Master Of The Hashomi

Chapter 21

Blade and Giraz sat down with the Baran for a private conference the next morning. The Baran was blunt. His orders had been to watch the Thieves, not fight them-at least not now.

«However, I must admit that order always depended on the Thieves cooperating,» he said. «Since they did not cooperate-«he shrugged. «We've had to start lopping off heads, so we may as well go on doing it. I will be a good deal happier when there is not a single Thief alive in Dahaura.» Both Giraz and Blade nodded in agreement.

«Now,» the Baran continued, «we still would do well to try striking down the Council of Twelve as our first move. Giraz, do you think there is still any chance of that?»

The eunuch nodded. «We have ways of knowing where and when they meet. I do not think last night's events have made any difference. As far as I have learned, the thieves took no prisoners who could tell them how much we know about them. It is obvious they thought Esseta was such a person, but they had no time to ask her anything before Blade came upon them.»

«Good,» said the Baran. «How is Esseta, by the way?»

«The doctor believes she will live;«replied Blade. «He also fears she will be scarred for life.»

«She need not worry about that,» said the Baran. «She will have no need to continue in her profession. I could reward Kubin Ben Sarif as generously, but I doubt if the treasury could afford it. He's not exactly a poor man.»

Blade laughed. «No, my lord, he certainly is not. Besides, I don't think he'd take the money. I spoke to him this morning. He says he can keep a brothel just as well with the one hand he has left-after he gets through using it to strangle as many Thieves as he can reach. The doctor threatens to tie him to the bed if he keeps talking like that.»

The Baran smiled. «The doctor will have my orders to do so, if Kubin doesn't calm himself. He has done his duty several times over, and a good man like that should rest and be healed. He won't be happy about missing our blow against the Thieves, but I am not going to risk the lives of my subjects merely to keep Kubin Ben Sarif happy. Will his men fight without him leading them, do you think?» Blade nodded. «Good. I will put you in command of them, on the night. Now, Giraz, bring out the map of Dahaura, and we shall see what is to be done.»

The moon was now past full, and tonight clouds covered two thirds of the sky. In the back alleys of Dahaura it was dark enough to hide black cats, Thieves, or men of the Baran and Kubin Ben Sarif setting out to catch Thieves.

Richard Blade slipped into the shelter of a recessed doorway and held his bronze lantern out at arm's length. Five small holes were punched in each side, making four different patterns. Blade held out the lantern until he saw a faint orange glow at the far end of the alley.

He stared at it, until he could recognize the pattern he'd been expecting. The leader of the other group of Kubin's men was at the far end of the alley. Blade raised and lowered his lantern three times, saw the other man do the same, then whispered sharply, «Come on.»

Behind him fifteen men slipped one by one around the corner of the building. Each man wore a red glove on his left hand, tonight's recognition signal for the attackers. Blade had chosen it as a symbol of Kubin's lost hand that his men were seeking to avenge.

Something dropped with a click on the slippery stones of the alley. Blade looked up to see a dim silhouette on the roof of the building across the alley, and beside it another pattern of orange pinpricks.

The ring around the meeting place of the Thieves' Council of Twelve was complete. The Eyes of the Baran were in position on the roof and on the other side of the building. All routes of escape for the Council and its guards were closed. If they were still in the oil warehouse, they would not be getting out.

They should be there. Carefully planted rumors had brought them, rumors of the complete reliability of the warehouse's owner-who was actually in the Baran's pay. The Eyes of the Baran had struck swiftly against the Thieves' sentries in the nearby streets. Some of them had been Hashomi but all were now dead or prisoners. None had escaped to give warning.

Blade found himself listening tensely for the sound of axes from the roof. The Eyes up there would be going in first, because the roof offered the fastest way in. The faster the attack, the more prisoners. Then the Eyes and Kubin's men from the streets and alleys would join in. That should be enough, but if more men were needed, the Baran himself was waiting half a mile away. A signal from the top of the warehouse would bring him and a hundred picked men within a few minutes.

Blade hoped they wouldn't be needed. He didn't mind the hundred more men, but he did mind the idea of the Baran himself joining the battle. The ruler of Dahaura could not be refused if he insisted-but neither could he be replaced if some fanatic, Thief, Hashom, or Fighter of Junah got to him with a poisoned dagger or a bolt from a crossbow. Dahaura might survive the Baran's death and the struggle for succession among his three eldest sons. It also might not. It certainly would be put at a desperate disadvantage, against an enemy too shrewd and skilled not to exploit that disadvantage.

But that was speculation about a future that might never come. Tonight all that mattered was the looming bulk of the warehouse. Blade stared at the roof as if the sheer intensity of his stare could prod the men up there into action.

Suddenly Blade heard a muffled cry, and the lantern on top of the warehouse seemed to float out into space, then plummet toward the street. The clang as it struck the stones raised echoes up and down the alley. Instead of the axes smashing a hole in the roof, Blade heard the clatter of weapons, running feet, and a cry of agony.

The men on the roof had been detected, and the Thieves were counterattacking. No time now to wait and let the attack develop neatly according to plan. The only thing for the men on the ground to do was to pile in and hope for the best.

Blade turned to one of his men. «Run to the Baran, and have him bring up the reserves.» That risked bringing the Baran into the fight, but not calling up the mounted men risked letting some of the Thieves escape. If the Baran learned some of the Thieves had escaped because Blade was trying to protect him, he'd trim Blade with a dull knife.

From the other end of the alley, a solid mass of men was rushing forward. They'd heard the uproar and reached the same decision as Blade. Most of them were in a long double line, carrying something between them.

The door of the warehouse was iron-bound wood six inches thick, strong enough to stand against anything but a battering ram. So Kubin's men had brought one-a length of tree trunk weighing five hundred pounds, with an iron-weighted head and handles for a dozen men.

The approaching men shuffled up, turned, and hanged forward with sudden fury. The head of the ram crashed into the door, and Blade half-expected the echoes to knock tiles and cornices off nearby buildings onto his head. Crash, crash, crash, then a splintering of wood and the screech of twisted metal as the door gave.

It gave so suddenly that the men on the ram tumbled forward in wild confusion, arms and legs flailing. Most of them went down, which turned out to be just as well. There were crossbowmen waiting inside, and several bolts whistled over the heads of the fallen men. One of the men standing in the street went down. Blade drew his sword and leaped forward, running along the fallen ram, passing the men slowly getting to their feet.

«At them!» he shouted. «At them before they can reload!» Crossbows were slow-firing weapons, good for no more than a single volley against men willing to close in fast.

Blade's feet hit the stones at the bottom of the steps. The hall was dark, except for the dim glow of a lantern at the far end. That glow silhouetted four hooded figures, heads bobbing as they tried to recock their weapons. Blade was among them before they realized that he was within striking distance.

His sword whistled in an arc, the point spitting sparks as it struck the wall. Hardly slowed, it swung on through the arc, cutting off a suddenly raised arm, smashing against a crossbow. Blade pulled his sword back without pulling it free of the crossbow. He dragged the archer with the bow, then stabbed him in the chest.

Now Blade was no longer fighting alone, as the other two archers went down before a wave of red-gloved men thrusting and slashing. Kubin's men were so wild in their swordwork that Blade was glad when they rushed on down the hallway and he was no longer in danger of being cut to pieces by his own men.

He caught up with his men in time to see them burst into the open. The main chamber of the warehouse stretched before them, three stories high and a hundred feet across. Against the walls and on two massive timber platforms in the center, barrels of oil were stacked twice as high as a man. All the rest was open, a floor of rough stones that offered good footing. Across those stones a furious battle swirled back and forth.

It was hard to tell how many defenders there were, and impossible to tell who belonged to which faction of the Baran's enemies. Blade's rough guess was more than forty still alive, all of them fighting like demons.

Behind the enemy's ragged battle line Blade saw a circle of cushions on the floor, more than twenty of them. Around the cushions were scattered parchment scrolls and sheets. Two men were frantically running around the circle, scooping up the parchment and piling it in the center.

In another minute those sheets and all the secrets they carried would be ashes. Blade knew he had to get through the enemy's line and stop those two men. He began looking for a frank or a weak spot, trying to make some sense of the battle.

Two of the defenders had climbed up on top of the piled barrels. They had crossbows, and were shooting upward at a hole chopped in the roof. Every bolt they fired was answered by another one whistling down, but neither side seemed to be hitting anything. A flight of wooden stairs spiraled up to the roof in one corner of the building, and four Thieves with swords were holding the top of it against the Eyes on the roof.

The attack from the roof seemed to be getting nowhere, but on the ground the door on the other side of the warehouse was open and Giraz's Eyes were joining the battle. The defenders were outnumbered now, and slowly they began to fall back.

As the enemy line shrank, Blade's hopes rose of finding a way around it and saving the records. The pile of parchment in the middle of the circle of cushions was nearly a foot high now. With all that material in the Baran's hands, the blow to the Thieves from tonight's work would be even more deadly.

Suddenly a lucky bolt from the roof struck down one of the defending archers. A man facing Blade saw this, turned, and ran toward the pile of barrels to snatch up the fallen crossbow. For a moment there was a gap in the enemy ranks. Blade hurled himself through that gap.

He did not try to strike at the men on either side of him, only get past them. They struck at him, but their swords grated harmlessly across the mail he wore under his tunic. Then he was leaping over the parchment, scattering some sheets like snowflakes, to attack the two men who'd been piling it up.

One had been wearing a mask, but now it dangled around his neck. Blade recognized a face known from another time and another desperate battle-another of the five Treases who'd been the judges of his testing before the Master. The other man he didn't recognize, but saw him holding the short thrusting sword and small circular shield favored by the Fighters of Junah.

Blade stopped worrying about the parchment and concentrated on staying alive against two men he knew would be formidable opponents. That saved his life-that, and the fact that once more he faced two good men who had never fought together before.

Blade's longer sword gave him an edge over the Fighter of Junah. Before the Hashom could prevent it, Blade disabled the Fighter's sword arm. Blade turned to meet the Treas, and shouted in fierce delight as he saw the look in the man's eyes. This man had seen Blade in action before, and knew how deadly he was. That knowledge made him afraid, and although he was a Hashom he couldn't keep the fear off his face.

Blade shouted again and pressed his attack. The Hashom's sword gave him an equal reach, but he was not as fast as Blade. Slowly Blade closed, twice getting through his opponent's guard to inflict minor wounds. Even more slowly the Hashom retreated, face growing pale and desperate in the knowledge that he was being backed against the piled barrels. Blade knew that sort of desperation would sooner or later lead a Hashom into a suicidal charge.

Before the Hashom could reach that point, Blade saw the Fighter of Junah moving in again. Blade shifted to a position where he could meet both men, then saw that the Fighter wasn't carrying a weapon. In his good hand he held a lighted taper. Blade leaped to place himself between the Fighter and the pile of parchment, but the other was quicker. The taper flew forward into the parchment as Blade's sword bit into the Fighter's neck. The papers must have been soaked with oil, because they blazed up in a column of flame as high as a man.

Blade's slash knocked the Fighter to one side, straight into the path of the Hashom. In that moment the Hashom launched his charge. He tripped over his falling comrade, twisted frantically in midair in an effort to save himself, and fell headfirst into the fire. He screamed and went on screaming until the flames sealed his throat.

By that time Blade's attention was elsewhere. Over the clash of weapons and the cries of dying men he heard a growing uproar on the roof. It sounded as if a whole regiment of the Baran's army was gathering up there. In another moment the hole in the roof was ringed with faces, and a dozen crossbows fired together.

The hail of bolts knocked one of the enemy's archers dead from his perch on the piled barrels. Miraculously the other man escaped with no more than a bolt in the leg. He was raising his crossbow to return the fire when three men came swinging down through the hole in the roof on long ropes. Blade stared, not really wanting to believe what he saw. One of the three men on the ropes was the Baran himself, swinging down into the battle like the star of an old-fashioned swashbuckling movie!

The Baran's swing was precisely timed and aimed. He plunged down at the remaining archer, legs outstretched, and kicked the man in the stomach. The unfired crossbow flew high in the air, while the man flew off the piled barrels so violently that he smashed into the wall.

With equally perfect timing; the Baran let go of the rope and dropped lightly on top of the barrels. For the moment he was out of reach of any armed enemy, but he was well behind the enemy's line. As he rose to his feet, several of them turned and recognized him. A throwing knife flashed through the air and bounced off his mail. Blade ran to the pile of barrels. His sword in one hand, he gripped the heavy timber bracing of the pile with the other and started hauling himself up to join the Baran.

A Thief ran at Blade, so blindly that Blade only needed to hold his sword out and let the man spit himself on it. Then Blade was hauling himself up on top of the barrels. As the Baran reached out to help him up, Blade heard an ominous crack from below. The bracing was giving way.

Slowly one of the heavy beams pulled free of its fastenings, while a second below it split completely across. A loud creak, and one of the immense oil barrels began to shift. With the deadly inevitability of an avalanche, it rolled out of place and dropped six feet to the floor, splitting open as it did.

Golden-brown oil poured across the floor like an incoming tide. It reached the glowing ashes of the pile of parchment. Suddenly there was hissing blue flame sweeping across the surface of the oil, toward the pile of barrels and toward the fighting men.

The flaming oil reached two Thieves and their robes blazed. As they screamed and twisted, Blade raised his voice until it could be heard even over the flames and the screams. «Get off the roof!» he roared. «Get off the roof, fast! The building's going up! Get off the roof, you idiots!» The Baran was staring around him, eyes fixed on the flames that were beginning to dance around the pile of barrels. Blade grabbed the Baran by his belt and by one arm and lifted the man as easily as he could have done with a child. «Catch him!» he shouted to the men on the floor, and saw four of them turn and brace themselves. Then he heaved the Baran off the pile. The ruler of Dahaura flew through the air like a football and landed in the arms of the waiting men. All four of them went down, but the Baran was unhurt.

Blade waited long enough to see the Baran on his feet, then jumped, hurling himself twenty feet through the air and dropping twelve feet to the floor. He landed with a jar that seemed to loosen every joint in his body and every tooth in his head. His fall was cushioned by the sprawled body of a Thief, so he was on his feet again in a moment. As Blade rose, the barrels of the pile behind him began to give at the seams, leaking their oil into the fire. The blue flames blazed higher.

The Baran and the four men who'd caught him were already on their way toward the door. Blade looked around him. The warehouse was filling with smoke, but the light of the flames let him see that the fighting was nearly over. The floor was littered with bodies of both sides. Some of Kubin's men and the Dyes were dragging off struggling prisoners, while others tried to gather up the bodies of their comrades.

Blade stopped them. «No time for that,» he shouted. «We've got to get out of-«His words were lost as the whole pile of barrels erupted in flame. A roaring blue wall swept to within feet of Blade, swallowing most of the bodies and nearly catching several of the living men. They jumped back, beating out smoldering patches on trousers and tunics. One tore a flaming hood from his head just in time to keep his hair from catching fire. Then all of them were scurrying for the doors, with Blade bringing up the rear.

Blade had just reached the bottom of the steps up to the street when the flames reached the barrels along the wall. A score of them burst in a single moment, and it was as if someone had set off a bomb. Blade was thrown flat on the stairs, and got to his feet just in time to leap clear of a wave of blazing oil. He ran up the stairs and out into the cool fresh night air, sucking it into his lungs in great gulps. Behind him the cellar steadily filled with blazing oil, until the sea of fire was lapping halfway up the stairs.

They'd never learn anything useful from what was left in the warehouse, Blade knew. How much had they snatched clear of the battle and the flames?

At least the Baran was alive, although no thanks to the man himself! Blade sheathed his sword and turned to begin counting his men.