Sworn in Steel

Chapter Twenty

I left the Dog Gate as the night was beginning to pick up in the Old City. Lanterns flared, torches burned, and Djanese Mouths juggled tiny rainbows and offered to sell charms to the crowds to light their way.

The displays played hell on my night vision, and I found myself drifting toward the back streets despite the greater risk. That helped a bit, but even here lights burned and revelers shouted, neither of which did much good for the budding ache at the back of my head. Part of the sensitivity, I knew, was simple fatigue; but just as much was coming from the charge the ahrami was giving me.

As I’d hoped, Heron had not only left our daily stipend with the guard; he’d also included a down payment on the ahrami he’d promised me. A letter had chastised me-mildly-for missing the appointment, but I got the impression that Heron had half expected me to get lost, or distracted, or the like. Our next meeting, he’d written, would be in two days’ time, and this one I was expected to make.

As for the requested extension of the performance date, there was no mention. I chose to read the silence as a ploy to keep me hungry, rather than him avoiding bad news. Either way, though, it meant we’d have to operate on the old timetable until we heard otherwise.

Tobin wouldn’t like that. Tough shit: Neither did I.

I slipped two more ahrami into my mouth, bringing the total up to six-or was it seven? — since I’d left the padishah’s gate. I could feel my pulse surging at my temple now. Soon enough, the flush of those latest seeds would pass, and that thrumming would become a steady beat of pain.

What I needed, I knew, was sleep: What I was going to get, though, was another night full of seeds and coffee and questions. Rest would come in the morning, when both the back alleys and my night vision went to bed.

I paused on a few street corners, stopped to watch a handler and his trained fox perform, lost a handful of supps at a street-side mags table, and even managed to find a snake-baiting ring, but all the while, I kept working my way back toward the Imperial Quarter. It’s not that I didn’t want to work the street: I did. It drove me nearly to distraction to have to stick to the streets and alleys, rather than jump to the roofs or dive myself down into the connected cellars and hidden ways that ran through every city, but I was still too fresh to the Old City to slip those paths yet. Without a guide, or a name to use as my passport, the odds of me stumbling across trouble rather than answers was high. And while I might welcome the opportunities even the occasional bit of bluff and blood could lead to, I wasn’t about to pursue them with Heron’s ready, not to mention my stash of ahrami, still on me for the plucking.

I slipped back into the Imperial Quarter with a nod and a pair of small bribes for the guards at the gate-one for the Djanese patrol on the outside, and another for their imperial counterparts standing just within the sally port. I made a mental note to see if the same swads were on duty every night. If so, it would likely be cheaper to pay them for a week at a time, rather than on a nightly basis, to forget my comings and goings.

Unlike portions of el-Qaddice, the Imperial Quarter was dark and quiet. Oh, taverns still spilled light out into the darkness and late-night hawkers chanted out wares-and offers-from street corners, but the level of activity didn’t compare. Just as the walls separated Imperial from Djanese, so did they lock out the differing schedules. Both peoples might share the same sky, but it was clear that, at least in the empire’s case, we weren’t about to bow down to it. Here in the Quarter, food and clothing and weather aside, the empire still held sway.

Or so we wanted to think. Me, I knew better, as did the two Cutters who stepped out in front of me five blocks from the Angel’s Shadow.

I stopped. They smiled. They were the same coves that Fat Chair had sent to escort me to his sedan chair.

Well, shit.

It was a good place for an ambush: We were on a narrow street, well past one curve and not quite to another, meaning no one would be able to see us from farther along the way. The walls were blank on either side, with the only opening being a gated archway several feet past my ambushers. I looked over my shoulder; sure enough, there was two more figures back there, too. And I could guarantee we were outside whatever perimeter Fowler had managed to set up.

I looked back and forth, judging distances, and checked the walls again: tall, with smooth tops shining in the moonlight. That was good, in that it meant they likely didn’t have broken shards of glass and pottery cemented atop them to keep people like me out, but bad in that the walls were too tall and smooth for me to do anything with. Maybe if I had some rope and a crawler’s crown, but a grapnel wasn’t something I’d planned on needing tonight.

Metal hissed as steel cleared leather. I turned back the way I’d been going to see the native tough holding a short, straight Djanese duelist’s sword in one hand and a brass buckler in the other. The imperial Cutter beside him had a slightly longer, thinner blade. Behind me, I’d already seen a brace of small axes and a short, ball-headed mace and knife.

None were rapiers by any means, which gave me the advantage of reach, but considering the circumstances, that didn’t count for much.

I cleared my sword and drew my boot knife, making sure the moonlight slid along their lengths as I did so. Where the hell was Degan, or even Wolf, for that matter, when I needed them?

“We have a message for you,” said the man with the sword and buckler.

“I don’t suppose it’s in the form of a folded piece of paper, is it?” I said.

The man didn’t even blink.

“You were warned,” said the Zakur. “You ignored my lord’s warning, refused to hand over the magic you brought into el-Qaddice, and continue to intrude on his business. You insult him with your very presence.”

“If I’d known it was that easy to insult your boss, I’d have done it sooner.”

The Cutter struck his buckler with the flat of his blade, sending a flat clang echoing up and down the street. “Now you’ll learn what it means to cross the Zakur-Mulaad!” he snapped. He leaned forward and extended both arms for-ward, laying the buckler over the sword guard so they could function as one entity. He looked very comfortable doing it.

I didn’t wait for the others to come on guard; didn’t wait for any commands to be given; didn’t wait for him to start moving forward. I simply turned and ran at the two Cutters behind me.

It stood to reason that the man delivering the message was the best hitter in the crew. That’s how Cutters tend to work, and, more important, how most bosses tend to think: Give the toughest muscle the orders and let him keep the rest in line. If you needed something more complex, you sent someone besides a Cutter-say an Arm, or maybe a Bender.

So, Sword and Buckler was in charge. That meant there was no way in hell I was going to face him in a fair-or even an unfair-fight if I could help it.

The two Cutters in back didn’t seem overly surprised that I’d chosen to close with them. They did, however, widen their eyes when I threw my boot knife from a handful of paces away.

I aimed at the one with the axes-specifically, at his head. I didn’t expect the knife to land, didn’t even throw it well enough to have much of a chance of hitting. All I wanted was for them to see a threat in the moonlight and react. They did.

Axes stepped back and pivoted, moving to let the knife slip by, while his partner dropped down low. Unfortunately for Axes, his movement also caused him to lower his weapons in an attempt to lessen his profile. That left the opening I’d been hoping for.

I lunged toward Axes’ middle with my rapier, then quickly redirected the blade in midmotion as the Cutter with the mace tried to take advantage of my attack and come in on my exposed side.

My rapier’s tip slashed across Mace’s shoulder and upper chest before his momentum drove the blade into the notch below his neck. There was a brief moment of resistance before cartilage gave way to my steel; then I was pulling my blade out and away, opening the side of his neck as I frantically backed away from the ax that was coming at my head.

The man with the axes was faster than I’d expected. The first blade passed so close to my face I suspect I could have seen my reflection in it if it had been daylight out. As for the second, it followed quickly after, arcing down and in from my left.

I raised my sword, but knew it wouldn’t be enough: My guard was weak, my blade pointed the wrong way. Without thinking, I brought my empty left hand up. If I was lucky, I’d only lose a couple of fingers while trying to stop the ax; I wasn’t feeling particularly lucky.

Then the ax jerked to a stop in midswing.

The man’s expression went from elation to confusion in an instant. It was followed almost immediately by a look of pain as his arm jerked back and blood blossomed along his side in one, two, three spots.

He howled. The ax fell.

It was then that I noticed the the blotch of shadow running around his elbow, almost as if someone I couldn’t see had wrapped her arm around the joint and pulled Axes off-balance so she could stab him at leisure.

I would advise you to not rest too easily, she had said in the cellar. You are marked.

Shit. Neyajin.

I leapt back as Axes’ body fell away from me, my eyes searching the street for hints of blurred, oily motion. Back the way I had come, I could see the lead Zakur already down on his knees, sword arm hanging useless at his side, the buckler covered in blood as he held it over the gash in his chest. His partner was halfway up the opposite wall, legs kicking, hands grabbing at the rope that led from his neck to the roof above. I couldn’t see anyone at the other end of the line, but that didn’t stop the man from ascending the wall, one short jerk at a time.

Not just one assassin, then. Wonderful. And here I stood, marked-whatever the hell that meant.

I put my sword before me, paused, then spun, figuring the best place to find an assassin is behind you. They must have known that trick, too, because as soon as I turned, a bag was dropped over my head from what had just been my front.

I swung my rapier across my body, bringing it around so the point faced behind me on my left side, and thrust. All it found was air. I immediately pivoted to my right and swung the elbow of my sword arm back. That met meaty resistance. I smiled as I heard a whuff! of surprise near my ear.

Then a steel edge found my throat, and I froze.

“I told you you were marked, jeffer ani,” hissed a familiar woman’s voice, only slightly ragged from her encounter with my elbow. “Drop your steel.”

I opened my hand and let my sword clatter to the street.

The blade at my neck went away, and was replaced a moment later by something hard to the back of my head. I staggered, found the ground, and stayed there. I wasn’t about to push matters. I just hoped I didn’t throw up with the bag still over my head.

“Bind him and bring him,” said a man’s voice from somewhere above me. It was reedy, but also used to giving commands.

I couldn’t have resisted if I wanted to; things were fuzzing in and out around me. The next thing I remembered was finding my wrists and ankles bound, and having the distinct sensation of being carried. It felt like a short distance, but there were enough lights flickering in my head that I couldn’t be sure whether time and I were still on speaking terms.

After a bit, the sounds became closer, telling me we were inside. A door closed. Then I was set down on the floor. Hands ran over me, drawing steel, unbuckling my sword belt, checking the pouch about my neck. I held still as I felt fingers cross over the portion of my doublet where I’d stitched Jelem’s packet into the padding, but they moved on without pause. The bag smelled like apples.

My bonds were cut.

I waited for the lights in my head to fade, then reached up and pulled off the bag.

The room was dark and empty of furnishings: just me in the center and my weapons piled up in the corner. And Angels knew how many assassins I couldn’t see with my night vision.

I sat up slowly and rubbed at the back of my head. My hand came away dry, which was something. I took a couple of deep breaths, let them out, looked around room again. There-the sliver of an outline of someone’s foot, and there-what looked like the faint curve of. . a scabbard? A bent leg? Hard to tell.

I looked from the foot to the scabbard and back again. Then I threw the empty bag at the foot.

A slippery flash of action, a hint of blurred amber to my eyes, and the foot was gone. More important, the bag changed direction in midair: blocked, or cut down. Either way, it told me what to expect.

I looked back over at my steel. Yes, definitely bait.

I rested my hands on my thighs.

“I’m not stupid,” I said.

“I can see that,” said the man’s thin voice. He was behind me, where I hadn’t seen anything but blank wall, where I still couldn’t see anything but a blank wall when I turned. “But it’s best to be certain.”

“You can be certain I’m not going to go for the blades.”

“I can see that, too.”

Silence.

“Well?” I said. And they came at me.

Not all at once, but in quick succession. Blurs of amber, hints of motion-hands, feet, elbows, knees. I tumbled and stumbled and blocked and voided, flinching away from every movement I saw, real or imagined. Duck a hand here, avoid a body there, fall back from a sweep more by luck than planning, throw in a punch or two for good measure. One even connected, albeit fleetingly. The grunt of surprise was a reward all its own.

Through it all, I was pushing myself, pushing my night vision to see. It couldn’t just be the motion that helped me make them out: I’d seen the foot before all this had started, had caught sight of the scabbard, or whatever the hell it was, in the stillness. There had to be some way to single them out, to pull them away from the midnight they were wearing. Didn’t there?

I was still straining my eyes when a foot caught me square in the chest. For the briefest instant-the moment between when the kick landed and my body reacted-I saw the shape of the neyajin, leg out, body back, arm thrust toward the floor to add power to the kick. Then she disappeared, and I was falling back. I hit the floor hard, not so much rolling with the blow as crumpling from it.

“Jeffer ani,” she said in the darkness, her voice cold with judgment.

“Aribah. .,” said the man, naming my attacker. His voice was equal parts warning and exasperation.

The girl sniffed, not even trying to hide the sound of her steps as she walked away from me.

So, a test. But for me, or for them?

I took a ragged breath. Either way, I didn’t know how much more I could take, but I knew how much more I was willing to accept.

I sat up and rested my hands on my knees.

“Enough,” I said, forcing myself to relax, to not search out the next attack. “I’m not going to dance in the darkness for your entertainment. If you want to knock the hell out of me, have at, but I refuse to be your moving practice target.”

“If this were a ‘dance,’ Imperial, you’d be laid out on the floor by now,” said the man, off to my right now, moving around me. “I just wanted to confirm what I’d been told about you.”

“And that is?”

Silence in the darkness. Then, “Light the lantern.”

I closed my eyes and ducked my head. A moment later flint struck steel, lighting tinder. Shortly after that, I caught the flicker of flame through my eyelids. I opened my eyes slowly, letting the candle light work its way past my night vision until the burning ceased.

There were three of them. It had felt like more in the dark. They stood, waiting, in a tight triangle before me.

For some reason, I’d been expecting the neyajin to be wearing black, but instead they were covered in a deep, almost shimmering indigo. Two wore kaffiyehs, while the third-the woman, judging by the lines of her clothing-favored a tightly wrapped turban. All had the lower parts of their faces covered by the ends of their head cloths. Their feet and hands were bare, yet had the same deep, midnight purple tint as their clothing. Dye, or something else, I wondered?

The figure directly before me crouched down on his haunches. His robes were both finer and more worn that the others’, and covered over by a loose outerrobe of the same material.

He reached up and pulled the tail of his kaffiyeh away, revealing an untinted mouth and jaw. Coarse white stubble covered his chin, and when he smiled, I was put in mind of a jackal baring his teeth. Shaggy white eyebrows-temporarily tinted blue-hung down over a pair of dark, red-rimmed eyes.

“I wanted to know whether or not you had the dark sight, of course,” he said, his voice just as thin and raspy as it had been in the street. “And whether we could steal it from you.”