There was a grunt and an oak-topped table crashed over. Somebody screamed as if he were being opened from groin to gullet-as may have been the case. Darkness in a place like this was both an opportunity and a source of panic. Either could lead to slaughter.

Samlor's dagger wouldn't come free. He hadn't felt it grate bone as it went in, and it didn't feel now as if the tip were caught on ribs or the stranger's vertebrae. The blade didn't flex at all, the way it should have done if it were held at one point. It was more as if Samlor had thrust the steel into fresh concrete and came back a day later in a vain attempt to withdraw it.

One advantage to winning a knife fight is that you have the choice of your opponent's weapon if something's happened to yours. The Cirdonian's left hand snatched the hilt from the unresisting fingers of the man he had just killed, while his right arm swept behind him to gather up his niece.

A thrown weapon plucked his sleeve much the way the child had done a moment before. The point was too blunt to stick in the bar panel against which it crashed like a crossbow bolt.

Star wasn't there. She wasn't anywhere within the sweep of Samlor's arm, and there was no response when he desperately called the child's name.

Steel hit steel across the room with a clang and a shower of orange sparks. Someone outside the tavern called a warning, but there was already a murderous scuffle blocking the only door to the street.

That left the door to the alley on the opposite side of the tavern; stairs to the upper floor-which Samlor couldn't locate in the dark and which were probably worth his life to attempt anyway; and a third option which was faster and safer than the other two, though it was neither fast nor safe on any sane scale.

Samlor gripped the body of his victim beneath both armpits and rushed forward, using the corpse as a shield and a battering ram.