Free Storm over Vallia by Alan Burt Akers Page A

table where Silda and Lon still sat.
    Silda stood up.
    “Landlord!” she called in a voice accustomed to ordering regiments about. “This rast has stolen our money. I intend to have it back off him. You may send for the Watch if you wish.”
    With that, Silda Segutoria, the daughter of Seg Segutorio, started for the thieves. She drew her rapier.
    “Lyss!” Alarmed, Lon dragged himself up, lugging out the main gauche.
    This thief, hight Branka, sneered at the rapier.
    “That pinprick, missy? I’ll show you what real tavern brawling is all about!”
    “Like this?” said Silda, and snatched up in her left hand the chair and hurled it full in the fellow’s face. Her left arm, hard and muscled from long hours with the Jikvar, powered the chair so that it smashed the fellow’s nose, knocked out an eye, and sent him tumbling backwards into his companions.
    She didn’t stop there.
    The screams from the staggering men meant nothing. She snicked the blade through the arm of one of them, withdrew, slashed it across the guts of the next so that his fancy clothes all fell down, and then she was on Branka.
    He was shrieking and gobbling on blood. Half his teeth were knocked down his gullet. His eye dangled. His nose spouted blood everywhere.
    Silda ignored all that, carefully making sure she did not touch the mess. The spinlikl crouched on the floor, whimpering, sucking his damaged limb.
    Silda dived her own fist into Branka’s wallet and dragged out a handful of coins.
    “Lon!”
    He was just standing there, goggle-eyed.
    “Yes, Lyss—”
    “How much?”
    He swallowed. “Uh — seven sinvers. Oh, and four obs.”
    Again Silda did not doubt Lon’s honesty. If he said seven silver sinvers and four copper obs, that was what had been stolen. She sorted the money out and started to put the rest back, then she paused.
    “The rest of this is stolen, too, I suppose. Landlord!”
    He was standing there with his hands wrapped in his yellow apron and his eyeballs out on stalks.
    “Yes, my lady. I am here. The blood—”
    “You’ve seen plenty of that before. Keep the money and let the Watch sort it out. You have a nice place here, but I wouldn’t let your clientele know that you allow this kind of thief free access.”
    “But, my lady—”
    “We are leaving now. Tell the Watch. Oh, and what is the reckoning?”
    “No, no, my lady,” he babbled. “Please, say no more. You have been troubled in The Silver Lotus. I am desolated, please, my lady, with my compliments...”
    “That is considerate, under the circumstances. Here, your money, Lon.”
    Lon wasn’t sure if the money could ever make up for the glory of the moment. What a girl this Lyss was!
    As they went out, Silda noticed the black couple staring after them eager and alive and thoroughly enjoying the free entertainment.
    The lady stroked the furry likl-likl crouched on her shoulder, and the creature’s bright eyes regarded with great wisdom the fracas upon the floor and the maimed form of the spinlikl. They were not related much as species, although, obviously, they shared much physiology in common. Also, Silda was reminded there were other reasons for carrying a likl-likl upon the shoulder.
    Yes, they were lovely little furry bundles, to be stroked and cuddled and petted, splendid companions. They were friendly little creatures, only resorting to violence if aroused by some extraordinary cruelty. The spinlikl had made no attempt to steal from the black lady in the emerald green dress. Her likl-likl would have known at once and set up an outcry.
    The other fact that had not passed unnoticed by Silda was Lon’s possession of silver in the form of sinvers, the currency of Hyrklana, among that of other nations. The stiver was the usual Vallian silver coin. This meant, clearly, that the new recruits from Pandahem had already been parted from some of their cash. There’d be dhems as well, silver coins of Pandahem, circulating. Well, as they said on Kregen, gold