A light flared in the center of the room.
Sunbright gulped. He thought "center," because the room used all six surfaces as floors. The room was huge, taking up the whole building like a cave, and intermediate floors had been built here and there, jutting from other floors at angles. Bookshelves stood head high on every floor, and open spots with tables and chairs broke up the center. Above their heads on an in-between floor, like a fly stuck to the ceiling, was a man with a fierce red beard and horsetail, and dark, unadorned clothes. He flicked his fingers and sent more balls of glowing energy spinning through the room. So Knucklebones wasn't the only one who could illuminate with her fingertips. With his free hand he tapped a silver coin on his belt.
"You're getting slow, Knuckle'," the man offered. "I got ahead of you."
Knucklebones didn't argue, only fled between bookshelves, leapt like a mountain goat, and gained another "floor." Chasing her, Sunbright was staring at the top of her head for an instant, then he stumbled and righted himself on what had been a wall. His eyes and stomach liked none of it, but he kept running.
To no avail. Every floor had a door looking out on a corridor, and each doorway was blocked by a man or woman. Green capes were thrown back to reveal a skull and crossbones painted on their black shirts. In the eerie light of the drifting glowlights, the crossed bones showed jagged breaks. Knucklebones backed into Sunbright.
The redheaded man quit the left-hand floor, strolled to a doorway, and slipped past an assassin. Sunbright assumed the tracker had found them, and now came the killing. The assassins toted either crossbows with silver-tipped quarrels or long bullwhips forked at the ends like a snake's tongue.
One of the assassins, a woman with blonde hair pulled back tightly, called, "You can leave, Knucklebones. The Bonebreakers have no quarrel with you, and you're not in the contract."
Sunbright drew Harvester and looked for a screen against crossbow bolts. It wasn't easy to find one, for the glowlights cast wide, square shadows that chased one another. This was a bad place for a flatlander to be fighting, he thought.
But even as his brain began to sing with a battle high, he marveled that Knucklebones knew every building in the city inside and out, and that everyone knew her.
The thief called, "Who bought you?"
The blonde shook her head while snapping the safety off her crossbow. But behind her came a crow of laughter. A young fop in a brocaded shirt, satin cape, small hat, and face powder stepped out. He panted, obviously having run to see the show.
"I hired them! Same as I bought the cooperation of the city guards. You killed a fistful of them, didn't you? But they wiped out your nest, I hear!"
For once, Knucklebones didn't know somebody. She asked Sunbright, "Who?"
"Hurodon, son of Angeni of the House of Dreng in the Street of the Golden Willows," growled the barbarian. "My biggest mistake so far. I should have torn his head off in the park."
Hurodon laughed. "If she's your friend, I'll pay for her too!"
The blonde woman nodded, called, "Sorry, Knuckle'. Nothing personal. Loose!"
As the four crossbows shot, Sunbright shoved Knucklebones headlong into a rack of books. The freestanding shelves had no backs, and the barbarian shoved hard. The thief catapulted into the books, knocked them out the other side, and tumbled after them. At the same time, Sunbright used the impetus of his shove to backpedal out of harm's way.
The four bolts arrived almost simultaneously, and acted like nothing Sunbright expected. They were mad as the rest of the room.
One bolt thumped a book sliding across Knucklebone's back. The red book was thick as a knapsack, yet the bolt penetrated so the head projected out the other side. A second bolt Sunbright spanked away with the flat of his blade. It shattered and clattered off the bookshelves. The third he never saw, for he was distracted by the fourth.
Unbelievably, he saw it strike the wooden floor but not break. Instead it ricocheted, bending in a curve for an instant to speed at him. A slap and sting banged his ham, and he knew he was shot. It was painful as a bear's bite. But it was a small bolt, and if he broke off the head "Don't break it!" Knucklebones screamed, diving through the bookshelf at him. "It digs itself deeper! Hold still!" And she yanked the barb free, the head bloody and clinging to shreds of Sunbright's meat. That hurt, like fire jabbed into a wound.
From somewhere he heard, "Close! Nock!"
"Split up!" Knucklebones yelled. Headlong she dived over the heap of books to take refuge in partial shadows.
"No!" shouted the barbarian. But she'd whisked out of sight.
Cursing, he knew why she'd done it. Thieves didn't fight, they fled. And if one of the gang were caught, splitting up would see the others free. So be it. He didn't have time to argue.
He ducked, then skidded on his boots and aching butt around the end of a bookcase. At the command, "Loose!" he jerked the bookcase down onto himself.
An enchanted bolt slammed the floor by his head, bent and spanked into the air. But it only tagged a cascading book, nicking the corner and spinning away. Another bolt splintered a wooden shelf.
A third ripped through his thigh.
Gasping at the searing pain, he reached behind his thigh, grabbed the shank of the arrow-it was made of some queer, pliable material unlike anything he'd ever felt-and ripped downward.
As if watching someone else suffer, he saw the black fletching protruding through his thigh disappear into the tanned flesh. A flare of agony blazed through him, then the arrow was clear. He hurled it away, red with his blood, sucked wind, and struggled up to find two assassins with whips closing at either hand. And Knucklebones nowhere in sight.
Sunbright tracked both of the assassins, flicking his head from side to side. He pushed the pain in his thigh out of his mind. Of course, it wasn't the first time he'd been shot with an arrow. As a boy, practicing, learning with the other boys, he'd often limp home, his aching body resembling nothing less than a pin cushion of little toy arrows. But then, these weren't toy arrows…
Keeping Harvester poised before him to strike either way, he tried to anticipate the assassins' next move. But these two, a man and woman, had worked together before.
At a "Hup!" they both curled their arms and lashed out perfectly in time. The black coils snapped at Sunbright, too close to his eyes. He jumped, but was caught by both wrists. Immediately, like wranglers taming a wild horse, they set their feet and pulled with the full weight of their bodies. Sunbright fought to keep from being spread-eagled, but he knew this was just a delaying tactic. They were merely holding him for — here they came. Two crossbowmen jogging through the stacks of books to aim and pierce him through.
He was pinned, surrounded, helpless and about to be shot. There was no way out.
Then he remembered. There was one more way…
Chapter 13
Black lengths of leather dug into Sunbright's wrists as the two Bonebreakers yanked so hard and viciously that the barbarian couldn't get a grip to shake them off. He was hard put to hang on to Harvester, and couldn't angle it to slice the thongs. The weird glowing lights bobbing throughout the room like will o'wisps cast long and short shadows that revolved like manic dancers, yet he saw two assassins take aim with their crossbows. He was blocked or threatened in every direction except from above, so that's the way he went.
With a mighty grunt, Sunbright clambered up the bookshelves. He wasn't sure what to expect, but if people could run across the "ceiling," and one "ceiling" was an intermediate floor not twenty feet away, then he could get there if he were desperate enough.
And he was certainly desperate enough.