Shivers hadn't planned on this but his blood was boiling now. They smashed their way through the kitchens, both doing their level worst to kill each other. One of his old master's lessons that Shenkt had never forgotten. Sometimes you must take one life to spare more, and when those times come, sentiment helps nobody. But then this boy might have run and brought more men, and there would have been further entanglements. "Good." Shenkt would have liked to be kind. His wide eyes rolled towards the far door. "The woman who made your friend lose his cutlery." Shenkt flicked the few drops of blood from his hand. The ear-splitting bang of his skull exploding joined the hiss of blood spraying from his friend's caved-in chest and all over the gaping boy as time resumed its normal flow. The flies were sucked from their places by the wind of his passing, dragged through the air in mad spirals. Shenkt brushed the sword aside, seized the next man by his breastplate and flung him across the room, his head crumpling against the far wall, blood showering out under such pressure it made a great star of spatters across the gilded wallpaper from floor to ceiling. A great chunk of rib and breastbone was ripped out with it, flew spinning through the air to embed itself deep in the ceiling. Shenkt stepped around his sword, the edge of his hand sank deep into the thief's chest then tore back out. Slowly, slowly, his arm drifted back for a thrust.
Slowly, slowly, the spoon-thief's hungry leer turned into a snarl. The three zipping flies slowed, drifting lazily, then hanging almost still. "Hands behind your head, bastard, and get on your knees." "Then it's ours to take." They closed in, the one with the pocked face prodding at Shenkt with his sword. "I'll be the judge of that." His gaze settled on the ruby ring on Shenkt's forefinger. Shenkt looked him in the eye as he came close, and gave him a chance. "What have you got for us?" asked the first. The two of them spread out, the boy reluctantly following their lead. "There's a toll," hissed the one with the breastplate, in a tone no doubt meant to be intimidating.
"Well, this room's ours, and there's a toll." "That so?" He grinned at his fellows as he drew his sword. "The woman who made you lose your cutlery," asked Shenkt. "Who the hell are you?" demanded the spoon-thief. The other two abandoned their argument to stare at him. The boy raised a silent finger to point at Shenkt. " 'Cause I was watching the door while you got something, you fucking-" "But that bitch knocked me down and I lost 'em! Why didn't you get nothing?" "I told you I had the fucking spoons!" a pock-faced man screamed at one with a tarnished breastplate.
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