Free The Book of Taltos by Steven Brust Page B

grinding.

    I WAS UNCONSCIOUS FOR about twenty seconds, near as I can figure it. The side of my face still stung from slapping the floor, as did my right hand.
    I awoke slowly, and swirls of black dissipated before me. I know better than to shake my head under such circumstances; my eyes cleared.
    Loraan was leaning up against the far wall, staring past me, both his arms raised. I turned my head and saw Morrolan, who seemed to be fighting something invisible that was trying to entangle him. Sparks flashed in the air between them—that is, directly over my head.
    I was being rescued. Oh, rapture.
    I was about to try to convince my body to function—at least enough to get out from between the two of them—when Loraan gave a kind of cry, struck the wall behind him, bounced, and came careening at me. I would have put a knife into him then and there but he fell on top of me before I could go into action.
    This is called “not being in top form.”
    Loraan was quite agile, though, especially for a wizard. After landing on me he kept rolling until he ended up in the room with Morrolan, as well as the table, the sword, the staves, and all that stuff. He came smoothly to his feet and faced Morrolan.
    There was a bit of confused action lasting maybe ten seconds, including smoke and sparks and fire and loud noises, and when it was over Morrolan had his back to me and Loraan was too far away for any of my goodies to be effective.
    Loiosh, who had been so quiet I’d all but forgotten him, said,
“Should we get the staff now?”
    Oh, yeah. Right. The staff. What we came for.
    I got to my feet, a little surprised that they worked, and moved toward the cube of orange light. I began studying the enchantment on it and muttering curses to myself. I didn’t know what it was or how it had been accomplished, but I could tell it wouldn’t be safe to put my hand in there; I could also tell that breaking it would be
way
over my head. I wondered if Morrolan would be open to taking a job. I turned back to the fight to ask him.

    I WAS ALMOST SIXTEEN when I decided I was old enough to ignore my grandfather’s advice, and started carrying my rapier. It wasn’t a very good one, but it had a point, an edge, and a guard.
    I’d been carrying it for less than a week before I learned that my grandfather was right. I was heading back to the restaurant from the market at the time. On reflection, an Easterner with a sword at his hip carrying a basket full of fish, meat, and vegetables must have looked a bit absurd, but at the time I didn’t think about that.
    I heard laughter as I was near the door and saw two kids, roughly my age (taking different growth rates into account), dressed in the livery of the House of the Hawk. They were clearly laughing at me. I scowled at them.
    One laughed harder and said, “Think you’re pretty dangerous, don’t you?” I noticed he was also wearing a blade.
    I said, “Could be.”
    He said, “Want to show me how dangerous?”
    I set the basket down and walked into the alley, turned, and drew, my pulse racing. The pair of them walked up to me and the one with the weapon shook his head in mock sadness. He was quite a bit taller than I, and may have had good reason to be confident.
    He took his sword in his right hand and a long fighting knife in his left. I noted that he probably wasn’t going to use sorcery, or his left-hand weapon would have been different. My grandfather’s words came back to me, and I put a little more mental emphasis on the word “probably.”
    He faced me, full forward, both arms extended, right arm and right leg a bit more. I came into a guard position, presenting only my side, and a look of puzzlement came over his features.
    I said, “Get on with it.”
    He took a step toward me and began an attack. At that time, I had no idea of just how much of an advantage in speed and technique there was to the Eastern style of fencing. I actually wondered why he was taking such big actions, and