Vulcar, earthen goblet in hand, was bellowing out an anecdote of the days when he had been a young warrior, when the hangings behind Tharn's bench swayed as though touched by a random current of air.
Because all eyes were fixed on the speaker, and because the faint candle light failed to reach much beyond the table, none saw the half crouched figure that stealthily pushed aside the curtain and tip-toed into the room. The intruder's lips were curled in a crazed grimace of hate; in one hand was clutched a long blade of polished stone.
Nada, pausing in her eating from time to time to gaze fondly at her broad-shouldered son, caught a glimpse of something moving among the shadows directly behind the young man. What was it that lurked there?
Suddenly Nada screamed—a high-pitched, tearing sound that cut through the babble of voices about the table.
With the first notes of the scream, a figure behind Tharn bounded forward and drove a flint knife deep into the naked back of the surprised Cro-Magnard.
Nada's terrified cry was all that saved Tharn from instant death. For he was rising from his stool and turning as the scream left her lips. As a result, the knife point entered his back at an angle, ripping through the muscles there to enter the lower tip of one lung.
Tharn, despite his agony, reached for the would-be assassin. But another was there before him—Vulcar, the hawk-faced.
The one-time captain of Urim's guards had vaulted the table in a flying leap and with a powerful sweep of his arm, knocked away the knife. Then he caught the man about the neck and forced him into a kneeling position.
"So, Pryak," cried the hawk-faced one, "you would add another killing to your list! Long have I waited for this—now comes your reward for the death of Urim!"
Pryak opened his lips to plead for mercy, but before the words could come he was whirled up from the floor as though he were a figure of straw. Then, as the others watched in awe, Vulcar brought the screaming man down on the edge of the massive table.