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fouled me abominably. But I needed fists that would not slip on hilts for the work that promised. As
though Five-handed Eos-Bakchi decided it was time to smile  just a little  upon me, I spotted an
abandoned orange-like fruit called a rosha lying in the water-streaming gutter. A single twist ripped it into
half and I smeared the tacky juice over my palms and fingers. That would help to give a good grip.
It smelled a little better than I did, too.  We cut through them in one go and keep running, I told Barty.
When they hit us I did just that. I used the hilt a good deal, for I had no wish to kill these fellows. One or
two blades flickered around my ears; but with a bash and a whump or two I was through. I poised to run
on. I was through  but not so Barty.
He pranced. He took up the stance. His rapier leaned into a perfect line. He foined. He was thoroughly
enjoying himself. Like a student fresh from the salle he handled himself with all the perfection of a star
pupil. I sighed.
Many a time have I seen these fine young men fresh from sword-training go into rough and brutal action.
If they live they learn and then stand a better chance. But all the universities in two worlds don t teach
what a man must know to keep a knife from his guts, a knee out of his groin, a flung chain from around
his neck.
They d have had Barty  had him for breakfast and spat out the pips.
Perfect in poise and lunge and parry, holding himself in the correct rapier-fighting position, he would
have been easy meat for them. He was lucky  that I own  when a flung cudgel merely brushed past
his brown hair. But he couldn t last.
So I went bashing back most evilly, with a knee here, and a clutch at a raggedy coat here and a jerk and
a chunk of the hilt, and a bending-forward so that the attacker went sailing up over me, to be kicked
heartily as he hit the ground.
No, if you want to stay alive on many spots of Kregen you do no good trying to fence by the book.
A stout-armed fellow with a kutcherer tried to stab the spiked back of the knife into my eye, and I
weaved and kicked him between wind and water, and ducked a cudgel from his mate and elbowed his
Adam s apple. My own rapier and main gauche flew this way and that parrying blows and thrusts. I
jumped about a fair bit. I got up to Barty and put my foot into the rear end of the man who was going to
slip a long knife into Barty s exposed back and kicked him end-over-end. I had to beat away another
kutcherer, careful of that wicked tooth of metal.
Barty had allowed a ruffian to get inside his guard, and with his rapier pointing at the rain-filled skies was
dancing around as though the two of them waltzed, neither able to step back to take a slash at the other.
 Barty, I said, in what I considered a most understanding voice. But Barty jumped, anyway.  Let us get
on.
I stuck the main gauche back into my belt, ignoring the scabbard, took the fellow clasping Barty by the
ear, ducked a cudgel blow from somewhere, and ran him across the street. He tried to emulate a swifter
and rammed head-on into a moldy wall.
I grabbed Barty.
 And this time, young man, do not stop running!
 We took off. They followed for a bit; but I caught a hurtling cudgel out of the air and threw it back. The
man who had flung it dropped as though poleaxed. After that the rest of them more or less gave up the
pursuit.
But there were others, far more ruthless, who took it up as we reached the walls.
And, as I saw, two thin, furtive, weasel-like fellows remained dogging our footsteps as we ran up to the
wall and looked about for the nearest way through or over or under.
The assassins had gathered their strength. Now the mob of men who flowed around a buttress meant to
do for us finally.
I took a single look at them and hauled Barty off. We ran fleetly along the wall, dodging refuse, leaping
covered stalls, almost treading on a family sheltering under an old tarpaulin. The rain washed away a deal
of the muck and stinks; but enough remained for me with my odoriferous clothes to feel at home.
A splendidly orchestrated hullabaloo now racketed away at our heels. Barty kept on laughing. I own the
situation amused me; but I am notorious for that kind of perverse behavior and I felt some surprise 
pleased surprise, I hasten to add  that Dayra seemed to have found herself a young man of exceptional
promise. So we ran along the wall and a gang of kids pelted us with rotten cabbages, green shredding
bundles falling through the rain. We ducked into a house built into the wall and leaped over an old fellow
who snored in a wicker hooded chair and so rollicked up the blackwood stairs. The upper rooms were
filled with all kinds of trash and bric-a-brac indicating the storage places for the junk merchants who
thrived on human stupidity and cupidity. Their ruffianly agents scoured around picking up antiques which
were then sold at inflated prices to the wealthy of Vondium. Well, it takes all kinds to make a world.
We hared through the piles of old furniture and pictures and tatty curtains, past boxes and bales and
bundles, heading for the windows. These were all barred. Barty put his foot against a wooden bar and
the old wood puffed and shredded  I hardly care to describe that tired sagging away as a splintering of
wood.
We bundled through and then tottered back, clutching each other, poised dizzyingly over nothing.
I grabbed the lintel. It held, thank Zair, and we hauled in. We stood perhaps fifty feet up the sheer
outside wall, in a window embrasured out over the cobbled road below. And at our backs the pursuit
bayed up those dark blackwood stairs.
One window along a beam jutted out with a rope and pulley. The junk would be collected here and then
hoisted out and lowered onto Quoffa carts below. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]