Then we would have bought each other a drink,
and that would be that.
But it didn't happen that way. Not this time. The tallest of the three
whirled, upsetting his drink in the process. I heard its thin shatter
through the squeal of the alabaster-haired girl, as a chair crashed
over. They faced me three abreast, and one of them fumbled in the clasp
of his shirtcloak.
I edged backward, my own hand racing up for a skean I hadn't carried in
six years, and fronted them squarely, hoping I could face down the
prospect of a roughhouse. They wouldn't kill me, this close to the HQ,
but at least I was in for an unpleasant mauling. I couldn't handle three
men; and if nerves were this taut in the Kharsa, I might get knifed.
Quite by accident, of course.
The _chaks_ moaned and gibbered. The Dry-towners glared at me and I
tensed for the moment when their steady stare would explode into
violence.
Then I became aware that they were gazing, not at me, but at something
or someone behind me. The skeans snicked back into the clasps of their
cloaks.
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