soot and grime and the shadowy interiors of the corridors lit only by lanterns and flambeaux.
From the gloom he saw smaller, bearded figures peering and he was astonished to see dwarfs. Despite their long beards and squat builds these dwarfs were garbed more like humans than the heavily armoured warriors he expected. Had the race really changed so much since the times of Caledor the Second or were these some strange new hybrid of dwarf and human? He remembered Teclis telling him once that several clans of dwarves had gone to live among the humans of the Empire. Perhaps these were such.
He passed pawnbrokers and factors’ offices and doorways where lurked small groups of armed men who appeared to have no business there. These looked at him with a real sense of menace. At first he thought they were simply as curious about him as he was about them, but after a while he realised that there was a different quality in the glances they gave him.
One of them, more elaborately dressed than the others, with a peacock feather in a slouched hat, strutted up to him and walked around him, inspecting him and all the time glaring at him.
‘What you want, elfie boy?’ he asked, mangling the elvish language with his teeth and tongue. His pronunciation was poor and his grasp of the subtleties of grammar non-existent, but it was still astonishing in its way, like listening to a dog that had learned to talk. It made Tyrion smile.
‘What you grinnin’ at, cat-eyes?’ the human asked and his companions laughed. For the first time Tyrion realised there was a note of disrespect in the man’s voice. He was more astonished than angered. It was like being mocked by a monkey.
He kept quiet because he could not think of anything to say and his silence seemed to encourage the human. His companions egged him on. As he came closer, the stench of coarse strong alcohol from his breath hit Tyrion with the force of a blow.
The man was drunk, Tyrion realised, and looking for a fight. Tyrion had never had any great need to learn the human speech and he greatly regretted that deficiency now. Perhaps if he had been able to speak to the man in his own tongue he might have been able to defuse the situation.
At the same time as the thought crossed his mind, another realisation hit him. He did not really care. If this monkey-man wanted a fight, he would get it. Tyrion had never backed down from one in his life and he did not intend to do so now.
It occurred to him that perhaps this was not the most sensible attitude – he was alone in the Foreigners’ Quarter and there were none of his own kind to help him. This human had a whole gang of friends and it was perfectly possible all the other humans within earshot would aid him out of solidarity with their kind. Still, Tyrion decided, even taking all of these factors into account, he was not about to back down.
‘What you lookin’ at?’ the human demanded in his pidgin gibberish.
‘I don’t know but it’s looking back,’ Tyrion responded. He did not know whether the man understood his words, but he certainly understood the tone of contempt. The man went for his sword. Before he could draw it, Tyrion struck him, the force of the blow smashing him to the ground. His friends rose swiftly, reaching for knives and blades.
‘That was a good punch,’ said a voice from behind him. From its tone and timbre, Tyrion could tell it belonged to a human but the words were not mangled or slurred. They could almost have been spoken by an elf. ‘So fast I did not see anything but a blur.’
The owner of the voice said something in their own tongue to the gang of warriors. They sat down again as quickly as they had risen.
The speaker came into view. He loomed over the fallen bruiser and berated him. Tyrion’s victim lay on the ground, abashed, a stream of blood running from his nose, and a dazed expression on his face. He seemed to grow smaller and smaller and less and less confident as the newcomer’s tirade went on. Eventually he pulled himself up and slunk back to his friends, and they vanished through the archway they had at first appeared to be guarding.
‘What did you say to him?’ Tyrion asked. The newcomer turned to look at him. He