Warlords Of Gaikon

— 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 tu

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 tu

Here was another call for Lady Musura's wall climbing talents. She quickly sca

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 tu

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 tu

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 tu

Blade was determined not to spend a single u

In fifteen minutes they had reached the point where the tu

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 tu