The tall, thin man came out of his shadows. Calmly, he began despatching guerrillas with a fourteen-inch, silvery blade. He spared those customers we had not bound to their chairs.
He signed, "It's safe to breathe now."
"Watch the door," Candy told me. He knew I had an aversion to this kind of slaughter. "Otto, you take the kitchen. Me and Pawnbroker will help Silent."
The Rebel outside tried to get us by speeding arrows through the doorway. He had no luck. Then he tried firing the place. Madle suffered paroxysms of rage. Silent, one of the three wizards of the Company, who had been sent into Tally weeks earlier, used his powers to squelch the fire. Angrily, the Rebel prepared for a siege.
"Must have brought every man in the province," I said.
Candy shrugged. He and Pawnbroker were piling corpses into defensive barricades. "They must have set up a base camp near here." Our intelligence about the Tally guerrillas was extensive. The Lady prepares well before she sends us in. But we hadn't been told to expect such strength available at short notice.
Despite our successes, I was scared. There was a big mob outside, and it sounded like more were arriving regularly. Silent, as an ace in the hole, hadn't much more value.
"You send your bird?" I demanded, assuming that had been the reason for his trip upstairs. He nodded. That provided some relief. But not much.
The tenor changed. They were quieter outside. More arrows zipped through the doorway. It had been ripped off its hinges in the first rush. The bodies heaped in it would not slow the Rebel long. "They're going to come," I told Candy.
"All right." He joined Otto in the kitchen. Pawnbroker joined me. Silent, looking mean and deadly, stationed himself in the center of the common room. A roar went up outside. "Here they come!"
We held the main rush, with Silent's help, but others began to batter the window shutters. Then Candy and Otto had to concede the kitchen. Candy killed an overzealous attacker and spun away long enough to bellow, "Where the hell are they, Silent?"