Robert Asprin - Storm Season

Now a god had spoken to Hanse-Hanse!- and then another, and Hanse had rather they just kept to themselves. The business of soldiers was killing and the business of Prince-Governors was ruling and killing and the business of gods was godding and the business of one smallish dark thief of thieves' world was thieving.

But now Shadowspawn was agent for gods.

Sword clanged on sword and well-guided blade slid along brilliantly interposed blade with a screech as loud as the grinding of a personal ax. That shrill ugliness was punctuated by a grunt chorused from two throats.

"Stopped me again, Stealth," one combatant grunted, stepping back and twitching his head sharply to the side. Sweat crept like persistent oil from his black mop under the blood-red sweat-band and into his eyebrows. He jerked his head to send it flying; the gesture carried all the constant impatience of youth.

"Barely," the other man said. He was bigger though not much older and in a way his face was more boyish than that of his opponent, who had for years cultivated a mean, menacing look he knew made him look older, and dangerous. The bigger man was fair in contrast to the other. His hair was as if splashed or streaked with silver so that it was cinerous.

"I own it, Shadowspawn: you are good and you are a natural. Now. Want to work a bit from the saddle?" His enthusiasm showed in his face and added bright color to his voice.

"No."

The one called Stealth waited a moment; the one called Shadowspawn did not embellish on that word which, when spoken flat and unadorned, was one of the four or five harshest and most unwelcome words in any language.

The man called Stealth masked his disappointment. "All right. How about... your stones, then?"

His last words emerged in a shout as the paler man moved, at speed. His sword was a silver-gray blur, up-whipping. It rushed on up, too, for the wiry fellow in the dust-colored tunic pounced up and aside, not quite blurring. He simply was not present to receive the upward cut at the source of progeny he might produce, like more bad virus upon the world. The other man arrested his movement to prepare alertly for a counter-stroke.

No counter-stroke was attempted. It did not come. Shadowspawn had quit the game. They looked at each other, the expert teacher called Stealth and the superb student he called Shadowspawn.

The latter spoke. "Enough, Niko. I'm weary of the sham."

"Sham? Sham, you weed-sprout? Had you not moved you'd be a candidate for the temple choir of soprano boys, Hanse!"

Hanse called Shadowspawn smiled little and when he did he smiled small, and often the smile was a sneer that fitted and mirrored his inner needs. It was a sneer now. Still, it was not of disdain or contempt for this member of the so called Sacred Band, the Stepsons, who had taught him so much. He had been a natural fighter and unusually swift. Now he was a trained one, with knowledge and ways of combative science that made him even swifter.

"But I did move, Niko; I did move. Tell Tem-pus how I move, you he set to teach me to be a bladesman. And tell him that still I have no desire to be a soldier. No desire to do murder, 'nobly' or no."

Niko stared at him.

Damned... boy, he mused. Oh, but I'm weary of him and his sneers and his snot. I have known only war. He, who has never known it, dares sneer at it and its practitioners. Neither of us had a father-I because mine was slain-in war when I was a child; this posturing backstreet blade-bristling night-thief because his mother and his father were nodding acquaintances at best. Nor would I change places with this . . . this little gutter-rat, so happy in his provincial ignorance and his total inconsequence. I had rather be a man.

And I have made him a fighter, a real fighter, so that now he swaggers even more!

"And look you to keep your valuables 'neath your pillow, Niko. Stealth, for I am shadow-spawned stealth, and have seen even the bed of the Prince-Governor . . . and of Tempus."

Niko of the Stepsons showed nothing and did not respond. Inside, he seethed only a little. Petty insults were cheap, cheap. As cheap as barely nubile yet experienced professional girls in the shadowy Maze that spawned this naive youth and served him as nest and den. Niko stepped back a pace, formally. Holding his blade up before squinting eyes, he turned it for his examination before putting it away in one swift smooth motion.

The Sanctuarite was not so insolent as to keep his weapon naked in his hand. He too held it out and turned it for inspection at the squint, and took hold of his scabbard with his right hand, and turned his blade toward himself without ever moving the dark, dark eyes that now gazed at his teacher. And he housed the blade 'neath but not through the hand on its sheath. With pride.

"Nicely done," Niko could not quite help saying.

Not because he felt the need to compliment, or enjoyed it; but because there was both edge and gratification in reminding both of them who had taught this wearer of so many blades the maneuver he had just demonstrated.

(A man might draw at an untoward sound or to dispatch an enemy, Niko had told Hanse. And having done, see to the housing of his blade at his side. At that moment, while he held scabbard and looked down to see to its filling, he was vulnerable. It was then the clever maker of the "innocent" noise or the hidden confederate of the new-slain man might pounce, and there was an end to sheathing and unsheathing, all at once. Thus a sensible man of weapons learned to bring his blade up and over and back, its point toward himself, and guide it into its sheath with a waiting off-hand. Meanwhile his eyes remained alert for the sudden charge.

(Yes, Nikodemos called Stealth had taught even that to Hanse. For Tempus owed him debt, and yet he and Tempus were no longer quite frinds. And so Niko paid as Tempus's agent: he trained this wiry, cocky hawk-nose called Hanse.)

"Your shield!" Hanse called.

Niko glanced at it, leaning against a mud-brick wall with Hanse's buckler beside it. They had slipped them off and set them there a pint of sweat ago, to practice with blades alone. Now Hanse turned and drew and threw all in one motion fluid as a cat's pounce, arm going out long and down in fellow-through, andthunk one of his damned knives appeared in Niko's shield. It stood there, quivering like a breeze-blown cat-tail.

Hanse pounced after it, all wiry and cat-lithe and dark.

He retrieved the knife, giving his wrist the little twist that plucked forth an inch of flat blade from bossed wood capable of withstanding a good ax-blow. Almost distractedly he slipped it back into its sheath up his right arm.

Hanse half-turned to flash teeth at his teacher-at-arms but not at knife throwing, and he saluted. Then he turned and faded around the building and was gone, although the sun was still orangey-yellow and the late-day shadows only thinking about gathering to provide him his natural habitat.

"Shadowspawn," Niko muttered, and went to retrieve his shield and seek out Tempus. Deliver me from this insolent Ilsigi in his painful youth, Tempus? Take away this bitter cup you have had me lift, and lift to my lips, and Irft?

Hanse moved away, wearing a tight little smile that really did not enhance his looks.

He was proud. Pleased with himself. Too, he liked Niko. There was no way he could not, and not respect him too, just as there was (almost, at least) no way he could admit or show it.

He had let Tempus know he liked him while claiming to care about no one, and had gone and got him out of the dripping hands of that swine, Kurd. Kurd the vivisectionist. One who sectioned, who sliced, the vibrantly living. Tempus, for instance. Among others.

After the horror of the house of Kurd, Hanse was an uncharacteristically pensive fellow; a different Hanse. The eeriness of a regenerated Tempus was almost more than he could bear. Immortal! 0 gods of us all-immortal, a human newt who survived all and healed all and regrew even vivisectioned parts-scarless!