The Second Book of Lankhmar

minute. There was no surprise at a woman entering; that sort of equality was accepted on the Isle.
           "You didn't tell me beforehand you were going to," the Mouser said to her.
           She shook her head at him, concentrating on her aim. "No, leave his dagger in," she called to the judges. "It won't distract me."
           She threw overhand and her knife impacted itself so close to his that there was a klir of metal against metal along with the woody thud. Groniger measured the distances carefully with his beechwood ruler and proclaimed Cif the winner.

       "And the measures on this ruler are copied from those on the golden Rule of Prudence in the Island treasury," he added impressively, but later qualified this by saying, "Actually, my ruler's more accurate than that ikon; doesn't expand with heat and contract with cold as metals do. But some people don't like to keep hearing me say that."
           "Do you think her besting the Captain is good for discipline and all?" Mikkidu asked Pshawri in an undertone, his new trust in Cif wavering.
           "Yes, I do!" that one whispered back. "Do the Captain good to be shook up a little, what with all this old-man scurrying and worrying and prying and pointing out he's going in for." There, he thought, I've spoken it out to someone at last, and I'm glad I did!
           Cif smiled at the Mouser. "No, I didn't tell you ahead of time," she said sweetly, "but I've been practicing — privately. Would it have made a difference?"
           "No," he said slowly, "though I might have had second thoughts about throwing underhand. Are you planning to enter the slinging contest too?"
           "No, never a thought of it," she answered. "Whatever made you think I might?"
           Later the Mouser won that one, both for distance and accuracy, making the latter cast so powerful that it not only holed the center of the bull's-eye into the padded target box but went through the heavier back of the latter as well. Cif begged for the battered slug as a souvenir, and he presented it to her with elaborate flourishes.
           " 'Twould have pierced the cuirass of Mingsward!" Mikkidu fervently averred.
           The archery contests were beginning, and Fafhrd was fitting the iron tang in the middle of his bow into the hardwood heading of the leather stall that covered half his left forearm, when he noted Afreyt approaching. She'd doffed her jacket, for the sun was beating down hotly, and was wearing a short-sleeved violet blouse, blue trousers wide-belted with a gold buckle, and purple-dyed short holiday boots. A violet handkerchief confined a little her pale gold hair. A worn green quiver with one arrow in it hung from her shoulder, and she was carrying a big longbow.
           Fafhrd's eyes narrowed a bit at those, recalling Cif and the knife throwing. But, "You look like a pirate queen," he greeted her, and then only inquired, "You're entering one of the contests?"
           "I don't know," she said with a shrug. "I'll watch along through the first."
           "That bow," he said casually, "looks to me to have a very heavy pull, and tall as you are, to be a touch long for you."
           "Right on both counts," she agreed, nodding. "It belonged to my father. You'd be truly startled, I think, to see how I managed to draw it as a stripling girl. My father would doubtless have spanked me soundly if he'd ever caught me at it, or rather lived long enough to do that."
           Fafhrd lifted his eyebrows inquiringly, but the pirate queen vouchsafed no more. He won the distance shot handily but lost the target shot (through which Afreyt also watched) by a finger's breadth to Skor's other sub-lieutenant, Mannimark.
           Then came the high shot, which was something special to Midsummer Day on Rime Isle and generally involved the loss of the contestant's arrow, for the target was a grassy, nearly vertical stretch on the upper half of the south face of Elvenhold. The north face of the slanting rock tower actually overhung the ground a little and was utterly barren, but the south face, though very steep, sloped enough to hold soil to support herbage, rather miraculously. The contest honored the sun, which reached this day his highest point in the heavens, while the contesting arrows, identified by colored rags of thinnest silk attached to their necks, emulated him in their efforts.
           Then Afreyt