Bahzell cursed and stepped back. His foot hooked under the trestle bench he’d been seated upon, and his lead attacker ducked frantically as its heavy wooden seat exploded upward. He managed to evade it, but three others went down, tangling their fellows, and Bahzell’s ears were flat to his skull as he went for the leader.
He didn’t know who these people were, but each of them carried a shortsword-the longest weapon a man could expect to conceal under a tunic or smock-in one hand and a knife in the other, and they knew what to do with them. Neither hradani had expected trouble, and their armor and swords had been left in their room, but Bahzell’s dagger was as long as most human shortswords . . . and he, too, knew what he was doing.
His would-be killer came at him in a strange, circling stance Bahzell had never seen before, sword advanced and knife held back at his hip, and the hradani’s empty left hand spread wide. He had no time for subtlety against so many enemies, and he took a chance and lunged.
The sword darted out as he’d expected, engaging his dagger, and the knife drove forward for his belly, but his left hand struck like a serpent. Fingers of steel clamped the man’s wrist. They yanked him close, a tree-like knee rammed up between his legs, and Bahzell’s dagger slipped free of his sword as he convulsed in agony. The blade twisted in, driving up under his arm, and blood sprayed from his mouth as he went down with a gurgling scream.
Steel clashed to Bahzell’s left as he kicked the dying man aside. Brandark had reacted almost as quickly as his friend, tossing his balalaika to one of his fellow musicians with one hand while the other went to his own dagger. The local caught the instrument in sheer reflex, then yelled in panic and scrambled for safety as the killers stormed forward.
Customers scattered like quail, and someone shrieked and folded forward as Brandark opened his belly. The horrible sound died with chilling suddenness as the Bloody Sword drove his dagger into the nape of his victim’s neck like an ice pick, but three more attackers vaulted over the trio Bahzell’s bench had felled, and the Horse Stealer sprang back to get his back to the hearth.
Brandark fell in beside him, as if summoned by telepathy, and a third would-be killer fell to writhe and scream in the sawdust as Bahzell ducked and hooked a vicious upward thrust into his groin. A sword hissed at the Horse Stealer’s face, and he was just too slow to dodge. It opened his cheek from eye to chin, but the man behind it paid with his life. He went down, momentarily entangling the man beside him, and Bahzell roared as he caught the encumbered man by the throat and drove his dagger up under his sternum.
A wild, fierce war cry split the air beyond the attackers, and steel flashed in the lamplight as the bouncer brought down the broadsword his brother had tossed him from under the bar. It caught a man between neck and shoulder, and the dead man went down shrieking, but Bahzell had no time to see more than that. The innocent bystanders had disappeared through windows and doors or under tables; the taproom was clear now, and he’d been wrong about the numbers. At least a dozen men were still trying to kill him, and the world dissolved into a boil of confusion as they very nearly succeeded.
Steel clashed, someone’s blood soaked his right arm to the elbow, he heard Brandark gasp at his side, the bouncer’s shrill war cries echoed in his ears, and even through that howling bedlam he heard the sharp, musical snap of a bowstring. A slash got through to his left arm, but he sensed it coming and managed to avoid the worst of it. It opened his forearm from wrist to elbow, but the messy cut was shallow, and even as the sword went back for another thrust, he brought his boot heel down on its wielder’s instep. Bone crunched, the attacker screamed and faltered, and Bahzell slashed his throat.
Someone else disappeared from in front of him, and the bouncer leapt through the gap. He slotted into place between the two hradani, his broadsword trailing gory spray as he hacked down yet another attacker. The bowstring twanged again, and then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.
Bahzell braced his shoulders against the mantel, feeling the fire’s heat against his back, and breath rasped in his lungs as his eyes darted about in search of fresh threats. But there were none. Sixteen bodies lay leaking blood into the sawdust, and he lowered his dagger slowly.
The bouncer sighed beside him and lowered his own weapon, and the Horse Stealer gave him a quick look of thanks, then stepped past him as Brandark sat down very carefully. His left leg was soaked with blood, and Bahzell knelt to rip his trouser leg open, then sagged in relief. The cut was ugly, but it was in the meaty part of the thigh, just below the hip, and it hadn’t gotten deep enough to sever muscles or tendons.
The Horse Stealer reached out to rip a bandage from a dead man’s tunic, but the bouncer shouldered him aside.
“See to yourself, hradani,” he said gruffly, and Bahzell slumped back on his heels and looked bemusedly down at his own bleeding arm.
Feet pattered down the stairs, and then strong, slender hands were ripping his sleeve apart. It was Zarantha, with Tothas’ quiver over her shoulder. The Spearman’s strung horsebow lay beside her in the sawdust as she muttered under her breath and probed the cut carefully, and Rekah came more slowly downstairs behind her with Tothas’ saber clutched in both hands.
He hissed in pain as Zarantha turned his arm to get better access, then looked away while she wound a clean cloth-gods only knew where she’d gotten it-and knotted it tight. Four of the bodies, he noted with curious detachment, had arrows in their backs or chests. He started to comment on the fact, but Zarantha gripped his chin and turned his head to examine his freely bleeding cheek.
“I thought,” she said between gritted teeth as she wiped blood from the wound, “that I told you two not to get into any brawls!”
Chapter Nineteen
The landlord astonished Bahzell. He summoned the Guard, but, despite the carnage, he didn’t even consider turning his unchancy guests out.
Some of that might have been because of the bouncer. The brothers had a brisk discussion while they awaited the Guard’s arrival, and it turned even brisker when the bouncer bent and ripped open a dead man’s smock to bare his left shoulder. Bahzell watched them bend over the corpse while Zarantha set neat, painful stitches in his gashed cheek, then touched her gently on the shoulder and crossed the sawdust to them.
“My thanks, friend,” he rumbled to the bouncer, and the man shrugged.
“It’s my job to keep people from being murdered in the taproom.”
“Aye, that may well be, but I’m thinking it was more than your job to get involved against those odds for folk you don’t know.” Bahzell clasped his forearm. “My name is Bahzell Bahnakson, of Hurgrum, and if there’s ever aught I or anyone from Hurgrum can be doing for you, be pleased to let me know it.”
“I may just do that, friend Bahzell,” the bouncer said with a tight smile, “and while we’re naming names, I’m Talamar Ratherson, and this-” he jabbed a thumb at the landlord “-is my brother Alwith.”
“It’s pleased I am to know you both.” Bahzell clasped Alwith’s arm in turn, and the landlord gripped back, but there was a worried light in his eyes.
“I’d say you’ve an enemy somewhere,” Talamar went on, pointing to the body, and Bahzell’s ears flattened as he saw the scarlet scorpion tattoo.
“Aye, it seems I have that,” he said softly, and his mind raced. Dog brothers set on to assassinate Kilthan might make some sort of sense, despite the risk, but why should they try to kill him now that he was no longer even in the dwarf’s employ? Unless . . .
“What’s this?” Brandark had hobbled over and stood beside him, glowering down at the tattoo.