Free The face of chaos - Thieves World 05 by Robert Asprin, Lynn Abbey

nor townspeople nor effete prince was worth struggling to ennoble. For good measure he was willing to throw into the stewpot of disgust boiling in him both Vashanka and the child he had co-fathered with the god, by means of whom certain interests thought to hold him here: he disliked children, as a class, and even Vashanka had turned his back on this one.
    Still, there were things he had to do. He went and found Crit in the guild hostel's common room and told him all that had transpired. If Crit had refused the appointment outright, Tempus would have had to tarry, but Critias only smiled cynically, saying that he'd be along with his best fighters as soon as matters here allowed. He left One-Thumb's case in Critias's hands; they both knew that Straton could determine the degree of the barkeep's complicity quickly enough.
    Crit asked, as Tempus was leaving the dark and comforting common room for the last time, whether any children's bodies had been found - three girls and boys still were missing; one young corpse had turned up cold in Shambles Cross.
    'No,' Tempus said, and thought no more about it. 'Life to you. Critias.'
    'And to you, Riddler. And everlasting glory.'
    Outside, Jihan was waiting on one Tros horse, the other's reins in her hand. They went first southwest to see if perhaps the witch or her agents might be found at home, but the manor house and its surrounds were deserted, the yard criss-crossed with cart-tracks from heavily laden wagons' wheels. The caravan's track was easy to follow.
    Riding north without a backward glance on his Tros horse, Jihan swaying in her saddle on his right, he had one last impulse: he ripped the problematical Storm God's amulet from around his throat, dropped it into a quaggy marsh. Where he was going, Vashanka's name was meaningless. Other names were hallowed, and other attributes given to the weather gods.
    When he was sure he had successfully cast it aside, and the god's voice had not come ringing with awful laughter in his ear (for all gods are tricksters, and war gods worst of any), he relaxed in his saddle. The omens for this venture were good: they'd completed their preparations in half the time he'd anticipated, so that he could start it while the day was young. Crit sat long at his customary table in the common room after Tempus had gone. By rights it should have been Straton or some Sacred Band pair who succeeded Tempus, someone ... anyone but him. After a time he pulled out his pouch and emptied its contents on to the plank table: three tiny metal figures, a fishhook made from an eagle's claw and abalone shell, a single die, an old field decoration won in Azehur while the Slaughter Priest still led the original Sacred Band.
    He scooped them up and threw them as a man might throw in wager: the little gold Storm God fell beneath the lead figurine of a fighter, propping the man upright; the fishhook embraced the die, which came to rest with one dot facing up Strat's war name was Ace. The third figure, a silver rider mounted, sat square atop the field star - Abarsis had slipped it over his head so long ago the ribbon had crumbled away.
    Content with the omens his private prognosticators gave, he collected them and put them away. He'd wanted Tempus to ask him to join him, not hand him fifty men's lives to yea or nay. He took such work too much to heart; it lay heavy on him, worse than the task force's weight had been, and he'd only just begun. But that was why Tempus picked him - he was conscientious to a fault. He sighed and rose and quit the hostel, riding aimlessly through the foetid streets. Damned town was a pit, a bubo, a sore that wouldn't heal. He couldn't trust his task force to some subordinate, though how he was going to run them while stomping around vainly trying to fill Tempus's sandals, he couldn't say. His horse, picking his route, took him by the Vulgar Unicorn where Straton would soon be 'discussing sensitive matters' with One-Thumb. By rights he should go up to