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But I am afraid! I ..."
"You don't have to be afraid of anything," he said. "Not while I am alive, and I don't intend to die."
He gave the word for Kickaha to drag him back onto the rooftop of the bartizan. He rose and almost fell
over from dizziness, for his head was gorged with blood.
"The Yidshe has already started down," Kickaha said. "I sent him to find out if we can get back the
way we came and also to see what's causing the uproar."
"Us?"
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"I don't think so. The first thing they'd do, they'd check on Chryseis. Which they haven't done."
The descent was even slower and more dangerous than the climb up, but they made it without mishap.
Funem Laksfalk was waiting for them by the window which had given them access to the outside.
"They've found the guard you killed," he said. "But they don't think we had anything to do with it. The
gworl broke loose from the dungeon and killed a number of men. They also seized their own weapons.
Some got outside but not all."
The three left the room and merged quickly with the searchers. They had no chance to go up the flight of
steps at the end of which was the room where Chryseis was imprisoned. Without a doubt, von Elgers
would have made sure that the guards were increased.
They wandered around the castle for several hours, acquainting themselves with its layout. They noted
that, though the shock of the gworl's escape had sobered the Teutons somewhat, they were still very
drunk. Wolff suggested that they go to their room, and talk about possible plans. Perhaps they could
think of something reasonably workable.
Their room was on the fifth story and by a window at an angle below the window of Chryseis' bartizan.
To get to it, they had to pass many men and women, all stinking of beer and wine, reeling, babbling
away, and accomplishing very little. Their room could not have been entered and searched, for only they
and the chief warder had the keys. He had been too busy elsewhere to get to their room. Besides, how
could the gworl enter through a locked door?
The moment Wolff stepped into his room, he knew that they had somehow entered. The musty
rottenfruit stench hit him in the nostrils. He pulled the other two inside and swiftly shut and locked the
door behind them. Then he turned with his dagger in his hand. Kickaha also, his nostrils dilating and his
eyes stabbing, had his blade out. Only funem Laksfalk was unaware that anything was wrong except for
an unpleasant odor.
Wolff whispered to him; the Yidshe walked toward the wall to get their swords, then stopped. The
racks were empty.
Silently and slowly, Wolff went into the other room. Kickaha, behind him, held a torch. The flame
flickered and cast humped shadows that made Wolff start. He had been sure that they were the gworl.
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The light advanced; the shadows fled or changed into harmless shapes.
"They're here," Wolff said softly. "Or they've just left. But where could they go?"
Kickaha pointed at the high drapes that were drawn over the window. Wolff strode up to them and
began thrusting through the red-purple velvet cloth. His blade met only air and the stone of the wall.
Kickaha pulled the drapes back to reveal what the dagger had told him. There were no gworl.
"They came in through the window," the Yidshe said. "But why?"
Wolff lifted his eyes at the moment, and he swore. He stepped back to warn his friends, but they were
already looking upward. There, hanging upside down by their knees from the heavy iron drapery rod
were two gworl. Both had long, bloody knives in their hands. One, in addition, clutched the silver horn.
The two creatures stiffened their legs the second they realized they were discovered. Both managed to
flip over and come down heads-up. The one to the right kicked out with his feet. Wolff rolled and then
was up, but Kickaha had missed with his knife and the gworl had not. It slid from his palm through a
short distance into Kickaha's arm.
The other threw his knife at funem Laksfalk. It struck the Yidshe in the solar plexus with a force that
made him bend over and stagger back. A few seconds later, he straightened up to reveal why the knife
had failed to enter his flesh. Through the tear in his shirt gleamed the steel of light chain-mail.
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