His scream forced its way through his throat as a drawn-out grunt as the cord tightened still more. He could feel the blood in his head pressing out against his temples and eyeballs. He felt as if nails were being driven into his head.
He had his scimitar. He raised it and drove it back over his right shoulder. It went through empty air. The killer had felt it coming and ducked out of the way. But for a moment the cord cutting into Simon's throat let up just a bit.
He heard voices all around him. The others knew what was happening. They stumbled about, but they could not see to reach him. He felt himself being dragged backward, pulled away from his comrades. The cord was digging into his windpipe harder and harder. In a moment his mind would go black. He would not even know when he died. He fought his terror, knowing that if he yielded to it, he would surely die.
He would live. He would see Sophia again.
He tried to lean forward, to bend his knees, to find some purchase on the stone for his iron-shod feet. Still, the attacker pulled him. Simon felt he had only a child's strength compared to the man in black.
Dizzily Simon remembered tug-of-war games when he had been a page at the royal palace.
When one side lets go, everyone on the other side falls down.
With his last bit of consciousness, Simon squeezed his whole body into a crouch, then sprang up and backward, like a bow released.
His mail-clad weight and the attacker's momentum threw them both backward. They crashed together against shelving, and Simon heard porcelain shatter. Clouds of ground spices enveloped them, and they fell sideways to the floor, Simon on top of his attacker.
He heard a gasp as the man's breath was knocked out of him. And now he could breathe. He choked on air saturated with cinnamon and curry, but the cord was loose.