The price of victory- - Thieves World 13 (8 page)

the tube.

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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

"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.

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"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 informa tion. 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
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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 red streaks. Cade spat on the corpse. This looked like no beast. Hell was a funny place.

Cade heard the noise behind him, though few others would have. He spun in a crouch, his sword held before him, a throwing dagger already in the palm of the other hand. Who? All nine were taken care of. Slowly, a slight form moved out of the shadows and Cade relaxed

"I told you to stay away, Raif."

**I thought you might need some help," the boy answered, looking

•round. He grinned at Cade, though his face was pale. "I guess you
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"This is no place for you."

Raif bit his lip, darting glimpses at the bodies around him. He slowly

sheathed his knife.

"You said you would teach me to be a warrior," he said. He gestured

at the dead mercenary. "I've seen death before. Cade."

Cade's eyes went dark. He grabbed the boy and pushed him to the ground by the corpse of the Beast. Grabbing the old man's collar, he

pulled the corpse up to face the boy.

"This is death," he said, ignoring the still warm fluids sliding down his wrist. "Look at it, boy, see it for what it is." Raif tried to pull away but Cade held him firm. The smell of the blood was covered by the horrid stench of the corpse. The bladder and bowels had emptied at death, and their horrid mixture slowly leaked toward Raif's sandaled feet. The split face smiled at him, its dull eyes seeming to search him out.
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"No," Raif gasped, pulling away. He got two steps before he vomited. Cade held the boy while Raif emptied his stomach.

"The life of a warrior is the path of death," Cade whispered in Raif's ear. "This is the truth of it, boy: old men's brains spilling at your feet." He turned Raif to face the dead mercenary. Cade pointed. "That's where it ends, boy. An arrow in the dark in a dirty warehouse, in a town all decent people have long ago forgotten about. What is so noble, boy, what is so grand about being a warrior?"

"But you're a warrior."

"No, boy, I am no warrior, because I choose not to be. I kill those who need it, or those who deserve it. I kill those I choose, not those others tell me to. People pay me to kill, Raif. Pay me to do what I was born to do. But don't you realize that I know that I lost my soul because of it?"

Raif said nothing, his voice lost in sobs he tried to hold in. Cade clasped the boy to him for a moment, then let go.

"I will teach you to fight, to protect yourself, nothing more. You needn't see this ever again. I will give you the chance to be free of hell forever." This was the moment: kill the boy now and he would be free. He would find that warm safe world that Cade's mother now danced in.
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Free him. Free him, his mind chanted.

But Cade could not. It wasn't the risk of being wrong about Raif; he knew the boy was good. It was something else. A chance. Give the boy a chance to lead a life Cade could never have had. The life Targ dreamed of, but his curse kept him from. It was a hard thing to live in hell and

dream of heroes.

"Ah, the gentle sounds of lovers' passion," a voice said. Raif leaped and drew his blade but Cade showed no alarm. He walked over to Amuuth and bent down on one knee.

"So," he said, "starting to come out of it?" He rifled through the other's clothes.

Amuuth glared up at him.

"What did you do to me?"

"Thomneft," Cade answered. "Paralyzes you for about ten minutes." Cade withdrew a knife from the other's clothes. The blade was double edged and sharp. The handle was abnormally thick, allowing the gang leader to wield the weapon with his crippled fingers. Cade picked up the
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chair and lifted Amuuth onto it. He moved across the table to stand by Raif.

"You'll come out of it in a moment."

"Why didn't you just kill me?" Amuuth hissed. His face showed no fear. With the black eyes and hawk nose, he looked fierce. Cade could see why this one was the leader.

"I wanted to talk to you."

"About your brother?" came the quick answer. Cade just lifted an eyebrow. "Oh, I know of you. Cade. The local boy made good. I was warned you were dangerous. I misjudged you. I didnH think you'd make the connection between—"

"Between you and Terrel," Cade finished.

"Precisely." Amuuth shifted his shoulders; feeling was beginning to come back, but it was painful. He would not show that. He had lived with the pain in his hands all these years.

"So you've come to avenge your brother?"

"Why did you break his bones?" Cade replied.
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"I thought I would finish the job I started so many years ago." Amuuth kept watching the other's eyes; the boy was no threat. Surely some of his own people must still be about. They would hear. He held onto that hope; he knew it was his only chance.

•That's why I didn't kill you."

"What?"

"I wanted to finish the job I started so long ago."

Amuuth gasped. He could not help it. Cade couldn't mean—

"It was me, Amuuth. Sixteen years ago I hunted you and the other three, with my brick and rope." Cade shrugged. "I don't know which one you were. When I caught you, I guess I should have killed you."

"You," Amuuth shouted, "you did this!" He held out his hands, trying to stand up, but his legs wouldn't move yet.

Cade smiled. "The legs take longer."

Amuuth said nothing. He knew there would be no help, no rescue. He

^as dead. He looked up at Cade, his eyes burning with hate. This is the

®an. The shadow he still woke up screaming from. The shadow from
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that night. Unseen, unheard. The whistling noise, the agony in his side, in his head, his legs, and finally his fingers. He wondered that he, himself, had not made the connection between his pain and Terrel's.

"I'm glad then," he hissed, "I'm glad I made him pay."

"No, Amuuth, you did not make him pay. You tortured him out of spite, because even with his ruined hands he made it out. Made a life. That's why you did it, for petty reasons. For envy. I have known evil in many faces, Amuuth, but I have never seen it so pathetic."

Amuuth sputtered, his mind refusing to give him words to match his outrage. This one, gods, all along. He could have had him long ago, had his revenge. But now . - .

Cade moved around the table toward him, like a great black cat, and he was the mouse. There was nothing definable in Cade's eyes or face. Amuuth had no idea how he would finally die.

"Finish the job," Cade whispered, moving closer, taking his time.
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Amuuth shuddered. He was frozen, could not move, and it wasn't the drug that was holding him now. His broken left hand reached for the right. For the snake ring. Hitting a latch, long fangs extending. Could he get Cade with his own poison? Not likely ... he could kill himself, before the pain started. Or ...

Amuuth looked over at Raif. The boy stared at Cade, his face blood less, his eyes wide. Amuuth remembered Raif's brother—he had feared that one. He had tried to entice Raif into the gang, hoping he could mold him as the older boy could not be molded. The boy could be dangerous. Amuuth was struck by a memory. Cade had run a gang for a while: the Demons. They had been terrible, violent, dangerous. They only ran a block and a half but they owned it. And Raif looked, looks, so much like the young gang leader Cade had once been.

Amuuth understood. Cade saw himself in the boy. Wanted to help. Change it. Vengeance can be sweet

Amuuth tugged the ring off and looked at Raif.

"I'm dead, boy," he said. "You might as well have this ring." He threw it to Raif before Cade could react.

"No!" Cade shouted and lunged, but he was too late. Raif caught the ring, dropping it immediately when he felt a double sting in one of his fingers.

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"What?" he said, but even as he lifted the hand to look, he stumbled, the air thick, too thick to breathe. The floor rose up to meet him. He panicked. He could not breathe. He was surrounded by stone, encased in it.

Cade reached him in time to stop the fall. But he could feel Raif's flesh

already puffing up, the limbs getting rigid. He spun to face Amuuth, his eyes pinning the gang leader to his chair.

"The antidote!" he yelled.

"None." Amuuth's voice was harsh. "None. A gift from the finger of a dead fish-eye." Cade said nothing, not taking his eyes off his enemy. His hand reached down to touch the boy. He was already dead. All hope dies in hell's capital, in Sanctuary.

Cade was still for a moment, then slowly he tipped his head back until he stared at the ceiling.

"Mother!" he cried. He was on his feet, his sword cutting the air before he knew what was happening. The sword sliced through Amuuth's neck,
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the head spinning away. It was so fast that the blood geysered up from between his shoulders.

Cade leaped at the body, chopping and cutting, screaming all the while. His yell was incoherent, but any who heard that sound would never forget the madness in it. Eventually he quit chopping the body, but only when it was no longer recognizably human. For a moment longer Cade stared down. His sword dropped from the red hand.

He collapsed next to Raif, holding the boy's head in his lap, but he could think of nothing. There was nothing to say, nothing to do. He sat, gently rocking the corpse in the warehouse full of corpses, the rats in the shadows the only witnesses to his agony. Rocking back and forth, the vast emptiness around him still seemed to echo with his cries.

Targ went to Sarah's house; he knew Marissa would still be there. The blood was off him. He had swum in the bay to get rid of its sight and scent. But it was bad. The curse had raged through his veins, alive with its deadly passions. Now it was all through, all done. If only the second one hadn't begged so much, if only he hadn't cried . . .