Assuming—there was another green flash, a very brilliant one; an arm that might have been a small child’s, only blue-scaled and with claws already longer than a leopard’s, was blown past N’Sumu from where its owner had crouched twenty feet away—assuming that N’Sumu was even human.
The two patrolmen and their shields were crossed like X-shaped barricades in the doorway. Both men were screaming unintelligibly. Because their oval shields were strapped on, it would have taken greater coordination than either man was showing to drop them. Even so, they could have got out easily had they simply backed up and tried the opening again, with their shields and bodies parallel—the way they had entered the loft. Panic, whether from the fire or the charnel house itself, did not permit that.
Vonones and one of the Ethiopians were tugging at the outer Watch member—their efforts hampered by their own fear and the need to watch for what might be creeping toward them. There seemed to be no more of the larger creatures, though quick motion at the shadowy edges of the loft suggested what might happen if N’Sumu relaxed his blank-eyed vigilance.
“Don’t let the one you’ve caught be harmed,” N’Sumu shouted to Lycon in piercing Greek that filled the loft. “Domitian is certain to want it if the mother escapes us.”
The second lantern had been set on the floor with the caution it deserved, but the horn lenses of the first now burned as well and added a bitter stench identifiable even through the general foetor of the loft. Lycon snatched up the shortsword a patrolman had dropped. The wooden hilt was greasy with something from the floor, but the hunter’s hysterical grip would have held the trotter of a pig in a mud wallow.
The Ethiopian who had flung down the shattered lantern sat with his knees slightly raised and his expression frozen as he appeared to stare at the creature on his ankle. It was small, really not much larger than the tarantulas of the coastal regions of Italy and Provence. No one would confuse it with a spider, however, because its four blue-glinting limbs were patently wrong in number and in excessive strength. They wrapped around the slave’s instep and leg, while the creature buried its tiny head into the ankle joint. As Lycon slapped down at it with the flat of his sword, the head withdrew from the red-rimmed hole it had dug, and its eyes winked in black fury at the steel that crushed it.
The slave toppled over. A similar creature, on the side of his face that had been hidden from Lycon, had its two arms dug the full four inches of their length down into the Ethiopian’s eye-socket. The claws of one hind leg were anchored under the base of the jaw, while the others drew up the corner of the slave’s mouth in a false snarl into which the humors from the eye had begun to drip.
Lycon struck this time with the edge. He fervently hoped that the lantern-bearer was already dead.
He had grasped the sword not as a weapon but as a tool. Now he struck the wall behind him on the follow-through of the tug that had cleared the blade from the cleft skull. The wall over the stairwell was of the same construction as the panels that enclosed the exterior, though here at least, the wickerwork had been plastered over to give it the look of solidity. Though the paneling was light and provided no vertical support, the woven twigs—even desiccated as they now were—comprised a resilient surface of considerable strength. A man like Ox could tear through them by main force, but there were few men like Ox and one fewer now.
Lycon had many times relied upon his quickness in moments of danger, but just now he thought he would prefer to carry a good bit more heavy muscle. He drew back and followed his first blow with a second—this time putting behind it the full strength of his right arm. Plaster exploded away from the sword in a choking cloud that gleamed saffron in the light of the conflagration behind it. Roof tiles were beginning to shatter as the flames licked upward. Upon the roof above, men had noticed the flames and were shouting out warnings as they scrambled to leap to adjacent buildings.