Max Allan Collins

As the guards moved in closer, suspicion prick­ling the backs of their necks, the archers above no­ticed this confrontation in the making, and moved into position, watching the cart, ever vigilant.

Toward the end of the parapet, however, one of those guards thought he heard something—the clink of metal, on stone? As his three comrades trained their attention on the horse-drawn cart below, this archer moved into the dark shadows at the far side of the ledge, investigating alone.

Down by the gate, Arpid was hopping from the cart, where he now—unhesitatingly, his nervousness vanished—yanked back the tarp, revealing half a dozen women. These were (for the most part) raving beauties, in the haremlike, belly-dancer-style attire that drove the men of those times (and other times, as well) to distraction.

The red-turbaned guards had no inkling that these beauties were Queen Isis and her fierce female war­riors—dressed, as they were, for the bedroom, not the battlefield.

'A royal gift for tonight's revelry,' the horse thief said, with a pompous bow that made several of the sentries chuckle. 'They are to be delivered to Prince Takmet.'

'Lucky bastard,' one of the guards said.

Arpid turned to the cart, which brimmed with pulchritude, the 'girls' cooing and waving at the guards. 'Ladies,' he said, 'come down and say hello to our brave soldiers—where would the kingdom be without them?'

The guards helped the girls down and they quickly paired off, talking, flirting, while above the archers looked down in envy.

In the meantime, in the shadows off to one side, that lone archer had discovered—clinging to the lip of the wall—a grappling hook. Looking down over the edge, he could see the rope swinging, as if some­one had just let loose of it. Wheeling to warn his compatriots, the archer never got a word out—Ma­thayus, in the slitted leather mask, broke the man's neck from behind, the tiny crack lost in a night alive with the sound of the guards and 'harem' beauties mingling.

The Akkadian tossed the man off the side of the ledge, where the corpse fell almost silently to the sand.

One of the sentries—his tastes running to larger women, these scrawny creatures so popular nowa­days doing little for him—approached a broad-shouldered girl, saying, 'Well, now, finally! A wench with some meat on her bones ... Let's see that pretty face, hah?'

The guard lifted the veil away and exposed the battle-scarred visage of Balthazar.

'Satisfied?' the Nubian 'wench' asked.

And he drove a massive fist into the guard's belly, dropping him to the ground.

With this, the warrior women—each having si­dled up to a guard—quickly, efficiently executed the fools, slitting throats, piercing hearts, taking no pris­oners. Several died with smiles on their faces.

Above, the lead archer—startled by the sudden carnage—cried, 'Attack!'

The three archers, lined up in an orderly row, notched arrows and aimed down. Before any arrows could fly, however, one dagger after another flew from the darkness, the first archer, and the second, catching blades in their backs, with deadly thunks. The leader whirled and fired off an arrow, but the Akkadian snatched up a wooden drain cover from the parapet floor, and used it as a shield, batting the projectile away.

The archer was notching a new arrow when the assassin's knife sank solidly into his heart, with such force it sent him toppling to the sand outside the city gates.

It had all happened so quickly—the gentle sci­entist, sitting on the horse cart, was stunned by this incredible display of skill... and death.

'By the gods,' he said, amazed, wondering how it had come to pass that he would be riding into battle with such men.

From the parapet, Mathayus stood