Free The Summer Queen by Joan D. Vinge

managed to get into such a stupid position so quickly. The
wine must have been stronger than he thought.
    “Kedalion, please go,” Shalfaz said softly. “I will stay
here.” She moved closer to the man who still held her arm, her body settling
against him.
    “Slut!” He slapped her. “You don’t tell a man what to do. I
choose, not you!” He shoved her away. She crashed, jingling, into the
offworlder who had been leaning against the bar behind them, watching with
casual amusement. The bottle the man had been holding fell and smashed,
spraying them with liquor and bits of broken ceramic.
    Kedalion dodged back awkwardly as the local youth aimed a
kick at him. And then his vision seemed to strobe as the man Shalfaz had
eollided with suddenly exploded past her.
    Before Kedalion could quite believe it was happening, the
man with the knife was no longer a man with a knife—he was a man howling on the
floor, and the offworlder’s foot was on his neck. “Yuu want a fight—?” The,
curved, jewel-handled blade was in the stranger’s fist, and he was grinning at
the fury still forming on the faces of the other men around the table. He
flashed the knife at them. “Come and get it,” he said.
    Kedalion backed up another step. “He must be mad,” Shalfaz
whispered. Kedalion, who had caught a flashing look into the man’s eyes, didn’t
answer. Slowly he began to edge away, taking Shalfaz and the boy with him.
    “Dopper shit,” one of the Ondmeans said, “there are six of
us, and one of you. Do you want to kiss the sole of my boot and beg our
forgiveness? Or do you really want your guts cut out of you with that blade?”
    Kedalion glanced back, hesitating as he saw the offworlder’s
smile grow thin and tight. “Sure.” the offworlder said, twisting the knife so
that it caught the light. “Gut me. I’d enjoy that; that sounds good. Or maybe
use it to peel my skin off a centimeter at a time .... But you still have to
get this away from me first.” He leaned on the edge of their table, waving the
blade at them, invading their space with fatal nonchalance. “Well—?”
    Their stares broke and fell away from the hunger in his
eyes. They looked at each other, their bodies unconsciously shrinking back from
him. “The Foreteller has shown us that it is unworthy to kill the insane,”
another man muttered. The blades did not go back into sheaths, but the men
began to get up slowly from the table.
    The offworlder snorted and stepped back, looking down at the
man still sprawled on the floor. “You kiss my boot, you shit.” The bottom of
his foot brushed the man’s lips in a not-quite-gentle caress. He shoved the man’s
dagger into his own belt. “Then think twice about being an asshole in such a
crowded room.”
    The Ondinean scrambled to his feet, spitting and wiping his
mouth, and joined his friends. “You will die for this!” His voice shook. The
others put restraining hands on him, because they were surrounded now by the
club’s security. Ravien himself stood beside the offworlder, putting a
cautionary hand on his shoulder. The stranger shrugged it off. But he only
murmured, “Yes. Sooner or later ...” looking back at them. “Sooner or later we
all get what we deserve.”
    Kedalion joined Shalfaz and the boy at a table as far from
the scene of the fight as possible, stopping only to collect his bottle from
the bar. As he went he saw the club’s security herding the Ondineans toward the
door. He noticed with some surprise that Ravien escorted the offworlder
solicitously back to the bar instead of having him thrown out with the rest.
Well, the man had lost a bottle. Or maybe Ravien didn’t want his private
entrance marked by a litter of corpses.
    The offworlder shot Kedalion a curious glance as he passed.
Kedalion touched his forehead in a brief, wary acknowledgment, and the stranger
gave him a surprisingly cheerful smile. Kedalion looked away from it, and went
on to the table. He poured drinks for