side. There’s a way from there out into a burned house….We used that in the
old days….”
Shut up, she wished him, having difficulty holding her breath.
Something moved behind her. She whirled, knife thrusting, and got the man in the
belly, leapt, and saw others.
“Ai!” she yelled, slashing wild, a howl that was the last shred of honor: It’s
all up, it’s done- She tried to run.
There were still more, arrived from out of nowhere, a sweep of men and knives in
the dark, rushing the house and alley from the riverside. She stabbed and
killed; the urchin-girl shrieked and ran into shadows as beggars scattered and
guardsmen shouted orders.
Fire streaked Moria’s side. She slashed and stumbled back; and back as wood
cracked and the house erupted with shouting and with knives, and the back way
opened, pouring out bodies.
She fell. Someone stepped on her back as she lay there, and she braced and
rolled against the shanty wall as the battle tended the other way. She crawled
for the alley, scrambling to her feet as she reached the comer of the shanty.
Someone grabbed her from the back and dragged her aside; the slave Haught pinned
her knifehand under his arm and a hand muffled her as they hit the dark leanto
together, a knot of three.
“Keep low,” Mradhon hissed in her ear as tumult passed their hiding-hole. A man
died not far from them in the first pattering of rain. She lay still, feeling
the pain in her side when she breathed, feeling for the rest as if she had been
clubbed.
Mor-am?
Fire glared, a quick flaring up of orange light in the direction of the shanty.