The official wizard followed the Captain’s briefing with a reassuring prediction that the gang in the building would be able to mount little or no magical resistance to the raid.
After Wen Chang had approved the plan of attack, the Watch sergeant who had served as guide took over the job of showing Lieutenant Komi exactly where his dismounted men should be deployed. More than a score of feet went shuffling off into the darkness. A couple of other Watch patrolmen were going to remain in this alley, keeping watch over the riding-beasts.
Almagro announced that he himself, with the Watch-wizard beside him, was going to direct operations from street level, while the Magistrate and Kasimir were to accompany the party attacking through the roof. Wen Chang approved this proposal too.
Before leaving his two unofficial colleagues, the Captain cast a worried glance at Kasimir, then shook his head and pronounced a last-minute warning.
“Doctor, there are a good many people in that building who aren’t exactly going to welcome us with open arms when they see us. So mind yourself. In fact it might be a good idea if you stayed here, with the men who’ll be watching our riding-beasts, until the fighting’s done.”
“Nonsense, I can take care of myself.” Kasimir’s tone was a little stiff; perhaps more than just a little. “I carry a dagger. And if one of your men will loan me his cudgel, I am quite prepared to answer for my own safety.”
Almagro glanced at Wen Chang, shrugged, and turned to one of his own men nearby to give a quiet order. Kasimir accepted with thanks the oaken cudgel that was handed to him. The weapon was half a meter long, and weighted at one end. At the other end was a leather thong by which the I club could be secured to its wielder’s wrist. Kasimir had observed that cudgels like this were standard Watch equipment in Eylau, though tonight of course the men embarking upon the raid had equipped themselves with heavier weapons, including swords and axes.
Kasimir tucked the club into his belt, where it rested between two of the bulging pouches of his augmented medical kit. Then he signed that he was ready.
Wen Chang before leaving the inn had buckled on a lovely rapier, and now he was making sure of the fit of this weapon in its sheath. Kasimir had once or twice seen this sword among the Magistrate’s belongings, though he had never seen him wearing it until now.
With everything in readiness, Almagro’s two unofficial allies followed him through the alley, which was pitch-black except for his small, guttering torch. But the Watch officer seemed to know his way as well as a blind man on a familiar route.
Pausing after they had gone about a hundred meters, the Captain whispered to his companions that they were about to enter a building, another next door to the one they were about to raid. They stood in a doorway of this building, another abandoned-looking warehouse, on the side opposite their target structure. A ruined door on the level of the alley offered a sinister welcome, and once they were inside the building they confronted a tottering, treacherous stairway that Almagro whispered would bring them all the way up to the roof.
The darkness immediately surrounding their torchlight as they climbed was quiet, while crude music and drunken laughter sounded from a few buildings away. The night air smelled of the nearby river, an odor half fresh and half polluted. Kasimir listened in vain for any sounds from elsewhere in the building they had entered, or from the other assault parties, which ought to be getting into position at this moment. If all was going according to the plan Almagro had hastily outlined, two groups would be approaching at street level, and two more through windows on upper floors, one reached by a ladder, one by a low roof. This assault upon the roof would complete the encirclement, and if everything went well the wanted people should be trapped with their loot inside.
The group approaching the front door had the most delicate task. They were mostly Firozpur, on the theory that no one inside would be likely to recognize the desert troopers; but the group included one sergeant of the Watch. It would be his responsibility to raise a loud outcry at the proper moment, signaling the other assault teams that the time had come for them to make their moves.
Meanwhile, Wen Chang, Kasimir, and their group had reached the roof of the warehouse. A moment later they had gained the roof of the target building, equally high, by the simple expedient of stepping over to it across a gap of space less than a meter wide.
The moon had come out clearly now; probably, thought Kasimir, it would soon be obscured again by fast-moving clouds, but meanwhile it was a very useful source of illumination on the open roof, above the narrow, twisting canyons of the streets. Kasimir could see that there were two or perhaps three trapdoors in the roof, which was basically a tarry surface under a layer of light boards. Its contours formed a wilderness of little peaks and gables and ridges, pierced here and there by a skylight. Probably all the skylights had once been covered with oiled skin or paper, but the ones that Kasimir could see were now broken open to the weather. Iron bars, rusted but formidable, still defended these openings against human entry.
Two of the Watch troopers among the assault party on the roof, working under a sergeant’s direction, blocked two of the three visible trapdoors closed, wedging them shut with pieces of lumber pulled from the top of the ruined wooden parapet. Then they prepared to break in through the remaining entrance.
Placing themselves one on each side of the third trapdoor, the burly patrolmen hefted their axes and waited for a signal.
Presently it came, in the form of raucous voices raised from street level, loudly demanding to be allowed entrance.
The axes poised over the rooftop fell together. Almost simultaneously there sounded from several directions, near and far, a crashing and splintering of wood, a rending of thin metal. The other entrances to the building were being attacked on schedule.
Kasimir saw now that the onslaught against the roof entrance was being directed not against the trapdoor itself, which was reinforced with metal bars and perhaps with magic as well. Instead the axes fell in a rapid rhythm upon the roof just at one side of the designed entrance. Under their repeated blows a hole had already appeared and was growing rapidly. Doubtless the basic construction of this building had not been particularly sturdy to begin with, and decay had weakened some of the structural members.
While the choppers plied their tools Kasimir, holding one lighted torch, was busy lighting others from it, and handing them out to the members of the attacking party who stood by in readiness.
The roof was quickly pierced, and in a few more moments the hole had been enlarged to the size of a man’s head. The sergeant barked an order, and when the axmen paused he went down on his belly beside the hole. Sliding an arm through it, he was able to release the bar that held the trapdoor closed. It fell inside the room below, with the crashing of some homemade alarm system to add to the noise. Only the one fastening had secured the trapdoor, and now it swung up easily.
There were no stairs or ladder inside, but Wen Chang was ready. While others held torches for him, he dropped lithely through. A moment later he called for the others to follow, and the Watch poured in after him, one man at a time. Kasimir, as he had reluctantly agreed, was last. Left alone for a moment on the roof, he sat on the edge of the opening, hung for an instant by one hand from the edge, then let go and dropped.
Landing easily on the bare floor, he found himself still alone. The other members of his party had already hurried ahead, leaving the small unfurnished room through its only other door. Raising his torch, Kasimir saw that this stood at the head of a narrow stairs that led down to the floors below.
Cries of alarm and anger, accompanied by the clash of arms, were resounding from down there now. Holding his torch aloft in his left hand, his right ready to draw a weapon, Kasimir hurried after the Watchmen and Wen Chang.
The stairs went down only one flight, to a flat space with unpromising darkness on every side. Nearby a hole in this floor, with the top of a ladder protruding through it, offered a way to continue the descent. As Kasimir approached the hole he could hear the voices of his comrades, along with other noises, coming from down there. It might be that only the lower levels of this building were inhabited tonight.