The King's Blood

trotting, and straining his ears for his quarry’s footsteps. Yardem could have been his shadow.
    The man’s mistake was a small one, and inevitable. A small splash of a heel coming down in an unexpected puddle and an involuntary grunt. It was enough. They were close enough. It was time.
    “Canin!” Marcus said with a friendliness that might almost have been genuine. “Canin Mise, as I live and breathe. Imagine meeting you out on a night like this.”
    For a moment, it could have gone either way. The man could have greeted him, pretended some legitimate business, and had their conversation. Instead, there was the soft hiss of steel clearing its sheath. Marcus was disappointed, but he wasn’t surprised. He stepped back slowly, putting another foot or two between himself and the man.
    “It doesn’t have to be like this,” Marcus said, easing his own blade free with a finger pressed against it to keep it from singing. “No one has to die here.”
    “You cheated me,” the little merchant said. “You and that half-breed bitch you dance for.”
    The buzz in his voice wasn’t a drunkard’s. It was worse than that. It belonged to a man who had taken the humiliation of his own failures and forged a weapon from them. That was hatred, and too much wine would have been easier to recover from.
    “You borrowed money,” Marcus said, circling slowly to the right. The rain chilled his sword. “You knew the risks. The magistra forgave you three payments already. And now there’s a story you’re looking to leave the city. Set up shop in Herez. You know I can’t let that happen until you clear your debt. Now let’s put the sharp things away and talk about how you’re going to make this right.”
    “I’ll go where I want and I’ll do what I please,” the man growled.
    “That’s not where I’d put my bet,” Marcus said.
    Canin Mise was decent with a blade. Veteran of two wars, five years as a queensman before the governor’s magistrates suggested he look for work elsewhere. His plan for starting a fighting school had been a good one. If he’d followed it, he’d likely have died with a reputation and enough money to set up any children he’d fathered along the way. Instead, his foot scraped against the cobbles and his blade hissed through the rain-thick air. Marcus held his sword in a ready block and stepped back out of his reach.
    Probably out of his reach. If there had been even a glimmer of light, it would have been safer than what they were doing now. In the darkness, Canin Mise could no more judge his attacks than Marcus could avoid them. Marcus strained his senses, listening for the small noises that could guide him, trying to judge the pressure of the air. It was less swordplay than gambling. Marcus slid forward and took an exploratory swing. Metal clashed against metal, and Canin Mise yelped in surprise. Marcus pressed in with a shout, blocking the counterstrike by instinct.
    Canin Mise shouted, a full-throated roar filled with rage and violence. It cut off suddenly. His blade fell to the cobble stones with a clatter. Soft, wet choking sounds came through the darkness, the splash of heels beating at the puddles. The sounds faded and went still.
    “You have him?” Marcus asked.
    “Yes, sir,” Yardem said. “You’ll want to carry his heels.”
    “So,” Marcus said, “you’re saying that someone will choose against the shape of their own soul if some other-shaped soul’s in the room with them?” Canin Mise’s boots were slick and the unconscious man’s legs were dead-weight heavy.
    “Not that they will, but that by having that, the opportunity arises. The world has no will of its own, so it can’t. Action that comes from without can change the awareness of other possibilities. Are you ready, sir?”
    “Wait.” Marcus swung his foot in the darkness until he found the fallen man’s sword. He lifted it with one toe until the steel was close enough to grab with his encumbered fingers. He didn’t want to be responsible for a horse or a person stepping on a live blade in the darkness. And they might get a few coins for it. Likely more money than he’d paid on the loan. “All right. Let’s get him to the magistrate.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “So talking to her may or may not improve things, but keeping silence certainly can’t help?”
    “Yes, sir,” Yardem said as they started off at a slow walk, Canin Mise slung between them like a sack.
    “And you couldn’t just say