The Rise and Fall of a Dragonking - By Lynn Abbey Page 0,5

the journeymen would have been some assurance of his own safety: he was bigger than any of the youths, but not all of them together. If he’d taken the time to think at all, he might well have thought better of justice. Urik had enough beggars, and his stoop was an attractive place for their trade; he’d have another soon enough. Nouri wasn’t a templar or a thug; he’d never struck a man in anger, not even his apprentices, who deserved a beating now and again.

But Nouri didn’t stop to think. He crossed the street and charged down the alley at a flat-out run. With a backhand swing of the mallet, he caught the laggard of the trio from behind. The youth went down with a shout that alerted his companions, the biggest of whom was also the closest. Paste-faced with fear, the thug tried to defend himself with the crippled boy’s crutch, but the weight of Nouri’s mallet swept the lighter shaft aside.

The baker delivered a blow that shattered teeth and released a spray of blood and saliva from the thug’s mouth. Nouri was defenseless and vulnerable in the wake of the violence he’d done, but the third thug didn’t linger to press his advantage. The last youth hied himself out of the alley without a backward glance for his bloodied and fallen companions.

“Get out,” Nouri suggested in a voice he scarcely recognized as his own. “Get out now, and don’t show your faces around here again.”

It was good advice, and Bloodymouth retained the wit to take it. He hauled his stunned companion to his feet, and with arms linked around each other for support, they beat a clumsy retreat to the street.

With his free hand, Nouri retrieved the undamaged crutch. Aside from his own pounding pulse and ragged breathing, there were no other sounds in the alley, no other movements. Nothing at all to say he wasn’t alone.

“Boy?” he called into the shadows. “Janni?” He thought that was the boy’s name; you or boy were usually sufficient to get his attention when he sat on the stoop. “Don’t be afraid, boy. Are you hurt, boy?”

Then, fearing the worst—that he’d been too late—Nouri set down both mallet and crutch. He waded into the shadows and began flinging rubbish aside before familiar sounds snared his attention: tap, thump, and drag; tap, thump, and drag again. The cold hand of fear clutched the baker’s heart as he turned toward the light and the street.

Janni, the crippled boy, reached the stoop while Nouri watched. He lowered himself to the flat stone, same as he did each morning, and secured his crutch behind him before arranging his twisted leg on the cobblestones where passersby and Nouri’s customers could see both it and the wrapped-straw begging bowl.

“Whim of the Lion,” Nouri whispered. His hands had risen of their own will to cover his heart. He forced them down to his sides, though his fear had not abated, and the foreboding had only just begun.

“What have I done?” he asked himself.

The kneading mallet lay where he’d left it, bloodstained the same as Nouri’s shirt. But the crutch… was gone. The only crutch Nouri could see was the one propped against his shop’s wall.

“Whim of the Lion,” he repeated and turned back to the shadows as his gut heaved.

* * *

Hamanu, the Lion of Urik, King of the World, King of the Mountains and the Plains, and a score of other titles claimed during his thousand-year rule of the city, could soften be found on the highest roof of his sprawling palace. The royal apartments were on the roof. The doors and chambers could have accommodated a half-giant, though the furnishings were scaled for a human man, and austere as well, despite their gilding and bright enamel.

The king sat at a black marble table outside the lattice-walled apartments and stared absently toward the east, where the sun had risen an hour earlier. Hamanu hummed a tune as he sat, an eight-tone trope. A hint of midnight’s coolness clung to the shadow behind him. A robe of lustrous silk hung loosely about his powerful torso. Its dull crimson color perfectly complemented his tawny gold skin and the black mane that swept back from a smooth, intelligent forehead to fall in thick, shiny elflocks against his shoulders.

There was no softness anywhere about him. His eyes held the deep yellow color of ripe agafari blossoms; his lips were firm and dark above a beardless chin. The faint crinkles around