Thieves World 5 – The Face of Chaos by Asprin, Robert

guessing for the moment it would take for her to regain her balance. She raised

her sword just as his blade arced towards her – and Walegrin reached out to

parry it aside.

The Beysib circled away from the stairwell, and Cythen edged along the walls.

This room was not the dusty wreckage the lower parts of the building had been.

Someone had been using it recently. Knives littered an otherwise clean table and

a crude map of the town hung on the wall. There was another curved Beysib sword

on the wall as well, but Turghurt hadn’t taken it. The room was too small for

the swirling double-sword style the Harka Bey had used. His stance was not that

much different from her own, though his reach was substantially longer.

Walegrin, still struggling to free himself from the stairs, broke through

another board and fell from sight, shaking the entire structure as he landed.

From the commotion, Cythen knew they were trying to improvise a human ladder,

but at that moment Turghurt was easily parrying her best cuts and she doubted

they’d reach her in time.

She wouldn’t have the strength to ward off many of his thunderous attacks. She

could stall and hope they’d get something together in time, or she could charge

him and hope for the same sort of clear shot as she’d gotten at the Harka Bey

though that would kill him and might make everything worse.

He guessed her intention to attack and back-pedalled across the room, laughing

to himself. He was silhouetted by a hole in the walls where a window might once

have been and he seemed very large, but perhaps his laughing had made him drop