The first man Kevin engaged stumbled back in confusion before this alien slave who knew his way with a sword. Then the eyes behind the black mask narrowed. The assassin recovered poise and fought back. Slammed by a fast reach and practised parries, Kevin realized he faced an equal weapon and an opponent of greater skill.
Then a green-dad warrior was at his side, and another sword was harrying the assassin’s flank. Shoulder to shoulder, slave and Acoma soldier beat the tong back toward the hall. The man had a sword arm like lightning. Parry after parry, he deflected the strokes that sought his life. The Acoma warrior missed his footing, and staggered a half-step sideways. A weighted cord snapped through the splintered window and circled his unarmoured throat. He dropped his sword, fingers clawing at his neck as he strangled. As he buckled and crashed to his knees, the tong assassin who had wielded the throwing garrotte leaped through.
A second Acoma warrior and another in Bontura colours charged to take him. Alone and beaten backwards by his original foe, Kevin skidded helplessly to the side. Luck favoured him. The assassin mired a heel in a cushion flung from somewhere; he slipped, and Kevin took him in a thrust under the armpit.
The Midkemian yanked his blade clear. He cast about and saw the Lord of the Xacatecas backed against the wall by a black warrior. The stout man somehow warded off a stroke that should have killed him – as the next one surely would. Not so fast as the assassin, the Lord was still deadly quick. Kevin rushed the black-armoured warrior and struck him full from behind. Metal slid through laminated armour with a slap like a melon being punctured. The enemy died, choking on blood. Kevin leaped clear and came to stand before Mara, sword at the ready. Hoppara had stationed himself by the window; a wad of blood-sodden black lay jammed across the sill: the most recent assassin who tried to enter.
Breathing hard, and running with sweat, Kevin took stock. An insane three-way battle raged in the tiny apartment. Knots of black warriors and robed Hamoi tong thrashed and strained and wrestled to tear down beleaguered defenders. A tong assassin broke free of the fray, spied Mara, and snapped a hand to his belt sash. A knife was going to follow, Kevin knew with a rise of the hair at his nape.
Even as the assassin moved to throw, the Midkemian had a handful of Mara’s robe. He let himself collapse, and his weight dragged her down, just as the assassin let fly. The knife thudded into the wall, kicking up grains of burst plaster. Kevin felt a yank at his shirt. He saw the pinned fold of his robe, then felt his left arm slung up at an awkward angle.
Mara lay beneath him, gasping for breath against the press of his weight. The assassin saw his opening. He leaped in, and his raised sword flicked shadow across both victims’ faces. Kevin twisted. Cloth tore with a scream as he threw his sword, point first, at the assassin. The blade caught the man in the stomach. He doubled, slammed to his knees, and pitched forward. The sword flew from his hand and skidded to stab into the skirting board. Kevin freed the last shred of his robe, then jerked the still-quivering blade from the wood.
He reached his feet just as another assassin shouldered through the window and bounded into the room. Kevin’s stroke decapitated him in midair. The corpse slammed down, spraying blood, while the head bounced with a sick, wet thump across the floor.
The head rolled on and slapped into a black-armoured warrior who charged through the rear doorway. Kevin spun to meet him. The warrior hesitated only an instant, then levelled his weapon at Kevin. The Midkemian braced for the sword blow, but belatedly realized: the man would not cross blades with a slave. In bull-mad Tsurani outrage, he chose to use his armoured bulk to smash an upstart barbarian to a pulp.
Too late, Kevin tried to sidestep. The enemy rammed him, knocking breath from his lungs and driving him backwards into the gloom of the hall. His back met heaving bodies. A vicious struggle raged between an invading mass of tong and Lujan’s most disciplined defenders. Kevin rolled left as the heavily armoured warrior crashed atop him. Half-crushed by his opponent’s sword arm, and aware by a repeated jerk beneath his flank that he had managed to fall on the flat of his enemy’s blade, Kevin struggled. He could not win free, and his own sword and hand were pinned against the wall. But neither could the other man succeed in grappling his weapon back. The warrior had no choice but to let go of the hilt and slam ineffectively at the slave’s exposed face. Kevin tried to chop at the man’s neck, but his efforts won him only a skinned elbow.