Robert Asprin: Storm Season

Whenever he shut his eyes he dreamed.

iii

There was silence in the small company, a prolonged silence inside the cramped quarters that had been one of their safe shelters, with Mor-am sulking in a crouch against the wall and Moria folded in the other comer, her arms about her knees. Eichan occupied the cot, crosslegged, arms wrapped about his huge chest, his dark head lowered, uncommunicative. What could be done had been done. They waited.

And finally the scurrying came in the alley outside, which brought heads up and got Moram and Moria to their feet: no attack, not likely. Two of their own were on the street now, watching.

"Get it," Eichan said, and Moria unlatched the door.

It was Dzis, who stepped owlishly into the faint light they afforded inside-no mask, not on the streets these days: all Dzis managed was dirt, and the stink that armored all Downwind's unwashed. "He went where he said," Dzis said. "He's snugged in at Becho's alley."

"Good," Eichan said, and got up from the cot, taking his cloak across his arm. "You stay here," he said to Mor-am and Moria. "Use the drop up the way. Keep on it."

"You didn't have to give our names," Moria said. She trembled with rage, whether at Eichan or at her brother. "Any objection if we settle that bastard outright?"

"And leave questions unanswered?" Eichan flung on the cloak. He towered, difficult to conceal if one suspected it was Eichan. "No. We can't afford that now. You've cost us a safe hole. You live in it. And watch yourselves."

"There'll be watchers," Moria said, hoping that there would.

"Maybe," said Eichan. "And maybe not." He followed Dzis back out the door and pulled it after him. The latch dropped. The lampflame waved shadows round the walls.

Moria turned round and looked at her brother, a burning stare.

Mor-am shrugged.

"Hang you," Moria said.

"Oh, that's not what they do to hawkmasks lately. Not the ones on our trail."

"You had to go to Becho's, had to have it, didn't you? You let someone follow you, stinking stewed-get off it, hear me? Get off that stuff. It'll kill you. It almost did. When the Man gets back-"

"There's no guarantee he's coming back."

"Shut up." She darted a frantic glance at the door, where one of the others could still be listening. "You know better than that."

"So-they got him good this time, and Tem-pus wins. And Eichan goes on pushing and shoving as if the Man was still-"

"Shut up!"

"Jubal's not in shape to do anything, is he? They go on hunting hawkmasks in the street and none of us know when we'll be next. We live in holes and hope the Man gets back...."

"He'll settle with them when he does. If we keep it all together. If-"

"If. If and if. Have you seen that lot that's moved in on the estate? Jubal'll never go back there. He won't face them down. Can't. Did you hear the riders in the street? That's permanent."

"Shut up. You're stiffed."

Mor-am walked over to the wall and pulled his cloak off the peg.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Out. Where there's less noise."

"Don't you dare."

He slung it on and headed for the door.

"Come back here." She grabbed at his arm, futile: he had long ago outweighed her. "Eichan will have your head."

"Eichan doesn't care. He feeds us pennies and gives silver out with our names for the asking."

"You won't go after him. Eichan said-"

"Eichan said. Stay out of my business. No, I won't cut the bastard's throat. Not tonight. I've got a headache. Just let me alone."

"All right, all right, I won't talk to you, just stay inside."

He pulled the door open and went out it.

"Mor-am?" she hissed.

He turned and held up a coin. "Enough to get me really drunk. But only enough for one. Sorry."

He whirled and left, a flurry of a ragged cloak. Moria closed the door, crossed the room, flung herself down to sit on the cot with her head in her hands and the blood pounding in her temples. She was scared. She wanted to hit something. Anything. Since the raid had scattered them with half their number dead, it was all downhill. Eichan tried to hold it together. They had no idea whether he had what he claimed to have, whether Jubal was even still alive. She doubted it sometimes, but not out loud. Mor-am's doubts were wider. She did not fully blame him: tonight she hated Eichan-and remembered it was Mor-am himself who had led the outsider to them. Drunk. Stoned on krrf, using far too much.

And Becho's-any place was dangerous if they frequented it, if they set up a pattern, and her brother had a pattern. His habits led him here and led him there. There was the smell of death about him, that terrified her. All the enemies the slaver Jubal had ever accumulated (and they were many) had come to pick bones now that his power was broken; from the days that hawk-masks used to swagger in gaudy dress through the streets, now they wore ragged cloaks and slunk into any hole that would keep them. And that was, for all of them, a bitter change.

Mor-am could not bear it. She gave him money, doled it out, hers and his; but he had lied to her-she knew he had; and gotten that little more that it needed for Becho's. Or he had cut a purse or a throat, defying Eichan's plain orders. He was committing slow suicide. She knew. They had come up together out of this reek, this filth, to Jubal's service, and learned to live like lords; and now that it was back to the gutter again, Mor-am refused to live on those terms. She held onto him with all her wit and talents, covered for him, lied for him. Eichan might kill him himself if he had seen him go; or beat him senseless: she wished she had the strength to pound the idiocy out of him, flatten him against a wall and talk sense to him. But there was no one to do that for him. Not for years.

Mor-am flung off down the street, striding along with purpose none of the sleepers in doorways challenged, getting off the main road as quickly as he might.

But something stirred another way. A beggar dislodged himself from his doorway near an alley and shuffled along until he reached shadows, then moved quite differently, hunker-ing down when he thought it might serve and running spryly enough when there was need.

Then other beggars began to move, some truly lame, but not all.

And one of them had already gone, scuttling along alleys as far as a shack near Mama Becho's, at the back of which the White Foal river flowed its sluggish, black-glistening way beneath the bridge.

Guards dozed there, about the walls, unlikely as guards as he was unlikely as a messenger, in rags, one a little urchin-girl sleeping in the alley, who looked up and went back to her interrupted nap, a huddle of bony limbs; and one a one legged man who did the same; but that hulk nearest the door got up and faced the messenger.

"Got something," the messenger said, "himself'd want to hear."

The guard rapped at the door. In a little time it opened on the dark inside, and a shutter opened, affording light enough to someone who had been inside all along.

The messenger went in and squatted down in a crouch natural to his bones and delivered what he had heard.

So Moruth listened, sitting on his bed, and when the messenger was done, said: "Put Squith on it, and Ister."

Luthim left, bowing in haste.

Mama's latest boarder. Moruth pondered the idea, hands clasped on his knees, smiling and frowning at oruce because any link between his home territory and the hawkmasks he hunted made him uneasy. There was, in the dark, on the back side of the door, a mask pinned with an iron nail, and there was blood on it that had dried like rust in the daylight; but only those that came to this shack and had the door closed on them could see it. It was a joke of sorts. Moruth had a sense of humor, like his half-brother Tygoth shambling along the alleys by Mama's, rapping his stick and mumbling slackwitted nonsense. He had one now, and ordered Luth-im himself followed: the urchin was summoned to the door and given a message to take.