Chapter eleven I sweep the floor in RuathytuThis sudden deadly affray was what living in the sacred quarter of Ruathytu was all about at this time of war. Even as I ripped my rapier from the scabbard and plunged forward, my thoughts were cynically that this kind of murderous set-to must be going on in a score of other alleyways and moonlit courtyards about the city. So it was that I contrived to spit the nearest attacker through his side ribs, and withdraw and so swirl to the next, at the same time as Rees dealt similarly with one of the remainder, without so much as a thought to my role in Hamal. Rees’s blade clanged against the thraxter of his man, and I felt my own rapier automatically slide up to deflect a savage downward chop from the fellow who leaped at me, all hairy whiskers and