Finally Giraz, chief of the Eyes of the Baran, rode up on a mule and took charge. He discouraged unnecessary questions and sent the two-thirds of the men who weren't needed about their business. He also made arrangements to have Kubin and Esseta taken directly to the palace. After that he found time to get a brief account of the night's events from Blade.
«The hand of Junah was over all of you tonight,» he said soberly, when Blade had finished. «You must give proper thanks for his favor.» Giraz's piety had disturbed Blade at first, but now he realized that it was entirely sincere, although a trifle odd in a man of Giraz's profession.
«I will,» said Blade politely. «I'd also like to hear what the Baran has to say about this night's work. We did him good service, I think, but he may not realize it.»
Chapter 21
Blade and Giraz sat down with the Baran for a private conference the next morning. The Baran was blunt. His orders had been to watch the Thieves, not fight them-at least not now.
«However, I must admit that order always depended on the Thieves cooperating,» he said. «Since they did not cooperate-«he shrugged. «We've had to start lopping off heads, so we may as well go on doing it. I will be a good deal happier when there is not a single Thief alive in Dahaura.» Both Giraz and Blade nodded in agreement.
«Now,» the Baran continued, «we still would do well to try striking down the Council of Twelve as our first move. Giraz, do you think there is still any chance of that?»
The eunuch nodded. «We have ways of knowing where and when they meet. I do not think last night's events have made any difference. As far as I have learned, the thieves took no prisoners who could tell them how much we know about them. It is obvious they thought Esseta was such a person, but they had no time to ask her anything before Blade came upon them.»
«Good,» said the Baran. «How is Esseta, by the way?»
«The doctor believes she will live;«replied Blade. «He also fears she will be scarred for life.»
«She need not worry about that,» said the Baran. «She will have no need to continue in her profession. I could reward Kubin Ben Sarif as generously, but I doubt if the treasury could afford it. He's not exactly a poor man.»
Blade laughed. «No, my lord, he certainly is not. Besides, I don't think he'd take the money. I spoke to him this morning. He says he can keep a brothel just as well with the one hand he has left-after he gets through using it to strangle as many Thieves as he can reach. The doctor threatens to tie him to the bed if he keeps talking like that.»
The Baran smiled. «The doctor will have my orders to do so, if Kubin doesn't calm himself. He has done his duty several times over, and a good man like that should rest and be healed. He won't be happy about missing our blow against the Thieves, but I am not going to risk the lives of my subjects merely to keep Kubin Ben Sarif happy. Will his men fight without him leading them, do you think?» Blade nodded. «Good. I will put you in command of them, on the night. Now, Giraz, bring out the map of Dahaura, and we shall see what is to be done.»
The moon was now past full, and tonight clouds covered two thirds of the sky. In the back alleys of Dahaura it was dark enough to hide black cats, Thieves, or men of the Baran and Kubin Ben Sarif setting out to catch Thieves.
Richard Blade slipped into the shelter of a recessed doorway and held his bronze lantern out at arm's length. Five small holes were punched in each side, making four different patterns. Blade held out the lantern until he saw a faint orange glow at the far end of the alley.
He stared at it, until he could recognize the pattern he'd been expecting. The leader of the other group of Kubin's men was at the far end of the alley. Blade raised and lowered his lantern three times, saw the other man do the same, then whispered sharply, «Come on.»
Behind him fifteen men slipped one by one around the corner of the building. Each man wore a red glove on his left hand, tonight's recognition signal for the attackers. Blade had chosen it as a symbol of Kubin's lost hand that his men were seeking to avenge.
Something dropped with a click on the slippery stones of the alley. Blade looked up to see a dim silhouette on the roof of the building across the alley, and beside it another pattern of orange pinpricks.
The ring around the meeting place of the Thieves' Council of Twelve was complete. The Eyes of the Baran were in position on the roof and on the other side of the building. All routes of escape for the Council and its guards were closed. If they were still in the oil warehouse, they would not be getting out.
They should be there. Carefully planted rumors had brought them, rumors of the complete reliability of the warehouse's owner-who was actually in the Baran's pay. The Eyes of the Baran had struck swiftly against the Thieves' sentries in the nearby streets. Some of them had been Hashomi but all were now dead or prisoners. None had escaped to give warning.
Blade found himself listening tensely for the sound of axes from the roof. The Eyes up there would be going in first, because the roof offered the fastest way in. The faster the attack, the more prisoners. Then the Eyes and Kubin's men from the streets and alleys would join in. That should be enough, but if more men were needed, the Baran himself was waiting half a mile away. A signal from the top of the warehouse would bring him and a hundred picked men within a few minutes.
Blade hoped they wouldn't be needed. He didn't mind the hundred more men, but he did mind the idea of the Baran himself joining the battle. The ruler of Dahaura could not be refused if he insisted-but neither could he be replaced if some fanatic, Thief, Hashom, or Fighter of Junah got to him with a poisoned dagger or a bolt from a crossbow. Dahaura might survive the Baran's death and the struggle for succession among his three eldest sons. It also might not. It certainly would be put at a desperate disadvantage, against an enemy too shrewd and skilled not to exploit that disadvantage.
But that was speculation about a future that might never come. Tonight all that mattered was the looming bulk of the warehouse. Blade stared at the roof as if the sheer intensity of his stare could prod the men up there into action.
Suddenly Blade heard a muffled cry, and the lantern on top of the warehouse seemed to float out into space, then plummet toward the street. The clang as it struck the stones raised echoes up and down the alley. Instead of the axes smashing a hole in the roof, Blade heard the clatter of weapons, running feet, and a cry of agony.
The men on the roof had been detected, and the Thieves were counterattacking. No time now to wait and let the attack develop neatly according to plan. The only thing for the men on the ground to do was to pile in and hope for the best.
Blade turned to one of his men. «Run to the Baran, and have him bring up the reserves.» That risked bringing the Baran into the fight, but not calling up the mounted men risked letting some of the Thieves escape. If the Baran learned some of the Thieves had escaped because Blade was trying to protect him, he'd trim Blade with a dull knife.
From the other end of the alley, a solid mass of men was rushing forward. They'd heard the uproar and reached the same decision as Blade. Most of them were in a long double line, carrying something between them.
The door of the warehouse was iron-bound wood six inches thick, strong enough to stand against anything but a battering ram. So Kubin's men had brought one-a length of tree trunk weighing five hundred pounds, with an iron-weighted head and handles for a dozen men.
The approaching men shuffled up, turned, and hanged forward with sudden fury. The head of the ram crashed into the door, and Blade half-expected the echoes to knock tiles and cornices off nearby buildings onto his head. Crash, crash, crash, then a splintering of wood and the screech of twisted metal as the door gave.