Wings of Omen - Thieves World 06 Read Online Free PDF

Bewitched. Most of the death squad members got their start with Roxane, the Nisibisi witch. It's a trap: the Stepsons and the 3rd are looking for revenge. Roxane didn't exactly lose gracefully fighting the Stepsons; they lost men; meres never forget."
    "You've got to stay... if not for yourself, for me. They've spotted you; they know you're using this place to rearm, to meet, to get in and out of the tunnels. If you don't pretend to join them, I'm having this conversation with a dead man-it's just a matter of days."
    "Well, at least you're being honest, now." Zip pushed himself up against the wall. He had a two-day growth of beard and looked a decade older than the years he'd lived. Erect, leaning back in his comer, he said despairingly, "I don't suppose it would do any good to make you promise not to reveal any more of our names?..."
    "On pain of death? Kill me now, then. And my wife. And everyone else that's helped you. I own, boy, I've seen a lot of action, too many wars to suit me, and I'm telling you: the only way to live through what's brewing in Sanctuary is to make a deal with the 3rd Commando."
    "Just so long as it isn't the damn Rankan army-it isn't, you can promise me that, can't you? Can't you?"
    Marc looked at his big-knuckled hands. The slit-eyed, scruffy youth before him had been orphaned in the Rankan takeover of Sanctuary. He didn't remember his parents and he'd grown up fast and hard, hating Rankans all the way. He'd had no connections, no advantages, no mentors: Marc had known Zip for years, and never dared to get involved-this kind died young and they died unpleasantly. Now, for some reason known only to the gods. Marc was involved: it was a matter of pride, of gut resentment, of life and death.
    "No, boy, I can't promise you that. But maybe they can. All / can promise is that if you don't show up, not me, or my wife, or this shop is going to exist in the morning: they'll level the place and bury us in it."
    "Thanks for not pressuring me."
    "You're welcome. Thanks for making my shop your favorite haunt."
    "I give. Look, tell me who's going to be here." With a sick feeling in his stomach, fingering an amulet of Shalpa in hopes that the goddess could keep this boy from diving through the open hole by his side into the tunnels and never coming up. Marc began to explain about the vampire woman, Ischade; the crime lord, Jubal; the Rankan 3rd Commando leader, Sync; the storyteller, Hakiem, and the acting garrison commander, Walegrin. As he did, watching Zip's unbelieving eyes go icy and hostile. Marc couldn't even convince himself that tonight's meeting wasn't going to be a wholesale slaughter. Judging by the guest list, somebody could get rid of every troublemaker in Sanctuary worth mentioning in one cleansing fire-he hoped to hell that "somebody" didn't turn out to be Strat. The only element missing from the list of invited guests was a representative of black magic-some honcho from the mageguild, or Enas Yorl, or some Hazard-class enchanter who might be able to keep order through fear of mortal curse. And if the Stepsons hadn't been allergic to magicians, they'd probably have invited one of them, too.
    By the time Sync got to the meeting, the air was already blue with krrf smoke, the packed-clay floor littered with wine dregs.
    Kama was presiding, as best she could, over a crowd of thirty-five people who, under any other circumstances, would have been locked in mortal combat by now. Hakiem the storyteller was the only person in the room who was unarmed, though Sync was well aware that the mouth was mightier than the sword in a situation like this. If things went badly, the rest could be let go, but Hakiem would have to die.
    Walegrin, big, blond, and out of uniform, sat in the middle of a half-dozen plain-clothed officers who, by being invited here, would be sufficiently compromised that even if they weren't actively helpful, they wouldn't hinder Sync's progress.
    Straton was sitting off by himself in a comer