Bandilegs, with her long legs, was a blur, far ahead of her two mates. Sal was the muscle, and Jojo could pick the marks, but Bandilegs was their runner, the one who ensured the goods made it clear. She was the main reason theirs was the most effective “import” team in the Gateside district.
At least until tonight. As she fled, Bandilegs saw a slender but well-muscled arm jut out in front of her. Then the arm, ending in a wrist bracer and a gloved fist, caught Bandilegs right at her throat. Sal and Jojo heard a thwack and saw their runner’s legs fly forward and up, as the rest of her body fell backward to land with a solid smack on the packed earth. They made a half dozen steps toward their runner before they, too, saw the arm. It came, they realized, from someone standing in one of the innumerable two-foot gaps between buildings that laced Westgate’s neighborhoods.
The pair thought at first they’d become prey to a poacher, a thief who robbed other thieves, but when Bandilegs’s assailant stepped out of the narrow passageway, Sal, at least, realized they’d come up against something more dangerous. Sal enjoyed Jamal’s street theater, so she recognized the red-headed, blue-tattooed swordswoman. Jojo reacted as he would to any lone poacher. He drew his blade and snarled, expecting Sal to back him up. Sal was backing up, all right, backpedaling as she calculated her chances at escape if she were to run back out the alley, past the Turmishmen they’d just robbed, and keep going. She spun around, but immediately abandoned her plan to flee.
Behind him Jojo heard a roaring noise as a light flared brightly enough for the thief to see his own shadow. Sensing that Sal was no longer behind him, Jojo shot a glance over his shoulder, then did a quick double take. Sal was laying her weapon down at the feet of a small, dragonlike man who clutched a flaming sword in his paws. Jojo looked back at the armored swordswoman, then again at the dragon man. He sighed and laid his dagger on the ground. He added his boot knife for good measure.
The Turmish merchants were at their inn, bemoaning their fate and trying to figure out how to recoup their losses, when the innkeeper knocked on their door and handed them their stolen valuables. A woman and lizardman had dropped them off with the request that the Turmishmen stop at the Tower tomorrow to identify their attackers, who were now in custody.
Big Edna wiped tankards with the dry end of her bar rag and rehearsed her lines. “It’s been a tough week,” she murmured. “What with so many Night Mask muggers in the area, many of me regulars are afraid to go out at night.”
No, it’s no use, she thought. Littleboy didn’t care that her business was slipping. All he cared about was getting his regular cut of what he claimed her profits should be. Littleboy would not listen to reason.
Edna surveyed her little establishment, such as it was—a bar made from a few planks laid across some barrels, a stock of whiskey, brandy, and ale of questionable origin, empty barrels and crates serving as stools and tables, five dozen pewter tankards, and a cracked mirror mounted on the wall so that she could watch the customers. Tonight her only customers were four old fishermen, a one-handed pensioned dockworker, and a pair of cloaked and hooded adventurers. Were Edna one to gossip, she might guess the adventurers were priests of some outcast religion, like Talona or Cyric. Edna, however, did not gossip. That was one of the attractions of her little hole-in-the-walclass="underline" You could drink in quiet without being disturbed by the chatter of the owner or the other customers.
The door crashed open, and Littleboy waddled in, flanked by his two toughs. A careless observer might mistake Littleboy for a bald halfling or a shaved dwarf, for the hairless Night Mask was short and barrel-shaped. His round face and apple cheeks gave him a cherubic look, but one that was quickly belied by his unpleasantly cruel attitude. Littleboy dressed in a heavy, open-fronted cloak and a great slouch hat. His supporters were two lantern-jawed lunks who looked as if they had hobgoblin blood sloshing through their veins.
Littleboy climbed onto one of the barrel stools and rested his elbows on the bar. His boys remained standing and silent. “So, Edna,” he said.
Edna threw a small pouch of coins on the bar without a reply. Littleboy picked it up, hefted it, and frowned. “You’re light,” he noted.
“Not a lot of customers,” Edna replied, trying a casual shrug.
“Then you don’t need a lot of furniture,” Littleboy said. He tucked the pouch into his cloak pocket and snapped his fingers. One of his boys moved off. Littleboy heard the satisfying sound of one of the barrels smashing over one of the other barrels. His eyes never left Edna’s face. Her eyes widened for a moment, then became slits.
“Let this be a warn—” Littleboy began. He was interrupted by two thumps behind him and startled by the ghost of a smile on Edna’s face. Littleboy looked up in the mirror behind the bar.
The Night Mask collection agent was once again flanked by two figures, but they weren’t his boys. One was an armored woman in a scarlet cape, the other a big lizard. “Kezef’s blood and bladder!” Littleboy muttered, recognizing the pair from the stories that had been coursing through the grapevine.
Littleboy did not need to look around to know his own boys were sprawled on the floor. He laid both his hands on the bar, one resting over the ornate ring of the other.
“Is there something I can do to help you?” he asked coolly.
“You can close down your little extortion racket,” the swordswoman said. The lizard made a chuffing noise.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Littleboy. “I have a business deal with Edna here. My boys do some of her heavy lifting and serve as bodyguards to protect her and her establishment from the city’s more unsavory elements. Isn’t that right, Edna?”
The swordswoman looked at Edna. The bar owner’s face was a study in uncertainty and fear. While everyone’s attention was focused on Edna, Littleboy removed the face of his ring, uncovering a small needle, which wept a single greenish drop of venom.
“No,” Edna announced, possessed by some wisp of courage. “He’s been shaking me down, like you said.”
The swordswoman pulled Edna’s pouch of money out of Littleboy’s cloak pocket and tossed it back to the bar owner. To Littleboy she said, “I suggest you leave this place and not come back.”
“You shouldn’t interfere in my business,” Littleboy said. “I have powerful friends.”
“Then you should stay with them for a while,” the swordswoman replied.
Littleboy sighed and twisted as if he were about to hop down from the barrel stool. A second later, he thrashed out with his right fist to slash his poison needle across the swordswoman’s face. The lizard snarled, and the adventuress reacted with lightning quickness, grasping the extortionist firmly by the wrist and bending his arm backward.
“That hurts,” Littleboy gasped. The lizard brought a pewter tankard down on the Night Mask’s head, and blackness claimed him.
“Now what?” Edna asked.
“Call the watch,” the swordswoman said, as if it were simple.
“It’ll only be Littleboy’s word against mine,” Edna complained. “And, like he said, he has powerful friends.”
The adventuress held out the extortionist’s ringed hand. “Carrying poison will get him hard labor and banishment from the city, no matter who his friends are,” she pointed out.
“So it will,” Edna said. She took the tankard back from the lizard and started wiping it clean again, only now she wore a grin. “Fritz,” she called to the pensioned dockworker, “fetch Durgar’s boys round, will ye?” With an uncommon flash of festive generosity, she added, “There’s a free ale in it for ye.”