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Imriel, lurking outside the door, turned to flee-it was then that one of the Âka-Magi, a Skotophagotis , had caught sight of him and followed, beginning to suspect.
    What happened to him, I already knew.
    After that, the zenana descended in fury.
    How many did the women kill, in that initial shock? Scores, at least. It was the sheer unexpectedness of the attack. Seizing blades-daggers, carving knives, swords, even an axe-from bewildered warriors’ hands, the women wreaked a terrible vengeance, and the shouts of the Âka-Magi went lost amid their shrieks, empty and harmless as the squawking of crows.
    Then the men of Drujan, drugged and dazed, began to fight back.
    That was when I arrived.
    It was dreadful to behold. Drugged or no, these were trained warriors, many of them clad in partial armor or leather. Such was the etiquette of the Mahrkagir’s festal hall. And under their onslaught, the women of the zenana died in droves ... Ephesians, Hellenes, Jebeans-all nations, blood spattered alike over fair skin and dark, clotted in tresses of blond and brown, the black silk of Ch’in, the woolen curls of Jebe-Barkal.
    Here and there, some resisted. I saw Kaneka swinging an axe like a hammer, her teeth gleaming in a warrior’s grin, blood splashed to her elbows. A knot of Chowati fought grimly. The Akkadian eunuchs stripped armor from dead men and struggled with the living. Across the hall, Erich the Skaldi held the doorway to the kitchens, Rushad and a handful of servants behind him, fighting with all the ferocity of his nation.
    And in the center of the hall...
    Joscelin.
    This much I will swear: ’twas not the madness of Angra Mainyu that drove him. I know. I was with him in the corridor, when it came upon the others. This was different, untainted, a rage born in the back alleys of Amílcar where we found the slavers’ children, nurtured by fate, repressed and channeled and honed to an immaculate edge in the Mahrkagir’s service.
    It was the most pure and deadly thing I have ever seen.
    With his sword in his two-handed grip, Joscelin moved gracefully through his Cassiline forms, his face as calm and focused as when he did his morning exercises in the garden. He was smiling, his summer-blue eyes wide with exaltation, and where his sword flowed, weaving a silver thread in the dark air, death followed. I daresay the mail shirt helped, turning a few glancing blows.
    Most of them never landed.
    He was nigh untouchable.
    And they were drawn to him-drawn, like moths to the flame, Drujani and Tatar alike, abandoning the women and stumbling to the center of the festal hall to challenge him. Jagun, the Kereyit warlord, came at him with a cry of fury on his lips, half-stumbling and wild, only now realizing the scope of the prize that had slipped his fingers. With a single two-handed stroke, Joscelin cut him down; with a single stroke, Imriel’s torment at the Tatar’s hands was ended and avenged.
    The Kereyit’s corpse measured its length on the floor of the hall. And still others came, flinging themselves against him. It was madness, truly. The dark lord of Daršanga knew, too late, what was in his midst. And Joscelin, Cassiel’s servant, my Perfect Companion, danced the blades with the minions of Angra Mainyu, amid a rising circle of corpses, the flagstones growing slick with blood.
    “ Imriel !” I cried, catching sight of him.
    There he was, Melisande’s son, brandishing a carving knife and snarling, retreating from a lunging Drujani soldier, scrambling onto a bench, a table. The Drujani, sword in hand, pursued him, clambering onto the bench. He had one knee on the table and was jabbing with his sword when I grabbed the bench with both hands and overturned it in a surge of pure terror, toppling it and its occupant with it.
    The Drujani fell hard, the back of his head striking the flagstones. “Lady,” he said in Persian, blinking at my face suspended above him, Elua knows how much opium coursing through his veins. “Lady.”
    “The Shahryar Mahrkagir is dead,” I said gently. “My lord soldier, it is finished.”
    “Then ... this is yours?” He gave me his sword, bemused, still laying on his back, proffering the hilt. Since I did not know what else to do, I took it, the sword awkward and heavy in my hands. He sighed and closed his eyes.
    The uproar of battle was subsiding.
    It was strange, the dawning silence. Everywhere, people moaned, bleeding and dying, but the clash of arms had begun to fade.