* * *

"We can't go over the bridge," noted one of the mercenaries, pointing to a cavalry post.

Apparently, in anticipation of the night's riots, the city authorities had decided to take control of the main thoroughfares. The bridge, where the Shopkeepers and Craftsmen had fought yesterday, was guarded by a group of two or three "spears," totaling a dozen and a half warriors. The post was temporary, with a couple of carts, a tent spread out on the sidewalk, and a large roaster. It seemed to have been set up in a hurry, but the warriors seemed alert, and their armor was still on. Singles and small unarmed groups were let through more or less freely, but the rest were turned away without explanations or disputations. The few boatmen who had ventured out to the fishery rejoiced in life and profit. The people wailed. The micro-garrison stood like a wall and did not even seem to take bribes. Although the latter was understandable, it was not appropriate for the nobles to take small coins. The Emperor paid for the guard's non-holiday [1] service in such a way that even the high-born hubris hid in his purse, occasionally yipping for order.

"I'll try to make a deal," Brether decided.

The armed group, and such an unusual one at that, was noticed from afar, and the guards were visibly tense. The senior gendarme [2] even puts on his ringed hood. Ranjan raised his hand, slowing the company down. For half a minute, the two squads stared at each other gloomily and unfriendly. No one wanted to fight, and it was clear it was too early for open combat. Ranjan looked up at the pale sun visible through the gaps between the roofs. He clenched his jaw to stone jowls. His servant stood under his left arm, ready to draw his sword.

"They won't let us through. Better by the river," Cadfal advised succinctly and obviously.

"There is no time."

Indeed, the ferry had finally left for the opposite shore, and no boats left at all. Obviously, few people risked to earn money and wander at night, and even in such a situation. It would probably not be possible to cross in one go.

"Time is not worth fighting the Emperor's knights," Brother Cadfal seemed to have finally taken on the tasks of the voice of reason. And that surprised Elena, for Ranjan the Plague who had been considered the paragon of the cold-blooded professional in the Wastelands. Now, the always grim and always poised master looked more like a character from the tale with the owl in the ass. Something was wrong here.

The Brether's hesitation did not seem to go unnoticed. Several of the squires began to check crossbows, twist bolts, and generally demonstrate their readiness for the escalation. The horses, basking under their quilted blankets, looked on and sipped at the warmed broth to strengthen their joints.

"Wait," one of the mercenaries raised his hand warningly. "Listen!"

First came the Sound, and it hit the quiet neighborhood like a shockwave from a movie, drowning out and pushing all other noises in front of it. A ringing, grave silence spread out in circles, preceding the Sound, as if the very nature of the City had fallen fearfully silent, listening. Only the warhorses rumbled as one, anxiously stretching their necks and shifting their hoofs nervously as if the Sound were familiar to these animals. In an instant, the entire squad at the post forgot about the group of mercenaries and turned toward the opposite end of the bridge.

"Wow," said Rapist. "I thought stomping was not about the capitals."

It sounded more like the rustling of the legs of a thousand-foot caterpillar, only huge and shod with metal. Or like the rushing surf of leaden waves chiseling granite over and over. Deafeningly, coherently, with a clang at odds, which was so numerous that it formed itself into a separate rhythm and lay on top of the rustle of the thousand-legged caterpillar.

A crowd, Elena realized. A large crowd, at least a few dozen people, maybe a hundred or two, coming fast, keeping pace, approaching from the other side of the river. Judging by the way Ranjan's mercenaries looked at each other and the way the outposts fidgeted, that told them something. And while the woman was thinking, the rumbling noise was joined by a drumming sound like drums, only sharper and more dry and shrill. Voices could be heard shouting something one-word, not in the common tongue. It all sounded commanding and organized.

"There they are," Cadfal pointed, but everyone had already seen them.

Elena waited for the pilgrims she had met the day before to come out from the corner of the building. She was wrong; they were not monks. A column - really like a caterpillar - of highland infantry was advancing to the square in front of the bridge. Four men in a row, all as one in typical highland style, that is, with pigtails halfway down their faces and huge knotted belts on their bellies.

It must be said that each individual Highlander seemed very funny. Laughing at the unwashed savages became an old habit in the City. Because of their pigtails, they were compared to women, and the tradition of wearing stockings together with intricately tied sashes created a characteristic and absolutely unmasculine image of a fat-bellied parody of a warrior. Not without reason, the type of evil and stupid highlander became nominal, played thousands of times by comedians throughout the Ecumene as a counterbalance to the noble knight, perfect in body and soul. They laughed, of course, behind their back because, face to face, one could get a dagger in the stomach and become shorter with a laughing tongue.

And the amazing thing is... at the moment, the "chickens" were not fun at all, not even by half a finger. Especially since most of them had pulled on at least long-sleeved quilted jackets with ringed inserts, and the first ranks wore plate armor of varying degrees of completeness, it changed the silhouettes. But at the same time, the Highlanders were not intimidating, not yet, anyway. Rather, they gave an impression similar to a monk's procession. Everything was wrong and unnatural. In general, where did the infantry on the streets of the capital come from? Not a representative detachment, not a private guard of some Bonom or rich merchant, but a full-fledged detachment, at least now in the field under a hail of arrows and cavalry attack. Even through the dull stupor that had seized Elena, a spark of curiosity broke through. What does it all mean, and what to expect?

"Drink," Ranjan advised again. "You'll fall down now."

Elena pulled out the cork and took a sip of the phosphorescent elixir. The liquid was as tasteless as water, and instead of quenching her thirst, it dried her mouth. There was no surge of energy.

The column, meanwhile, was moving forward without slowing down. The impression of a huge caterpillar was strengthened by the "bristles" - ardent weapons carried by almost every fighter. Mostly halberds, some other ominous hooks, scythes on the shaft. But there were almost no ordinary long spears. Probably, they were not considered practical in the city. The long spears were carried not vertically to the sky but on the shoulders, at an angle, which made the millipede look like a very long porcupine with its needles down. The question with drums became clearer - instead of drums, they were pounded with large hammers, similar to massage hammers, on tubular bones, taken, judging by their size, from dinosaurs. The bones cracked dryly and shrilly as if split in a fire.

"I don't see any banners," said Cadfal, surprised. "They're coming naked like a bunch of rabble. There should be at least two, the Blood Moon and the banner of a Prince or Tukhum."

"To a 'bad' and dishonorable fight they go," one of the mercenaries showed knowledge of the matter.

"Is that allowed?" Elena asked at first and then realized the elixir was starting to take effect. It didn't make her feel any better, but her mind was a little clearer.

"Allowed. The regiment lowers its banners and shows that it fights without any rules. They don't take prisoners, don't take ransom, don't keep their word, babies into the fire, pregnant women to the stake. They make "pigs" out of other's wounded."

The feet stepped in rhythm, the bone drums sounded in rhythm, and even the steel hedgehog above their heads swayed rhythmically, rolling in waves from their heads to the last rows. Without any apparent command, the squad "sounded off," the soldiers began to exhale something like "Whoo!" in time with their steps. Tension rose, thickened. Looking around, Elena noticed there was no one else left by the river. The infantry, Ranjan's group in the distance, and the gendarmes with their "spears" at their post. Everyone. Even a couple of the remaining boats had sailed closer to the middle. The others had gone downstream.

"Who would go into battle like that?" Elena muttered to herself, but she was heard and answered:

"Blood feud, family to family, clan to clan. Or money, but the kind you can't imagine."

The gendarmes finally realized the infantry seemed to have no intention of stopping. While the squires were hurriedly preparing the horses, the knights quickly conferring. Elena's mind was clearing, fatigue washed out of her body, and only thirst tormented her. The woman watched, mesmerized by what was happening, and on the bridge, it seemed a real battle was brewing, the second in her life.

The infantry did not stop or even slow down. A curt command came over their heads, and the formation changed. From the side, she could not see properly, but it looked as if the column had rearranged itself on the move, widening to five men or more in front, from parapet to parapet. Another command and the soldiers moved to a quicker step, and the muttering changed, and instead of the old "Whoo!" there was a distinctive two-tone repetition of "Tu-Khum!!!". Apparently, it was more suitable for fast movement.

The gendarmes stood in an outstretched wedge, the most armored in front, two more behind and a little to the side, the rest in the third echelon. On the flanks, at the entrance to the bridge, the archers took up positions, two or three with crossbows, the others with bows almost as tall as a man, if not bigger, and with a clear asymmetry - about two-thirds of the total length was on the upper part.

Her consciousness "floated" as if she had fainted. Elena squeezed her eyes shut and twisted her head, rubbing her ears to make the blood rush to her head. Literally, in a couple of moments, everything went away. There was only excessive contrast of vision, as in video clips from the nineties, all bluish, without transition of colors. The moon, already competing with the setting sun, is silvery white, like metal, red-hot to the next stage after red. It hurt to even look at it. The torches lit above the column and the brazier at the post are coal red as if blown with oxygen. And the sky seems black, though in fact it is still only gray, sunset.

There was something wrong with my head, too; the bitter experiences were distant, blurred, as if "here" and "then" were separated not by an hour but by years. The pain subsided, turning to a slight sadness, like a memory of school years. If that was the effect of the elixir, Elena had nothing against it and wanted to stock up on more.

"Tu-Khum!!!" dozens of voices shouted as one man and the column rushed across the bridge, trampling like a herd of elephants shod with ringing steel.

The gendarmes, for their part, wasted no words in warning. Apparently, the cavalrymen assumed that if an armed crowd stepped on the bridge, they knew exactly what they wanted and what the consequences would be. If the infantry walked like a huge piston, filling the bridge like toothpaste - the neck of a tube, the cavalry moved like a steel nail. There was not enough space for full acceleration, but the cavalry had time to gain a decent speed.

"They march nice," Rapist said in a low voice, and there was more than mere admiration in his voice. They were the words of a man who'd long ago lost something he wouldn't want back in his right mind, but deep down, he retained a longing and lust. Elena was convinced that the unpleasant grandfather had been a soldier, too.

She remembered how easily the knights had swept through the crowd. Obviously, it wouldn't be that easy here, however... There was no time to think about the "however"... The drums struck particularly loudly, changing the rhythm, and the column stopped. The process was not instantaneous. It took two or three seconds for everyone to comply with the command, and the formation was slightly disrupted, but because of this pause, the purposefulness and coherence of the organized multitude of soldiers seemed even more impressive. The column aligned and somehow thickened as if each soldier had become closer to his comrades. The huge "porcupine" stood upright, weapons above the formation, like needles ready for battle or the bristles of a meow before a hunter's rush. The front ranks ducked or knelt, halberds held out in front of them.

"Well, here we go..." exhaled behind her.

The crossbowmen and archers fired first. At once, as if on command, which Elena probably didn't hear. At such a distance and on such a large target, it was impossible to miss. The question was who would be protected by armor and who would be unlucky. A moment later, a steel nail with a solid acceleration flew into the dense mass of infantry, shattering the halberds. It was so loud that Elena almost covered her ears. The metallic clang went walking between the banks, echoing off the walls of houses with tightly closed shutters - it seemed that none of the surrounding inhabitants wanted to get a stray arrow through the window.

The column jerked and fell back. Apparently, the first two ranks fell at once, but the tight formation held. With minimal delay-no more than a heartbeat-the raised halberds of the next ranks came down, working like steel flails, poking sparks out of steel armor. Along with the iron rumble, a single, horrifying scream rose to the darkening sky. People were screaming, and the wounded beasts were screaming terribly - in a very human way. One of the horses reared up, flailing its front legs. A precise blow with a hoof threw the halberdier over the parapet, and with a shriek, he fell into the cold water and went straight to the bottom. The infantry fiercely hammered the gendarmes and tried to cut the horses' legs with scythes. The horsemen fiercely fought back, crossing in all directions with axes and maces. There was a hum like a good forge. The wounded and dying howled, the destriers roared, but everyone else fought in silence. Not a single shout, not a single curse, not even a "tu-khum".

The archers fired a second volley, seemingly hitting someone. The gendarme on the left flank was pressed against the fence and pelted with frequent blows. Some small pieces of armor and jewelry flew off, but the steel resisted. Finally, a lucky halberdier hit the helmet, tearing off the long, bird's-beak-like visor. From this distance, it was unclear whether the helmet was penetrated or not, but the warrior in the saddle flailed like a puppet and dropped his arms, dropping his polearm. Then, he was swept off his horse, following the drowned infantryman.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"The gold coins are sinking," the Bretheran servant said sadly, and those were the first words Elena heard him say.

"It won't be lost," said the rather sociable Cadfal philosophically. "The armor is heavy, so it went straight to the bottom. Then they'll come back and get it with nets."

"The water is icy," Swordsman's skepticism was slow to dissipate. "And the current."

"For such an armor," Cadfal snorted. "They would risk it. The water has subsided, the current is weak, and won't carry them far."

The Redeemer and the servant were having a silent argument about whether it made sense to employ locals to trawl the bottom for a small penny. In the meantime, the fast-moving battle had come to an end. The cavalry could not shoot down the infantry but got bogged down in the melee, where each knight had a dozen halberds. The second was felled together with his horse, the third was knocked out of the saddle, and the freed destrier, with a wild roar, thrashed his hooves as if avenging his defeated master. Only now did the foot soldiers begin to shout with undisguised triumph. When the fourth fell, the two remaining cavalrymen tried to save themselves by withdrawing from the battle. One miraculously managed to turn his horse around in the middle of the bridge, among the corpses, on horseshoes slipping in blood. He ran away as if he were being chased by all the devils of hell, leaving his squires at his post. The second one hesitated and was dragged to the ground with hooks. Battle hammers flashed. Judging by the heart-rending screams and tinny scraping, the armor played against its owner, not allowing him to die too quickly. The horse was the last to fall, and the bridge was free.

The "Spears," who had not participated in the battle, fired a third volley, but somehow weakly, disjointedly, and without enthusiasm. The column of steel moved forward like a horde of ants crawling over the bodies of beetles bitten to death. There was a commotion among the squires and riflemen at the post, some fleeing at once, some firing once more, and fleeing afterward. The bravest tried to stop his colleagues but to no avail. Shouting some curses after the cowards, he shook his iron-gloved fist and then, after a short hesitation, turned around and walked towards the steel caterpillar. He was alone, wielding a two-handed poleax that resembled a hybrid of an axe and an ahlspiess.

"What a fool," one of the mercenaries said. Rapist and Cadfal shook their heads in silent agreement. After a few moments, however, the skinny spearman added. "It's a pity. He was a brave warrior."

He spoke of the daredevil in the past tense. Looking at the marching infantry, even Helena, who was far from war, agreed. The brave man stood in the path of the avalanche, axe in hand. The first row of the column coherently threw forward halberds, knocking the warrior to the ground. Whether he was still alive remained unknown, and then a staggered wave covered the fallen man.

"Good exchange," commented Rapist. "Very good!"

Elena was surprised to note that the group was in agreement - at least two dozen infantry to five cavalrymen plus one rifled lancer was a "very good" ratio. And again, she remembered the dispersal of the crowd, during which a couple of horsemen hadn't even scratched their armor.

The caterpillar, meanwhile, crossed the bridge, toppled the marquee in passing, and moved on down the street, scaring away the latecomers. The "tail" stretched a little. A few foot soldiers lagged, handing their weapons to those ahead. The stragglers tossed the remaining corpses of the gendarmes into the river and started to catch up with their comrades, taking an orphaned horse, the only survivor. None of the infantrymen paid any attention to the group of armed men in the distance, apparently not considering them a threat.

"No crossbowmen, no cart with a healer, they don't pick up their dead, they only care about rich trophies," Rapist said thoughtfully. "Strange case. Either they're fools, or they're in a hurry to reach the gathering spot."

"They're in the city, but they act like they're on a long and hard march," the servant remarked. "Like a war."

"Then there's hardly any time left," Ranjan said and ordered. "Across the bridge, go!"

"You promised," the healer reminded him.

"I'll explain on the other side. Hurry up! We have time to cross."

There was surprisingly little blood. Most of it stays under clothing and armor, soaked into quilts and thick helmets. But it was still enough to make Elena grit her teeth as she stepped over the corpses, trying not to step in the dark red, almost black splashes. Of course, there was no way to avoid it, and her boots slipped unpleasantly. Almost all of the dead were mutilated, the cavalrymen's weapons and destrier hooves inflicting impressive wounds. However, the bodies of the infantrymen did not look frightening but rather pathetic and ridiculous, like dolls scattered in disorder with rope joints that bent in all directions. Elena noted that several of the dead Highlanders had dagger marks - the wounded had been shot in the lower jaw so that the faceted blade could pass through the sky and into the brain. Probably the "heavy" ones who could not be helped.

The streets had died out, lurking fearfully behind shuttered shutters, bronze doors, and deadbolts. Somewhere in the distance, a column of black smoke billowed into the low clouds. Behind them, a glow of yellow, barely visible above the rooftops, showed that Baala's house was burning properly. The sun had set, painting the dark sky a watercolor-soft shade of purple in farewell. The air was cold and almost still despite the proximity of the river.

They crossed the bridge and walked along the granite-clad shore. When Elena finally lost her patience, Ranjan spoke quickly and, at the same time, businesslike, like a man accustomed to making his point succinctly and clearly. Or maybe he was just practicing his words. Who knows?

Indeed, Ruthier of the Wastelands had not come to the City for Hel's head. He had been commissioned to do a job that required him to sneak into one of the palaces of the Old City. The problem was that to do so without attracting the attention of the guards was possible only through an underground passage, which...

"I get it," Elena wrinkled her nose as if she'd bitten into an unripe lemon. "I get it now..."

Now everything, step by step, was falling into place!

Ranjan was sure that the legend did not lie and that the secret passage existed. A tunnel from the palace (which had not yet become underground) to the Old City in time immemorial. Forgotten, mysterious - and apparently real. Brether had a blueprint pulled from God knows what archives. There was a bribed guard, most likely more than one, willing to let a small group into the underground prison for a dizzying sum. There were mercenaries willing to take any risk. But the tunnel, according to the blueprint, began in the lower levels of the underground prison, in the darkness of the old labyrinth, where there was no way for outsiders, and an uninformed person would get lost at once. A guide was needed, and it was impossible to find one quickly. And then, in a conversation with Draftsman, the place of work of Lunna-Hel's apprentice came up by chance....

Ranyan realized that god and fate favored him, so all he had to do was persuade the medicine woman to take the risk and wait for a day off. Best of all, the opening day of the Tournament, when the Palace-under-the-Hill would be empty, and most of the guards would have gone to the racecourse or gone on a party. Draftsman owed Ranjan nothing, but since the ruthier brought the news from an old comrade, he agreed to act as a mediator, guaranteeing, if not a result, at least a calm and businesslike conversation.

And then came the race against time, which Brether suddenly began to lose due to the impending turmoil and the coming unrest. A more or less coherent plan turned into a snowball on a steep slope, changing direction haphazardly. And when Draftsman suddenly died.....

"Died?!" Elena jumped up.

"Yeah. Murdered. Probably killed himself."

Elena did not feel any particular mental anguish. After all, she had no sympathy for the old fencer. He had humiliated her, disrespected her, and at first, he had mutilated her and thrown her to her death. But still... it was sad. Another death to add to the ever-growing martyrologist of the day. But who or what could have caused Figueredo's death? It was all connected somehow - Draftsman, the mysterious deaths in Baala's house - but even her elixir-spurred brain refused to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Who's going to teach me now? She thought, forgetting that she should be fleeing Milvess, not worrying about forgotten possessions and abandoned classes.

Ranjan continued his story of how he had found the burglarized house and the body of the old master in it. He realized things were bad and rushed to Elena's house, where he met some unusual competitors. Or helpers. Or unclear, who at all. In general, as if other troubles and surprising events were not enough, outside forces intervened, manifesting themselves in the form of two brothers of Redeemers.

"We will help," Cadfal repeated, and the Rapist nodded silently, keeping a Buddha-like expression on his wrinkled, ugly face.

"Who are you?" Elena asked the natural and obvious question.

"Those who will help," answered the redeemer with such a look, as if he closed with this phrase all controversial topics of the universe.

"Who sent you?"

Cadfal shrugged as if surprised at the questioner's irrationality.

"The ones who asked for help."

"The Brotherhood of the Redeemers is a friend of the Church of the Pantocrator," Ranjan explained abruptly. "And you seem to have friends, or at least well-wishers, among the high-flying Demiurges. One or more who might have asked the two brothers to keep an eye on you."

"But I don't have any..." Elena faltered, remembering the pot-bellied confessor from prison, his active interest in the medicine woman, and most importantly, in her medicine chest and knowledge of the benefits of antiseptic. What was it, mere curiosity or something more, and even with long-term consequences...?

"That's right," Cadfal nodded. "We've been asked to keep an eye on you."

"Protecting me?"

"No," Cadfal said patiently. "To see that you find your destiny. That is, not to discourage you if you want to break your neck. Not to prevent you from breaking your neck if you want to break it. But as far as possible, not to let you die foolishly and preferably leave the city alive. In other words, we are not shepherds but companions in the darkness of the night."

"I don't understand a damn thing..." Elena clenched her temples and rubbed, squeezing her eyes shut. "This is some kind of panopticon... Murderers, villains, criminals, brothers, sadists, shepherds... I want to wake up, wake me up!"

The world around her, meanwhile, seemed disgustingly material and was not about to dissolve into a fading dream. Ranjan's hired men were shuffling from foot to foot, not interfering with the conversation between his patron and his vis-a-vis. There was a stirring on the remaining bridge as local criminals crawled out of the crevices and began to pick off the dead like ghouls in a desecrated cemetery. Now, it became clearer why the highlanders threw the bodies of the gendarmes into the river. And, she supposed, the infantrymen expected to return for the bodies of their dead. Another version of why highlanders do not wear rings came to mind - so marauders on the battlefield would not cut off the valuables together with the fingers, disfiguring an honestly fallen corpse.

"In the morning, I was happy, rich, and almost noble. Then it turned out my lover had been looking for me for months, either to kill me or send me as a gift to her father," Elena withdrew her finger. "After that, two people who became my family died," she bent back a second finger, counting. "I killed two scumbags and castrated the third, he died too. An old enemy asked for help. Some well-wishers sent two companions who would help. However, it wouldn't hurt to get in the way and break your neck. And there are also underground passages, terrible secrets, and palaces..."

She sighed and asked not so much of Ranjan and the brothers, but of herself:

"Is that how people go crazy?"

"That's what happens when you're in a whirlwind," Cadfal said good-naturedly, shifting the club from one hand to the other. "Like a good battle. Nothing is clear. Everyone's running around, fussing....."

"And gut each other," Rapist said expertly.

"Yes, that's right. Then the chroniclers come. They write something in scrolls, and it turns out all events were connected by a single chain, link to link. Everything had a meaning and significance, was ordered and conditioned, with something beginning and ending. But the understanding will come afterward, and at the historical moment, it remains just to ride the turbulent waves and try not to drown. You, too, will understand everything, but first, you will have to survive."

"To the point," Ranjan said harshly, glaring at the moon and the blackening sky lit by distant lights. It seems that more than one house will burn down in Milvesse that night..... "I will be taken to the prison," he said. "There, it is necessary to find a tunnel, go through it, and do the work."

"I've had enough of the dead," the woman exhaled, feeling again the disgusting stickiness of other people's blood on her hands, the slimy touch of veins and entrails. The presence of the redeemers was reassuring.

"You don't have to kill anyone. Just to meet and pick up a few things..." Ranjan met Elena's unblinking gaze. "Someone to be transported outside the city walls, away from the capital. Someone who can't get out on his own by the usual means because his guards are almost like jailers now."

"The winter air of Milvess is said to be very bad," Cadfal whispered loudly, leaning toward the Rapist. "Especially when the nobles begin to decide who forgives whom all debts."

The short fighter nodded understandingly, squinting his already narrow eyes that looked like helmet slits under heavy eyelids. He added, covering his mouth with his palm, in an equally tragic whisper:

"Especially at night."

"And there is hardly any time left. It must be done today when the bell strikes, and by dawn, it will be too late," Ranjan pretended not to hear the redeemers' sarcastic dialog. "Help me, I'll pay you in gold for it, I'll take you out of Milvessus along with the... person. And I'll tell you everything I know about the order I got on you a year ago."

"Find and kill," Elena grimaced. "What a mystery..."

"No," Ranjan smiled miserably. "To find, yes. And then to cherish and protect at all costs."

"What?!" Now, Elena's heart was pierced, one might say, to the very core. The effect of Brether's statement was almost comparable to a good blow. In any case, the woman choked on her saliva and coughed for real.

Ranjan waited patiently until Elena could breathe normally, only her jaw clenched to stone jowls betraying the Brether's impatience.

"I was there!" The healer hissed with such fierce rage that the words seemed to melt into the cold air like molten lead. "I hid, and I heard everything! You searched for Spark, and you killed everyone you met, even a little girl! You're bloody scum, you're no better than the creatures I killed in the house!"

She grabbed the Brether by the sleeve, pulling as if she wanted to rip him off. So fast that Ranjan didn't even have time to flinch. The mercenaries sprang to their feet, hands in thick combat gloves touching their weapons as if on cue. Cadfal gripped the club's headband tighter Rapist crouched slightly, his slender, knotted fingers sliding over the shaft of the spear in a strange motion as if he were caressing polished wood covered with a multitude of notches for grip. Grimal adjusted his sword so his lord could more comfortably grasp the long, leathery hilt.

Grabbing the hated Brether by the sleeve, Helena stared into the dark, impassive pupils of the murderer, as impassive as polished stone. It seemed to her that at that moment, she could kill with a glance, so much hatred boiled in her soul. The image of Ranjan merged in her mind with the blurred figures of the slain bandits from Baala's house.

Brether twisted his arm and intercepted Elena-Hel's wrist, beginning the technique of releasing himself from her grasp. For a moment, they froze, clutching at each other in a Roman handshake, and then...

Elena backed away, blinking like a newly awake person whose eyes were still obscured by the shroud of undistracted dreams. Ranjan shuddered, raising a hand with fingers twisted with cramps. A powerful shock of electricity seemed to shoot through the man and woman's palms, turning a second into a century, shaking the stars, and stopping the moon from circling in the sky.

"What was that..." Elena whispered, clenching her small fists, rubbing them against each other like a badly frozen person. She had lost all her fervor and generally felt as if her frenzied rage had gone with the electric shock.

"I never in my life," Ranjan exhaled, twisting his fingers as if he were kneading rusty joints. It was quiet, so quiet perhaps only the servant could hear.

Whatever was happening now, Ranjan regained presence of mind in a couple of moments, wrapped himself in cold determination like a cloak.

"I was to protect you from all harm and danger at all costs. You'll find out the rest after you..."

The cold, clear, metallic sound traveled high above the rooftops of the City. The bell struck somewhere off to the side of the Temple of Attributes, perhaps just off the temple belfry. The alarming, lonely signal rolled on, echoing off the dark clouds, dissolving into the night. It was echoed by a second, then a third from the other end of Milvess. They never coalesced into a single ringing, as they usually did during celebrations or, say, big fires. Each of the dozen or so large bells rang its tune as if with an eye on the others. And there was something inexpressibly terrible, sepulchral in this music of anxious bronze under the dead light of the gray moon.

"The bell," Ranjan said. "Still, the bell..."

Without wasting any more words, he glared angrily at Elena, then turned and strode away like a huge bird with the wings of his cloak folded behind him. The hired fighters trailed behind him. The woman looked at the redeemers. The rapist shrugged, pulled back his robe. Kadfal shifted the club from shoulder to shoulder, giving him a look that said, //"Your worries are your own."

Elena swore angrily and desperately, realizing she had to decide now and not even "quickly, but instantly." She shouted after the Brether:

"Stop! It's a deal!"

And walked quickly along the paving stones, hearing the unwanted and reliable "companions in the night" walking behind her.

"Here," Ranjan handed her the knife given to her by Draftsman as she walked. The one he picked up from the floor and checked. "Don't lose it again. Let's hurry."

* * *