Four and Twenty Blackbirds

person or have it at hand rather than putting it away with the rest.

That left the first stage over and done with. Orm slipped back after dark, at closing time, to see what Ashdon had done with the blade. He watched as Ashdon closed and double-locked his shop door, and walked off to his home nearby. As Orm had hoped, the weapons-dealer had improvised a sheath and had the dagger on his own belt, where it would stay until Rand was ready. Once he touched it with bare flesh, he wouldn't have been able to leave it anywhere.

Orm walked off under the cover of the night, feeling well pleased. They would not strike tonight nor tomorrow, nor even the following day, despite Rand's impatience. They would wait for two whole days to eliminate the chance that anyone would remember Orm going into that shop with a load of weapons to sell. That left Orm free to scout another part of the city for the next target, while they waited for memories to fade.

Two days later, Orm lingered over a hot meat pie at the stall of a food vendor near Curlew's stand. He would have to slip in and get the dagger quickly once the girl was dead, since this was going to be another daylight kill. He didn't like that. He would have much preferred a nighttime kill like Shensi, but there wasn't much choice in the matter; Curlew respected the warnings enough that she packed up and left just before sunset every night, and spent the hours of the night playing at the tavern where she slept. They would have no chance of taking her after dark, for she could not be persuaded to leave the company of others after nightfall for any amount of money.

While he waited, he watched Ashdon putter about in his shop, making a concerted effort not to show his tension. In order for Rand to take the man over, Ashdon would have to put his hand right on the hilt of the dagger. Normally that happened several times in a day as Ashdon made certain he still had the weapon with him, but timing could be critical in this case. They wanted alot of people in the street when the kill took place—the more people there were, the more confusion there would be.

Rand was up on the roof above Orm's head, near a chimney. No one would pay any attention to him; he was only a bird on the roof. Granted, he was a man-sized bird, but no one would believe that; they'd sooner think that the chimney was unusually small, or that there was something wrong with their eyes.

Finally, as Orm's meat pie cooled, the watched-for contact took place.

Rand sensed the contact, and took over; now Orm's tension was for what was to come. Ashdon walked stiffly across the street and waited for a moment, until a break came in the crowd. Then he made a sudden lunge through the gap, and knifed the girl with one of those violent upward thrusts that Rand seemed so fond of, lifting her right off the ground for a moment on his closed fist. It seemed incredible that the scrawny little man had that much strength, but that was partly Rand's doing.

The girl's mouth and eyes widened in shock and pain, but nothing came out of her but a grunt. As usual, the crowd didn't realize what had just happened at first; it was only when Ashdon shoved the body away and it flopped down into the street, with blood pouring out over the snow, that they woke to what he'd done.

It was a particularly nasty butcher-job; the knife-thrust had practically disemboweled the girl. Orm sensed that Rand had just vented a great deal of frustration and anger in that single thrust of his blade; this was convenient for both of them, because the sight of the corpse had the effect of scattering most of the onlookers and sending the rest into useless hysterics.

Now real chaos erupted, as people ran screaming away, afraid that they were going to be the next victims, fainted, or froze in place with terror. This time there were no would-be heroes trying to catch and hold Ashdon; the crowd was composed mostly of women, ordinary merchants or laborers, and youngsters, not of burly longshoremen or bargemen.

Rand forced Ashdon into the peculiar, staggering run of his tools that looked so awkward and was actually so efficient. Orm felt sealed inside a strange little bubble of calm, while all about him, onlookers were screaming and running in every direction. Still, no one did anythingbut try to escape, even though merchants, craftsmen, and their customers were coming out of the shops to see what had happened; no one tried to stop Ashdon, or even moved to block his escape. The ones in the street were all trying too hard to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the knife-wielding madman, and the ones coming out of the buildings didn't know what had happened yet.

Ashdon sprinted past Orm, dropping the dagger, which was no longer needed for the spell by which he was being controlled. Now it was Orm's turn. Orm darted out into the street to pick it up—

Thencame the unexpected. Something dove down out of the sky, headed straight for him, like a feathered bolt of lightning.

For one crazy moment, he thought it was Rand—but the flash of color, scarlet and blue, told him he was wrong. At the same time, he was already reacting; he had not been in this business for as along as he had without developing excellent reactions. When things happened, his body moved without his mind being involved.

He ducked and rolled, snatching up the dagger at the same time, and continued to roll onto his feet as his pursuer shot over his head. He took advantage of the fact that his attacker had to get height for another dive, and dashed into a narrow alley, too narrow for the creature to fly or even land in. His heart was in his throat; what in Heaven's name was after him?

He looked back briefly over his shoulder and saw it hovering at the alley entrance. The winged thing was a bird-man, and there was only one bird-man in Kingsford; it could only be Visyr, the bird-man who worked for the Duke, who had nearly caught another of Rand's tools during a kill.

Buthow had he known to go after the dagger rather than the tool?