He went to the door, glancing bemusedly at the carving knife. He had forgottento remove it. The women were not about to touch it. They were going to pretendhe was lord and master for a day or two.
He slipped the latch, drew a breath to speak as he started to pull the doorinward.
It slammed into him, knocking his breath out and hurling him back to land onhis seat. Two men charged inside. One tripped over his outstretched leg andplunged headlong into the opposite wall. Two more charged in behind the firsttwo. One stopped, held a knife at Aaron's throat. He gaped up at the man, lost.
The women started screaming.
A man in the doorway snapped, "Hurry up and grab him, damn it!"
One inside said, "Where the hell is he? Ho. There."
Laella shrieked, "Arif! No!"
Mish came flying across the room, landed on the back of the man threatening Aaron. Aaron staggered to his feet while he was distracted. He tried to slamthe door. It smacked into the man standing in the doorway.
Old Raheb smashed a heavy crock down on the head of the man who had chargedinto the wall.
Aaron grabbed the carving knife and stuck it into the man who had threatenedhim. He did not remember anything they had taught him in the army. There wereno thoughts in his head, just rage and terror. He stuck the knife in and itlodged between ribs.
One of the two still standing flung Laella across the room. The remaining mangrabbed Arif, turned, kicked Raheb in the stomach, headed for the door whilehis companion tried to lift the man the old woman had crowned.
Aaron grabbed at the knife dropped by the man he had stuck. The man carryingArif saw him blocking the way and in his eyes Aaron saw the dawning fear thathe was not going to get out of this place.
The edge of the door slammed into Aaron's back. The man carrying Arif struckhim in the side of the neck with a clumsy blow and bulled past. Outside, somebody yelled, "Ish! Trouble!"
The last man dumped his burden and charged. He kneed Aaron in the face, viciously, before going out.
After a moment, Aaron recovered himself, seized the knife. Bleeding from mouthand nose, he stumbled into the street, chasing the screams of a boy crying forhis dad.
Yoseh and Nogah were near the mouth of the alley when the screaming started.
They stepped out, looked down the street, saw what was happening. Nogahwhirled and yelled, "Come on!" into the alley, then headed for the action.
A man popped out of shadow, yelled, "Ish! Trouble!" and tried to head themoff.
Nogah cut him down with his saber.
Yoseh carried a javelin. He flung it a moment later, at a man who came intothe street carrying Arif. He threw without worrying about the boy, a perfectcast that struck the man square in the center of the chest.
Another man grabbed the struggling child. Another came out the doorway. Morecharged out of the darkness downhill. Dartars poured out of the alley behindYoseh.
The man with the child went to his belt in exactly the way that man in thealley had the other day. Yoseh threw his forearm across his eyes and tried toshout a warning to the others.
Intense light. Screams. Yoseh flung his arm down and ran forward. The man withthe boy dropped his own arm, was astounded to find he was being rushed by aDartar with a knife.
His hand went back to his belt.
Yoseh covered up again. The din rose to a ferocious level as Dartars from thealley, come out too late to be blinded, attacked anyone not wearing black. Menscreamed. The child-stealers did not have weapons to fight swords andjavelins. Nogah yelled, "Don't kill them all! Take some prisoners!"
There was no second blinding flash. Instead, Yoseh took a blow to the bellylike the kick of a mule. He went down, gagging, unable to draw a breath. Hisstomach emptied. Even after there was nothing more to throw up the heavescontinued.
He was vaguely aware of the villain moving away, of Medjhah arriving just intime to keep Kosuth from skewering Arif s father, of a quick passage at armsin which Medjhah and Kosuth murdered another of the child-takers, then he wason his feet again with the help of the boy's father.
The man who had Arif ducked into the first alley downhill, on the north sideof Char Street. Yoseh yanked his javelin out of the man he had hit earlier. Heand the boy's father took up the chase, stumble-running like a couple ofdrunks in the direction of Arif s screams.
Azel shook his head as the Dartars came piling out of Tosh Alley. That dumbshit Ishabal did not know they were there. Fool. Why hadn't he scouted thearea again before he made his move? Now he would pay.
Ishabal used some flash. Big deal. That wasn't going to change anything now.
Whoa! What was this?
Four men charged into the chaos from up the street.
Azel chuckled. Those were Bruda's boys, come to see about the ruckus. Theymust have followed Ishabal's men when they'd lost him.
The Dartars didn't give a shit who they worked for. They weren't wearingblack. They piled on.
Ha! Ishabal had given up on flash and changed to punch. He'd opened a clearpath out, downhill, and he wasn't wasting it.
Azel prized himself up off the roof and bounded away, muttering because hismuscles had stiffened up in the few minutes he had lain there in the cool anddamp.
It was easy to figure what a man was going to do when you knew what he had todo. Ishabal had to shut that kid up or he wasn't going to get away. And he hadto do it without hurting the kid or the whole exercise was pointless. He wouldneed a lead, which he had, then a place where he could get his back to a wallfor a minute.
Azel knew a perfect place. If Ishabal had done his scouting right, he wouldknow it, too, and would be headed there right now.
Azel took the shorter, straighter route over the rooftops.
The place was a cul-de-sac between buildings, three feet wide and ten deep, black as Nakar's heart inside, a deathtrap that would be avoided by anyone notarmed with the confidence that came of having flash and punch and whatever else at hand.
Azel dropped into that place and folded himself up in a ball in the back, waited, wondered if he would stiffen up too soon.
Ishabal came, a vagueness moving in blackness. He faced out of the narrowplace and went to work doing whatever he needed to do to quiet the brat down.
Azel used the last of the racket to cover whatever sound he made unwinding andmoving forward.
He did something to give himself away. The vagueness that was Ishabalstiffened, started to react an instant before Azel set the point of his knifeagainst his spine and said, "Don't."
Ishabal froze. "Azel?"
"You really screwed it up, Ish. Going to have the whole city going crazy, trying to figure it out. And they're going to figure it once they startdigging."
"I told them. They don't care. She says this kid is the one she wants. Look, we got to get out of here. They aren't that far behind me."
Ishabal was pretty good. Azel almost missed the minuscule warning hitch as hewent to his belt. Almost.
Azel thrust. Ishabal bucked away from the killing blade. The flash packet flewfrom his fingers unopened, hit, spilled a few grains, began to burn slowlyinstead of exploding. Azel pushed the dying man away and squatted to collectthe now unconscious boy.
A foot scraped. He looked up into the eyes of the same Dartar he'd run intotwice before.
He clamped down on the rage that seized him, surged upward, flung the boytoward the sky, so that the upper half of his body landed on the roof and heldhim there. Then he faced the Dartar and his companion in the light of thesmoldering flash.
So. He would leave them here with Ishabal. It would make a fine puzzle forwhoever found them, the three of them all dead and the boy gone.
"You just got in my way one time too many, camel boy. This one is the lasttime." He moved forward.
In response the Darter uncovered his face. Hell. He wasn't nothing but a kid.
A shaky kid carrying a knife in his left hand, with his right hand tucked upbehind him like he was wounded or something.