Blood of Amber

Immediately, his left foot shot out to trip me, and the impact of the blow as we came together showed me that he was going to succeed. The best thing I could manage was to catch hold of my cloak with my left hand, spinning it out and dragging it back, entangling both our blades as we fell, while I tried hard to turn on the way down, so as to land on top of him. I did not succeed in falling upon him. We came down side by side, still facing each other, and the guard of someone's blade - my own, I think - hit me hard in the ribs on my left side.

My right hand was caught beneath me and my left was still tangled in my cloak. His left was free, though, and high. He clawed at my face with it, and I bit his hand but couldn't hold it. In the meantime, I finally managed to drag my own left hand free and I thrust it into his face. He turned his head away, tried to knee me and hit my hip, then thrust stiff fingers toward my eyes. I caught his wrist and held it. Both of our right hands were still pinned and our weights seemed about equal. So all that I had to do was squeeze.

The bones of his wrist crunched within my grip, and for the first time he cried out. Then I simply pushed him away, rolled into a kneeling position and started to rise, dragging him up along with me. End of the game. I had won.

He slumped suddenly against me. For a moment, I thought it a final trick, and then I saw the blade protruding from his back, the hand of the grim-faced man who had put it there already tightening to pull it out again.

«You son of a bitch!» I cried in English - though I'm sure the meaning came through - and I dropped my burden and drove my fist into the stranger's face, knocking him over backward, his blade remaining in place. «I needed him!»

I caught hold of my former adversary and raised him into the most comfortable position I could manage.

«Who sent you?» I asked him. «How did you find me?»

He grinned weakly and dribbled blood. «No freebies here,» he said. «Ask somebody else,» and he slumped forward and got blood on my shirtfront.

I drew the ring from his finger and added it to my collection of goddamned blue stones. Then I rose and glared at the man who had stabbed him. Two other figures were helping him to his feet.

«Just what the hell did you do that for?» I asked, advancing upon them.

«I saved your damn life,» the man growled.

«The hell you did! You might have just cost me it! I needed that man alive!»

Then the figure to his left spoke, and I recognized the voice. She placed her hand lightly upon the arm I did not even realize I had raised to strike the man again.

«He did it on my orders,» she said. «I feared for your life, and I did not understand that you wanted him prisoner.»

I stared at her pale proud features within the dark cloak's raised cowl. It was Vinta Bayle, Caine's lady, whom I had last seen at the funeral. She was also the third daughter of the Baron Bayle, to whom Amber owed many a bibulous night.

I realized that I was shaking slightly. I drew a deep breath and caught control of myself.

«I see,» I said at last. «Thank you.»

«I am sorry,» she told me.

I shook my head. «You didn't know. What's done is done. I'm grateful to anybody who tries to help me.»

«I can still help you,» she said. «I might have misread this one, but I believe you may still be in danger. Let's get away from here.»

I nodded. «A moment, please.»

I went and retrieved Frakir from about the neck of the other dead man. She disappeared quickly into my left sleeve. The blade I had been using fit my scabbard after a fashion, so I pushed it home and adjusted the belt, which had pulled around toward the rear.

«Let's go,» I said to her.

The four of us strode back toward Harbor Street. Interested bystanders got out of our way quickly. Someone was probably already robbing the dead behind us. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. But what the hell, it's home.

5

Walking, with the Lady Vinta and two serving men of the House of Bayle, my side still hurting from its encounter with a sword hilt, beneath a moonbright, starbright sky, through a sea mist, away from Death Alley. Lucky, actually, that a bump on the side was all I acquired in my engagement with those who would do me harm. How they had located me so quickly upon my return, I could not say. But it seemed as if Vinta might have some idea about this, and I was inclined to trust her, both because I knew her somewhat and because she had lost her man, my Uncle Caine, to my former friend Luke, from whose party anything involving a blue stone seemed to have its origin.

When we turned onto a seaward side way off Harbor Street, I asked her what she had in mind.

«I thought we were heading for Vine,» I said.

«You know you are in danger,» she stated.

«I guess that's sort of obvious.»

«I could take you to my father's place up in town,» she said, «or we could escort you back to the palace, but someone knows you are here and it didn't take long to reach you.»

«True.»