Read Sworn in Steel for Free Online Page B

again. “The gazette costs extra. Make up your
mind.”
    “Fine,” I said, letting it go. I could put people on it once I got back into friendly territory. “Broad news, then.”
    The beggar took another cube of lamb and worked it around in his mouth, watching me. Thinking. I pretended not to mind and nibbled at my skewer with a dry mouth.
    “Crook Eye’s dead,” he said at last.
    I didn’t quite choke, but it was a close thing. I managed to cough, then swallow, before saying,
“What?”
    “Crook Eye. The Gray Prince. Heard he was killed someplace south of here.”
    Already? How had the word gotten here this fast? I figured I had another day at least, even after the delay caused by Soggy Petyr and the Thieves’ Gate.
    “When?” I said. This had to be the beginning; I had to be on the leading edge of the wave.
    “Dunno. Suppose he died recently. Otherwise it wouldn’t be new news, now, would it?”
    “No,” I said. “Not when was Crook Eye dusted: when did you first hear the news?”
    “Oh.” He stared off toward the street. The fingers of his right hand—even the ones bound down and hidden under the stained bandage—twitched as he walked his mind back in
time, counting the hours. “Four.”
    I let out a slow breath. “Hours?”
    “Days.”
    Days?
That wasn’t possible. Crook Eye had still been alive four days ago. I’d only talked to him three days ago, for Angels’ sake!
    “Are you sure?”
    “That Crook Eye’s dead, or that I heard it four days ago?”
    “Both.”
    “About him being dustmans?” The beggar shrugged. “The street’s been humming with it, so I believe it. As for when I first heard . . . yeah, four days ago.”
    Shit. This didn’t make any sense. Who had called him dead before he died?
    I swallowed, not wanting to ask the next question, but I didn’t have a choice.
    “Who dusted him?” I said.
    “That new Prince, Alley Walker. Used to call himself Drothe or something. Guess he’s impatient to make a name for himself.” The beggar shook his head, missing the grimace I
made at the latest tag the street had hung on me. Alley Walker? Really? That was almost as bad as the one I’d been hearing before I left: Shadowblade. Ugh.
    “Who told you?” I said.
    The beggar started at the question. “What?”
    “You heard me.”
    “Piss off.”
    Not a surprising reaction. He didn’t know me, which meant I was stepping beyond more boundaries than I could count. If we had a history, if I’d had him on my string for maybe six
months or a year, I might have been able to ask about his sources and expect and answer. But to do it like this, after giving him little more than threats and a free lunch?
    Still, I needed to know.
    “Fine,” I said. “How about this instead: don’t tell me who, just tell me where. Give me the cordon where the news first started to spread, and I’ll take it from
there.”
    “Fuck you, Nose. You want to find the tip of the root, do your own digging.”
    Wrong answer.
    I was crouching, he was sitting. That made it an easy thing to turn and let my knees fall across his hip and thigh, pinning him against the ground. And it was just as easy to let my elbow clip
him across the side of his jaw as I did so.
    His head rolled with the blow, lessening the impact, and his right hand came up. There was an expensive-looking, finely honed dagger in it. The dagger started to come up. And stopped.
    The end of my skewer had found his throat first. I could feel the vein in his neck pushing gently against the tip of the wooden spike. There were still two pieces of lamb on it.
    We sat there, his leg pinned beneath me, his body against the wall, my wooden skewer pressed to his neck, and glared at one another.
    “Be smart,” I said.
    He took a breath, swallowed, and lowered his steel. I let up on the kebob but didn’t remove it completely.
    “All right,” I said, my own breath sounding ragged. “Here’s the tale: I don’t want trouble with you, let alone your