The eldest Student’s sneer deepened. He ran a hand over his smooth brown jaw. “Listen to me, woman. Leave now. Please. Do you see? I say please. Go back to one of your perverted outlander neighborhoods. I will not ask you again.” He turned his head toward Raseed. “And you, Master Dervish?” The man’s brittle-sounding voice made the title a mockery, but for the first time he looked unsure of himself. “Are you truly keeping company with this trash?” Raseed parted his lips, but no sound came out. Words flew into his head.
I am here in company with her, but—
Please forgive her, brother, she—
I am afraid that I must—
But none of them made it through his suddenly dry and cracked throat. Raseed had faced and killed highwayman, Cyklop, and ghul, but he now found himself paralyzed and unable to speak.
The gray-haired man’s uncertain expression evaporated, replaced by a cold scowl. “I take it by your silence that you are here with this mad old degenetress! Where is your virtue? Have you stopped serving God already, young man?” The two big hook-nosed men began to shift, clearly itching for a fight.
There was the incongruous sound of laughter as two young couples entered the alley, took one look at the scene before them, and swiftly turned back.
Litaz drew her dagger from the kidskin sheath at her waist. What is she doing? Long and broad-bladed, in her little hand it was a small sword. “Leave, Suri,” the alkhemist said with a deadly calm in her voice. When the girl didn’t move, Litaz shouted “Leave! Now!”
The girl ran before the men could grab her. The two big Students started to follow, but their leader held up a hand and they froze. Suri flew from the alley without a word or a backward glance.
“This old whore’s vice is greater than the other’s was,” the lead Student spoke to his men with an eerie calm. “She will take the girl’s punishment.” He focused his words on Litaz. “And who are you, whore-with-a-knife, to think you can interfere in God’s work with impunity?” The man seemed genuinely curious.
Litaz gave no answer.
The veins in the man’s neck bulged. “Whoever you are, you will find that you are sorely mistaken!” Raseed did not approve of the man’s tone—there was an unvirtuous anticipation there at the thought of proving Litaz mistaken in some brutal manner.
Raseed’s hand went to the hilt of his sword before he thought about who his opponents were. The Order held ties with the Humble Students. These men might be unpleasant and overbearing, but they were Raseed’s allies as far as duty was concerned.
But. Litaz Daughter-of-Likami was a true servant of God who had doubtless fought more real battles than all three of these men combined. And she was one of the Doctor’s dearest friends. Raseed’s mind raced, and his hand flexed on his pommel.
Litaz broke the silent moment. “The Father of the Universe does not tell us to beat frightened girls, brother! Can your kind can find no other way in which to spread virtue?”
One of the big men began to slap his club against his open palm. He moved two steps closer to Litaz. The men were nearly in swinging range now, and Raseed took two long strides closer. The gray-haired man shot Raseed a warning look then spoke more calmly to Litaz. “Such rude words. Come, woman. Old and withered or young and hale, all must live by His words. Come and be chastised. It will be quick and feather light for one so small as you, I swear in the name of God.”
Litaz laughed a bitter little laugh. “Come try and chastise me, brother. You’ll end up lying in the street.”
Everything happened at once.
The two hook-nosed Students lurched at Litaz. They were not fighting men. That was clear enough to Raseed. No need for his sword. He blocked the assailant closest to Litaz and thrust a fist out.
Raseed didn’t realize he’d decided his loyalties until the man was lying bloody-nosed and unconscious on the ground.
For what seemed the thousandth time that week, Raseed’s stomach lurched with the wrongness of his actions, but he looked up, ready to do the same to the other two Students. Litaz stood between him and them. He froze as he saw the alkhemist was offering up the jeweled pommel of her dagger to the men. She’s surrendering her weapon?
The leader hesitated, confusion and rage battling on his beardless face. “What—?” he said.
The dagger’s pommel-stone hissed. A jet of bright green vapor shot forth, a small cloud of it seeming to wrap around each man’s head. Litaz spryly jumped back a few steps, dodging a few clumsy club swings. On the edges of the cloud, Raseed felt the vapors sting his eyes and nostrils.
The Students reacted more dramatically. They slid coughing to the cobblestones, the bigger man’s wooden club clattering as he fell. A moment later, all three men fell still as corpses. They were breathing, though barely, Raseed’s keen senses told him.
Litaz coughed a hacking cough a few times, and Raseed echoed it, wincing at the acrid green smoke that was already dissipating on the clear morning air. The alkhemist brushed some sort of residue from her dagger-hand onto the skirt of her dress. It left a little green-black stain. Litaz looked down at the unconscious Students with grim satisfaction, and there was no mistaking her pride in her handiwork. She carefully sheathed her dagger, looked at Raseed and shrugged her shoulders.
“ ‘Lying in the street.’ I warned them, did I not?”
“Auntie! How? What?”
“A rare solution called the Breath of Dargon Loong.”
“Like the monster from the stories?”
Litaz shrugged again. “Yes. Though, to hear Adoulla tell it, the Dargon Loong is real enough, even if most think him a mere story.”
Only then did Raseed notice the several onlookers who now darted away from the scene. Raseed began to warn Litaz of the danger she had gotten herself into but thought better of it. She has pulled you into it, too, his doubting voice told him. He looked down at the immobilized Students. I am on the right side of this, he told himself. I am!
“Let us keep moving, Auntie,” was all he said.
Her confident grin slipped, and for a moment she looked every bit an old woman. “Listen, Raseed. I am playing brave about this because I have just assaulted the Humble Students. This is going to bring trouble to my already troubled house.” A sadness entered her eyes. “O God, please let them be safe!” She clearly was not speaking of the Students. “Raseed, if that creature, that manjackal, strikes again…” She left the thought unfinished and gestured to Raseed that they should walk on.
Eventually, Litaz brought them to a halt at the threshold of an elegant two-story inn of green glazed brick. Huge lattice screens hid the inn’s courtyard from the eyes of passersby. They stepped through a small open section of the screen into that courtyard, which was decorated with twin fountains of almost translucent marble. Two big, well-dressed men ushered them into the inn itself. Guards, Raseed guessed, though they acted more like hosts and wore no visible weapons. They respectfully took his sword from him, promising to return it upon his departure. He noted approvingly that they handled the weapon with a proper reverence.
The greeting room of the inn was massive, almost as open and airy as the courtyard. A dozen parties sat at low tables of white wood worked with tortoise shell. Litaz smiled and waved to a fat man at a round table, hard against the far wall. The wall was dominated by a jade and emerald gemthread tapestry depicting a verdant grove of olive trees. The fat man, alone at the table, waved back, smiling cheerfully at Litaz as they approached. He looked as if he were an olive. The almost greenish sheen of his complexion matched the tapestry, and he was little, as short as Raseed, but egg-shaped and strangely sleek skinned despite being of an age with Litaz. To top off the effect, he wore rich, dark green silks.