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.