Max Allan Collins

Mathayus reached inside himself and found a smile. 'Where are my manners?'

The swarm of flesh-eating death was less than three feet away, now. The Akkadian gritted his teeth and forced that smile onward....

'Good sir,' the assassin said through his glazed smile. 'If you please ... would you kindly get me the hell out of here?'

Arpid shrugged. 'That was a little better.. . Promise not to kill me?'

'Yes! On my oath!'

'You're an Akkadian, remember—you make an oath, you always keep it, right? That's your way, your code, huh?'

'Yes. Yes. That's right.'

Another scouting party of ants was climbing the Akkadian now, perhaps a dozen, or a baker's dozen, nibbling at him, just warming up. Blinking, shaking his head, Mathayus did his best to cast them off. One climbed his lips and he bit the thing in two and spat it out.

'When you make an oath,' Arpid said, in a rhe­torical tone, 'do you honor it, even if it's one you come to regret?'

'Yes! Yes!'

The little thief, torch in hand, was approaching. 'Then promise to take me with you... as your trusted partner and companion . . . and share with me, equally, the spoils of battle.'

'Fine! I swear! I promise!'

Arpid thrust the torch in the path of the ants, which sent them scurrying away. Then he knelt be­fore the head sticking up out of the sand.

'All right, Akkadian ... hold still.'

And the thief began carefully picking the ants off the assassin's face.

Within minutes, Mathayus was up the slope and gathering his weapons, while the surviving guard re­mained an unconscious sprawl on the rocks and sand. The scrawny horse thief was animated, filled with enthusiasm, though not helping the Akkadian in his recovery efforts.

'What a splendid turn of events,' the thief was saying. 'Wherever you go, there'll be death, and lots of it! I mean, look at you—strapping specimen. And where there's death, there's bodies, and where there are bodies, there are pockets, waiting to be emptied ... gold, silver, who knows what treasures we'll share! After all, we'll split everything straight down the middle, both money and work. I'll handle the stealing and you . . . well, you'll take care of the slaughter. Fair enough?'

Mathayus's intricately carved bow caught the eye of the bouncy little thief, who went over to it and picked up the massive weapon.

Then somebody was picking the thief up—by the scarf around his neck—and hauling him several feet off the ground.

Mathayus glared at the thief, nose to nose now, and plucked away the bow and said to him, 'Don't touch this again. Not ever.'

Arpid managed to speak, through the narrow hole of his choked-off windpipe. 'Well... I think we're off to a very good start... don't you?'

Mathayus let loose of the thief, as if discarding him. Then the Akkadian whistled, loud, sharp. The thief glanced about.

'Who are you calling?' Arpid asked.

'My ride,' Mathayus said.

Before long the albino camel came loping up over a nearby ridge. The assassin walked to his mount, stroked the beast's neck, and swung up into the sad­dle.

And rode off.