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It gave so suddenly that the men on the ram tumbled forward in wild confusion, arms and legs flailing. Most of them went down, which turned out to be just as well. There were crossbowmen waiting inside, and several bolts whistled over the heads of the fallen men. One of the men standing in the street went down. Blade drew his sword and leaped forward, ru
«At them!» he shouted. «At them before they can reload!» Crossbows were slow-firing weapons, good for no more than a single volley against men willing to close in fast.
Blade's feet hit the stones at the bottom of the steps. The hall was dark, except for the dim glow of a lantern at the far end. That glow silhouetted four hooded figures, heads bobbing as they tried to recock their weapons. Blade was among them before they realized that he was within striking distance.
His sword whistled in an arc, the point spitting sparks as it struck the wall. Hardly slowed, it swung on through the arc, cutting off a suddenly raised arm, smashing against a crossbow. Blade pulled his sword back without pulling it free of the crossbow. He dragged the archer with the bow, then stabbed him in the chest.
Now Blade was no longer fighting alone, as the other two archers went down before a wave of red-gloved men thrusting and slashing. Kubin's men were so wild in their swordwork that Blade was glad when they rushed on down the hallway and he was no longer in danger of being cut to pieces by his own men.
He caught up with his men in time to see them burst into the open. The main chamber of the warehouse stretched before them, three stories high and a hundred feet across. Against the walls and on two massive timber platforms in the center, barrels of oil were stacked twice as high as a man. All the rest was open, a floor of rough stones that offered good footing. Across those stones a furious battle swirled back and forth.
It was hard to tell how many defenders there were, and impossible to tell who belonged to which faction of the Baran's enemies. Blade's rough guess was more than forty still alive, all of them fighting like demons.
Behind the enemy's ragged battle line Blade saw a circle of cushions on the floor, more than twenty of them. Around the cushions were scattered parchment scrolls and sheets. Two men were frantically ru
In another minute those sheets and all the secrets they carried would be ashes. Blade knew he had to get through the enemy's line and stop those two men. He began looking for a frank or a weak spot, trying to make some sense of the battle.
Two of the defenders had climbed up on top of the piled barrels. They had crossbows, and were shooting upward at a hole chopped in the roof. Every bolt they fired was answered by another one whistling down, but neither side seemed to be hitting anything. A flight of wooden stairs spiraled up to the roof in one corner of the building, and four Thieves with swords were holding the top of it against the Eyes on the roof.
The attack from the roof seemed to be getting nowhere, but on the ground the door on the other side of the warehouse was open and Giraz's Eyes were joining the battle. The defenders were outnumbered now, and slowly they began to fall back.
As the enemy line shrank, Blade's hopes rose of finding a way around it and saving the records. The pile of parchment in the middle of the circle of cushions was nearly a foot high now. With all that material in the Baran's hands, the blow to the Thieves from tonight's work would be even more deadly.
Suddenly a lucky bolt from the roof struck down one of the defending archers. A man facing Blade saw this, turned, and ran toward the pile of barrels to snatch up the fallen crossbow. For a moment there was a gap in the enemy ranks. Blade hurled himself through that gap.
He did not try to strike at the men on either side of him, only get past them. They struck at him, but their swords grated harmlessly across the mail he wore under his tunic. Then he was leaping over the parchment, scattering some sheets like snowflakes, to attack the two men who'd been piling it up.
One had been wearing a mask, but now it dangled around his neck. Blade recognized a face known from another time and another desperate battle-another of the five Treases who'd been the judges of his testing before the Master. The other man he didn't recognize, but saw him holding the short thrusting sword and small circular shield favored by the Fighters of Junah.
Blade stopped worrying about the parchment and concentrated on staying alive against two men he knew would be formidable opponents. That saved his life-that, and the fact that once more he faced two good men who had never fought together before.
Blade's longer sword gave him an edge over the Fighter of Junah. Before the Hashom could prevent it, Blade disabled the Fighter's sword arm. Blade turned to meet the Treas, and shouted in fierce delight as he saw the look in the man's eyes. This man had seen Blade in action before, and knew how deadly he was. That knowledge made him afraid, and although he was a Hashom he couldn't keep the fear off his face.
Blade shouted again and pressed his attack. The Hashom's sword gave him an equal reach, but he was not as fast as Blade. Slowly Blade closed, twice getting through his opponent's guard to inflict minor wounds. Even more slowly the Hashom retreated, face growing pale and desperate in the knowledge that he was being backed against the piled barrels. Blade knew that sort of desperation would sooner or later lead a Hashom into a suicidal charge.
Before the Hashom could reach that point, Blade saw the Fighter of Junah moving in again. Blade shifted to a position where he could meet both men, then saw that the Fighter wasn't carrying a weapon. In his good hand he held a lighted taper. Blade leaped to place himself between the Fighter and the pile of parchment, but the other was quicker. The taper flew forward into the parchment as Blade's sword bit into the Fighter's neck. The papers must have been soaked with oil, because they blazed up in a column of flame as high as a man.
Blade's slash knocked the Fighter to one side, straight into the path of the Hashom. In that moment the Hashom launched his charge. He tripped over his falling comrade, twisted frantically in midair in an effort to save himself, and fell headfirst into the fire. He screamed and went on screaming until the flames sealed his throat.
By that time Blade's attention was elsewhere. Over the clash of weapons and the cries of dying men he heard a growing uproar on the roof. It sounded as if a whole regiment of the Baran's army was gathering up there. In another moment the hole in the roof was ringed with faces, and a dozen crossbows fired together.
The hail of bolts knocked one of the enemy's archers dead from his perch on the piled barrels. Miraculously the other man escaped with no more than a bolt in the leg. He was raising his crossbow to return the fire when three men came swinging down through the hole in the roof on long ropes. Blade stared, not really wanting to believe what he saw. One of the three men on the ropes was the Baran himself, swinging down into the battle like the star of an old-fashioned swashbuckling movie!
The Baran's swing was precisely timed and aimed. He plunged down at the remaining archer, legs outstretched, and kicked the man in the stomach. The unfired crossbow flew high in the air, while the man flew off the piled barrels so violently that he smashed into the wall.
With equally perfect timing; the Baran let go of the rope and dropped lightly on top of the barrels. For the moment he was out of reach of any armed enemy, but he was well behind the enemy's line. As he rose to his feet, several of them turned and recognized him. A throwing knife flashed through the air and bounced off his mail. Blade ran to the pile of barrels. His sword in one hand, he gripped the heavy timber bracing of the pile with the other and started hauling himself up to join the Baran.