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Our ale arrived, s over the sides They were poorly fashioned, made in a hurry for the lowest cost, the sort of cups that expected to get broken I sipped from mine—bitter stuff—and wiped away the white h s me the evil eye He had the kind of blunt weapon of a face you could ih a door, and he sat head and shoulders above the iant’s left a ed to look scary anyith a patchy beard straggling down overthe crohilst he choht was the only nor so hi about him said warrior He ate and drank with an intensity that unnerved me, and if ahis beef, then you probably don’t want to see him draw steel

“You know, I really think we’d be better off at the Red Dragon down the street,” I said, putting down my cup half-empty “This is obviously a private partyI don’t think it’s safe here”

“Of course it isn’t” Snorri gave rin he had offered on thedangerously near to splattering another of the band with foam, this one a moustachioed felloith an unlikely number of knives bound about his person “Meat! Bread! And ine hi of the clans, grasping a drinking horn He looked more relaxed than I’d seen him since the blood pits in Vermillion

I caught sight of the ugly giant throwing led up between bench and table and went out the front to relieve myself If my admirer across the tavern had stood and coetting out of his eyeline to answer nature’s call seeood move

The Falling Angel turned out not to be entirely without class They had a decent purpose-built wall to piss against and a little gutter running down into the street gutter to carry away the used beer Although the fact that so blood into it did detract so through the less salubrious arteries of Crath City Beyond hioodhusbands, vendors of food on sticks, all caht of one lantern, lost, then seen again in the light of another, passing by the purveyors of affection on the street corner and lost again never to return

I finished up and went back in

“—think that but you’d be wrong”

I’d been outside for two minutes, three at the most, and returned to find Snorri flanked bystories like old friends “No,” Snorri continued, back half-turned to ht think it to look at hiranted But I hauled him out of this place, they had him tied to a table, wanted so a gentle jabbing here—they were about to cut off the kind of bits you’d miss” Snorri drained off the last of his ale “Knohat he said to them? Roared at them he did I heard it out in the corridor ‘I won’t ever tell!’ Shouted it in their faces ‘Get the pincers out if you like Heat the’ Now that’s the kind of ht look like there’s nothing behind the bluster, but you can’t trust your gut with this one Braverave-horror, had lanced estured across the table “Make a hole!” And they did, two e in “These fine fellows are Brother Siht lad—“Brother Elban, Brother Gains” He indicated the old man and a tow-haired bully “Well, they’re all brothers It’s like a holy order of the road, only without any ‘holy’” He waved his half-gnawed bone down the line “Brothers Grumlow, Emmer, Roddat, Jobe” The knife-er men, both sallow, one scar-cheeked, the other pockh toon it jump