Ties of Blood & Silver by Joel Rosenberg

Author:Joel Rosenberg [Rosenberg, Joel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SCience Fiction
Published: 2011-04-08T23:00:00+00:00

was a schrift. With its great strength, a schrift would find a deadfall that could crush me flat as a flimsy no problem; the creature could just catch it as it fell, then lift it back into place.

I snapped my blade into my hand and wedged it into the doorframe, just under the catch, working it well into the wood. That would keep the catch closed, and the deadfall from falling.

I turned off my flash, and slowly, carefully, swung the door open. It moved silently.

I stepped inside, feeling my way with my toes, listening intently for any sound.

Nothing. Which was good. But I couldn't stumble around in the dark; I'd have to risk a light for a moment.

I dialed my flash to low and took a quick look around. It was a rough-hewn, three-meter-high room, the walls and ceiling above the tunnel's normal two-meter height smooth, as though it had been chiseled out by someone taking more care than would be normal for a mining tunnel.

Against the right-hand wall, an elaborate wooden workbench stood, tools lined neatly in carved recesses, three large piles of metal scraps. The left-hand wall held cabinets and a cookstove. The back wall was covered by a beaded curtain.

This was it. I'd found a schrift jeweler's home.

I doused my light. Perhaps I was being overcautious, but quite possibly the schrift was sleeping beyond that beaded curtain.

No problem; I had the location of the table marked in my mind. Moving with exquisite slowness, I

worked my way across the stone floor, reached out over the table, and scooped the scraps of metal into my bag.

I crouched there, hefting my bag and debating whether or not to risk a light again, feeling like a hunted animal.

Which wasn't far from the truth.

If it was really silver scrap that I'd taken from the table, if the schrift had enough confidence in its deadfall to leave silver—or even gold—lying around, if there had been a valuable jewel or two in the pile—if, if, if.

But I had to know. If I had enough in the bag, I could take my haul to Benno, trade it for enough tweecies to buy a ticket off the planet.

For where? I really didn't know. It really didn't matter. Anywhere there wasn't a bounty on my skin would do. That would be enough for now. Later, I would find somewhere where there was a lot to steal.

I had much stealing ahead of me, over the next few years; it would cost a lot to hire enough mercenaries to be sure of killing Amos van Ingstrand.

Slowly. Very slowly. Worse than he'd done to Marie.

I shook my head. That wasn't for now; no point in even thinking about it. For now, I had to see if I had enough to get off Oroga. If I didn't have enough, maybe I could hunt around, find the schrift's main cache.

It had to have one—possibly in the room, possibly outside. This couldn't be all the metal and gems that a schrift jeweler would have.

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