— YEZJARO

Chapter 20

The darkness around them was thick and silent. The heavy damp air caught and held a dozen different ghastly stenches from the garbage pit across the alley. Blade's black silk mask concealed his face from prying eyes, but it couldn't keep out the smell.

No doubt that was why Yezjaro had picked this spot for the rendezvous. No one would voluntarily linger in this reeking alley, not even a Hongshu agent trying to sniff out treason. He would sniff out too many other things and depart in haste.

Footsteps sounded to the left, toward the end of the alley. Blade saw Lady Musura's eyes flicker toward him. They flattened themselves against the flaking brick wall and drew their swords. Both wore black from head to foot, and even their swords had been dulled with soot to avoid reflecting the slightest gleam of light.

The footsteps continued, coming on lightly but fast. Then a figure appeared in the alley, dimly silhouetted against the pale light at the end. It seemed to hear or see something ahead. Then it stopped and spread out black-clad arms. It raised one hand high overhead, crooking the wrist to the left. It dropped the other hand down to its waist and made a V with thumb and forefinger.

That was Yezjaro's recognition signal. Blade and Lady Musura stepped out into the alley and approached the instructor. Like them, he wore only black. All they could see were his eyes. But there was a savage gleam of triumph and anticipation in those eyes. It brightened as he shook hands with both people. Then he turned and beckoned them to follow him.

«The others are already on their way to the first point.»

The «first point» was the entrance to the tunnels that led into the palace. Four men normally guarded it, four men from the households of the principal courtesans. Tonight they were four doomed men.

The three slipped through the dark streets of Deyun, swords sheathed but eyes searching constantly in all directions for any sign of spies or ambush. Blade found himself holding his breath from time to time, listening for the slightest sound. He heard only the soft patter of three sets of sandaled feet on the stones and an occasional snore or rattling shutter from the houses they passed.

What seemed like hours could only have been a few minutes. Then they were crossing a final street, with the walls and roofs of the palace at the far end, and darting into the shelter of another alley. Black-clad shapes lurked in all the corners and doorways along this alley. Yezjaro stepped forward and made his signal again. For a moment the darkness came silently alive with moving ghostly shapes. Then a more solid clump of darkness formed about halfway down the alley, in front of a high wooden gate in the wall.

There was a noble's garden beyond the wall as well as the concealed tunnel entrance with its four guards. Four guards who would have to die silently and swiftly before they could raise any sort of alarm or send any sort of warning.

Here was another call for Lady Musura's wall climbing talents. She quickly scanned the wall up and down, searching through the darkness for hand and footholds. Then she launched herself at the bricks. Once a foot scraped harshly across flaking brick, dislodging a few bits that pattered down into the alley. Everyone froze, hands on weapons. But after a moment it was clear that no one inside had heard. The men in the alley relaxed-as much as they could-while Lady Musura continued her climb.

Then she was on top of the wall, flattening herself there and craning her neck to look down into the garden. From the alley she was visible only as a low dark hump on top of the wall, moving slowly and sinuously. Blade knew she was unslinging a short bow and nocking a silent arrow to it.

Then in a single movement she leaped to her feet and raised her bow. At the same moment Blade and Yezjaro stepped up to the gate and rapped sharply on it with their sheathed short swords. Irritable voices sounded on the other side of the gate, then they heard the clank of a massive iron latch. The gate began to slide open, moving silently in a greased wooden slot. A bearded face under a leather helmet looked sourly out at them. Then startled eyes flared white in the face, and a mouth opened to shout.

The shout never came out. With one flick of his wrist Yezjaro unsheathed the short sword. With another flick he slashed it across the man's throat. Then he lunged forward with his other hand, grabbed the man by the beard, and pulled him forward as he died. His body sagged to the ground, pumping out blood and effectively jamming the gate open.

The first man's fall revealed two more standing behind him. Blade's arm snapped up, and a spear specially shortened for throwing at close quarters flashed through the opening. It took one of the men squarely in the right eye, driving into the brain. He was dead before he struck the ground.

The third man turned to dash for the rear of the garden and the tunnel entrance. As he left the shadow of the wall, there was a faint sssh and a louder thuck! of an arrow sinking into flesh. The man gasped, threw up his bands, staggered a few paces, then fell on his face. He landed with a splash in one of the ponds. As the ripples in the pond died away, silence descended on the garden again. The remaining guard was already dead, lying sprawled across the stone slab that concealed the tunnel entrance, one of Lady Musura's arrows in his throat.

All four guards were down, without a single unusual noise to warn anybody. Lady Musura jumped down from the top of the wall, landing feather-light from ten feet up. Yezjaro dragged the first guard's body out of the opening while Blade put his shoulder to the gate and pushed it the rest of the way open.

Doifuzan emerged from the darkness of the alley and looked down at the sprawled bodies. «We are well begun,» he said softly. Blade needed no reminding that these first four victims of the night would only be the first-and most likely by far the easiest.

The tunnel was much darker than the night above, and also damper, smellier, and much dirtier. In many places the roughly mortared stones dripped slime. Elsewhere they were encrusted with centuries of filth. It brushed off at the slightest touch, showering down on the twenty-nine uroi as they passed, powdering and caking their clothes. Blade suspected that if they hadn't already been wearing black, they would have been before they reached the far end of the tunnel.

They moved along at a swift trot, following the light from a single lantern Yezjaro carried in one hand. They moved with drawn swords, except for the six smallest uroi. These were enveloped from neck to ankles in the heavy green canvas cloaks the courtesans wore to protect their silk robes from the filth of the tunnels. These disguised men would be the first out of the tunnel at the end of the journey.

Blade was determined not to spend a single unnecessary minute in the tunnel. In fact, he found himself having to fight not to break from a trot into a run. Once they were loose in Lord Geron's house, it would be hard to keep them from doing a memorable night's work. But if an attack came here in the tunnel, they would be as helpless as kittens in a basket. They would die unsung and unhonored, and those few who heard the tale of the twenty-nine uroi of Lord Tsekuin would call it a tale of foolishly wasted lives.

In fifteen minutes they had reached the point where the tunnel branched. Blade knew they must now be well inside the walls of the Hongshu's palace. But that made no real difference. They were no less helpless against attack in the tunnel now than they had been before.

They did not halt until Yezjaro raised his lantern over his head and waved it three times. In the half-darkness ahead Blade saw a rusty iron ladder rising through the roof of the tunnel. At the base of the ladder was an iron plaque, also red with rust and green with slime. Under the rust and slime, Blade could make out the badge of Lord Geron.