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!
Nor had that enigmatic and ever-scornful immortal said aught concerning Hanse's expenses in freeing him, or his promise to retrieve a certain set of laden moneybags from a certain well up on Ea-a certain place.
Oh, it had cost.
For weeks Hanse had been idle. He did nothing. No; he did do something; he drank. His income stopped. He even sold some of his belongings to buy the unwatered wine he had always avoided.
Even so he did not sell the gift of a dead Stepson; an entirely mortal one. It hung now on the wall of Hanse's lodgings: a fine, fine sword in a silvered sheath. He would not wear it. He would not touch it. Only he was sure that it was not the gift of that dead man but of a god. Tempus's god, Who had spoken to Hanse and rewarded him for his rescue of His servant Tempus-as that god, Vashanka, had promised.[i]
That sword hung, minus its silver sheath, on Hanse's wall. The scabbard trailed down his right leg. It was wrapped all in dull black leather, knotted and pegged and knotted again. Nor was he one with the mercenaries cluttering the city, bullying the city, and he had no wish to be.
Hanse had another need for becoming proficient with arms, and better than proficient. It was Hanse's secret, and it was bigger than Sanctuary itself.
He collected from Tempus, though not in coin. That immortal had offered to make him a bladesman. (As for the horse . . . well, it was something of value and prestige, at least. Horses and Hanse were not friends and he hoped never never to fight from the back of one. But for a horse, he'd be rich!)[ii]
Tempus did not know why Hanse had changed his mind and sent word that he was minded to learn swordsmanship. He was pleased, Hanse was sure of that. Just as he and his ego were sure that he must be the best student Niko had ever had. Already, he was sure, he was incredibly good. Hanse never needed the same instruction twice. He never repeated an error. He was good. Niko said so, and Niko spoke for Tem-pus.
Leaving Niko now, the thief called Shadowspawn wore a tight little smile. It was the pleased smile of one on whom a god has smiled; a pleased but enigmatic smile. He says that I am good.
I hope so, Vashanka's minion, he mused. Oh, I hope so. And I hope Vashanka finds me better than good!
Hanse wended home, compact and lithe and darkly menacing, weighted with blades at leg and hips and arms. There were those who were in the act of departing this place or that but waited within doorways until he had passed; there were those who stepped aside for him though he made no hostile move. They did not like it, or like themselves for doing it, but they would do it again, for this menacing street-tough.
Hanse went home. I'm ready, he thought, and tight-smiled.
After that business with Kurd and with Tempus and the absolute ghastliness of Tempus's mutilations-and the ghastlier reality of his complete recovery even unto regrowing several parts-Hanse had taken to drink.
He was not a drinker. Never had been. That was no deterrent to millions of others and it was not to Shadowspawn. So he drank. He drank to find an alternate state, an alternate reality, and he succeeded admirably in achieving the unad mirable.