The remaining swordsman came in hard from the side, but he was not a skilled fighter, even by Kadran Gordeon's standards. Entreri easily backed and dodged his awkward, too-far-ahead thrust, then stepped in quickly, before the man could retract and ready the blade. Reaching down and around to catch his sword arm by the wrist, Entreri lifted hard and stepped under that wrist, twisting the arm painfully and stealing the strength from it.
The man came ahead, thinking to grab on for dear life with his free hand. Entreri's palm slapped against the back of his twisted sword hand quicker than he could even comprehend, then bent the hand down low back over the wrist, stealing all strength and sending a wave of pain through the man. A simple slide of the hand had the sword free in Entreri's grasp, and a reversal of grip and deft twist brought it in line.
Entreri retracted his hand, stabbing the blade out and up behind him into the belly and up into the lungs of the hapless soldier.
Moving quickly, not even bothering to pull the sword back out, he spun on the man, thinking to throw him, too, at the crossbowman. And indeed that stubborn archer was once more setting the bolt in place. But a far more dangerous foe appeared, the unseen wizard, rushing down the hallway, robes flapping, across the door. Entreri saw the man lift something slender-a wand, he supposed-but then all he saw was a tumble of arms and legs as the skewered swordsman crashed into the wizard and both went flying away.
"Have I yet gained your approval?" Entreri yelled at the still dazed Gordeon, but he was moving even as he spoke, for the crossbowman had him dead and the wizard was fast regaining his footing. He felt the terrible flash of pain as a quarrel dug through his side, but he gritted his teeth and growled away the pain, putting his arms in front of his face and tucking his legs up defensively as he crashed through the wooden-latticed window, soaring down the ten feet to the street. He turned his legs as he hit, throwing himself into a sidelong roll, and then another to absorb the shock of the fall. He was up and running, not surprised at all when another crossbow quarrel, fired from a completely different direction, embedded itself into the wall right beside him.
All the area erupted with movement as Basadoni soldiers came out of every conceivable hiding place.
Entreri sprinted down one alley, leaped right over a huge man bending low in an attempt to tackle him at the waist, then cut fast around a building. Up to the roof he went, quick as a cat, then across, leaping another alley to another roof, and so on.
He went down the main street, for he knew that his pursuers were expecting him to drop into an alley. He went up fast on the side of one wall, expertly setting himself there, arms and legs splayed wide to find tentative holds and to blend with the contours of the building.
Cries of "Find him!" echoed all about, and many soldiers ran right below his perch, but those cries diminished as the night wore on. Fortunately so for Entreri, who, though he was not losing much blood outwardly, understood that his wound was serious, perhaps even mortal. Finally he was able to slide down from his perch, hardly finding the remaining strength to even stand. He put a hand to his side and felt the warm blood, thick in the folds of his cloak, and felt, too, the very back edge of the deeply embedded quarrel.
He could hardly draw breath now. He knew what that meant.
Luck was with him when he got back to the inn, for the sun had not yet come up, and though there were obviously Basadoni soldiers within the place, few were about the immediate area. Entreri found the window of his room easily enough from the broken wood on the ground and calculated the height of his hidden store. He had to be quiet, for he heard voices, Gordeon's among them, from within his room. Up he went, finding a secure perch, trying hard not to groan, though in truth he wanted to scream from the pain.
He worked the old, weather-beaten wood slowly and quietly until he could pull enough away to retrieve his dagger and small pouch.