Gerrard knew it was now or never. He fell to his knees, gasping, and vomited into the gutter-that much was not acting. "Water! I need some water!"
Takara's hands fidgeted on his shoulders as she relayed the message to the laughing guards.
"You, there, kid," Gerrard called, gesturing to a familiar lad with tousled black hair.
"I'm not a damned kid," Atalla spat back, though he gave a wink.
"Bring me something to drink! Wine would be good."
Nodding, Atalla darted away through the market. His cloak flashed tan beside a vintner's stall. His hands darted atop a pile of burgeoning wineskins, and he snatched one. Holding it high, he waved the skin overhead and darted back toward Gerrard.
A roar of protest rose behind him, and a morbidly obese wine seller trundled in fury after the thief.
Atalla arrived, sandals skidding on cobblestones.
"Great work, kid-sorry, Master Atalla," Gerrard said, his smile turned down into the gutter. "Quick, pull the cork, give me a sip, and dump the rest on the ground."
Atalla worked deftly.
"When the captain of the guard comes," Gerrard continued, "get his keys."
The merchant stomped up behind Atalla and caught him up by his collar. The wineskin lay empty on the pavement, and wine and vomit mingled in the gutter.
"Thief!" the wine seller roared. "I'll cut off your hand!"
Gerrard stood, towering over the merchant. "Let him go! He's no thief! I sent him to fetch some wine for my master."
"Your master?" the merchant asked.
Rattling the chains at his wrists, Gerrard said, "I am but a slave to the captain of the guard. He uses me to taste his food and wine, for he fears poisoning. Your wine tasted to me of poison, and I vomited it there, in the gutter." A wry light shone in his glinting eyes. "I know what to do with rubbish!"
"Rubbish? Poison?" the vintner shouted in a pique. He dropped Atalla like a rag doll. "Your master will pay for this poison!"
The captain of the guard arrived, barking questions in High Mercadian.
"Don't pay him, sir," Gerrard said, gesturing emphatically toward the gutter. His jangling chains helped to draw attention away from Atalla. "I've never tasted such putrid bile in all my life!"
"Putrid bile?" the merchant shouted. He quivered with rage. His burgundy-dyed robe swayed dangerously. "You'll pay! You'll pay!"
The captain glowered at the merchant, oblivious to the dangerous operation occurring even then at his own belt. He shouted an indecipherable warning.
"He wants to trade me for the wine," Gerrard proposed.
The merchant gasped, a breath like a huge hiccough. "I'd rather own a one-eyed syphilitic donkey than an idiot slave such as you!"
"A donkey might like your wine," Gerrard agreed.
More shouts indecipherable, more threats, more bluster…
Gerrard leaned conspiratorially toward the captain of the guard to whisper in his ear (in fact, he extended shackled hands to Atalla, who quickly tried key after key). "I think the vintner is calling you a syphilitic donkey."
Giving an inarticulate cry of rage, the captain raised his trident to skewer the merchant. Metal lanced downward.
The wine seller squealed and rolled back on his round haunch.
The shackles fell from Gerrard's wrists. He snatched the trident in the air before it could fall and brought its butt swinging about. The shaft struck the guard captain in the side of the face, sending up a cloud of dust.
The Mercadian tottered for a moment like a dizzy top and then went down.
Gerrard gave a whoop and whirled the trident again, bashing back the soldiers who swarmed him. Meanwhile, Atalla crawled among the other prisoners, fitting the master key to the shackles. Takara was free, and then Starke, Sisay, and Hanna…
Tahngarth was too impatient. He lunged toward a nearby stall, snatched up a striva, and brought the heavy blade smashing down on the chain. It clove the inferior metal easily. Tahngarth sloughed off the shackles and lifted the weapon high. Merchants, and soldiers, and even Squee fell fearfully back from him.
For his part, Squee scampered up a similarly imposing figure-Karn. Being a pacifist, Karn would probably be an island of calm in the sea of swords. Squee shinnied up the chains that wrapped Karn's torso and flung his arms around the silver man's massive neck.
Karn opened his mouth, apparently to console the goblin. Instead he bit down on the chain that held Squee. It severed in two places, and Karn spit out the shattered links.
"Return the favor?" he asked Squee. "Lift one of my chains into my mouth."
Squee did. In moments, the whole mass of chain-and the goblin clinging to it-cascaded down to the street. Karn lifted his arms. Dirt poured from the gritty joints. Sunlight gleamed off his massive figure, and the crowd fell back again.
Not all of the crowd. Though their captain lay in the middle of the road, feigning unconsciousness, other soldiers fought inward. Their tridents slashed and jabbed among canvas stalls.
Sisay, Takara, and Gerrard parried easily with the weapons they had snatched. Tahngarth's striva merely clove any haft that came nearby. Always ingenious, Hanna had retreated to a fruit cart and thrust vast purple melons onto the tridents. Inspired by her valor, Squee clambered behind the cart and pelted the soldiers with hale nuts and simsass fruits.
Karn found he need only bellow and wave his arms menacingly to keep the soldiers at bay.
"As soon as the rest are free," Gerrard hissed to Takara as he flung back a pair of attackers, "scatter and blend. We'll meet again tonight by that big tower. Pass the word."
She was telling Sisay and Hanna when a new threat arrived.
At the lower end of the road, a huge shadow appeared. The creature that cast it was larger still. The color, height, and general bulk of an adobe house, the giant lumbered up to survey the scene. Its black hair dripped grease across a rumpled forehead and squinting eyes. It blinked in indecision. Soldiers behind it prodded it forward with tridents. Muscles rippling across its broad chest, the giant strode toward the melee.
"Karn!" Gerrard shouted. "Engage that giant!"
"I will not fight!" the pacifist called back. It was a foolish announcement there and then. Soldiers approached the golem.
In exasperation, Gerrard flattened another guard and shouted. "If you won't fight him, detain him."
"How?"
"I don't know! Dance with him!"
"Dance?" Karn asked as the giant loomed up.
"Hold him tight! That's an order!"
With a deft move that belied his bulk, Karn reached out, grasped the giant about the waist, and flung him into a heady spin. Karn held on tightly. He whistled a hornpipe he'd heard aboard Weatherlight, and his feet pounded out a precise imitation of the reels he'd seen Sisay perform. However, the effect was somewhat different. The giant was not a good dancer. It did not even seem to be trying. When its feet were not stomping down atop Karn's, they were smashing bookstalls or overturning juice carts or caving walls. Its hand motions were also a bit abrupt, more roundhouse than rondo. Still, Karn did not give up on his student-as long as no one got hurt, what was the harm?
Laughing, Gerrard turned from that scene to one less funny.
On the high end of the road, Mercadian soldiers escorted another creature to the scene. This monster's eyes glowed orange within a skull that was molded in green muscle. Two pairs of buglike mandibles extended from its cheeks and jowls. They hungrily shivered beside its fangs. From its shoulders sprouted a pair of venous humanlike arms ending in claws. Another pair of arms emerged behind the first, these tipped in wicked barbs. The thing's muscular abdomen was perched atop legs worthy of a drake, complete with eviscerating talons.
"A cateran enforcer," hissed Atalla, scrambling up beside Gerrard. "They're the meanest mercenaries the Mercadians have. I'm getting out of here. You should too. Your folk are all free."