And it was getting bloody. All of the bodyguards were marked — not big wounds, but they were bleeding. It looked as if the four bodyguards should bring Alberich down at any moment, and yet he kept sliding out from beneath their blades as Skif and his charges got closer and closer to their goal. Skif wanted to run, and knew he didn't dare. He didn't dare distract
Alberich, and he didn't dare grab the attention of the Guildmaster.
Ten paces… five…
There!
The girl who was leading the other two paused, hesitating, on the very threshold, her face a mask of fear and indecision. She didn't know what lay beyond that door — it could be worse than what was here.
“Run!” Skif hissed at her, trusting that Alberich had already cleared the way.
The girl didn't hesitate a moment longer; she bolted into the half-lit hallway, hauling the other two with her. Skif started to follow — hesitated, and looked back.
There was a body on the floor, and it wasn't Alberich's. While Skif's back was turned, the Weaponsmaster had temporarily reduced the odds against himself by one.
But Alberich was bleeding from the shoulder now. Skif couldn't tell how bad the wound was, and Alberich showed no sign of weakness, but the leather tunic was slashed there, and bloody flesh showed beneath the dark leather whenever he moved that arm. Skif's throat closed with fear. Somewhere deep inside he'd been certain that Alberich was invulnerable. But he wasn't. He could be hurt. And if he could be hurt — he could die.
At that moment, the Guildmaster finally noticed that his prizes had escaped.
“Stop them!” he shouted at his men. “Don't let them get away!”
Skif froze in the doorway, but he needn't have worried. No one was taking orders now. The fighters were too busy with Alberich to pay any attention to Skif, although they redoubled their efforts to take the Weaponsmaster down.
“No!” he said aloud. He couldn't go — not now — he might be able to do something —
The lantern flames flickered, and shadows danced on the walls, a demonic echo of the death dance in the center of the room. It was confusing; too confusing. Once again Skif felt for his knives and hesitated.
Alberich was tiring; oh, it didn't show in how he moved, but there was sweat rolling down his face. He had taken another cut, this time across his scalp, and blood mingled with the drops of sweat that spattered down onto the dirt floor with every movement.
Skif still didn't dare throw the knives, even with one of the opponents down. He edged away from the door, and looked frantically for something else he could throw.
Alberich's eyes glittered, and his mouth was set in a wild and terrible smile. He looked more than half mad, and Skif couldn't imagine why his opponents weren't backing away just from his expression alone, much less the single-minded ferocity with which he was fighting. He did not look human, that much was certain. If this was how he always looked when he fought in earnest, no wonder people were afraid of him.
No wonder he had never needed to draw a blade in those tavern brawls.
Skif's eye fell on a pile of dirty bowls stacked against the wall on the other side of the doorway — the remains, perhaps, of a meal the child snatchers had finished. It didn't matter; they were heavy enough to be weapons, and they were within reach.
He snatched one up and waited for his opportunity. It came sooner than he'd hoped, as Alberich suddenly rushed one of the three men, making him stumble backward in a hasty retreat. That broke the swirling dance of steel for a moment, broke the pattern long enough for Skif to fling the bowl at the man's head.
It connected with the back of his skull with a sickening crack that made Skif wince — not hard enough to knock him out, but enough to make him stagger, dazed.
And that moment was just enough for Alberich to slash savagely at his neck, cutting halfway through it. The man twisted in agony, dropping to the floor, blood everywhere as he writhed for a long and horrible moment, then stilled.
Skif froze, watching in fascination, aghast. Alberich did not. Nor did the two men still fighting. They reacted by coming at Alberich from both directions at once, and in the rain of blows that followed, Alberich was wounded again, a glancing slash across the arm that peeled back leather and a little flesh — but he delivered a worse blow than he had gotten to the head of the third man, who dropped like a stone. At which point the first man who'd been
