"Run!" he snapped.
He felt a dart blow by the spot where he had spoken, and lengthened his frantic stride. A form rose before him, vague in the night. He chopped down with his sword, and felt a grim joy at the ripping of flesh and sundering of bone.
Now—out of the alley, into a street not much wider or lighter, and down its shadowy length. The slaves would be behind, but—
There was a one-story house ahead, of the usual flat-roofed construction. "Up!" gasped Alfric, and made a stirrup of his hands. He fairly flung the girl onto the roof. She gave him a hand up, bracing her feet against the parapet, and they fell down together behind it.
Alfric heard the slaves' bare feet trotting below him, but dared not risk a glance. Snakelike, he and Freha slithered across the housetop. Only a narrow space separated them from the next; they jumped that and crossed over to another and higher roof. From this, Alfric peered into the street beyond.
A couple of city guards were walking down it, spears at the ready. Alfric wondered whether he should join them—no, they would be no shield against a blowgun dart sent from an alley—anyway, they might be priest-loyal.
He put his mouth to Freha's ear, even then aware of the dark silky hair tickling his lips, and whispered: "What next?"
"I don't know." She looked ahead over the nighted roofs to the great central forum, still ruddy-bright with torches. Beyond it, the city climbed toward a double hill, on either crest of which was a building. One must be the palace, thought Alfric—it was in the graceful colonnaded style of the later Empire, white marble under Amaris. Nearly all its windows were dark; but he thought, puzzledly, that it was surrounded by a ring of fires.
The other building was a great gray pile, sprawling its grim massiveness in a red blaze of light. From it came the steady gong-beat and a rising chant—the Temple of the Two Moons, holding vigil at their wedding.