"We hit the Citadel from every street. Some of us will get through. Ten streets, ten companies, each of them a flying wedge to get inside and kill Stal Tay. That's our first job. After that...."
Red Angus talked on, sketching in the hot sands. He did not see a bandaged Thordad come out of a tent and stand there, watching them, and listening. Thordad turned away after a while and went back into the tent where he sat shivering and staring down at his hands.
Neither did Red Angus see him that night when he daggered a guard and fled on a haml across the desert for Karr City. They found the guard but guessed him a victim of a jealous lover for he had a reputation as a lady's man.
The days slid into weeks, and the fires burned and metal glowed, and the forges and the anvils never stopped. Swords and shields and spears, daggers and clumsy electrorays were turned out for eager hands.
They broke camp in the faint mists of an early dawn. On ewe-necked haml and on foot, by cart and by stolen jetcar, they left the base of the Bloody Cliffs. They came into Karr City by twos and threes and hid themselves in the taverns and in the thatch-roofed houses. The city knew them and the city swallowed them, and the city slumbered, waiting.
In the tavern of the Spotted Stag, Red Angus paced the floor. Tandor, an arm around his gypsy girl, was sampling a new tun of imported wine. Moana was white-faced, pale and silent at the table.
Angus said, "I don't like it. I don't like it. I have the feel of a wolf sniffing at the jaws of a trap."
Tandor drew his lips from the gypsy's neck long enough to say, "It's quiet, isn't it. What more do you want?"
"That's just it. It's too quiet. There are no Citadel guards out hunting me. No arrests for five days. No street patrols, even!"
"Good. Then let's call it off and go back to Yassinan. You'll like Yassinan, honey." Tandor nuzzled the girl's throat, "I have a big house there. Much wine. Better wine than this!"