Free The Gentleman Bastard Series by Scott Lynch Page A

mare little bigger than a pony, well trained but certainly not Gentled. Just the thing for short trots around a city still more friendly to boats (or acrobats, as Doña Salvara often complained) than to horses. The stumbling watchman vanished around a distant corner, vaguely in the direction of the urgent whistling. As it seemed to be coming no closer, Salvara shrugged inwardly and led his horse out into the street.
    Here the day’s second curiosity burst upon them in all of its glory. Asthe don and his man turned to their right, they gained a full view of the high-walled alley beside the Temple of Fortunate Waters—and in this alley two finely dressed men were clearly getting their lives walloped out of them by a pair of bravos.
    Salvara froze and stared in wonder—masked thugs in the Temple District? Masked thugs strangling a man dressed all in black, in the tight, heavy, miserably inappropriate fashion of a Vadran ? And, Merciful Twelve, a Gentled packhorse was simply standing there taking it all in.
    After a handful of seconds lost to sheer amazement, the don let his own horse’s reins go and ran toward the mouth of the alley. He didn’t need to glance sideways to know that Conté was barely a stride behind him, knives out.
    “You!” The don’s voice was reasonably confident, though high with excitement. “Unhand these men and stand clear!”
    The closest footpad snapped his head around; his dark eyes widened above his improvised mask when he saw the don and Conté approaching. The thug shifted his red-faced victim so that the man’s body was between himself and the would-be interlopers.
    “No need to trouble yourself with this business, my lord ,” the footpad said. “Just a bit of a disagreement. Private matter.”
    “Then perhaps you should have conducted it somewhere less public.”
    The footpad sounded quite exasperated. “What, the duke give you this alley to be your estate? Take another step and I break this poor bastard’s neck.”
    “You just do that.” Don Salvara settled his hand suggestively on the pommel of his basket-hilted rapier. “My man and I appear to command the only way out of this alley. I’m sure you’ll still feel quite pleased at having killed that man when you’ve got three feet of steel in your throat.”
    The first footpad didn’t release his hold on the coiled loops of rope that were holding up his barely conscious victim, but he began to back off warily toward the dead end, dragging the black-clad man clumsily with him. His fellow thug stood away from the prone form of the man he’d been savagely kicking. A meaningful look flashed between the two masked bandits.
    “My friends, do not be stupid.” Salvara slid his rapier halfway out of its scabbard; sunlight blazed white on finest Camorri steel, and Conté crouched forward on the balls of his feet, shifting to the predatory stance of a knife-fighter born and trained.
    Without another word, the first footpad flung his victim straight atConté and the don; while the unfortunate black-clad fellow gasped and clutched at his rescuers, the two masked thugs bolted for the wall at the rear of the alley. Conté sidestepped the heaving, shuddering Vadran and dashed after them, but the assailants were spry as well as cunning. A slim rope hung down the wall, barely visible, and knotted at regular intervals. The two thugs scrambled up this and all but dove over the top of the wall; Conté and his blades were two seconds too late. The weighted far end of the rope flew back over the wall and landed with a splat in the crusted muck at his feet.
    “Fucking useless slugabed bastards!” The don’s man slid his stilettos back into his belt with easy familiarity and bent down to the heavyset body lying unmoving in the muck. The eerie white stare of the Gentled packhorse seemed to follow him as he pressed fingers to the fat man’s neck, seeking a pulse. “Watchmen stumbling drunk in broad daylight, and look what happens in the bloody