Behind the bar, he almost crawled over the tough. The fellowgrinned at him and said, “Come on, pal. I know the back way.”

“Good,” Skarnu said. “I hoped there was one.” He also hoped theAlgarvians and the constables who did their bidding weren’t watching it andscooping up fleeing foes one by one.

The tough scrambled into the little room in back of the bar.Skarnu followed him. The little room had a door that opened on the alleywaybehind the Drunken Dragon. The tough hurried through it. Skarnu would havepeered out first. But when the tough didn’t get blazed, he followed again.

Nobody looked to be watching the alley. Maybe the Algarvians didn’tknow it was there, and maybe the Valmieran constables hadn’t bothered tellingthem about it. Skarnu hoped the constables weren’t cooperating soenthusiastically as they seemed to be, anyhow. After looking this way and that,he said, “Now we split up.”

“Aye, I was going to tell you the same thing, Pavilosta,” theother Valmieran answered. “You’ve got a pretty good notion of what you’redoing, looks like. Powers above keep you safe.”

“And you,” Skarnu said. The tough hadn’t waited for his reply, butwas already strolling down the alley as if he didn’t have a care in the world.Skarnu strolled up it, trying to act similarly nonchalant. He felt easier whenhe ducked into another alleyway that ran into the one behind the tavern. Thatsecond alley led him to a third, and the third to a fourth. Tytuvenai seemed tohave a web of little lanes going nowhere in particular. By the time Skarnuemerged onto a real street, he was several blocks away from the Drunken Dragon.He hoped more of the men who kept on resisting the Algarvians had got out afterthe tough and him.