So Tymgur's agent was laying a trap for him. That meant Tymgur's plots were proved beyond any further doubt. With Stipors' man involved, that also meant the Autocrat for War was deep in the plot with Tymgur.

Did he have notions of being Tymgur's Viceroy over Talgar when the Sea Cities were weakened enough to be easy prey for the Duke? Blade didn't know or care. Right now, the best thing for him to do was to glide quietly away into the darkness, his mission accomplished, and get himself and his men out of Mestron as fast as possible.

But he didn't want to leave yet. Even a few minutes' eavesdropping might add details that could help break up the plot faster. Blade had always been reluctant to drop an inquiry until he had found out everything possible. He crept forward another ten feet and flattened himself under a bush. Again he hardly breathed as he lay and listened.

The Talgaran renegade seemed to be in command. He also seemed to be in a vile temper, swatting noisily at the insects and muttering under his breath. Blade caught snatches of those mutterings.

«Why-we out here-eating us alive-Durkas staying inside with his pleasure girl-trouble for us if-«

Another voice floated out of the shadows. «Is the gate open?»

«Course 'tis, you fool,» said a third voice. «We want-«

«Shhhhhhhh!» came from the officer. Apparently he had suddenly realized that silence might be wise for a party lying in ambush. The silence descended.

It lasted for less than a minute. As that minute drew to a close, a raw, full-throated scream tore through the night air. It was a woman screaming in terrible agony and fear. In the few seconds after the scream, things happened very quickly.

The officer rose to his feet with a curse. «Damn Durkas! His games-«He turned toward the bush where Blade lay.

In the house voices shouted and feet pounded. Another scream came, then a window flew open with a crash.

Yellow lamplight flooded out into the garden through the open window.

By that light, the officer saw Blade crouching under the bush.

In the next few seconds, Blade made several more things happen.

In a single snap of trained muscles, he was on his feet. His arm jerked once, and a throwing knife slipped down into his right hand. His arm rose and jerked a second time. The knife flashed once in the air, then flashed a second time as it buried itself in the officer's chest. Blade beard a solid chunk as the hilt slammed hard up against the ribs and knew that it was in more than deep enough to kill. The ambush party had lost a leader and Stipors had lost a henchman.

But nine more men were too many to fight in the dark on unknown ground. Before the officer had hit the ground, Blade was sprinting along the hedge, away from the house. The hedge was just too high for Blade to leap with this much armor and weaponry on his body. Instead he covered fifty feet in a matter of seconds, ducked behind a tree, and hauled himself up into its branches. Pushing off with arms and legs together, he sailed down over the thick hedge. He landed lightly on his feet on the walk, facing the house. It was blazing with lights now, but there was no sign of anyone coming out the bronze-shod door. Blade didn't wait. He spun about and headed for the gate.

He went down the path like a lion running down a fat buck, and came pelting up to the gate.

It was unlocked but not unguarded. A man stood on either side of it, one armed with a bow, one with a sword. The archer backed away and the swordsman came forward, so that Blade had to defend himself against the second man first. He would rather have taken out the man with the long-range weapon, but there was no way to manage that.

His own sword flew clear of its scabbard and up under the thrust of the guard. It struck the other's sword up with a clang. Before the man could bring it down again to restore his guard, Blade thrust upward. His point went up into the man's chin and kept on going until it rammed into the brain. The man's mouth and eyes opened and gushed blood. Blade jerked his sword from the falling body and a smoke pot from his pouch.

He was a little too slow. As the green smoke rolled up around the gate and hid him from the archer, the crossbow went spung. Sharp steel tore through the flesh of Blade's thigh, clattering on the stones behind him. Blade winced but kept moving. His second wrist dagger dropped into his left hand as he closed with the dim shape of the archer. The other was still backing away, struggling to reload his bow, when Blade's dagger drove up into him below the ribs. Blade left the dagger in the body and bolted out of the gate.

He did not stop to examine his wound. There wasn't time to do anything but run as fast as he could for as long as he could. If he could lose himself in the darkness before Durkas's bravos started combing the streets-

But as he ran, he knew that he wasn't going to be able to keep going that fast for that long. It was only a flesh wound the bolt had given him, but it was a flesh wound deep enough to be costing him a lot of blood. He could not run on too long without stopping to bandage the wound. Even after that, it would give him a stiff leg before too long.

He would have to go to earth somewhere among the villas, under the bushes in somebody's garden, and stay there for a while. Certainly until the immediate hue and cry had died down; perhaps until daybreak increased traffic on the streets enough that he might slip along unnoticed. He would have to move fast and hope that Durkas would balk at searching the villas of all his neighbors-or they would balk him.

Blade kept on without slowing or looking back for a good five minutes, ignoring the burning flame in his thigh. He turned each time he came to a corner, zigzagging away from Durkas's villa on what he hoped would soon become a completely unpredictable course.

Eventually the pain reminded him that be could not run much farther without paying attention to the wound. He dropped into a ditch, then poked his head up from the long grass. As far as he could see in either direction, the road was empty under the moonlight. That light was getting paler too. Blade looked up and saw a solid mass of clouds marching up from the west, slowly shutting out the stars. And there was the smell of rain in the air. Good. In half an hour it would be pitch-dark and hopefully pouring down rain. An army of men with bloodhounds would find it hard to follow his trail then.

He looked up the wall on the other side of the ditch. This wall was a good twelve feet high, and there were no handy trees or vines close by to help him. He looked along the wall. On the other side of the entrance road and the ornate gate, two stout saplings grew within a foot of the wall and rose high above it. Blade started crawling along the ditch. It was overgrown with rank grass and occasional nettles, and its bottom was slimy mud and foul-smelling water. By the time Blade reached the gate, he was soaked to the skin and plastered with slime, sweating, gritting his teeth at the pain in his leg, and thoroughly foul-tempered.

He reached the entrance road and flattened himself in the grass, getting ready for a quick rush into the ditch on the other side. He checked up and down the road. The darkness was increasing, and he heard a distant rumble of thunder to the west.

Then two things happened together. Far down the road, Blade saw ghost-dim figures moving purposefully toward him. With a squeal of long-unoiled hinges, the villa gate began to open. From inside he heard the clop-clop of hooves and the rumble of wheels.

The searchers were still a good hundred yards away, so Blade risked a quick look through the opening gate. Coming down the road at a good walk was one of the ornate four-wheeled carriages of the Sisters of the Night. High on the upholstered driver's seat rode the driver and his assistant. They both had their eyes fixed firmly on their horses and the road ahead. Blade grinned. Not for a moment did the two men look to either side of the carriage, still less behind it.