Shadowdance 01 - A Dance of Cloaks

already bought the man three drinks. He tossed him the copper, not caring that it rolled off the table and to the floor. For a moment it didn’t look like Barney even noticed.
    “What you want them for anyway?” he asked after a lengthy belch.
    “Unfinished business,” said Dustin as he walked out of the bar.
    The Eschaton estate wasn’t very far. It appeared Barney liked to drink close to home. Dustin kept to the shadows as he approached, his hand casually resting on the hilt of his mace. With its solid round head, it was more of an iron club. A good blow could smash a man’s skull like a pumpkin. Dustin always got a much bigger thrill breaking bones than spilling blood. People bled all the time. Cuts were on the outside. Bones were inside, and the way people howled when he mangled their fingers or obliterated their kneecaps … it gave him shivers just thinking about it.
    There was also one extra benefit to having the mace instead of a sword. He slipped around to the back, found the first window on the eastern side facing away from the street, and then smashed it in with his mace. Barney had made it quite clear that it was just Delysia and her grandmother, and that they had no guards. Even if they did awake to the sound of breaking glass, what would they do? Fight back?
    Dustin chuckled. He hoped so. He wasn’t much for old ladies, but Delysia was supposed to be ten or so. Her pleading and struggling would be damn exciting.
    Once inside, Dustin pushed his back against the wall beside the doorway. If someone came to investigate the noise, he’d have an easy blow to the back of their head. No one came. He shook his head. Whoever these Eschatons were, they were a stupid lot. He walked silently into a modest kitchen, careful not to disturb anything. He had been sloppy with the window, he knew that, but making too much ruckus searching for the girl would be pushing his luck. Besides, if they tried to flee, he wanted to make sure he heard them.
    He was not prepared for what he saw when he reached the other side of the kitchen. A boy dressed in Spider Guild grays knelt next to a door at the end of a short hallway. Dustin stopped, unhidden in the middle of the doorway, and wondered if he had somehow entered the wrong house.
    So far the boy’s back was to him. Dustin glanced around, saw a crumb of hardened bread crust, and flung it. It smacked the boy in the ear. His tiny body jumped, and Dustin winced at the noises he made. They weren’t loud, but he guessed a bedroom was on the other side of the door.
    “What the bloody Abyss are you doing here?” Dustin whispered fiercely once the boy was with him in the kitchen. The boy looked back, only his eyes visible through the mask over his face. Dustin figured he was one of their younger thieves, but he didn’t have a clue who. “And what’s with the mask?”
    “I’m correcting a mistake,” the boy whispered back.
    Dustin gestured to the door, then made a circular motion with his finger beside his head, showing what he thought of that plan.
    “You’re a kid, now go home,” Dustin said. “I have work to do.”
    When he tried to push him aside, the boy grabbed his wrist and held firm.
    “She was my kill first,” he whispered far too loudly. The hairs on the back of Dustin’s neck stood on end. Something was wrong here. Those eyes seemed so familiar…
    “Aaron?” he asked, tugging his arm free.
    “No,” said the boy. “My name is Haern.”
    Pain spiked into Dustin’s side. He spun on reflex, only dimly aware that the boy had stabbed him. His spin forced the dagger out, flinging blood across the lower drawers of the kitchen. He swung his mace, grunting as it broke the door frame. Haern rolled underneath the blow, kicked off the table, and then lunged with his dagger.
    Dustin parried with the length of his mace, set his left foot closer, and then swung back, hoping Haern would trip when dodging. Instead the boy ducked underneath, looped his own leg around Dustin’s foot, and stabbed his dagger into Dustin’s calf.
    Choking down a scream, Dustin swung his mace back down. One good hit and he’d splatter Haern’s brains across the floor. Problem was, the boy was too fast. He darted from side to side, barely avoiding every swing. How the noise had not attracted attention, Dustin didn’t have a clue. On his fourth swing, Haern parried the mace to the side, then cut back quickly enough to slice a thin gash along Dustin’s hand.
    The older thief