Star of Cursrah Read Online Free PDF Page B

with Eye Patch clattering behind in hobnailed sandals. More men of action raced from the street, shouting to confuse the enemy, whoever they might be. By then, some citizens had joined the rush. Housewives clattered down stone stairways with cornmeal on their hands. Masons ran with tool bags and baskets jingling. A goose boy whipped his squawking flock aside. A fat drover puffed up, ox goad ready.
    The assassins didn’t flee far. Man and woman had hammerlocked both Star’s arms behind her back and gripped her hair to steer. Despite the searing pain, Star saw that they aimed for a sunken stairway framed by an iron grill. Hoisting her feet, she wrenched both arms to wrap both knees. Her sudden extra weight slowed the kidnappers. They cursed and almost threw her down the stairwell, but the princess jerked free one hand and latched onto the grillwork. She lost a hank of cornrows as her captors jolted to a halt.
    The female killer kicked Star’s hand to knock it loose, then flashed the knife before her face and said, “Let go or lose your hand.”
    Though fascinated by the curved blade, Star glimpsed a tattoo encircling the woman’s wrist like a bracelet. A row of crooked crocodile teeth revealed these were hatori, assassins of a guild that emulated the fearsome sand crocodiles of the desert. Like those camouflaged and armored reptiles, hatori thugs swam below the surface of society, popped up, bit hard, then disappeared. The hatori were an undying infestation the palace chancellor had vowed to stamp out.
    The male assassin gabbled at his partner in thieves’ cant, but the samira interrupted, “You gutter trash! You wouldn’t dare kill me. If you’re smart, you’ll ru—urk!”
    A garrote of braided camel hair looped around Star’s throat. She gagged, gasped, and almost vomited. The cutthroat’s coarse clothes rubbed her shoulder through her thin shift, then the garrote twisted as he lifted her off her feet. He hoisted Star on his back like a lamb, not caring if she strangled. The world dimmed for lack of air.
    Footsteps pounded from all directions, but Star feared they’d be too late to prevent her strangling. Vaguely, through a red haze, she saw the female assassin snap a latch at the bottom of the sunken stairwell. She hissed for her partner to bring his burden, and Star was dragged halfway down the stairs. Amenstar shuddered and clawed wildly. Once these killers bolted that solid door, they might confound their pursuers long enough to escape—with Star either a prisoner or a corpse.
    “Release her!” Amenstar heard Tafir shout, then saw the cutthroat lift her katar to fend off an attack.
    Star wanted to shout a warning, but her wind was cut off. In agony, she saw Tafir leap clear over her head and down into the stairwell, obviously aiming to kick the female hatori’s head off.
    The woman dipped like a cobra and sliced with her curved dagger, and the knife sizzled across the hobnailed sole of Tafir’s sandal. Scrambling, hands braced against the wall, the cadet poised on a step and kicked wildly to avoid the blade. Obviously, Tafir only needed to harry the enemy and block the door until help arrived. Through a fog Star saw panting soldiers cram the stairwell. Rescue was close, if only her throat wasn’t crushed.
    The stairwell grew darker, the light eclipsed, and Amenstar feared her vision was fading, that she was dying. Then she smelled smoke. Out of the doorway boiled black smoke tinged with green curls, as if the building were afire. From under the smokescreen charged more assassins like bees from a smoked hive.
    Star couldn’t track what happened next. Her captor, still with his death-grip garrote around her throat, booted her down the stairs against the oncoming assassins. The dark depths had to be a thieves’ den. Star tried to grab someone rushing nearby, but the awful pressure on her throat made her sick, and she crumpled. Smoke stung her eyes, scorched her gaping mouth, and made her nose itch