In the instant Xialuote's warning left her mouth, the feeling returned—the one she had known facing Aidian, when being wound too tight sped her thoughts and the scene before her eyes slowed as if in slow motion.
The assailant who appeared from the depths of the storeroom wore a ragged gray-brown coat. Hair thick with dust and greasy grime tangled with his beard and hid most of his face; only his eyes flashed, bright and vicious.
It was the beggar who had just taken three silver coins from Xialuote!
His right hand gripped the hilt of a blackened short blade. He dropped low and lunged at the three of them, but his target was not her. It was Luosaier Gusitafu, who had only just turned his head at the cry.
Only then did Xialuote realize that the first person the assailant meant to deal with was not herself.
He must mean to take down Luosaier first—the tallest one here, and the one who looked hardest to handle—then Gelin, and only at the end come for me... So this isn't an assassination. It's another kidnapping? Her thoughts raced, but her body could not react in time. She could only watch as the gray-clad beggar, moving almost too fast to be an ordinary man, charged at Luosaier.
Luosaier clearly had not expected the attack to come so fast, but the instincts left by the military preparatory school saved his life.
Almost in the instant Xialuote cried out and he saw the assailant, he twisted aside and dodged the keen short blade. Even so, a long, narrow gash opened in his dark green coat, exposing the silk of the waistcoat beneath.
If that had been me, I'd have been gutted... Xialuote's heart pounded, and her feet drew back of their own accord.
That pass did not leave Luosaier unable to respond. As he came back square, he snatched a wooden ruler from the rack beside him—the one used for measuring sheets of paper—and swung it at the gray-clad man's wrist, trying to force him back.
But the assailant was faster than he had expected. After the short blade missed, he did not reset his stance. He followed the momentum of his charge in close, dropped his left shoulder a little, and slammed his whole body into Luosaier's chest like a hammer.
A dull thud. Luosaier staggered two steps back, and his spine struck hard against a wooden rack packed with movable type. Metal pieces large and small rattled, nearly tumbling out of their compartments.
"Go get help!"
Gelin Lande'er came to himself as well. He shouted, seized an iron ink-stirring rod from beside him, and charged in.
He was not especially quick, but his timing was just right. The iron rod smashed in from the side at the gray-clad beggar's shoulder, forcing the man to give up pressing Luosaier and block it with a backhand of the short blade.
A crisp clash rang through the narrow storeroom.
Gelin had clearly trained at the military preparatory school too. Short on real fighting though he was, he knew he must not let the man defeat the two of them one by one. The moment his strike was parried, he retreated half a step, giving Luosaier—just steadied beside the rack—room to strike again.
Gritting his teeth against the pain in his back, Luosaier gripped the wooden ruler and, with the advantage of his height and reach, swung it sideways at the assailant's face. The man tilted his head and dodged. Riding that motion, he flicked the short blade up and nearly sliced Luosaier's fingers. Luosaier had to let go, drop the ruler, and snatch up a stack of thick paper to shield himself.
A hiss—the short blade sank into the paper with a dull scrape.
In the instant the weapon caught slightly in the sheets, Gelin stepped in again and drove the tip of the ink-stirring rod at the gray-clad man's waist.
The blow landed at last. The gray-clad man swayed, but he did not cry out and fall as Gelin had expected. He only bent his knees a little and, using that force, slipped sideways between two rows of wooden racks, drawing the short blade back out of the paper.
This speed, these reflexes—nothing like a normal person's...
Xialuote had thought that with Luosaier and Gelin both against one assailant armed with a short blade, even if they were caught off guard for a moment, they could at least slowly turn the advantage back. What she saw was nothing of the sort.
That the two of them could hold one off owed more to the storeroom being narrow enough. Wooden racks, stacks of paper, ink barrels, and tools left in disorder restricted the gray-clad man's paths, so he could not fully bring that more-than-ordinary speed to bear. Otherwise, if he used his speed to circle to the flank and set Luosaier and Gelin hindering each other, he could create a local advantage in an instant and wound one of them.
"Miss Xialuote, go!"
Gelin shouted again. The strain in his voice could no longer be hidden.
Only then did Xialuote shake off her brief freeze. She turned and ran for the storeroom door.
Outside there were Laila, the coachman, and the printing workers. Even if those people dared not come forward and fight the assailant, they could at least raise a commotion. And since the assailant had chosen to strike while hidden in the storeroom, he likely did not want to be exposed before everyone.
But just as her hand touched the doorframe and she was about to step out, a thought suddenly surfaced.
When that beggar had prayed before her to both the Eternal Blazing Sun and the God of Craftsmen, the feeling of being watched had still been there.
Which meant there was not necessarily only one person watching her.
Xialuote's steps stopped short. She did not at once draw her hand back, nor turn to warn the two inside. She only held the doorframe and kept her body between the inside of the door and the outside, as if the sounds of the fight had frightened her, as if she were hesitating over whether to rush out.
The next second, a thin black-gloved hand with five long, slender fingers shot from the shadow beside the door and snatched at empty air, nearly brushing Xialuote's cuff.
If she had taken that step out a moment ago in her haste to call for help, her wrist would already be caught.
Cold sweat broke across her back. Using the brace she already had on the doorframe, she retreated. Her skirt hem scraped the floor and nearly caught her own feet.
Close on that movement, a shadow seemed to split away from the darkness and step soundlessly into the storeroom.
It was a woman in a black robe, the hood raised to cover most of her face, though the pale skin of her jaw could still be seen. Her lips were pressed tight, and she moved so lightly she seemed a bodiless phantom.
So it was true... Xialuote understood at once. The gray-clad beggar who had appeared first was there to pin down Luosaier and Gelin. The one who had truly come to seize her was the black-robed woman before her.
"There's another one!"
She called the warning to the two behind her, who were still facing the other assailant, and at the same time her right hand went inside her coat and found the small glass bottle she had brought from Saint Luoke Cathedral.
According to Weiyefu, if she met anyone suspicious she was to splash this bottle of holy water on them, then stall for time. That meant the holy water must do some real harm to the evil god's believers who were following her.
But Xialuote had never had any combat training. The only time she had killed with her own hands, she had relied on the brief opening after Aidian was struck by a vase, and on that half-baked knowledge she had picked up online. Against this black-robed woman, clearly well trained and perhaps even possessed of Extraordinary power, simply splashing the holy water would most likely only let her dodge it with ease.
She had to make her show an opening...
Xialuote clenched the bottle of holy water and drew it from her coat. She deliberately let the bottle's outline show between her fingers, though her wrist trembled badly, and put on the desperate look of someone who, in a panic, meant to resist at the last with the perfume bottle she carried.
The black-robed woman's gaze did fall on the bottle, but she did not lunge at once. She bent slightly and closed in slowly, right hand hanging low, left hand lifted a little, as if ready to snatch the bottle the instant Xialuote raised her hand.
Xialuote's heart tightened. She realized the woman had not rushed in at once, even though her target had no ability to fight and had readily shown a clumsy posture. She was clearly extremely cautious.
Then I'll be clumsier still... She flung her hand up, raised the bottle beside her shoulder, and made as if to smash it hard into the woman's face. But the motion was too large. She staggered; her left foot caught the edge of her skirt, her whole body tipped toward the wooden rack beside her, and the bottle in her hand swung off course with her.
The black-robed woman did not let the opening pass. She closed in at once. Her left hand circled toward the outside of the hand that held the bottle, and her right shot out like a snake for Xialuote's wrist, meaning to take the bottle first and then control her.
Eternal Blazing Sun, You are the undying light, the embodiment of order...
Xialuote recited it quickly in her heart, with no great piety. Her body, already off balance, suddenly braced against the wooden rack and wrenched back the other way. The right hand gripping the glass bottle did not avoid the black-robed woman's grasp. It went to meet it.
The black-robed woman seemed to sense that something was wrong. Her fingers snapped shut at once, trying to stop the wrist first.
But that instant, once the woman had come close, was exactly what Xialuote had been waiting for.
She did not throw the bottle. She drove her arm down hard and, from a distance almost against the woman's face, smashed the glass into the face exposed beneath the brim of the hood.
A crisp crack. The small glass bottle burst against the side of the black-robed woman's face, and fine shards and clear liquid sprayed out together.
Chapter 17