Night Life


"Oglethorpe was right, I do need some rest," Silk sighed to himself.
"Two days and nothing.  I can feel the garrot already."  He swallowed
hard as he tromped down the alley that led to his apartment.
	Kachunk!
	The bolt, coming from above and behind him, buzzed past Silk's
head.
	Kachunk!  Kachunk!
	Silk staggered forward as a bolt slammed into his back.
Warmth spread through his back; a heat that hovered between pleasure
and pain.  As he regained his balance he heard someone drop from a
roof into the alley behind him.  His eye, however, was occupied with
two shadows moving towards him from up the alley; between him and
home.  The shadows blurred a bit as he heard a second assailant join
the first behind him.
	Silk touched both studs on his walking stick.  As three small
blades on the side of the stick sprang from hiding and a larger one
lanced out from the end, Silk charged straight ahead, swinging the
staff in a murderous rage.  He caught his assailants' off guard,
slamming his walking stick into the first attacker's right arm,
burying one of the smaller blades.  Ripping it free with a vicious
twist, he then plunged the front blade into the wounded man's abdomen.
Even as the footpad fell, his partner set upon Silk with cloak and
club.
	As Silk warded off the blows, and footsteps bore down on him
>from behind, he suddenly realized the extent of his wound; warmth
turned to fire as pain burned through him.  Silk pressed forward,
trying to win past the footpad in front of him.  A quick thrust with
the point of his walking stick drew blood, but Silk's leg was struck
by the club mid-charge.  Toppling, he crashed into his assailant and
both men went down.  In the scuffle, the quarrel in Silk's back was
bumped.  Screaming in pain, he managed to scramble free just as a club
whistled by him and slammed into the gut of the footpad on the ground.
Amid the cursing and confusion, Silk tried to flee, but he could hear
a footpad overtaking him.
	Suddenly more shadows arose in his path, and a crossbow was
leveled at him.  Silk threw himself to the ground.
	Kachunk!
	The bolt whistled overhead as the footpad pursuing Silk
tripped over him and went down.
	Kachunk! Kachunk! came from ahead.  Oaths of considerable
volume, if not binding, came from behind.
	"Owl!  Chigger's still on the roof!  Snipe him!  Come on,
lads!" came the cry from ahead.  Footfalls charged Silk from in front
and behind.
	"Eight?" thought Silk as grabbed a handful of dirt and
scrambled to his feet.  "Six would have been plenty."  The footpad who
had tripped over Silk had already gained his feet, so Silk cast the
dirt at his face; or rather, he realized too late, the back of his
head.  The dirt had an amazing affect; the man's head snapped
backwards, towards Silk, and the footpad stumbled.  Catching himself,
the footpad raised his club and he swung at a target in front of him.
	Ignoring that battle, Silk turned just in time to dodge a
blow.  Somewhere overhead the discharge of a crossbow was closely
followed by the scream of pain.
	"Dammit Silk!  Get over here!  Smash, grab him!"
	Hoping beyond hope that he was about to be rescued, Silk
backed away from the thugs in front of him, twisting his weapon back
and forth suggestively, ready to parry any attack.
	Movement flickered on his left.  A quick glance revealed a
masked attacker swinging a club.  The weapon was not aimed at Silk,
but landed with a bone-chrunching wump on the man at his back.  As the
footpad fell, Silk's savior latched onto the fence's arm.
	"Come on!"
	Silk was dragged up the alley as two more footpads fell in
behind him, facing the would-be murderers.  "Owl, let's hear that
crossbow!" one of the pair called out.  Then Silk blacked out.
	He came to as he was pulled to his feet.  "Where are we...
where did you..."
	He was dragged past his apartment, around another corner, and
soon onto a main street.  Two footpads helped him along while two
others followed with loaded crossbows.  On the street, they paused
under a lantern long enough to pull out the quarrel.  Silk passed out.
	"Silk!"  Silk came to as a footpad slapped him repeatedly in
the face.  "Come on, Silk, this ain't no time to be timid.  You got a
big hole in your back and you're breathing blood.  You want us to get
you to a cutter?  There's one close we can trust.  Come on, Silk!
We've run into Chigger and his boys before.  They wouldn't have come
near us just to find a mark; they were after you.  We got to get you
off the street!"
	Silk's eye cleared enough to show him that Bash was the one
making the speech.
	Bash.  Footpads.  Leader.
	"Cutter?  Yes.  Please.  Quickly."
	They hustled Silk into another alley, around a few turns, then
to a door just off the street.  Banging on the door eventually
resulted in muttering on the other side.  Bash said a few words
through the door and it is soon opened.  A servant with a lantern
hurried off and soon returned supporting the surgeon, who was glaring
about at imaginary points of light.  Eventually he gathered his senses
enough to take Silk's head in his hands, look into Silk's good eye,
then lift his eye patch.
	"Too far gone.  I can't do anything about that."
	"No, doc, it's his back, not his eye.  He took a bolt in the
back."
	"Well why didn't you say so?  Strip him to the waist and put
him down on that table."  The physician went about collecting various
odds and ends as Bash and Crash got Silk into position.  "Sunter, pass
us that bottle."  The servant handed over a bottle, which the
physician promptly uncorked and jug-a-lugged.  Coughing and hacking,
he recorked the bottle.  "Alright, I'm awake!" Cough, cough.  "I'm
awake!" The physician gagged and coughed some more, then stared across
the room at Silk.  "So, is this your first child?"
	"Sir, that was this morning," Sunter told his master without
seeming too shocked.
	"Oh gods, is it bedtime already?"
	Eventually Sunter got the doctor into place.
	"This might..."
	"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!"
	"...hurt a bit.  Hmmm, I thought I had some finer thread than
this.  Oh well; Sunter, hand me that needle.  No, no, the bigger one."


						Jeff Stehman