The Alabaster Staff Read Online Free PDF

her tongue before she said, “he liked my performance,” knowing full well it would be taken the wrong way. “He liked me …” she continued, even more flustered.
    “Uh-huh,” said the man, swinging the blade unconsciously in his right hand. “We dock here only this damn morning, and soon as we get them pears out, someone steals a whole damn bunch. You leave the market, eating a damn pear. I follow, and you walk faster. When I get close, you run and duck into this damn alley, and now you say you din’t do nothin’. Well too damn bad for you.” Then, looking her over, he added, “Though you maybe could work a deal. The others would like the looks of you, all nice and thin like that. The Zhentarim can be … merciful. At times.”
    “I—I didn’t s-steal it,” stammered Kehrsyn as she continued her slow retreat. Her stomach tightened in knots. “Ask the people at the square. I was performing.”
    “Quit your damn bleating.”
    He reached for her with his free hand, but Kehrsyn hopped lightly backward. Glancing at his extended arm, she saw that he indeed wore splint mail. He stepped forward. She dropped her pear and drew her rapier, holding it defensively in front of her with her left hand. As she’d hoped, that caused him to pause briefly. He lowered himself as if to spring.
    The man studied her, negligently describing easy, lethal arcs with his sword beside him. For a moment, as he examined her stance, he wore the ruthless face of a tiger, then a cruel smile pulled up one corner of his mouth.
    He saw the point of Kehrsyn’s rapier trembling ever so slightly. The rain dripped. The fearful trembling grew. His smile widened, as did Kehrsyn’s eyes.
    The man straightened up again, nodding in smug disdain.
    “So pussycat thinks she’s got a claw, huh?” he mocked. “Here’s what I think of that!”
    He swung his sword crosswise and slapped the blade from her hand with a flagrant, sweeping backhand blow, sending it clattering against the stone wall of the alley. As he did so, Kehrsyn was already thrusting with a dagger in her right hand—her good hand—the blade held vertically the better to slip between the strips of metal splints. Too late the man saw that he had fallen for her bait—believed her trembling, fearful feint—and left his body wide open for a counterattack. The long stiletto struck the man at the top of the thigh, just where his leg joined his abdomen, cutting tendons and lancing innards.
    Though he yet felt no pain, instinctively the man was already doubling over to protect his groin. He tried to strike Kehrsyn with his return stroke, but she nimbly dodged the blow and countered by tracing a gash across one eyebrow.
    The man’s traumatized hip gave way and he crumpled to his knees. He glared at her, but the blood welling up from his cut brow started to sting his eye. Just as he winced, Kehrsyn stepped forward and kicked him as hard as she could on the chin, sending the man backward. He flopped on the pavement, his lower legs doubled back underneath him.
    He groaned as Kehrsyn gingerly cleaned her dagger on his trousers. She sheathed the blade in its hidden pouch on the bottom of her bag, then recovered her pear and her rapier, which was, thankfully, undamaged.
    Glancing back, she saw that the man, despite his injuries and his irritated eyes, had pulled a small vial of bright blue liquid from his sword belt with a trembling hand and was moving it toward his lips.
    In an instant the point of her rapier planted itself just behind the wounded man’s ear.
    “A healing potion? No, you don’t … not yet,” she said. “You can drink it when I’m safely away, so why don’t you just put it back for now, hmm?”
    He obeyed, if feebly, slipping the potion back into its hidden resting place, and Kehrsyn breathed easier that she’d not had to follow through on her implied threat.
    Kehrsyn stepped around him, flicking her rapier’s point to his throat.
    “Oh, and while we’re at