Bazaar of Death: Two

“You will suffer for what you’ve done, witch!” bellowed the man in threadbare robes. He faced a small woman of matronly years, wearing a dress the color of blood. She kept her chin high, her piercing gaze unafraid of his threats, even as another man—bearing a family resemblance to the first—loomed behind her, blocking her escape.

“I only kept the bargain your father made to me,” the woman said calmly as the crowd stepped back from this loud confrontation.

“You deal in curses, not bargains!” the man roared. He drew a long, curved knife from his worn, leather belt.

Sabit pulled herself out of the crowd and stepped in front of the small woman. “Two armed men against a lone woman. What a display of the bravery of Bahteel.”

“This is not your fight,” the man with the curved knife said, his voice high-pitched with barely contained fear. “It is a family matter.”

Behind Sabit, the older woman let out a sharp cry of pain.

Sabit spun around, kicking high. The thick sole of her sandal found the temple of the other man, twisting the older woman’s arm behind her back. Sabit was facing his brother again before he crumpled to the ground. With a strangled cry of fury, the man swung his knife in a deadly arc toward Sabit’s throat. Leaning away from the sharpened bronze as it whistled past, Sabit grabbed the man’s elbow. Pulling him sharply forward, she threw him to the ground. A quick blow to the face sent the man to the dust of the bazaar, unconscious.

“It is not everyone who would help a stranger such as I. I owe you much for your help today,” the red-garbed woman said as Sabit surveyed her fallen foes. The woman’s eyes glinted with something darker than a shrewd gaze. “And I always pay my debts.”

 

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Wayfarings of Sabit: Bazaar of Death is copyright (c) 2017 by Michael S. Miller. All rights reserved. New chapters post every weekday. You can support this and other stories on Patreon: https://patreon.com/michaelsmiller or http://ipressgames.com/fiction/