Amber yelled, 'Hak, back up! Get clear so we can run.'
Hakiim skipped backward, but that freed the manscorpion to whirl on Amber. Lunging, it tried to nip her belly with its pincer. By bracing her feet and pushing, Amber held the thing at bay. The pincer snapped at the rope. Cursing, she pulled again, wary of a stumble. If she got tangled with the manscorpion, she'd come in range of that stinger. Still, she was reluctant to disengage, not wanting to lose her staff or get spiked in the back. What to do?
'Push it this way!' Reiver appeared from the night carrying a long rectangle-a door. Evidently the thief had slipped the iron pintels off a garden shed, probably where he'd found the flowerpots. Skipping across dead flower beds, the thief hollered, 'Get ready to run!'
From a raised flower bed, Reiver swung the awkward door to bat the manscorpion in the face. The thing's buzzing was constant, angry as a giant wasp. As it spun toward Reiver-evidently it wasn't very smart, and could only attack one person at a time-Amber loosed her capture noose.
Hakiim yelled, 'Here's an exit!'
Dashing down a walkway toward Hakiim's voice, her thigh wincing at every step, Amber called, 'Leave it, Reive-ow! Damn. Run!'
'Coming!'
Making sure Amber was clear, Reiver pitched the door and dodged in its shelter past the manscorpion. He almost made it, but at the last second the guardian's prehensile tail lashed.
Pausing at the door, Amber shrieked as the stinger lanced Reiver in the kidneys and he stumbled. The thief recovered, vaulted a fallen pedestal, and jumped after Amber and Hakiim into a high-walled alley.
'Reiver!' Amber caught her friend's arm. 'It stung you-are you poisoned?'
'Not I,' Reiver laughed with delight at being alive. Bumbling along in the dark, he boasted, 'My camel suffered the damage!'
'Camel?' chirped the two.
'You won't believe it,' chuckled Reiver.
Pushing along in the lead, Hakiim insisted, 'Believe wha-Shoes of the Shoon!'
The alley gave onto a side street, and Hakiim stepped out directly between two black-robed bandits.
Twisting aside too late, Hakiim was knocked into a wall by a heavy crossbow batting for his head. Rather than defend herself, Amber made the mistake of propping Hakiim. The other bandit slashed down with her scimitar. Amber yelped as the blade flashed, and her wrist blazed with pain. Horror stunned her, and she thought, she cut my hand off!
The flat of the scimitar swung at Amber's face, and she dropped flat, sprawling on the ground to avoid it. Numb fingers pronged the dirt and pain shot to Amber's elbow, but the sting let her understand the attack. The scimitar stroke had been made with the back of the blade. Amber cursed. They want to capture us alive for the White Flame, she thought. For talking as loud as that, we deserve to be punished. A brutal kick bounced her off a wall, and she slumped, half stunned.
The only one left standing, Reiver raised both hands and shouted, 'Don't kill me!'
In the ghostly moonlight, wrapped nose to toe in black, the bandits looked flat as shadows, but their weapons glinted like mercury.
The female nomad snarled, 'Surrender or suffer!'
'We surrender,' Reiver's voice rasped as if he gargled gravel. 'Just, please, may I spare a drink? I'm dry as a hyena's hind end.'
Not waiting for permission, Reiver looped a cord over his head, and made to drink from his camel-hide water-skin. His power of suggestion had taken root, and the female bandit snatched the waterskin away.
'You can do without!'
'Take care, please, don't spill it,' Reiver whined. 'The bag has a hole, and we've so little-'
'Bide your tongue.'
The nomad jerked aside her headscarf and drank while her companion guarded the prisoners with his crossbow.
Lying at Reiver's feet, Amber touched the thief's leg gently, signaling: 'I'm ready to move.' The thief pressed her with a knee that said, 'Stay put, wait.'
The female passed the waterskin to her partner. He drank it dry and pitched it into the street.
'Holed,' he said. 'It's fit for nothing. Same as you'll be once the White Flame kisses you with fire. Now get-'
'I feel…' the woman gagged and choked. 'The water-poisoned.'
'Flea bait! Dung beetle!' Tilting his crossbow at Amber, the nomad whipped out a curved jambiya and aimed for Reiver. 'I'll carve-carve-oo-ugh.'
Reiver leaped clear as the two nomads doubled over and heaved. Amber recoiled from the hot stench, scuttling backward with her heels. Reiver dragged the groggy Hakiim to his feet and shoved him stumbling. Helpless, on their knees, the bandits retched painfully and long. Amber clambered to her feet, and despite a throbbing thigh, slunk away with the slow-moving Hakiim into a wide alley that promised to branch into a maze. In a moment, Reiver caught up, a crossbow, quiver, and scimitar under his arm.
Trotting, they rounded two corners, then hunkered to catch their breath. This time they watched in both directions while Hakiim rubbed his sore head and shoulder and Amber bound a bleeding wrist.
'Where did you get-' panted Amber. 'The manscorpion's stinger speared your waterskin!'
'The barb slammed me like a sling ball,' chuckled Reiver, 'but I never felt a sting. I found a hole in my bota and stuck my finger in it.'
'How did you know the poison was still potent? It must be as ancient as the manscorpion itself.'
Reiver held up a finger in the dim moonlight. 'My finger burned like a bee-sting,' he said, 'and now those kind bandits have tested it for us.'
'Stupid and clumsy of us to blunder into them,' muttered Amber. 'We should know better by now. We're not smart enough to go adventuring.'
Reiver smirked and said, 'Some of us are…'
By and by, creeping in half-steps and clinging to shadows as the moon set, the three companions neared the city center. Not far from the dry palace moat, the street dropped into a yawning pit. After a quick consult, the searchers decided to risk entry.
Holding onto Amber's capture noose, Reiver slithered down broken paving stones as silently as a snake. With the crossbow nocked, but eschewing a torch, he probed the darkness on hands and knees, hunting traps. Amber hunched just below street level on rubble, watching till she saw spots, listening until her ears rang. Hakiim nursed a sore head, still dizzy.
Other than the distant gobble of a hyena, Cursrah seemed to sleep-above ground. Down below must be a different story. Any number of monsters could have awakened, and at the bottom dwelled the mummy.
Crouching in the darkness, thoughts whirling in her head, Amber wondered at her dogged pursuit; the irrepressible desire to know what the mummy wanted, why it singled her out for its murky message, its identity…
Even at the risk of life and limb, Amber couldn't leave Cursrah without knowing the final fate of Amenstar, her ancient incarnation and spiritual sister. Curiosity was her curse, Amber thought, and might get her killed like the fabled cat. Her friends, whom she could never thank enough for sticking by her-
A scuffing sounded just up the street, then a musical murmur. Squeezing Hakiim's shoulder for silence, Amber hooked back her headscarf and cupped an ear with her hand.
Silhouetted by stars, four or five nomads talked at an intersection. Two bulky raiders hung back, awaiting orders. They were mongrelmen, shunned even by their comrades, guessed Amber. A nomad waved in her direction, and she ducked instinctively. Peeking, Amber saw three bandits walking, or one shambling, toward her hiding place. Gently she urged Hakiim to slide down the paving blocks. Amber skittered after.
Lingering at the hole where Reiver had disappeared, Amber heard more mumbling. A tentative sandal scuffed up at the pit's edge. As sure as summer sun, they're coming down here, thought the daughter of pirates. The only good news was that the raiders didn't know the Memnonites were also down there.
Shooing Hakiim into the dark tunnel, Amber listened behind-
