Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [190]
Bao inclined his head, no words of assent needed. We fled, Hasan Dar uttering curt orders behind us.
The concealed doorway to the hidden room was located on a landing between the first and second floors of the palace. At night, it was guarded discreetly from above and below. During the day, it was guarded not at all, the better to protect its secret. Since he had saved my lady Amrita from the poisoner, Bao had been entrusted with the secret of the hidden room. Other than Bao and me, only the guards and the Rani’s most trusted attendants knew of its existence.
Even so, I felt the space between my shoulder blades itch and tingle at the thought of an assassin loose in the palace.
Bao drew back the tapestry of the goddess Durga riding a tiger, throwing open the hidden doorway. “Go quick! Hurry, hurry!”
Amrita went first, towing a stumbling Ravindra behind her. I followed them into the steep, narrow stairway. Behind me, Bao closed the door and shot the bolt, following close on my heels. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Safe, I thought.
This time I was wrong.
In the forest, in the green, wild spaces I knew so well, I might have sensed the fellow awaiting us, sensed his presence, sensed his intention. Not here, where my senses were confounded by thick marble and man-made space. Trapped in the stairwell, I couldn’t even see.
All I heard was my lady Amrita’s gasp as the assassin fell on her. One gasp, quickly choked.
Ahead of me, Ravindra.
Acting on panicked instinct, I drew a deep breath into my lungs, summoning the twilight with it. I blew it out, wrapping it around the boy and myself.
I don’t think Ravindra even noticed. Without hesitation, the boy gave a piercing shout and flung himself against the man attempting to garrote his mother, a cord wrapped tight around her throat and throttling her. Ravindra sank his teeth into the assassin’s hand, biting him hard and deep.
Bao had said it felt like being touched by a ghost. I could not imagine what it felt like to be bitten by one.
The assassin howled, dropping his garrote and glancing around in terror.
Scrambling out of the stairwell, I expanded my cloak of twilight and swirled it around Amrita, and the assassin released her with an involuntary hiss.
“Moirin!” Bao shouted behind me. “Get them out of the way, get them safe!”
“Come, come, come!” I whispered urgently, tugging them both to the farthest corner of the small room. Ravindra was trembling with a mix of fear and fury, and Amrita with shock, touching her abraded throat. I wrapped my arms around them both, praying I could keep them safe in the twilight, praying Bao could protect us all. In the twilight, I could actually sense the presence of Kamadeva’s diamond in the distance as though it were another kind of diadh-anam, a god’s bright spirit turned to malevolent purpose.
Bao sidled warily into the room, his staff held in a defensive pose; and that alone told me his opponent was good.
“Traitor!” The fellow spat on the ground. He had regained his composure in remarkable time. “I should have killed you in Kurugiri.” His hands snatched at his belt, and in the blink of an eye, he had throwing knives fanned like playing cards in his left hand, and one poised to throw in his right. The blades twinkled like stars in the twilight. He bared his teeth in a smile. “I’ll enjoy doing it now.”
“You think so?” Bao feinted at him.
A flurry of glittering blades flew from the assassin’s hands, one after another, quicker than the eye could follow. Bao’s staff whirled, making the air whistle, and then he hurled himself sideways out of the knives’ path in a horizontal spinning move that didn’t seem humanly possible, landing with his battle-grin in place.
“Got more?” he asked insolently.
Unfortunately, the assassin did. He flicked