The shock of that death-stroke was so great that Gnarlag's two swords, bypassing Fafhrd one to each side, made no second stroke in their wielder's death-spasm. Fafhrd, conscious now chiefly of an agonizing pain in his left hand, chucked the brazier away in the nearest useful direction — which happened to be at Skel's head, spoiling that one's thrust at the Mouser, who was skipping nimbly back at the moment, though not more swiftly than Kreshmar and Skel were attacking.

The Mouser ducked under Kreshmar's blade and thrust Scalpel up through the assassin's ribs — the easy way to the heart — then quickly whipped it out and gave the same measured dose of thin steel to the dazedly staggering Skel. Then he danced away, looking around him dartingly and holding his sword high and menacing.

“All down and dead,” Fafhrd, who'd had longer to look, assured him. “Ow, Mouser, I've burnt my fingers!"

“And I've a dissected ear,” that one reported, exploring cautiously with little pats. He grinned. “Just at the edge, though.” Then, having digested Fafhrd's remark, “Serves you right for fighting with a kitchen boy's weapon!"

Fafhrd retorted, “Bah! If you weren't such a miser with the charcoal, I'd have blinded them all with my ember cast!"

“And burnt your fingers even worse,” the Mouser countered pleasantly. Then, still more happy-voiced, “Methought I heard gold chink at the belt of the one you brazier-bashed. Skel… yes, alleybasher Skel. When I've recovered Cat's Claw—"

He broke off because of an ugly little sucking sound that ended in a tiny plop. In the hazy glow from the nobles’ quarter they saw a horridly supernatural sight: the Mouser's bloody dagger poised above Gis's punctured eye socket, supported only by a coiling white tentacle of the fog which had masked their attackers and which had now grown still more dense, as if it had sucked supreme nutriment — as indeed it had — from its dead servitors in their dying.