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wasn’t stupid, and he knew what jail was like for young boys, Horran chose the latter.
    Eventually, he joined the Guard formally, and lasted eleven years as exactly the kind of guard he and his brother used to evade as kids.
    Zaile was still wagging his finger. “I’ll not be stopped from makin’ a livin’ by the likes’a you.”
    “Hey, you wanna make a living, Zaile, that’s fine with me, but takin’ advantage of someone this brain-dead is not only illegal, it’s cruel . I mean, come on, would you overcharge a legless man for a wheelchair?”
    Zaile let out a long-suffering sigh. “How much?”
    Horran smiled. Took him long enough. “Two silvers—one for each gold piece you’re charging Kaylin the Moron.” He was going to charge him only one silver, but Zaile had to go and bring up Horran’s misspent youth. Besides, he needed the cash. While his salary paid for food and lodging, it was the hundreds of bribes he’d taken over the past decade that he really needed. Four years hence, when he got his fifteen-year bonus and then retired, those bribes would combine with the bonus to buy a house in Dragon or even possibly Unicorn, and allow him to live out life in luxury.
    Or at least more luxury than a failed orphan sneak-thief could have possibly dreamed of as a boy…
    “Done.” Zaile shook his head. “Shoulda just been sayin’ so in the first place. Saved me all’a this trouble.” Zaile reached into his money pouch and pulled out a silver piece. “ ’Sall I got on me right now. I’m bein’ good for the other half.”
    “Oh, I’m sure you are.” Horran grinned. “Captain Zaile is as honest as they come. I have it on good authority from many sources.”
    “Very funny.”
    “How darest thou!?”
    Horran whirled around to see that someone else—wearing mail and also carrying a very large sword—had spoken those words to Kaylin. His pattern of speech indicated that he had learned Common in the far lands to the west where they still insisted on the archaic forms.
    “How dare I?” Kaylin replied, sounding outraged. “I have been chosen by the Runes of Tyrac to be the one, the only true warrior who shall slay Chalmraik the Foul! It has been written.”
    As he ran over to break up the potential altercation, Horran thought, Whoever ran the Tyrac scam on Kaylin really laid it on thick.
    “Thou worm! Thou varlet! Thou hobgoblin! ’Twas I the gods chose to slay the evil wizard, and thou shalt not take my birthright from me!” The newcomer unsheathed his own broadsword.
    Horran shook his head. The blade had been inscribed with the so-called Runes of Tyrac—in truth it was gibberish using letters from the old Pohldak script that, according to one of Horran’s old sergeants, loosely translated to “all flips harried elk.”
    “None shall deny Erik ban Soreyl from the destiny that be rightfully his! Have at thee!”
    Standing between them, putting one hand on the chest of each man, Horran said, “One’s gonna deny you. Put your sword away, sir.”
    Not taking his eyes—which, Horran noticed, were coal black—off of Kaylin, ban Soreyl said, “Stand aside, good sir. Whilst I have no wish to harm thee, no man shall come between me and my one true destiny.”
    “If you don’t put your sword away, Mr. ban Soreyl, your only destiny’s gonna be to spend the night in the hole.” The holding cells in the precincts weren’t actually holes, but that nickname was given to the dungeons beneath the castle where criminals were held, and, when the Lord and Lady established the Castle Guard and the separate precincts, the holding cells in the precinct houses were given the same appellation.
    Kaylin chose that moment to speak up. “This fool speaks true, good sir Guard. Allow us to settle this as men.”
    Horran caught the eye of one of the youth squad in the quickly gathering crowd—nothing the populace liked better than to watch a good brawl, especially in the Docklands—and gave him an eye-signal that