Aftermath- - Thieves World 10 by Robert Asprin, Lynn Abbey Page B

was hidden by a cowl; a knife glinted in his pale
    hands. The Beast ignored the others, his attention on something else. As Cade watched, the torturer began to hum to himself and slowly rock from side to side. Amuuth gave his servant a dirty look, but said nothing.
    It was time to move. Cade rolled away from the ledge. From a leather sheath on his side he pulled out three thin black cylinders. Deftly he put
    the three together, forming one tube six feet long. He placed the object on
    his right. Reaching into a pouch at his belt he withdrew a three-inch needle. He twisted a bit of fleece about one end of the needle, then laid it
    beside the tube.
    He rolled onto his back and slowly drew his sword, making sure those below him could see no gleam off the blade. Then he checked his bow, placing it and the sword on his right. Once again he moved to the edge of
    the crates.
    He was about eight feet above the men, fifteen feet away. An easy shot. He held the tube to his lips, carefully balancing it. No one noticed the long tube sticking over the edge of a crate. Cade took the fleece side of
    the needle in his mouth, took a deep breath, and spat the needle through the tube.
    The noise he made was covered by Amuuth's reaction. He swatted at his neck, tried to rise, went rigid, and fell over, chair and all. The Beast
    just stared. The guard turned quickly to his employer then spun to face the sound of the blowgun landing behind him.
    The mercenary turned at just the right time for Cade's shot to catch him full in the neck, severing the jugular vein. Cade had time to feel a quick stab of remorse at this. It was no way to kill a warrior. Even as he
    thought it, he was leaping down off the crates, his sword now in hand. The Beast hopped from one foot to the other, apparently at a loss as to what to do. Amuuth lay huddled, unmoving; the guard was dead. What was he supposed to do? He looked at the grinning Cade, tall in the lamplight, his sword held steady and pointing at the Sharp Side's tor-turer.
    "Uh," he said, "uh, guards!" He shouted, "Guards! Attack! Murder!
    Guards!" Cade let him go on for a while, smiling the whole time, the

CADE 43
    "The guards are all dead," he said finally. The Beast stood to his full height, swinging his thin shoulders back. Cade could still not see his face.
    "So," the torturer said, "so. All gone, ah, well." He did a little dance,
    then moved closer. "All dead. Well, dead." On the second "dead," he moved quickly and a knife appeared out of his long sleeves and spun toward Cade. But Cade was ready and knocked the weapon out of the air with his sword. The Beast just stood there, his other knife still dancing in
    his hands.
    "Uh, so," he said. "Who are you?" he shouted.
    "I am Cade."
    "So."
    "Terrel was my brother."
    "Uh, so."
    "Terrel was the man you tortured, the man whose bones you broke. All of them." The other was silent for a moment, digesting the information. Then he laughed, a high-pitched squeal.
    "Oh, yes. Lovely bit of work, that." The madman's head moved to a song only he heard. "Yes, oh yes. Too bad, though. Only for fun, you realize. There was no information to get or anything/Still, nice bit of work. Spell was a nice touch, I thought." The Beast smiled, showing crooked and browning teeth. "He screamed and screamed, but the sound didn't carry don't you know. Magic." He snapped his fingers. "Yes, well, you know—"
    But Cade could hear no more. With a roar he leaped at the torturer. The other's knife tried to parry his blade, but it was shoved aside by the
    power behind Cade's swing. The sword crashed into the Beast's head, cutting deep into the skull, splitting it nearly in two. The Beast crashed to
    the ground, dead.
    Cade moved closer to see the face. It was hard to distinguish among tfie purplish-red remains. The face was split to the nose. Cade made out watery brown eyes, quickly filming over, and the face of an old man. He looked like someone's grandfather, the silver-white hair now dyed with