louder and there was something angry about the little half-words she was spitting out with each crash of her sex onto his. Syfax cupped her breasts and tried to relax and wait for her to finish, but the pain in his back was growing sharper and the noises she was making were more disturbing than arousing.
She snapped upright, grabbing his arms and pressing her sharp, broken nails deep into his wrists as she shuddered and gasped. “Nnnn!” Then she let go his arms and rolled off beside him.
Syfax rubbed his wrists to make sure he wasn’t bleeding and then rolled onto his side to massage the twisted muscle in his lower back. As he lay there, face to face with the one-eyed demon, he started to wonder where she had come from and who she had been thinking about just a moment ago. Whoever she was, she was no prostitute or farmer’s wife. She was something very different. Hard. Angry. Dangerous.
She shoved her head up onto his shoulder, eye closed, and said, “Still with me, big man?”
“Mm hm.”
“Mind if I stay a few hours?”
“Nope.”
“Good answer.”
He pulled a lock of black hair away from her face and stared at the deep shadows around her long nose and wide mouth. The eye patch and the scars were turned away from him, hidden.
She’s not so bad. And she’s not Espani. Too bad we’re in the middle of all this crap or I’d ask her name. She’s definitely one of a kind.
Syfax passed out.
He awoke with a blinding ray of sunlight in his eyes and a foul scummy feeling on his teeth. The sheets felt cold and clammy, and slowly he realized it was because the wool blanket was gone. A sharp metal clank snapped his eyes open and he saw the blanket trailing from the foot of the bed to the woman standing by the door, pulling on her clothes and stamping on her boots. A long knife had fallen to the floor and she was sliding it back into its sheathe. She straightened up and grinned at him. “Morning, big man.”
He sat up slowly, his head pounding. “Morning.” He looked up at the light streaming through the window, then dropped his gaze and saw the other little bed against the opposite wall. Holy shit, this is my room.
Kenan was still snoring and one of his arms had slipped out of his blankets to hang near the floor. A puddle of drool darkened the pillow beside his open mouth.
“Cute friend,” the woman said.
“Nephew.”
“Really? I don’t see it. You’ve both got that southern coloring though.”
Syfax snorted. “Yeah, we’re not exactly locals.” He froze as he realized what he had just said. Slowly, he relaxed his grip on the edge of the thin mattress and tried to remember what he’d done with his knife.
The woman was watching him as she slipped into her coat. A tiny smile flickered across her wide, black lips. “Mazigh?”
The major frowned and shrugged. “Who isn’t? Probably somewhere on my mother’s side.”
“If you say so.” She backed into the door, her eyes gliding back and forth between the two men on the beds. “Be seeing you, big man.” And she slipped out.
Damn.
“Kenan, get up. Now!” Syfax clawed up his clothes from the floor and yanked them on in no particular order. “Kenan! Time to get moving, kid.”
The lieutenant grunted and opened his eyes. “What time is it?”
“Time to get the hell out of town. I think we’ve got about a quarter hour before this place is crawling with soldiers.”
“What?” Kenan sat bolt upright, blinking hard and rubbing his eyes, and then he grabbed up his boots. He’d slept in the rest of his clothes. “Why? What happened?”
“Something stupid.” Syfax grabbed his belt and knife from under the bed. “Something really damn stupid.”
Day Six
Chapter 15. Shifrah
It’s not my fault. Sal never told me what they looked like.
Then again, Sal didn’t know what they looked like. Still, he was the only person she had ever known who called himself a professional spy, and all that time on the road from Valencia he had called the Mazighs spies, and somewhere along the way she had come to assume they would be just like him. Slender, debonair, condescending, and vicious. They would be experts in language and fashion, able to slip into a local crowd and vanish as one of them. They would be masters with knives and poisons, perhaps even with rapiers and explosives. And they would be staying in the most conspicuous places possible, sleeping in the most expensive hotels and dining with mayors and wealthy friends in every city from Madrid to Tartessos.
Nope. Shifrah shivered in the early morning breeze as she crossed the street toward the barracks by the north gate of the city. No, they were just a couple of drunks in a tavern. The big ugly Italian led me straight to them and I didn’t even realize it. A big meat head and his pathetic little sidekick who couldn’t hold his liquor.
How was I to know? Although, I suppose he was the only man in this freezing hellhole with a shaved head. But he looked as light or dark as anyone else in there. In the dark.
She stopped cold in the street.
I should be back there right now, slitting their throats. That was the whole point. That was the job. So why am I out here? It’s not because I rode him. Wouldn’t be the first time. No. But if it’s not him, then it’s Sal. And damn you for that, Sal. I’m not hacking off a pair of heads and dragging them all the way back to Valencia for your precious mission or your ego.
Still she stood in the street shivering as the chill morning air seeped into her sweaty hair.
But I may still need Sal one day. No need to burn that bridge just yet. If I give them to the locals and then make up a story for Sal, that should be good enough. And then I can go south. I can go someplace warm.
Shifrah strode into the guardhouse by the city gate and pounded on the inner door. “Wake up, boys, you’ve got a few minutes of work to do.” Her Espani wasn’t perfect, and she knew she wasn’t pale enough to pass for local, but the stolen triquetra medallion displayed on her chest had proven a reliable passport before. Only in Espana would they care more about the trappings of faith than the genuine article.
The door opened and two pale children of seventeen or so stepped out in dark blue uniforms. Mottled little beards clung to their cheeks, which only made them look younger. “Yes?”
She sighed. “Do you have anything bigger in there? Because honestly, this Mazigh is going to eat you boys alive.”
“What Mazigh?”
“The big Mazigh staying at the Red Swallow. Two of them, actually, but I’m not too worried about the little one.”
The young soldiers looked confused. “Did they do something?”
“Haven’t you heard? There’s a manhunt going on across half the country for foreign spies, particularly ones from Marrakesh. And I just found two of them at the Swallow. Now get the real soldier boys out here before they leave.” She crossed her arms, nudging her breasts up higher, and she stared at the boys in blue. They both blinked at her chest.
“Let me go talk to the captain.” One ducked back inside, leaving his friend to stand in the doorway looking cold and nervous.
Shifrah smirked at him. “So, you ever kill a man, soldier boy?”
“What? No, no ma’am. No, I haven’t.”
She sniffed. “What about a woman?”
His eyes widened in horror and she laughed.
The door opened again and half a dozen soldiers spilled out into the street, their shining black boots clacking
