“Sorry.” Shang-Li held up a hand in quick apology. “I’ve no time.”
Undeterred, the barker swung on Kwan Yung. “What about you, good sir? I promise you haven’t seen anything like Yahlil in years. She is a woman unlike anything you have ever seen before. Her performance has thrilled nobility near unto”
From the corner of his eye, Shang-Li watched his father grab the man’s ear, tug it and twist it just so, and the man dropped into an unconscious heap in the alley.
“It will be better if we didn’t draw attention,” Shang-Li said.
His father snorted derisively. “This from the man insisting on wearing a big sword.”
“The sword fits in better than leaving a trail of unconscious men behind. You can’t just leave men lying in the street.”
Ahead, a tavern door opened and two menone after the otherwere tossed out into the alley. Both were obviously very drunk and neither moved after they stopped sliding through the mud. One’s chest moved and the other blew bubbles in the muck.
A large man stood in the door and cursed the unconscious drunks. He glared at Shang-Li, who said nothing. Satisfied, the man turned back inside the tavern and closed the door.
Shang-Li stepped around the abandoned drunks.
“Oh really?” his father said as he walked over one of the unconscious men. “I find that unconscious men serve well as the occasional dry spot in this pigsty where you’ve left me. Maybe someone else will appreciate the providential island I have left.”
With effort, Shang-Li breathed out and remained silent as he kept walking.
Lukkob’s the Edge Tavern occupied a cliff overlooking the harbor. The narrow street dead-ended at the tavern. It was flanked by shops and a couple of inns. Building the tavern there had been risky to begin with, but Lukkob had compounded the risk by choosing to enlarge the square footage inside the building as his business grew more prosperous.
Unable to claim part of the street because it would have restructured access to the shops on either side of him, Lukkob had built the addition over the cliffs edge. The room’s extension hung out over the harbor a good twenty feet and ran forty feet across. Large tree trunks had been fitted into the cliff below at an angle to provide support. Still, on stormy days, the tavern shook and shivered like a luffing sail.
Kwan Yung spotted the tavern and came to a full stop in the middle of the street. A man attempted to drive his wagon over the old man, but Kwan Yung held his hand out and the horse nuzzled it for a moment before turning aside. The wagon’s wheels rolled up onto the wooden sidewalk, drawing uncouth commentary from sailors who had to jump hurriedly out of the way.
“We’re going into that?” his father asked. “Is it safe?”
“It has been so far.”
The old man shook his head. “Folly. I suppose your friend owns this place?” “No.”
“Then why else would a man visit an accident waiting to happen like this one?”
“Lukkob’s has got great service. If you know the owner. I happen to know the owner.”
“So he is a friend,” his father said as if that explained everything.
“Yes, but not the friend we’re here to see.” Shang-Li walked toward the tavern again.
One of the front windows suddenly exploded. Glass shards spun and dropped to the shell-covered street, followed by thin latticework and a big sailor with a bloody nose. The big man rolled and grunted in pain, then pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. He cursed and felt at his hip, then realized his cutlass lay beside him on the ground.
“Obviously this is a well-mannered establishment,” his father commented.
“You can wait here, if you like.” Shang-Li walked to the swaying sailor and examined him.
The man was a few years older than Shang-Li and corded with muscle from a harsh life aboardship. Blood streamed from the sailor’s nose and split lips.
“What’s going on in Lukkob’s?” Shang-Li asked.
The sailor gestured with his cutlass up, pointing toward the tavern. “Got a pox-blasted dragonborn in there that decided to take exception to the fun we was having with the servin’ wenches.”
Only lately come from a serving background himself, Shang-Li had to pause and not take exception to the “fun” the sailors were having with the poor woman.
“She decided to take us all on,” the sailor continued, “and we would’ve been able to take her if that tiefling hadn’t stuck his horns in.”
“A tiefling and a dragonborn traveling together?” Shang-Li asked.
“Maybe. Don’t know. They was there when we got off ship.”
Shang-Li shook a fighting stick from his sleeve. “Thank you.” He rapped the sailor sharply across the temple and the big man spilled unconscious to the ground.
His father shook his head. “Not to question the honor in such a task, but if you decide to go around defending serving wenches everywhere you go, you’ll never get anything else done.”
“Serving is a task that should be respected. Not just anyone can do it.”
“Obviously the ability to carry a tureen of sauce separates those who can from those who can’t.”
Shang-Li shook his other fighting stick into his hand and continued to the tavern.
CHAPTER TEN
Bloody madness reigned inside the Edge. Men howled in anger and yowled in fear as blows bruised flesh and broke bones. So far, bloodshed was kept to a minimum and there didn’t appear to be any corpses among the bodies that littered the floor, but Shang-Li knew that was only because the wolves among the weasels chose not to kill.
The attackers employed their weapons enthusiastically, but to little avail. It was obvious, even in the cramped quarters and vastly outnumbered, that the sailors and mercenaries didn’t have the necessary skills to bring down the two warriors standing back to back in the center of the room.
The tiefling, born with thick horns that jutted above his temples, moved with the grace of a dancer. With his dark reddish complexion and reddish armor that echoed the color of blood, he looked like he’d just crawled up from the pits of some Hell. His eyes glowed like fire rubies under the thick ridge of bone that covered his broad forehead. In spite of the devilish cast to his features, he looked young and strangely innocent, even more so with the joy evident on his face and the sparse clump of whiskers at his chin. His shoulder-length dark brown hair swirled madly around him as he moved.
His jagged sword cut the air with authority as he slashed two blades from his throat. He thumped his buckler into the face of another attacker and sent the man reeling backward with a broken and bloody nose.
With a lithe movement, the tiefling shifted and managed to lay the flat of his blade against a mercenary’s skull and knock the man out. The move also swept the tiefling’s long tail into the ankles of the man behind him. When that man hit the floor, the warrior kicked the man in the head and rendered him unconscious.
“Well met, Shang-Li,” the tiefling yelled, grinning the whole time. His blade swept away the weapons of two more challengers.
“Hail and well met, Iados,” Shang-Li replied.
“Are you just going to stand there?” Iados leaped to a tabletop and dropped on a knot of men trying to mob his companion. He promptly got pulled down into the middle of the men. “You’d best hurry if you want to join in. This fight won’t last much longer. Our opponents are already giving ground.”
“If I don’t fight, I don’t have to settle the tavern bill afterward.” Shang-Li stood to one side of the room.
The tavernkeeper, a big-bellied man with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, stood behind the bar and looked irritated. Two serving girls cowered and cheered on the combatants at the same time. “And you’d better have the coins to pay for this, Iados.”
With a triumphant roar, Iados emerged in the middle of his opponents and lashed out with his tail, fists, and feet. Sailors and mercenaries flew backward.