Brotherband 4: Slaves of Socorro (41 page)

He turned his attention to the massive gold
souk
– a huge structure that sprawled over half a dozen city blocks. He could see the bright lights of two of the entrances but, once again, nothing seemed amiss.

He yawned. Odds were, there was nothing to worry about. But he had learned over the years not to ignore premonitions like this. Sometimes, they turned out to mean nothing. But at others, they had provided forewarning of potential disaster. He walked soft-footed back to the bed and began to don his striped robe over the loose linen trousers and vest he wore to sleep.

Saleema sensed his movement and sat up, her hair tousled and her eyes bleary.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said.

‘Probably nothing. Go back to sleep. I’m just going to the market to check on things.’ He quickly donned his green turban – the symbol of his authority – and pulled a green cloak over his shoulders against the night’s chill.

‘At this time of night?’ she protested, but he leaned down and patted her hand.

‘Go back to sleep,’ he repeated. ‘I won’t be long.’

She slumped back, grumbling muffled words that he knew related to his overactive sense of duty. He smiled and buckled on his long scimitar in its scabbard, then went down the stairs to the ground level, where his two bodyguards slept on cots beside the door, fully dressed. One of them had his foot hanging over the side of the cot. Mahmel kicked it gently and the man instantly sprang awake.

‘Get up,’ he said. ‘We’re going to the arena.’

Flanked by the two heavily built guards, Mahmel made his way through the dark, silent streets. They hadn’t gone more than fifty metres before he heard the shouts in the distance, warning of fire in the gold
souk.
Then an alarm bell began clanging stridently.

‘I knew it!’ Mahmel muttered. He began to run.

T
hin tendrils of smoke were beginning to curl through the cracks in the door to the store room. Gilan tugged the door shut against the warped frame, then nodded to Lydia as she emerged from the jewellery store.

The store keeper stared after her with a sour expression. She had wasted ten minutes of his time and he realised now she had never meant to buy – a merchant came to know those things about potential customers after a few years. But you could never simply tell such people to move on. If you were mistaken, you could lose a valuable sale.

Casually, the two interlopers began to stroll back towards the main thoroughfare, where they’d planned their escape. Lydia glanced back and jogged Gilan with her elbow.

‘I can see smoke coming under the door,’ she whispered.

‘Shut up and don’t look,’ Gilan ordered.

They were almost back to the intersection with the main thoroughfare when disaster struck. A party of half a dozen Socorrans entered from the main street, jamming the narrow alley, and there were several moments of milling confusion as Lydia and Gilan tried to find a way past them. Gilan, conscious that at any moment the smoke might be spotted and the alarm raised, began to shove his way through more forcibly, using his shoulders and jostling the Socorrans out of his way. He came face to face with one of them and stepped back in surprise.

It was the merchant he had knocked out the previous time they were in the
souk
– the one who had unmasked Lydia as a girl. His jaw was marked with an ugly blue and yellow bruise where Gilan had hit him.

For a moment, the man merely regarded him angrily, annoyed that the stranger had jostled him. Then Gilan saw recognition dawning in his eyes.

‘You were here before!’ the man said. ‘When that thief tried to escape!’ Then he pointed an accusing finger at Lydia. ‘She’s a female!’ he yelled. ‘There’s a woman in the
souk
!’

Instantly all his companions were yelling. Inevitably, hearing the word ‘thief’ in the gold market, someone got the wrong end of it all and began shouting that there was a thief trying to escape. The men formed a solid wall in front of Gilan, preventing him from shoving through. Several of them were trying to draw their scimitars, but the close quarters and the crowding prevented them.

‘
Dooryeh! Dooryeh!
Thieves in the market! Call the
dooryeh
!’ one of the men shouted.

‘You’re already doing that,’ Gilan told the Socorran through gritted teeth. He had one of his strikers in his left hand and he used it now – a short, hooking punch that nevertheless had the power of his shoulder and his turning upper body behind it.

He caught the man on the side of the jaw and the Socorran’s eyes glazed over. He collapsed like a rag doll, bringing down the man behind him.

Then Lydia heard the rhythmic tramp of hobnailed sandals running in step, and a detachment of eight
dooryeh
rounded the corner. The corporal in charge looked at the milling group in front of him and called a brief order.

‘Swords!’

Eight scimitars rasped from their scabbards and the armoured men began to move forward in a wedge formation. They hit the back of the men grouped around Lydia and Gilan and began shoving them out of the way. The merchants and their servants reacted instinctively, shoving back and turning to berate the new arrivals. Gilan looked back over his shoulder, down the alley. There was another narrow roadway intersecting it about twenty metres away. He pointed his sword at it and yelled to Lydia.

‘Back! Back to the next corner!’

At that moment, one of the
dooryeh
broke through the melee that had formed between them. Seeing Gilan and Lydia, and recognising them as foreigners, he aimed a cut with his scimitar at the taller of the two figures facing him.

Gilan parried the blow easily, and as the scimitar came to a ringing, arm-jarring stop, Lydia took a pace forward and punched her dirk into the soldier’s upper arm.

The heavy blade sliced through the man’s chain mail shirt like a hot knife through butter. He felt a sudden burning pain in his arm. His fingers opened involuntarily and his sword dropped on the cobbles, bouncing and ringing off the stone.

‘Run!’ Gilan shouted at her. But now they found themselves facing the bodyguard from the store Lydia had entered. The store keeper, no man of action, had wisely retreated behind a display counter. But he added his voice to the growing clamour.

‘He’s a thief!’ he yelled, pointing to Lydia. ‘He stole a pendant!’

He had no way of knowing if that was true. But he’d heard someone call the word ‘thief’ and this person had been looking at his pendants and handling them, so he decided to take no risks.

‘She’s a girl!’ the trader they had encountered the day before yelled, as if this were somehow worse than being a thief. Maybe it is in this part of the world, Lydia thought grimly.

The bodyguard, a big Arridan from the southern forests, with skin almost as black as coal, barred their way with his massive bulk, his club raised threateningly. Gilan assessed him quickly. The man was no skilled fighter. His stance was clumsy and unbalanced and the Ranger had no wish to kill him for merely doing his job. Gilan raised one booted foot and planted it into the man’s solar plexus, then straightened his knee rapidly, sending him flying back.

The bodyguard crashed into one of the original six men who had rounded the corner and started all the trouble. This man staggered in his turn and crashed against the old door to the store room. The door, secured only by the jamming of its warped frame, offered virtually no resistance. It flew open and he stumbled inside. As the door opened and admitted a draught of air, flames and smoke billowed out into the alley.

Now a new cry joined the confused chorus of ‘Thief’ and ‘Female!’ and ‘Call the
dooryeh
!’

‘FIRE! FIRE IN THE MARKET! HELP!’

Thick, choking smoke filled the narrow alleyway and cries of alarm went up from the other store keepers on either side. For the moment, the
dooryeh
were unsighted and baffled. The flames and smoke were unexpected additions to the rapidly growing confusion in the little alley. Gilan seized Lydia’s arm and began to drag her towards the junction to their left.

They ran with their arms up over their noses and eyes to ward off the stinging, stinking smoke. They reached the turnoff to the new alley and stopped in despair. A party of
dooryeh
were advancing along the cross street towards them. There were at least a dozen of them. Lydia and Gilan were cut off from their planned retreat route. Gilan cast wildly around. Several of the first group of
dooryeh
were emerging from the clouds of smoke behind them.

‘Come on!’ he said, and dragged Lydia down the alley, moving away from the main thoroughfare and their planned escape route. The second party of
dooryeh
saw them hesitate, then turn and run. Instantly, the warriors doubled their pace. A person who was running was a person who was guilty, they all knew.

As they moved further into the alley, the air cleared a little. Gilan, whose eyes were stinging and running with tears, took stock of their position and felt his heart sink. They had run into a blind alley. Ahead of them was a curving row of stalls and store houses, with no way out. One of the store keepers ran out to shout at them, grabbing at Gilan’s left arm. Quickly, the Ranger stunned him with a blow from his sword hilt and the man crashed down on the cobbles. Seeing the ease with which the Ranger had dealt with him, the others drew back. Then, staying well clear of the glittering sword, they ran for it, pushing one another in their haste to get clear, and tangling with the
dooryeh
who had just rounded the last bend.

Gilan turned to face the oncoming guardsmen. Quickly, he tossed aside the hampering white robe and
kheffiyeh
. He unslung the huge longbow and passed it to Lydia.

‘String this,’ he ordered. Then he added, ‘Do you know how?’

She nodded and took the bow, while he continued to face the oncoming
dooryeh
. Stepping her right foot in between the bow and the string, she locked the back of the bow against her left ankle. Then, grunting with the effort, and using all the strength of her body, thigh and back muscles, she bent the bow and forced the string up its length until the loop at the end of the bowstring slipped into the notch at the bow’s tip and held fast.

‘Done,’ she announced.

‘Good. Keep it ready,’ Gilan told her. He didn’t look at her. His eyes were locked on three of the
dooryeh
who were advancing, shoulder to shoulder, along the alley towards him. They eyed the long, straight-bladed sword in his hand warily. It weaved and flickered from side to side as he kept it moving constantly, the tip of the blade low, threatening them, warning them against coming closer.

Then he heard a grunt of exertion from the girl behind him, and a hissing sound as something flew past his ear.

The
dooryeh
on the left of the slowly advancing line suddenly staggered back, spun around by the force of a speeding metre-long dart that seemed to come out of nowhere and transfixed his right shoulder. He screamed in pain as he fell on his side. His companions looked at him in horror, looked up and saw Lydia preparing to cast another dart.

They turned and ran back around the bend, leaving their comrade, sobbing with pain, to drag himself awkwardly after them.

‘Good work!’ Gilan said, turning to look admiringly at Lydia. Like him, she had discarded her robe and
kheffiyeh
. She held the second atlatl dart ready in its thrower.

She grinned at him. ‘Might make them respect women a little more.’

‘I should think it will. But I doubt they’ll be in any hurry to admit women into the markets.’ He sheathed his sword and took the bow from where she had set it resting against one of the store counters. An arrow seemed to appear on the string and Lydia looked impressed in her turn.

A head came round the bend in the alley, twenty-five metres away from them. Before Lydia could move, Gilan had drawn, aimed and shot, sending an arrow thudding into the fabric-covered store front half a metre from the curious face. The face disappeared immediately, with a yelp of fright.

‘What now?’ Lydia asked. ‘I assume we have a plan B?’

He shook his head. ‘We’re way past plan B,’ he told her. ‘And we’ve gone past plan C as well. We’re up to plan D now.’

‘And what’s plan D?’

He jerked his head down the alley to the corner. ‘Anyone comes round that corner, we shoot them.’

She pursed her lips critically. ‘Doesn’t sound too ingenious,’ she said.

He shrugged. ‘I’m not good at ingenious. I’m good at dangerous.’

As he spoke, the head appeared again and he shot again. But it had jerked back almost as soon as it was exposed and his shot missed. Almost instantaneously, one of the
dooryeh
broke cover and dashed for a stall five metres down the alley and on the left-hand side. He disappeared into cover as Gilan shot again. Another guardsman tried to follow, seeing Gilan’s bow was empty. But he reckoned without the speed and accuracy of the Ranger’s shooting and a fourth arrow hit him in the side as he was halfway across the alley.

The first head appeared again, bobbing rapidly in and out. But Gilan was wise to this trick now and he held his shot.