Max Allan Collins

through the front doors this time, weaving in and around the positioned war­rior women.

Arpid looked at Isis and shook his head. 'Well, this is going well.'

'Go in with him,' the queen said.

'What? I don't want to get killed!'

Isis gestured with a dagger. 'Exactly my ... point.'

Arpid swallowed. 'The old boy may need help, at that.'

And the thief scurried up after him.

Isis sighed. 'Men,' she said, and her warriors rolled their eyes and nodded.

Within moments, Arpid had caught up with Phi­los, and—using a different route, but a more direct one, thanks to the scientist's knowledge of the pal­ace—they were soon back in the lower recesses of the grand structure. It did not take long for Philos to locate where a footprint marked the spot where the line of fuse powder had been disrupted.

Quickly the scientist repaired the damage, and re­lighted it with a torch borrowed from the wall. The powder burst into flame and obediently raced away, toward its final destination.

'That was easy,' Arpid said, relieved not to have been blown to smithereens.

'It was your stupid feet that did it!' Philos snapped.

'Look,' the thief said, 'casting blame won't solve—'

'Neither will talking. Unless you would like to wait to hear the explosion, from this closer vantage point.'

'No!'

'Then go, fool—go!'

They went—Arpid running on ahead, the older man trailing after.

'Come on, old man!' Arpid yelled back. 'If you don't want to get hurt, hurry up!'

At which point the thief ran headlong into a low-hanging rafter, knocking himself out.

The scientist jogged up and looked down at his sprawled cohort. 'Unbelievable,' he said, sighed, and bent down, to hoist the little thief up onto his own scrawny shoulders.

Truly, he thought, lugging his unconscious cargo down the passageway, the camel would have been a better choice.

In the throne room, the battle raged on, the sword fight between the Akkadian and the warlord contin­uing past a point where lesser men would have collapsed and likely died from such a colossal physical effort.

Theirs was not the only superhuman campaign undertaken in this room: Balthazar continued his solo slaughter of the palace guard, skilled red-turbaned swordsman falling in bloody shreds as the Nubian's deft skill, powered by superior strength, took down one after another.

Then, lost in his killing frenzy, Balthazar bumped into someone, a foe coming up behind him he sur­mised, and he whirled, ready to kill yet another guard. The Nubian was already swinging his sword when he realized the blade was slicing down toward the spine of the Akkadian, who had been driven back into Balthazar by Memnon.

But Mathayus—without even looking—raised his sword over his head, to swiftly block the blow; then returned to parry another of the warlord's thrusts.

Over the clang of blades, the assassin called out to the Nubian, 'Try to just kill them, please!'

And now the two men were fighting, back-to-back, as several guards pressed forward, as Baltha­zar dueled two of them at once, and Memnon continued his attack.