Alicia started for the trapdoor, with Reith a pace behind her. Before they reached it, the trapdoor flew up and Enrique Schlegel emerged, sword in hand. Four armed Krishnans followed him.
"You are Reith, are you not?" growled Schlegel in accented English.
Reith had drawn his own sword. "That's my name. What about it?"
"Is it true what I hear, that you are guiding representatives of a Terran cinema company, in order a motion picture on this world to make?"
"Yes. So what?"
"This I cannot allow."
"And who in hell—"
"I am the protector of native Krishnan culture! I know your cinema people. They will make a disgraceful burlesque of Krishnan life, giving Terrans a contempt for us. If the foul blow you struck me in Mishé were not enough reason ..."
Schlegel threw himself forward, barking as he did so in Mikardandou: "Seize the strumpet! I will deal with the barbarian!"
Schlegel lunged at Reith, while the four Krishnans leaped towards Alicia. Her crossbow pistol twanged, and the foremost Krishnan doubled over with a howl.
Reith parried Schlegel's lunge and sent a quick counterthrust at Schlegel's broad chest. A mail shirt beneath the jacket stopped Reith's point.
Schlegel's three remaining followers sprang upon Alicia. Lacking time to recock the pistol, a task requiring muscle, she received the first assailant with a swing of the handbag. The bag struck the Krishnan's flattish face with a crunch. Krishnan blood, black in the moonlight, spattered as the blow flung the Krishnan back against the rail. His legs flew up, and he flipped over the railing. Then he slid rattling down the slates and off the roof. A shriek was followed by a solid thud.
The other two got their hands on Alicia before she could aim another swing. They wrenched away the handbag and pistol and pummeled and kicked her, while she fought like a wildcat.
Reith and Schlegel traded lunge for lunge, thrust for thrust, and cut for cut. Reith found his opponent less skilled at fencing than himself but immensely strong. His strength, together with his light armor, evened the odds.
The swords whirled, flashed in the moonlight, struck sparks, and clashed with harsh resonance. The furious pace of the combat slowed as Reith and Schlegel both began to pant.
One of the Krishnans shouted: "Master! Give us leave to slay this she-demon! She hath kicked me in the crotch!"
"Do but hold her fast," panted Schlegel, who had never fully recovered his breath from the long climb to the platform.
"The kargán hath poked me in the eye!" shrilled the other Krishnan. "Methinks I'm half blinded!"
"Hold her whilst I account for this Terran!" snarled Schlegel. "Then shall she pay her just dues!"
For an instant Reith and Schlegel faced each other immobile, with their blades crossing but not touching. They gasped for breath. Schlegel's forehead sparkled with moonlit sweat, and Reith supposed that his did likewise.
"Someone comes!" cried one of the Krishnans.
Behind Schlegel, Reith glimpsed movement in the semidarkness, but he had no time for scrutiny. Schlegel threw himself forward, trying to beat down Reith's guard by the sheer weight and fury of his attack. Reith passed up openings on Schlegel's torso because of the mail shirt; but at last he homed a thrust at Schlegel's face, laying open one cheek.
"Dm Schurke!" panted Schlegel as the whole side of his face became masked with blood.
From beyond Schlegel came the voices of Alicia, Timásh, and Zerré, and the meaty sound of brush knives biting into flesh. There were cries and groans and the thud of bodies. Simultaneously came a solid clank; Schlegel reeled sideways, dropped his sword, and tumbled over the rail as the first Krishnan had done.
Alicia stood disheveled in the moonlight, holding her handbag by its strap. Behind her, Timásh and Zerré bent over the three Krishnan bodies, finishing off the one whom Alicia had wounded with a bolt from her crossbow pistol.
As Reith quickly perceived, when his herdsmen had emerged from the trapdoor, the two Krishnans holding Alicia had tried to defend themselves while retaining their grip on her. Hence they had readily been wounded. Wrenching free, Alicia had snatched up her handbag and struck Schlegel from behind on the side of the head.
Satisfying himself that his attackers were dead, Reith wiped his blade on a Krishnan's garments, sheathed his sword, and cradled Alicia in his arms. At last he glowered at his Krishnan employees.
"And where were you, my fine fellows, when we were in dire straits?"
Timásh and Zerré hung their heads and scuffed their feet. Zerré said: "A thousand pardons, Sir Fergus. 'Twas wrong of us, I know. We expected to be entertained by two ladies, but lo! We arrived to find but one. So we—ah—"
"Took turns," said Reith. "Now get to work. We've disposed of these rascals, but there were others. Doctor Dyckman knocked two off the roof."
"Terran women must be deadly creatures," muttered Timásh.
"Those whereof ye speak we saw not," said Zerré, "But we did find one standing guard at the temple door. When he would fain have barred our entry, we slew him like an unha for the stew pan."
Reith inspected the fallen Krishnans. "Pitch these bodies over yonder rail, so they shall fall in the street. Collect their weapons and follow me. I shall go down to see what happened to those two we knocked off the roof."
In the temple garden, they (bund the missing Krishnan groaning. Both legs lay twisted among the crushed shrubbery. The priest and his daughter fluttered helplessly about, wringing their hands.
"Sir Fergus!" cried the Reverend Vizram. "What tally of horror and bloodshed hath polluted my sacred fane?"
Reith recounted what he knew. Vizram said, "Pray, slay not this poor wight, villain though he be! There hath been enough of slaughter."
"I won't kill him," said Reith. "For one thing, we shall need him to testify tomorrow, lest we be charged with a crime. Help us to carry him in; I know enough first aid to set his legs. Then I'll send my men out to find the watch, to collect the bodies. Where is the Ertsu who led them? He, too, fell off."
A search of the grounds found no Schlegel, but only a smashed shrub into which the Terran had fallen. "Dupulán takes care of his own," grumped Reith. "Bet he didn't even sprain an ankle."
Back at the inn, as Reith and Alicia climbed the stairs, White and Ordway appeared. As they regarded the tour guide in the lamplight, White exclaimed: "Fergus, your hands are all bloody! What's happened?"
Ordway, peering at Alicia, said: "My God, what have you two been up to? Has Fergus been beating you up, Alicia? I'm no hero, but I won't stand by and let anyone mistreat a white woman—"
Reith interrupted. "Just a little difficulty. We had to kill a few people, that's all. Alicia took some bruises in the fight, but nothing's broken."
White and Ordway exchanged appalled glances. " 'Had to kill a few people,' just like that!" said Ordway. "Human or Krishnan?"
"Both; but the Terran got away. The casualties were four Krishnans dead and one disabled. I won't even bother to notch my hilt for them."
"Cyril," said White, "I think we'd better be pretty damned careful how we speak to Mr. Reith henceforth. Fergus, what'll happen now?"
"We may be a day or two late getting back to Novo," said Reith. "I have to appear in court tomorrow, to convince the magistrate it was self-defense."
"Are we likely to be stuck here," asked White, "while you're in jail waiting for the guy with the mask and the ax?"
Reith shrugged. "You can never be sure, but it's not likely. Krishnans take a relaxed view of homicide among Terrans. They figure that if Earthmen loll other Earthmen, that's their problem. Excuse us; we've got to clean up."