"Sheathe your swords now," Gord said flatly to them, "and I will forget this incident. If you continue to attack me, I will give you no quarter."
"Kill!" urged the Shah Kufteer.
Somewhat uncertain now, the four warriors came against their opponent once again, obligated to obey their master's command but loath to face this small and terrible foeman.
To your deaths, then," Gord said without threat or emotion.
The guardsmen of the Shah of Wadlaoo did not take the easterner's words lightly, but they really had no choice. Not to attack him meant death to them as surely as if they did come on and the small man's warning came true. Kufteer would boil them alive for failure, while at the worst this Ourmi offered them a clean and quick end. The four warriors launched themselves nearly simultaneously at the lone foreigner, not bothering to organize a plan of attack. Furious blows, lunging thrusts, and a flurry of slashes poured upon the black-garbed man from front and sides. It was frustrating to these attackers, for the small foreigner never seemed to be where he had been but a split-second before when a tulwar was sent swishing toward him.
In the course of this confused series of exchanges, the four men seemed to get in each other's way, while the stranger's own weapons inflicted many wounds of small sort upon the sweating guardsmen. The crowd was silent, awed by the feats of this single man. First he had dispatched a deadly assassin, then a giant swordsman, both without emotion or seeming strain. A third man was helpless on the floor, as good as dead if not already gone. Now he contested to the death with four expert warriors all at once. He stood still unwounded, holding four large tulwars in play, while those who dared wield them against this black-clad man were dripping blood from wounds he had given them.
Events were becoming too much for the westerners in the audience to bear. The insult inherent in all this was unacceptable. Onlookers from Jakif, Tusmit, and Ekbir grew angry and loosened their own scimitars and curved-bladed daggers. The various nomad tribesmen in the crowd watched the show without apparent allegiance, commenting to one another on style and form as they viewed the display before them. Most of the Kettites, along with all of the eastern mercenaries, however, were rooting openly for the small man called Gord of Greyhawk. They cheered his successes and laughed at the clumsy attempts of the Jakifi to strike him.
It was becoming obvious to all that the melee could end only one way, and that ending must come soon. All of the Jakifi guardsmen were wounded and panting with fatigue from raising and swinging their large blades repeatedly. In no more than a minute or two, one of them would fall, then another. Soon, all of those who had come against the small man would litter the floor as three already did.
When yet one more corpse crashed to the tiled floor, the shah had seen enough – and Kufteer himself entered the fray. Although the noble's dagger had a jewel-encrusted hilt, its silvery crescent below these gems was sharp steel, highly functional, and glittering with a dark enchantment. Kufteer came in a silent rush from a point slightly behind Gord, heading toward the young man's left side, with his curved dagger held across his body, set to deliver a disemboweling stroke as the black-garbed easterner concentrated on the three guardsmen still standing before him.
Gord gave no indication that he knew Kufteer was coming, but at the last instant he sprang aside suddenly, allowing the startled Shah of Wadlaoo to pass on a slant in front of him. The wickedly gleaming blade of Kufteer's dagger cut empty air; then, with a cross-body thrust of his dagger into Kufteer's side and a shove of his left foot against the nobleman's hip, Gord pushed the shah off course right toward the exposed blades of his own guards. The nearest of the swordsmen tried to pull his weapon up and away, but succeeded only in running the edge along Kufteer's neck as he did so. The mouth tried to scream, but no sound came out as the nobleman crumpled in his tracks.
The guardsman whose weapon struck the blow stood frozen for an instant, horrified at what he had just done. Gord's weapons flashed again, and the Jakifi warrior no longer had to concern himself with having slain his master, for he too was a corpse. As the guardsman's body collapsed on top of Kufteer's, the two survivors dropped their tulwars and ran. They would rather risk being captured some time later, given a thousand cuts, and then rolled in salt until dead than continue to face this terrible, black-garbed man any longer.
Silence reigned in the wine house for the space of a heartbeat. The flesh of the blubbery proprietor shook as he peered angrily about his establishment and realized his plight. It was bad enough that this upstart had won – now the bargain could not be sealed, and Omar would lose the thousand gold dok-shees and the fabulous pearl. Worse yet, the death of so great a personage as the Shah of Wadlaoo in his establishment would probably bring the wrath of the shah's own ruler, the Marcher Lord of Ket, down upon his body. Trembling and growing more furious by the second, Omar realized that the young foreigner must be killed at any cost. He vented his wrath in a shrill scream, pointed at Gord, and shrieked an order to "Attack!"
Several of Omar's armed servants reluctantly approached the circle where Gord still stood amid the fallen forms of his adversaries. At the same time, an uproar of sound and activity spread through the audience; these men had had enough of watching.
"Hoddo Ekbir!"
"Veluna and Struthburt!"
"Tusmani Akbur!"
In seconds, a cacophony of battle-cries and challenges erupted and the place truly became a battleground of east versus west. Kettites fought on both sides, each according to his feelings at the moment, brawling and using blades. The eastern mercenaries and outlaws generally contended with the dark-skinned and turbaned westerners, while Gord stood alone, an island in the turmoil because no one dared deal with him. Off to his right he saw the Pearl of Perfection making her way toward him across an uncongested area; the young man she had been with was nowhere in sight. One of the fat owner's servants lunged at the girl as she got near Gord, but with a lunge of his own and a flash of steel, the young man handled the threat easily. Then the crowd lost all semblance of cohesion, and the surge of the melee engulfed the open space that had surrounded Gord just a moment before. The girl moved closer to Gord and grabbed his arm.
"Quickly – follow me!" the gorgeous girl shouted in his ear. Then her shapely arm released his, and she began running and dodging through the crowd of fighting men, heading for a curtained archway at the rear of the large court.
Gord ran after the nearly naked girl. The brawling seemed to ebb in an area she passed through; seemingly, no one wanted to be responsible for injuring this beautiful and coveted prize. Nobody directly attacked Gord either, for they all had seen what he could do, but the young easterner had to be constantly on the alert to avoid being stabbed or slashed by an inadvertent stroke as he darted along the same course the dancer had taken. Charging behind the girl through the still-swinging cloth that screened the portal, Gord found himself in a broad but ill-lighted hallway. He caught a glimpse of the Pearl's pale hair disappearing around a corner ahead. The smell of stale, spicy food was strong in here. He guessed that the girl was heading for the kitchen and some back exit, so the young swordsman dashed down the short passage and around the corner into a large room.
"Hurry!" she urged as Gord came into the deserted place. This was the cooking room, all right, but the cooks and scullions must have either joined the melee or fled earlier. "We must get away quickly," the Pearl said as she led Gord across the room, out another doorway, and through a small, walled garden. A tall man, his body covered by a voluminous burnous and his face veiled in the fashion of many Tusmit tribesmen, stood holding open a heavy back gate. At his feet was a guard; in the hand not holding his dagger was the dead man's robe.