Free Unclean by Richard Lee Byers Page B

Bareris down onto his back. Perhaps frustration or the pain of his leg wound had clouded his judgment, for the move was a blunder. He’d forgotten the dagger in the bard’s left hand.
    Bareris reminded him of its existence by plunging it into his kidney and intestines. Then the child-thing grabbed his legs from behind. Its teeth tore at his leg.
    Grateful that his breeches were made of the same sturdy reinforced leather as his brigandine, Bareris wrenched himself around, breaking the creature’s hold and turning the masked man with him like a dance partner He flung the ruffian down on top of his hideous little accomplice then hacked relentlessly with his sword. Both his foes stopped moving before either could disentangle him-or itself from the other.
    His sword abruptly heavy in his hand, Bareris stood over the corpses gasping for breath. The fear he couldn’t permit himself while the fight was in progress welled up in him, and he shuddered, because the fracas had come far too close to killing him and left too many disquieting questions in its wake.
    Who was the masked ruffian, and what manner of creature was his companion? Even more importantly, why had they sought to kill Bareris?
    Perhaps it wasn’t all that difficult to figure out. As Bareris wandered the night asking his questions, he’d mentioned repeatedly that he could pay for the answers. Small wonder, then, if a thief targeted him for a robbery attempt. The masked man had been such a scoundrel, and as for the child-thing … well, Thay was full of peculiar monstrosities. The Red Wizards created them in the course of their experiments. Perhaps one had escaped from its master’s laboratory then allied itself with an outlaw as a means of surviving on the street.
    Surely that was all there was to it. In Bareris’s experience, the simplest explanation for an occurrence was generally the correct one.
    In any case, the affair was over, and puzzling over it wasn’t bringing him any closer to locating Tammith. He cleaned his weapons on his adversaries’ garments, sheathed them, and headed out of the alley.
    As he did so, his neck began to smart. He lifted his hand to his collar and felt the gnawed, perforated leather and the raw bloody flesh beneath. The girl-thing had managed to bite him after all. Just a nip, really, but he remembered the creature’s filthy mouth, winced, and washed the wound with spirits at the first opportunity. Then it was back to the hunt.
    It was nearly cock’s crow when a pimp in a high plumed hat and gaudy parti-colored finery told him what he needed to know, though it was scarcely what he’d hoped to hear.
    He’d prayed that Tammith was still in Tyraturos. Instead, the necromancers had marched the slaves they’d purchased out of the city. They’d headed north on the High Road, the same major artery of trade he’d followed up from Bezantur.
    He reassured himself that the news wasn’t really too bad. At least he knew what direction to take, and a procession of slaves on foot couldn’t journey as fast as a horseman traveling hard.
    He doubted the horse he’d ridden up from the coast could endure another such journey so soon. He’d have to buy anoth—
    Weakness overwhelmed him and he reeled off balance, bumping his shoulder against a wall. His body suddenly felt icy cold, cold enough to make his teeth chatter, and he realized he was sick.

Chapter four
    19-20 Mirtul, the Year of Risen Elfkin
    Tsagoth heard the slaves when he and his fellow demons and devils were still some distance from the door. The mortals were banging on the other side of it and wailing, pleading for someone to let them out.
    Their agitation was understandable, for in one respect at least, Aznar Thrul was a considerate master to the infernal guards the Red Wizards of Conjuration had given him. He’d ordered his human servants to determine the dietary preferences of each of the newcomers and to provide for each according to his desires.
    Some of the nether