'Of course he's close,' snapped the leader who had first called the halt. 'He doesn't have wings, does he? He's not immortal, he's not immune to the charms of our blades – no more such mutterings, do you two hear me? Now spread out – you, up that side, and you, up the other.' Sorcery cast its cold breath. 'I'll stay in the middle,' the leader said.
Aye, and unseen, meaning you're first, bastard.
Kalam listened as the other two headed off. He knew the pattern they would assume, the two flankers moving ahead, the leader – hidden in sorcery – hanging back, eyes flicking between the two hunters, scanning alley mouths, rooftops, a rib-less crossbow in each hand. Kalam waited a moment longer, then slowly, silently slipped free of the corpse and rose into a crouch.
He padded into the street, his bare feet making no sound. To someone who knew what to look for, the bloom of darkness edging forward twenty paces ahead was just discernible. Not an easy spell to maintain, it was inevitably weaker to the rear, and Kalam could make out a hint of the figure moving within it.
He closed the distance like a charging leopard. One of Kalam's elbows connected with the base of the leader's skull, killing him instantly. He caught one of the crossbows before it struck the cobbles, but the other eluded him, clattering and skittering on the street. Silently cursing, the assassin continued his charge, angling right, towards an alley mouth twenty paces behind the flanker on that side.
He dived at the muted snap of a crossbow and felt the quarrel rip through his cloak. Then he was rolling into the alley's narrow confines, sliding on rotted vegetables. Rats scattered from his path as he regained his feet and darted into deeper shadows.
An alcove loomed on his left and he spun, backed into its gloom and pulled free his own crossbow. Doubly armed, he waited.
A figure edged into view and paused opposite him, no more than six feet away.
The woman ducked and twisted even as Kalam fired – and the assassin knew he had missed. Her dagger, however, did not. The blade, flashing out from her hand, thudded as it struck him just beneath his right clavicle. A second thrown weapon – an iron star – embedded itself in the alcove's wooden door beside Kalam's face.
He pressed the release on the second crossbow. The quarrel took her low in the belly. She tumbled back and was dead of the White Paralt before she stopped moving.
Kalam was not – the weapon jutting from his chest must be clean. He sank down, laying the two crossbows on the ground, then reached up and withdrew the knife, reversing grip.