Free Death's Head by David Gunn Page B

if they keep their nerve.
    “We’ll be attacked tonight.”
    “By whom?” asks Debro.
    I shrug. “Whoever gets here first.”
    The new walls keep in the heat and the cloth across the narrow entrance keeps out the worst of the cold and within an hour we have a temperature in which humans can live. My laser blade, jammed handle-first into one wall, provides light.
    “You and you stand guard.” I choose two people at random. “Then you two. You take the next watch.”
    “And you?” asks Anton.
    “I’ll stay awake the whole night.”
    “Because tonight is the most dangerous?”
    I nod.
    “Then I’ll stand with you.” He catches my look and smiles. “I can fight,” he tells me. “I used to do it for a living.”
    “Militia?”
    “Palace guard. Believe me, the training was tough. And before you ask what happened, I met Debro…Her family were furious.”
    Yeah, I think. I bet.
    In the early hours of the morning Phibs raises his head, like a rat questing. “Outside,” he whispers, “a lot of people.” Before Anton or I can reply, Phibs puts up his hand, stilling us and the two of our group currently standing guard.
    “A dozen,” he announces finally. “Two groups, different captains.”
    He must have seen my doubt.
    “Aural augmentation,” he says. “Very useful in my business.”
    Printing? I want to say, but have other things to worry about. “I’ll go,” I say, moving toward the curtain.
    “Take your blade,” suggests Phibs.
    “No.” Anton shakes his head. “It’s too early to show our hand.”
    “Then take mine,” says Phibs, handing over a crude blade with rounded handle and rounded sheath, ideal for swallowing or shitting. “Not as impressive as yours,” he adds, glancing toward where my blade still burns in the wall. “But still effective.”
    It’s Ladro, with four others, all wearing warm-looking jackets. Half a dozen hangers-on crowd behind, dressed in rags.
    “Impressive,” he says, nodding at my knife. “Although I’d have bluffed with that and kept the other. It’s got real balance.” He’s holding my stolen Death’s Head knife, lightly and very professionally, between his first finger and thumb. Ladro’s right about the sweet point. He’s got it exactly, from the look of things.
    “Glad you like it,” I say.
    “And I’ll take the girl while I’m at it,” Ladro says. “Hand her over and you can walk away from here unhurt.” He’s very sure of himself, a man so used to getting what he wants that it’s obviously never occurred to him things can change.
    “Afraid not,” I say. “We’re keeping her.”
    Someone sniggers.
    So I move out from the doorway and feel Anton and Phibs slide out behind me. With the two guards inside we should be able to hold out for quite a while.
    “I’m going to take her anyway,” says Ladro. “Give her up now and we’ll treat her well.”
    Again, that snigger.
    “Hold out,” he says, “and we’ll make her pay.”
    “You don’t get it,” I tell him. “We’re not giving her up.”
    He comes in then, fast and dirty. The knife in his hand, my knife, slicks toward my throat and I spin away. It’s a feint and he goes for his real move, which involves trying to kick out my right knee. There are a dozen ways the outcome can go and each offers a slightly different outcome for our group.
    I decide on quick and dirty myself—knowing, as I make my choice, that Debro will not approve and wondering why I care.
    Twisting, I let his kick go past me and take his blade in my shoulder. As Ladro grins, I spin my own knife—well, Phibs’s knife—so my blade juts to the right of my fist and tear its edge hard and fast across Ladro’s throat.
    He jerks back, and I rotate my blade, dragging upward from scrotum to breastbone, releasing his guts. The hot stink of shit fills our corridor.
    I take down two others. A vicious slash at one severs his jugular. The other I kill by grabbing his head and twisting until bones break. Both of