Free Dangerous Games by Victor Milan, Clayton Emery Page B

we’ll have plenty of fun yet! Come on, friends!”
    Prepared, the guards yanked the tired thugs’ hands behind their backs, lashed their wrists with the red cords, and shoved them to their knees. Two strong men arrived in light blue tabards that sported red K sigils, and they bundled the stricken Jules off on a stretcher.
    “Wait!” Sunbright had been rendered speechless by this calumny, by so obvious a bribe, such a callous abuse of privilege by this fop, and such a barbarous beating, the most brutal he’d ever seen, on or off the battlefield. Now the objection was ripped from him. “You’d let these rich snots go free after they hired these thugs to kill people? What kind of blasphemous, decadent hole is this city—”
    Words were useless. The fops pranced off, laughing with excitement and the joy of buying justice. The guards encircled Sunbright slowly, clubs bobbing in the air. Harvester lay in the street behind them. Sunbright had only a warhammer in his off hand, and a wounded right that throbbed as if a badger had gnawed it. The captain intoned, “Keep your place. Don’t argue with your betters,” platitudes to distract him. Clearly, they intended to beat him to death.
    Just as clearly, he couldn’t defeat these canny killers in uniform. His brain raced for a defense. Instinctively, he grasped what he’d seen succeed moments before, when the fop invoked privilege.
    “Captain, know that I’m a guest of Karsus.”
    One guard snorted, but the captain paused. Obviously he didn’t know who Sunbright was. He spat, “Prove it, then.”
    Gritting his teeth, Sunbright played the game. “I and another wizard named Candlemas were brought here from Castle Delia, by Karsus’s command, because we unearthed a shooting star. Karsus needs it for his experiments. We’re to give him information on finding the star. I’ve talked with one Seda, in his workshops. You can ask anyone there.”
    “I know Seda,” muttered a guard. “From the House of Zee. She does work in Karsus’s close circle.”
    Still unsure, the captain frowned. But the magical name had worked. He nodded toward the wider street beyond. “Very well, good sir. Go, and good luck to you. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
    Wary as a cornered lion, Sunbright slid along the wall until clear of their semicircle. Slipping the warhammer into its holster, he watched the guards as he picked up Harvester and backed into the main street.
    His precautions were unnecessary. The guards had already forgotten him and had fallen to other work. As the captain divvied up the bribe, two guards slipped the braided cords over the heads of the two surviving thugs. Their bleats were cut off as the garrotes snuggled tight. Bug-eyed, the unlucky street toughs strangled.
    Sunbright cursed as he sped off down the street, bloody sword in hand, after a certain foppish wretch.
    He had debts to pay.

    Hurodon and his well-dressed friends whooped with delight, carolled songs, and hurled jokes as they cut through a park lined with trees and gasglobes. They aimed for a brightly-lit ale shop at the opposite corner, but were interrupted.
    A thick bush at Hurodon’s elbow split open as if from a charging lion. A girl yelped, a boy cried out.
    Sunbright Steelshanks burst from the foliage to grab Hurodon by the throat. The fop gargled as he was whipped off his feet and slammed against a rough-barked oak tree. His gang of friends dithered, drew their toy swords, yelled.
    The barbarian’s harsh cough cut them off. “Attack me, or call out, and I’ll snap his neck!” He was panting from his quick run around vast blocks to get ahead of the party. His right hand, still numb, was tucked in his belt. He only needed one hand to tame this bunch.
    Yet looking at them, he couldn’t follow through on his plan, which was to kill them all. Certainly they deserved to die for their casual cruelty. They’d killed their hired thugs as surely as the guards had. But they were young and raised