When she reached the top row, she turned right and found a wooden panel on the ground in front of her. There were two huge iron hinges on the left of the panel and a rusted iron lock on the right. Kenan jogged up behind her and looked over her shoulder. “There’s two more of them down there,” he said quietly. “When do we start using the high ground?”
“The what?” Shifrah carefully drew out the seireiken, and the bright fiery blade painted both their faces in golden orange hues. A quiet buzzing filled her ears, the soft babble of a hundred distant voices, but she ignored it as she touched the point of the sword to the wooden panel, and it instantly blackened and started to smoke.
“The high ground. You said we needed the high ground.”
“Oh, that. No. I just needed you to follow me.”
“What the hell?” He glared at her. “Then what’s the real plan?”
The wooden panel burst into flames. The boards crackled for a moment, and then slowly caved in, falling into the dark passage below. Shifrah smiled. “This is the real plan. Run, hide, shoot. Repeat as necessary. Don’t worry. You’re doing great.” She slid the deadly burning blade back into its clay-lined scabbard and dashed down the dark stairwell, which was now partially illuminated by the bits of burning wood that had tumbled down into it.
They both clattered down the steps as quickly as they could in the dark. Down and down, passing no landings or openings, until Shifrah stumbled onto a stone floor. The stairs had ended. They stood in a small dark room with a single ray of soft blue light slicing along the floor on one side.
A door. Shifrah pressed her ear to the door and listened. Nothing. No one out there.
She carefully tried the handle, but it too was locked. Damn.
Drawing out the seireiken once more, she again heard the buzzing of distant voices, and this time she paused to rub her ear and opened her jaw, hoping to dispel the noise. When the babble continued unabated, Shifrah shook her head and pressed the point of the sword carefully to the door handle. The metal quickly glowed, brightening from dull red to bright yellow. The iron twisted, sagged, and finally fell to the floor with a dull wet slap. The door swung open.
Shifrah sheathed the sword and slipped out into the dark corridor. To her left at the far end of the tunnel she saw one of the tall bounty hunters looking down on the arena field. To her right was the open street. They went right.
As they jogged across the street and headed west down the main avenue, Kenan said, “Well, that wasn’t much of a plan, but it worked. Two down and two lost. If we’re lucky, there won’t be any more after us right now, at least not until Aker realizes his sword is missing and puts out another call for hired help.”
Shifrah rolled her eye. “I smashed in the bars of the window in the room where he was sleeping, Kenan. He probably woke up and figured out that someone took his sword about two seconds after I took his sword. He’s already coming for us, right now. The only advantage we have is our two-minute head start.”
“Which we just squandered running around the arena,” Kenan said. “So the only real advantage we have is that Aker doesn’t know where we’re going. Unless he’s working with the man on the roof, Anubis, and this is all one big set-up.”
“Do you honestly think that Aker, a brainless, whoring, hash-smoking thug, is working with a mysterious man who floats around on rooftops?”
Kenan laughed. “Aker is part of secret society of men with magic swords, so I’d say that all possibilities are firmly on the table.”
“It’s not magic and you know it.” Shifrah glared at him. They were well into the Songhai Quarter again and the morning foot traffic in the street was quickly growing as the locals left their homes for the shops, markets, and the new Eranian factories. They wove into the crowd, shuffling along no faster or slower than anyone else. “I trust Anubis. He was right about the window and the sword, and he was right about us, and I’m going to the rail yard, like he said.”
“He was right about us?” Kenan grinned. “So you do want to have my children?”
“Shut up, mister ashamed-of-your-own-love.” Shifrah sidestepped around a particularly slow-moving old woman and found a wall of white cloth and black muscles in her path.
The ageless youth frowned slightly. “You’re moving too slowly.”
“You!” Kenan stepped forward. “Who are you really?”
“You know my name,” Anubis said. “I made a promise to my cousin that I would see the two foreigners safely back to the rail yard with the sword of Aker El Deeb. That is all you need to know. But you might also wish to know that El Deeb and two dozen Shona and Zulu bounty hunters are approaching from the east. They have not seen you yet, but they will in a moment.”
“Can’t you just fly us away, like you did on the roof?” Kenan asked. “You know, poof?”
Anubis stared down at the detective. “No.”
“Then what would you suggest?” Shifrah slipped her hand into her jacket for her last knife as she glanced around the crowd in search of their pursuers. She suddenly felt very naked and exposed in her light olive skin.
If Kenan was wearing shabbier clothing, he might have been able to blend in by himself. As long as he kept his mouth shut. Not that it would do me any good.
“The Songhai Empire has no love for the Bantu kingdoms. Help is at hand,” Anubis said. He indicated a right turn at the next corner. “Go, quickly.”
Shifrah hurried past him, glancing back just once to see the stranger step into the shadows and vanish into a steamy mist. “When we get home, I’m going to have to learn that little trick.”
They jogged around the corner and found that the street ended just a few yards away at the front gates of a Songhai barracks. A dozen men in brown uniforms stood at attention on either side of the open gate, short sabers on their belts and single-shot rifles in their hands. Shifrah asked, “Do you know anything useful about the Songhai?”
“I know they like to shoot our men along the border of Marrakesh,” Kenan said. “But if you want a way to get them to protect us from Aker and a small army of Shona and Zulu warriors, then I can’t help you.”
“I thought you were the man with the plan.”
“I am, when I have time to come up with a plan.”
Shifrah grimaced. “Maybe it will be enough for us to just be here, close to the barracks. Maybe that will keep the bounty hunters from following us.”
They turned to watch the main street. A tall man strode into view, and then two more. They turned their heads slowly and stopped when they saw Shifrah and Kenan standing in the dead-end road in front of the barracks gates. A moment later, four more men joined them, and a step behind them followed Aker. The Aegyptian pointed at Shifrah, said something to his band of hunters, and the group started toward them.
“Nope,” Kenan said. “It won’t keep them from following us. Come on, think. We’ve got a gun, a knife, and a sword. How do we…?” The detective grinned.
“You have an idea?”
“Yeah, but you’re not going to like it,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow. “Just do it.”
Kenan winked and yanked the seireiken free of the scabbard on Shifrah’s back. He held the bright orange blade high over his head for all to see. “Do I have any bidders for an authentic aetherium sword? Step right up and buy a one-of-a-kind seireiken! We have only one left in stock and it is priced to sell! Do I have any bidders?” He went on shouting, making the offer in Mazigh and Espani.
Oh, great. Now everyone else will want to kill us too. Well, what the hell?
Shifrah took a deep breath and started echoing him in Eranian.
Every man in the Songhai ranks looked up. Every eye was fixed on the glowing sword. Several more men emerged from the gate to look. And behind Aker and his Bantu entourage, a handful of people began pointing and talking excitedly as they started forward.
“Okay, it looks like we have everyone’s attention,” Shifrah said. “Now dazzle me with your escape plan.”
“Follow me.” Kenan went on shouting about the great sword sale as he paced in lazy circles closer to the barracks gates, right down the dusty path between the two dozen guards in brown. Shifrah stayed at his side, announcing the imminent bidding war in Eranian.
But she kept her eye on Aker. He had brought his hired muscle most of the way down the dead-end road and now was hovering just beyond the Songhai soldiers, arguing with his men. She couldn’t hear him over Kenan’s yelling and the rising murmurs from the gathering crowd of gawkers and would-be bidders, but from Aker’s gestures
