Her hand jerked back to thrust again, but the barbarian batted hard and low, cuffed her head, and staggered her. Still, she'd seen even that move coming, and had almost ducked out of the way. Squatting low as a toad, she flicked in and sliced his inner thigh just above the knee. Sunbright knew that strategy: a few deft cuts would weaken his legs and topple him. He was still pinned against the wall and the low ceiling, and still unarmed. Harvester's pommel ground on stone.
The thief sashayed back and forth, hypnotic as a snake, ready to strike. Her face and ragged hair were illuminated by her glowing vest. She muttered curses under her breath, and Sunbright knew they were not mere bravado. She was truly angry with him, wanted to gut him. Why? Because he'd killed some mugger up in a city street?
Before he could even frame a question, she lashed out again.
Straightening her back, she struck high to stab at his face. He flinched back and smacked his head on stone again, though he tried to slap her hand aside. Instead he felt searing, grating pain as the blade slid through his left palm. For a second he saw almost a foot of needlelike steel jutting from the back of his hand, then he whipped his hand off the blade. A good thing, too, for she twisted the blade deftly to sever his tendons. If he weren't so quick, she'd have destroyed the hand.
He was like a bear swatting at a hummingbird. One good clip would kill her, but it needed pure luck to land. He forced himself to ignore the bleeding cuts and watch instead the blade, which he now realized was of elven craftsmanship. Where had she gotten it?
The woman stooped and jabbed for his left knee. He crooked the knee aside, smashed down with a fist for her head, and hit only air.
He could draw his own knife, but no, she'd still carve him like mutton. She was hot to fight, and he wasn't. Some kind of shield would be better, a chair or net, or even a pair of sticks. Despite her mad ferocity, he didn't want to kill her. Rather, he wanted to question her. More likely she'd cut his throat.
Wary, fumbling with his right hand, he drew Dorlas's warhammer and held it close by the steel head. By flipping the leather-wrapped handle he might deflect the blade sideways and get in a shot with a fist or boot. He'd hoped that, with only one eye, her depth perception would be poor, but she seemed to know exactly how far to thrust and how to keep clear.
But he was thinking too much, and needed to react. Battle-lust cooling, she hesitated to get within his grasp. After two rapid feints, she scored with a long cut down his left forearm. Blood welled, ran down his arm, dripped from his elbow. Red wetness from his punctured hand had already flowed there.
Sunbright didn't mind the blood, he had plenty. But a few more cuts would weaken him. Her anger was mystifying, puzzling. He fought to keep himself from getting angry at this blind attack.
Shuffling awkwardly in the semidarkness, eyes tracking everything, the fighters-one reluctant, one determined-assessed their chances. The one-eyed woman continued to curse, breath whistling. Sunbright wondered if he should waste breath on reason.
A flicker, and he was pinked on the back of his right hand. A snap of the hammer handle, and her blade clicked aside, then again. A thrust at his knee and he sidestepped, returned with a quick kick of a boot too thick to pierce. Aiming true, she slit his knee just above the leather. A punch from the hammer made her hook her head aside. A feint at his throbbing, bleeding left wrist again, then a lunge for his guts. A move to block with the hammer handle — and his bloody left fist came down like a boulder from a mountaintop to smash on the back of her head.
The woman was driven flat as a tent peg, so fast and hard her face slammed dirt.
Frustrated, worried, Sunbright had lashed out, and immediately regretted it. But he stamped down hard on her hand and the knife blade before doing anything else. The woman lay still.
"First time I ever saw that happen," rasped the crone.
"What happened?" asked the blind giant, worried.
The tiny girl whispered, "She's down."
The twins with the topknots faded into the dark even as the giant shot to his feet. Though blind, he could gauge the ceiling, and didn't rap his head as Sunbright had. He clenched monstrous hands and growled, "Let's see if you can knock me down!"
"Hold on. I don't want to harm anyone…" Sunbright called. He held up his hands, his left welling red, his right almost as bad. "… or be harmed. I just want answers."
Holstering his hammer, Sunbright squatted and plucked the knife from the woman's limp grasp. It was elven work all right, the handle of black polished wood chased by silver wire, the pommel and hilt filigreed. He slipped it into the back of his boot.
The crone hobbled forward to lift the knife fighter's head. The thief stirred, moaned, blubbered. Her nose was mashed and swollen, dripping blood down her face. She was covered with dirt. Sunbright had almost snapped her neck, had smacked her face into the dirt hard enough to leave an impression. He chided himself. This was no way to make friends. Didn't anyone in this city want to talk instead of fight?
The crone fussed and mopped the woman's bloody, dazed face. The leader croaked, "Where is he?" Sunbright admired how she still strove to place her enemy and determine his danger. He just backed away and hunkered low. Using his own knife, he sliced ribbons from his long shirt and awkwardly bandaged his left hand. It hurt now, sizzling as if on fire.
The crone ordered the giant to pick up the injured Lothar, then told the twins to carry their groggy leader. Sunbright was being left behind. He stood up and they all tensed, wary as stray dogs.
"I'm coming with you."
"What makes you think that?" wheezed the crone.
The barbarian sucked wind through his teeth, fought down a simmering anger at everyone and everything in this city. "I won the fight, I get what I want."
"What do you want?"
"Answers."
The old woman shrugged, turned, and pointed the way down a narrow slope. "Come on, then."
The strange and wounded party crept on like sewer rats, threading deeper into the guts of the city. Finally they reached an iron door that the giant heaved aside. Beyond lay a chamber in which the slightest noise echoed in Sunbright's ears. Someone snapped a finger to set a glowlight burning.
The rocky cavern reminded the tundra dweller of a rookery. Floor, ceiling, and walls were a jumble of pock-marks deep enough to hide in. The twisted cavern ran for some distance, out of the range of the glowlight cantra, then seemed to dip. The air was surprisingly fresh, even breezy, until the iron door clanked back in place. Rocks and planks made tables and seats where more rocks had filled holes and made the floor tolerably level. The "furniture" encircled a fire pit. Dotted around the cavern, like rooks' nests, Sunbright saw blankets and bedding. Odd bits of junk such as split paintings and soiled tapestries were decorations. A colony for these thieves, then, them and three other misfits already here: a burly man, a balding woman, and a girl with red pigtails.
They'd already laden the table with their stolen food, and now the incoming party added more. Lothar was put to bed with a bottle of brandy for his pain. The leader-Sunbright still didn't know her name-was propped against bales of old cloth. Water dripped at the back of the cave, and the crone wet a rag and mopped the leader's bloody nose. Sunbright hunkered on his heels, arms across his knees, and watched.
"I'd like to ask some questions, and get answers for a change." he asked the crone, "Then I'll leave you alone."
"Ask away."
The old woman's face was a mass of wrinkles, but her white hair was drawn neatly back and pinned. Her clothing consisted of a single voluminous dark robe, an all-encompassing garment that would keep out rain or sun and keep in heat. Most of the thieves wore the same. Only the part-elven leader wore thin leather, as if she were impervious to the subterranean chill.
Sunbright got busy asking his questions. "What's your name?"
The woman cradled the leader's head, dabbed off blood. "Call me Mother," she told him. "Everyone does."
"Are you really any of these folks' mother?"
"I was a mother once. It suffices."
Sunbright grunted, settled more comfortably on his heels, and asked, "What's her name?"
"Knucklebones."
"Huh? What kind of name is that?"
Mother mopped dirt from the woman's hair as she said, "What's the toughest bone in any animal's body?"
"Oh." Sunbright replied. Dogs and wolves could eat any part of any animal, crack any bone for the marrow, except knucklebones. "Is that why she wears a knucklebone pendant?"
"And because she's good at the game of Knucklebones. And because she wears these," she said, indicating the brass knuckles on the young woman's right hand, filed and shaped to fit her fingers like multiple rings. Mother picked at her own throat, tugged up a thong, showing a glimpse of white. "But we all wear these. The badge of her family."
"You mean gang."
Mother shot him a look from under thin eyebrows and said, "Don't be impertinent."
"My apologies."
Sunbright squatted with his back to the iron door, one ear tuned lest it move. The other thieves were dividing or storing the food in stone jars with wooden lids.
"Family it is. And the man from whom I took the knucklebone. He was a member of your family?"
"And her lover," replied Mother. Gently, she stroked her finger along Knucklebones's nose. Sunbright saw the fingers glow a pale red, saw the swollen flesh slowly sink to normal size. Mother was a hedge wizard, he supposed. Or else minor healing was just another spell everyone knew. "His name was Martel. He went into the garbage chutes, I take it."
"Yes." Sunbright may have damned himself, but said, "I stumbled on a street brawl. He was out to kill me, tangled me with his weighted chain so he could stab me. I think. I was confused. I didn't want to kill him."
"Explain that to her when she's up," replied Mother evenly. "But I'm not surprised. We should stick to thievin', not hire out to the noble brats for their hell-raisin'. Knuckle' didn't want him to go. They argued, and he didn't come back. We heard why."
Sighing, Sunbright changed the subject. "You live by thieving. Why not work?"
"There's no work," she laughed. "Only for friends of the nobles. This city is about played out, ready to collapse under the weight of the nobility. They've eaten away their foundations, you see, let termites bore through their homes."
"And you're the termites?"
Now Mother sighed. She dragged loose cloth around and covered Knucklebones, who was in and out of sleep. Sunbright hoped he hadn't caused her brain damage, or injured her spine. "No," she told him, "we're nothin', rats livin' off garbage, just a nuisance. It's the nobles who're their own worst enemy. They'll drown in their own sewage."
"I don't understand."
"You really are from far away, then. It's this way all over the empire," Mother said, creaking upright and fetching two bowls of porridge a girl had warmed by the fire. She and Sunbright ate with their fingers. "The nobles're greedy. They've always been so, but as time goes by, their appetites increase and they want more. They take it from the commoners. Eventually they take too much, the commoners starve, and then the nobles do too. But they never see it comin' and never try to stop it.
"How much of the city have you seen? How many shops closed? How many people out of work? The workin' class has been taxed-robbed-out of existence. Leather workers and milliners and blacksmiths couldn't pay their taxes, so their shops're taken and they're thrown out of work. They starve a while, then choose: die or steal. The ones caught are executed or thrown into labor camps and worked to death. Anyone who complains about the oppression, bards singing or printers selling broadsides, or minor officials who know the poor're also silenced, banished, or killed outright. The city guard are nothin' but murderous thugs, out to collect graft and kill anyone who raises his eyes to a noble. Their watchword is 'Mind your betters.' And down on the ground, they tell me-I've never been there-it's better, and worse.
"Worse," she continued, "because farmers're thrown off their land and made to wander. But here, we're like fish in a pool, all fightin' for crumbs. Folks can't work, so families split up to find food. Children are abandoned… look at these lost souls Knucklebones has taken in. And the high-and-mighty archwizards don't care, they only demand the guards grind down harder, punish more terribly."
Sunbright interjected, "But all that food in the marketplace. And the goods?"
"For nobles only," Mother sighed, shaking her head. "Their cooks and chamberlains're the only ones permitted in the market once it's open. Any commoners comin' near would be beaten to death by silver. Oh, there are some folks still makin' things. The archwizards have private workshops and hired artisans. They have cooks to prepare fabulous food for their endless parties, I'm told, and craftsmen to manufacture toys. Certainly they make flyin' disks for the Hunt, so the nobles can kill peasants on the ground. They lark and game like blind children. But the nobles skate on thin ice that's bein' licked away from underneath by a changing tide. They can prop the empire with brutality, with magic, with money-but it can't hold up forever."
"So what's to happen?"
Mother shrugged, said, "One day, sooner or later, the ice breaks. And the empire crumbles. And us at the bottom'll be crushed first.
"But the nobles'll have a mighty rough landin' too."