When Samlor tried to bang the stone door to, a Beysib sword shot through the gap
and kept the edges from meeting. Instead of tugging against the springy steel,
Samlor let the Beysib’s own pull open’the trap again. Samlor lunged upward
through the opening. Before the sword could be transformed once more from a pry
bar into a weapon, the Cirdonian had buried his boot knife in the trooper’s
throat.
The sword dropped into the tunnel as Samlor shot the bolt which closed the door.
The last thing the caravan-master had seen before stone met stone was the face
of Lord Tudhaliya turned to a fright mask by fury and speckles of blood. The
Beysib noble was lunging to take the place of his dying trooper. His
outstretched sword sang against the marble even as the bolt snicked home.
‘Come on. Star, I’m your uncle!’ Samlor shouted as he grabbed the nearest
handful of the child. He did not particularly care whether she obeyed or even
understood, for there was no time now to wait on a four-year-old’s legs. He let
the Beysib sword lie, because he needed his right hand for the lantern. Its
unshuttered light seemed shockingly bright in the closeness. Samlor ran bent
over, the girl under his arm as the cask had been when he came from the punt.
Even as Samlor’s heels hit the floor on his second stride, hands and sword
blades wrenched the bronze latch into fragments. A file of Beysib troopers with
lamps and swords plunged into the tunnel behind Lord Tudhaliya.
Samlor’s plan had been based on the assumption that his sudden assault would