Free The Diviner by Melanie Rawn Page A

might, and shifted as if in a dream.
    A long silence. Then another step, and another. The man was good at his trade. Azzad again wondered what had awakened him earlier. It did not matter. His shifting had let him place one hand on his chest to block a knife and the other on his belly to strike at the man’s ribs; his right leg sprawled to the side, ready to dig into the bedding for leverage.
    Another step. He could hear the man’s breathing.
    And then the whisper: “For the honor of the al-Ammarizzad— die , alMa’aliq—”
    The hiss of the blade, the fingers snarling in his hair—the sinewy wrist in his grip, the crunch of his fist against bone—and they were on the floor, rolling, tangled and tumbling like a rapist and a furious virgin, all in silence. It was not a knife the assassin wielded but an axe that skittered away, ringing as it hit a brass tub in the corner. Azzad kicked and struck, overturning a table, and felt liquid splash on his face as a pitcher went flying. He heard clay crack against the central tent pole and shatter. Shaking his eyes clear, he grunted as a knee drove into his belly and knocked the wind from his lungs. Desperately, Azzad pushed off with a foot and rolled the pair of them over and over again until his ribs hit the tent pole.
    Suddenly the hands were gone from his throat. Gasping for breath, he staggered to his feet. The man’s lips were parted in a soundless cry, his eyes gaping wide with astonishment, his hands twitching limply—and his legs moved not at all. Azzad kicked him onto his side and saw a thick shard of the pitcher’s broken handle protruding from his spine and a small spreading bloodstain on his white bedshirt.
    Not in all his time here had Azzad ever sensed that the tent was guarded by night. He’d been a fool to think otherwise, he realized, when a golden-skinned face appeared at the tent flap, wide-eyed. Azzad waved a casual hand at him to indicate he was unharmed, and the boy vanished.
    Wearily, he sat on his carpets and worked on catching his breath. It seemed he wasn’t quite as recovered as he’d thought. He kept an eye on his assailant, curious about how long it would take him to die.
    A little while later, Fadhil came into the tent at a run. “Azzad! What happened?”
    â€œAs you see,” he managed, irked that he was still so exhausted. After this paltry exertion, he was as wrung out and sore as if he were a rug and a servant had just washed and beaten him. He wondered how long the Shagara would give him to sleep it off before they sent him on his way.
    â€œWho is this man?” Fadhil demanded.
    â€œYour other patient. Not just that, of course.” He watched as Fadhil finally noticed the shard sticking out of the man’s spine. “Perhaps Chal Kabir is needed,” he suggested mildly.
    â€œI—yes, of course, you’re right,” the young man stammered. “I’ll find him at once.” He cast one last appalled look at the dying man and fled the tent.
    A little while later he was back, with Kabir and two women who could only be Challa Meryem and young Leyliah (both were beautiful, Azzad noted). They scarcely had time to exclaim in horror when Abb Shagara himself burst in.
    â€œWhat has been done here?” Meryem demanded.
    â€œAsk him,” Azzad advised. “If he can still talk.”
    She knelt to examine the wound, the breath hissing in her teeth.“He will live a cripple—”
    â€œ If we allow him to live,” said Abb Shagara. Drawing a loose white robe more closely around him, he went on, “Azzad, tell me what happened.”
    â€œHe tried to kill me.” He nodded toward the corner. “His axe is right over there.”
    Kabir went to pick it up, turning it over and over in his hands before giving it to Abb Shagara with a significant arch of his brows. They all looked grim-faced at the gleaming steel blade set in a haft of