With his free hand Daoud grabbed the guard's wrist and gave it a sharp turn. He let go of his opponent's throat and used both hands to force his sword arm down. He straightened the arm out and brought his knee down hard on the elbow, throwing all his weight on it.
The guard screamed with pain, and his sword clattered to the floor. Daoud kicked it off into the darkness, then danced away. The Armenian fell back against the spice pantry door, groaning in pain and fear.
Daoud heard muffled cries from the other side of the door. They demanded to know what was happening. They begged to know what was happening.
The Armenian's agonized voice cried out to them, also begging, to be let in, to be saved from the man who was killing him in the blackness.
Daoud readied himself, finding the water bucket again in the dark and picking it up. He held it with both hands, by the handle and by the base. He would have only a little time to use it, before they found some way to stop him.
He heard the men on the other side of the door slide back the iron bolt. It was the only thing they could do, Daoud thought. The other Armenians could not bear to keep the door shut and let their comrade die.
The wooden door swung inward. Light sprang out into the cellar from only one oil-fed lantern, but dazzled Daoud because he had been in complete darkness since he put out the candle. He now saw the man he had been fighting, a squat man with a thick black mustache, tears of pain running from his eyes, his right arm dangling limply.
In the fraction of an instant before his enemies saw him, Daoud took in everything in the spice pantry.
De Gobignon was standing just inside the door, holding his beautiful scimitar out before him in his right hand. With his left hand he reached for the wounded guard to pull him in. On either side of him were the other two Armenians, bows drawn, ready to fire. Beyond them Daoud glimpsed the Tartars, also with bows loaded and pulled, and the old priest.
But the most important thing in there was that small, weak flame flickering behind sheets of horn in a box-shaped lantern on the table in the center of the room.