“Mine only lasted because I fled.” Sifuso hung his long head-neck in shame. “I am a disgrace to lacertians.”
“What happened there anyway?” Danny asked. “’Cause no offense, you’re real scary-looking, but then you turned into a chicken.”
“I do not know. I have fought many times. I was ready to fight again. Then so many eyes were upon me, and I suddenly felt weak, like I was small again and had just cracked open my egg and had to hide beneath a lily pad to not be eaten by birds.”
Such loser talk was bad for morale, so I chimed in, “That’s just nerves. Everybody gets those.”
“I don’t!” Rufus exclaimed, in a completely unhelpful manner.
“That’s because you go through life blessedly oblivious to the world around you,” Rade said. “What our large lizard experienced is called stage fright by the thespians.”
“Thespians is those little mole people from the Plane of Earth, right?”
“No, Rufus, those are Turgunian halflings. Thespians are actors.” Rade sighed. “Stage fright is what they call the fear they experience while performing before a crowd.”
“Good thing I don’t get that, because I got five whole Obols in my pocket!”
I noticed that Rufus’ loud boast caused several sets of reflective eyes to turn our direction. “Quiet down.”
“Be proud, Carnavon. You cleaned up yourself! And Krachma made more than the rest of us. I bet between us we’ve got over twenty Obols! Maybe close to thirty even! Our purses clank, heavy with coin tonight!”
I smacked him upside the head. “Shut up.”
It was too late, as he’d already advertised that we were a fat, juicy target for robbery, while we were still half a mile from the safety of the Tube.
“What?” Rufus asked, offended.
“Just keep walking.”
Except something large and hairy leapt off a roof and landed smoothly on the lane ahead of us. Its voice was a strange wheeze. “You have many coin?”
Two more of the hairy things landed behind Danny and Sifuso, and a few more stirred up out of the trash piles of the nearby alleys. We were surrounded in an instant.
“You give to us this coin.”The first hairy beast reached behind its back and pulled out a thick dagger. “Or else.”
Rufus looked at all the strange things who’d come out of the woodwork, and it slowly dawned on him what he’d done wrong. “Oh… I get it now.”
“It’s a good thing you can fight, because you’ve got rocks for brains,” Rade told him.
I glanced back at my friends, saw that most were having a similar reaction to this attempted banditry as I was, which was basically an offendedfuck these assholes.Danny and Bognarwere clearly terrified, but the rest of us looked angry or bemused by the threat.
“Listen, whatever you are, you’ve picked the wrong band to rob. We’re mages from the Academy of Outcasts. Those coins were earned in the arena. Fighting is what we do for fun and profit. You’d best scurry along before you get hurt.”
“Arena is fake.”The thing waved its blade back and forth. “Steel is real.”
“Yeah, we saw your little knife the first time, shaggy,” Dathka said. “I’m Latrocinium. You nightbolg trash know we’re off limits.”
The hairy shapes shifted nervously at her words, but their leader calmed them down. “It does not wear the black band.”
“I didn’t wear Carcalla’s mark to the arena because I didn’t want to scare whoever I was up against into immediate surrender. So you can fuck right off, or the landlord will send an army down here to burn out your entire hive.”
“It lies. It is not of the black band. It does not want to give up its coin.”
I despised robbers. Taking the fruit of a man’s labor was the same as stealing that part of his life. Having had enough of this foolishness, I reached into my pocket. “Here you go.” But rather than an Obol, I tossed a generous pinch of Red.
I invoked theShroud of Fire, and all that greasy hair must have been really flammable, because the creature was immediately engulfed.
Rade drew his sword with lightning quickness, slashing at the creatures to the side. Spiders made of darkness flew from the blade, landed on the monsters, and started biting. Krachma saved his magic and simply punched one in the ribs, which sent it flying into the dark. Dathka appeared behind the pair of creatures blocking the rear, extended her two guns, and simultaneously shot both of them in the back of the head.
