the duellists onto the wall behind the cowering youth. The shades of frenzied giants, performing an eccentric ballet. Until one of them stopped.

      An expression of consternation was etched on the captain’s face. A blade jutted from his chest. The stranger tugged it free in a gush of crimson. Knees buckling, the captain dropped.

      His cohort, momentarily stunned, battled on with renewed ferocity. The man with the broken nose, bloodied and ashen, recovered enough to join in. They tried to overcome their opponent with sheer force but he held them off with ease, dodging swipes, side-stepping thrusts with sure dexterity. Nothing they did slowed his attack. Then he took an opening.

      The young man, cringing at the wall, had his hands covering his bowed head, fingers splayed. Half a dozen paces to his left was a sealed window. A grey-uniformed body hurtled into it, crashing through the wooden shutters. It came to rest half in, half out, legs dangling. The youth whimpered.

      With Broken Nose out of the picture, the stranger turned to the remaining watchman and fell on him like a ravening wolf.

      A slash of glistening arterial blood sprayed across the brickwork above the youth. Flecks splashed him, warm drops spattered his head, hands and shoulders. He quailed.

      The stranger had no further interest in the downed watchman. His attention was on the paladin, still kneeling by the wizard. They stared at each other. The paladin was young, robust; his turn-out immaculate, with hair and beard neatly trimmed, in common with his kind. He slowly rose. With measured tread he advanced, drawing his sword as he came. For his part the stranger re-sheathed the flatter of his blades, leaving him with a rapier.

      The paladin asked, ‘Why do that?’

      ‘So we can meet equally.’

      ‘Gallantry from a savage?’ he scoffed. ‘Only a fool throws away an advantage.’

      They’d begun to circle each other slowly.

      ‘We’ll see,’ the stranger replied.

      They moved simultaneously, and fast. Their blades met, pealing, and for a moment locked. Disengaging, both men pulled back and commenced their duel in earnest. Exchanging stinging passes, hacking and chopping, they set up a rhythmic beat of pounding steel. The paladin was a skilful fighter, and disciplined, but no match for his opponent.

      The end came when the stranger parried a stroke and deflected his foe’s blade. The follow-through ruptured a lung and brought the paladin down.

      Rivulets of blood fed the lane’s rain gully, colouring the sluggish flow.

      The stranger looked around and saw the youth huddled at the wall. Ramming his sword into its scabbard, he swept to him, cloak flapping.

      ‘Get up,’ he said.

      The young man didn’t move, aside from trembling.

       ‘On your feet!’

      Still the youth didn’t stir. The stranger took him by the scruff and roughly hoisted him.

      ‘Now take that thing off.’

      ‘No. I can’t, I –’

      He was slammed against the wall. ‘Take it off!’

      ‘I daren’t.’

      Brutally, the stranger ripped the mask from his face and flung it aside. The freed coins bounced across the cobbles.

      The youth kept his eyes screwed shut.

      ‘Open them,’ the stranger demanded. ‘Open them.’

      With some effort, and timorously, he did as he was told.

      ‘How is it?’

      The young man blinked and looked about sheepishly. ‘It’s … it’s all right, I think.’

      ‘There’s no need for this. It’s stupid and dangerous, and –’

      ‘No need? You know what I’ve been seeing. How can you say –’

      There was a groan close by. They turned and saw that the watch captain was feebly breathing. The stranger drew a knife.

      ‘No,’ the youth begged. ‘Can’t you just leave him?’

      ‘We don’t take prisoners. Any more than they do.’

      He moved to the dying man and quickly finished him. The youth couldn’t watch.

      Wiping his blade on a scrap of cloth, the stranger said, ‘You think I’m cruel. But this is a war. Maybe not in name, but that’s what it amounts to.’

      The youth nodded. ‘I know.’

      ‘Come on. It won’t do to linger here.’

      They set off together through the fog.

      Something that looked like an eel swam past them. It was candy-striped and had a pair of wings far too tiny to fly with. As it made its serpentine way it left a trail of orange sparks.

      In a voice much gentler, Caldason asked, ‘How are you feeling?’

      ‘I’m scared,’ Kutch said.

       2

      Dawn was near. The fog was clearing.

      Valdarr, titular capital of the island state of Bhealfa, began to stir. People were coming out to mingle with the magic that never slept.

      As in all great cities, areas of wealth and deprivation sat cheek by jowl. Likewise, there were districts neither prosperous nor impoverished; unassuming quarters where

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