He was sleeping lightly, though, so he awoke at the first banging of the door knocker. He rolled over and looked toward the door. In the dim light of the hall he saw Kubin's agent standing with one hand on the bar of the door and the other holding open the speaking hole just above the latch.
«I am sorry, but it is Kubin's wish that the house be closed tonight. We value your custom, and certainly we will welcome you on another night. But not this one.»
«Will there be free beer if we come back on another night?» came faintly through the speaking hole. The voice was high-pitched, like a boy's. Probably some youngster who's scraped together the money and the nerve to try his first woman and come to us for her, thought Blade. Too bad he's going to have to be disappointed.
«Free beer?» said the agent, confused. Then behind him Hadish rose from the bench where he'd been sitting.
«Of course, there will be free beer,» he said. «Give us your name, and we shall-«
«What do you think-?» snapped the agent, turning to face Hadish. He never completed the turn. Halfway through it, Hadish's right hand swept up to meet him, driving a knife into his throat. With his left hand Hadish gripped the bar and heaved it out of its brackets. The bar and the body of Kubin's agent hit the floor at the same moment. Then Hadish gripped the handle of the door and heaved it open. That took both hands and all his attention, so he did not see Blade leap to his feet.
Blade ran down the hall and gripped one end of the heavy wooden bench. He put all his strength and weight into a tremendous shove. The bench seemed to fly down the hall ahead of him. Hadish let go of the handle as the door swung open and started to turn. The bench caught him and smashed him against the edge of the door, two hundred pounds of iron-hard wood with Blade behind it. The sword he'd started to draw fell from lifeless fingers. He toppled to one side as Blade heaved the bench back, then drove it forward again.
It shot into the open doorway as three masked men started to come through. The bench caught two of them with the force of a battering ram. Blade heard the sickening crunch of a man's kneecap disintegrating, and an agonized scream that he hoped would wake the entire house.
The two men struck by the bench went backward down the front stairs, taking several of their comrades with them. The third man was more agile. He leaped up on the bench and struck at Blade with his sword. Blade had to back clear before he could get his own sword into action. Then there was a brief flurry of sword cuts, ending when Blade got under his opponent's guard and laid open his stomach and thigh.
The man was dying, but he'd driven Blade back far enough to open a path for his comrades into the House of the Night's Tale. Several more now charged through the doorway, pushing the bench back so violently that Blade had to jump out of its path.
As he did, one of the girls appeared at the foot of the stairs. She took one look at the scene in the hallway, then screamed loudly enough to nearly deafen Blade. If that didn't wake up the rest of the house, they must all be dead! He had time to shout to her, «Get back upstairs and warn them! Tell them to close all the-!» and then his opponents seemed to be swarming all over him like hungry wolves.
Blade's sword whirled and danced, slicing flesh and chopping bone. He was stronger and faster and could reach farther than any of the men facing him. He was also facing them in the cramped hallway, where none of these things gave him the edge he needed against such odds. Once more he had to give ground to avoid being surrounded and cut down. Some of his opponents had long knives, better for work at close quarters than Blade's sword.
None of the masked men seemed to be Hashomi. They screamed when his sword tore their flesh, and when they took crippling wounds they fell or drew back. The hallway rapidly became a shambles, with screams ringing in Blade's ears and the well-scrubbed wooden floor under him slippery with blood and half-buried under writhing bodies.
It seemed that for every man who fell two more took his place. Blade gave up the hallway a foot at a time, backing slowly toward the stairs. He would have to hold the stairway until the end, otherwise these people would have an easy route up to the women's rooms.
Blade swore. It was ludicrous, to realize that he was quite possibly going to die here in the bloody, body-strewn hallway, defending a whorehouse from enemies in masks. He didn't know who they were or why they were attacking. He didn't even have time to make a good guess!
Anger at this ridiculous fate flowed through Blade, twisting his face into a mask so terrible that several of his opponents drew back. It filled him with a terrible speed and strength, so that he went over to the offensive and killed three men with four sword strokes. Then the hallway was clear around him, and he was facing a bandy-legged man with a long knife in each hand.
The man came at Blade with a rush, his movements sure and fluid. Blade had plenty of room to swing his sword, and aimed a cut at the man's head. The man brought up one knife fast enough to deflect the sword to one side, thrusting with the other knife at Blade's groin. Blade twisted to one side and slashed down again. His sword bit into the man's right shoulder. The man blinked, but didn't make a sound. Blade knew he was facing one of the Hashomi.
The Hashom took a step backward. Then he raised his right arm, which should have been impossible. With more strength than Blade could believe, he hurled the knife from his right hand at Blade. Blade had to leap aside to avoid taking the knife in his chest. The Hashom charged, whipping his other knife around in a wide arc and stabbing upward. Blade's sword came down, but he'd misjudged the Hashom's speed. Instead of splitting the man's skull, Blade only mangled his right shoulder again. This left the Hashom on his feet, charging past Blade toward the foot of the stairs.
Blade had to move quickly, to catch the Hashom without turning his back on the other men. As his sword came up for the killing blow, a chair came flying down the stairs from above. It caught the Hashom squarely in the chest, hurling him across the hallway. He held onto his knife, but couldn't do anything with it before Blade's sword came down. This time the stroke split the Hashom's head neatly in two. Before the body struck the floor Blade was turning back to face his other opponents.
He did so just in time. Seeing Blade distracted by the Hashom, the other attackers had regained their courage. Eight of them were in the hallway now, moving forward one step at a time, stepping over the bodies, leaving the bloody footprints, but coming on as steadily as a glacier and in overwhelming strength. Blade picked up the chair and set it. in front of him to block part of the hallway, without taking his eyes off the men coming at him.
Then bare feet thudded on the stairs. Esseta and two other women were standing beside Blade, as suddenly as if they'd sprouted from the floor. Esseta held a dagger, the second woman held a kitchen cleaver, and the third held the broken-off leg of a chair. Esseta raised her dagger in a mocking salute to the attackers.
«Hail, doomed fools! Consider the price Kubin Ben Sarif will ask for this night's work, before you come on! You will pay that price, whatever happens to us. There is nothing you can do for yourselves by doing anything to us.» There was a hissing note in Esseta's voice, exactly like a snake's angry warning.
The eight men stopped as if an invisible rope had been stretched across the hallway in front of them. Some kept their eyes on Blade, but others looked furtively toward the now-distant doorway. From upstairs came the sound of furniture being pushed around. Blade hoped the women and servants were building some sort of barricade across the head of the stairs.