I bent down to place the warrior on the floor, at an angle between the table and the floor. The heel of my shoe struck the center of the statuette and it cracked without a sound, opening slightly in the middle. I picked it up impatiently and looked inside. The brown end of a cloth bag was sticking out, longing to land in my hands. I tried to pull it out, but it balked, obviously too full, so I brought the statuette close to the wall and broke it after a few kicks. Without the slightest hesitation, I took out the bag and untied it.
Good heavens! My poor indigent brain couldn't comprehend what my eyes saw. Inside were at least twenty large polished rubies. I was no connoisseur of gems, but from the looks of it, each one must be worth more than fifty gold coins. Anyway, this wasn't the time to count. Still, I hesitated. It seemed only right to take one. The agreed price of twenty-five gold for such a haul was truly ridiculous.
As if on its own, one of the red gems passed through my hand in less than a second, then disappeared into the special pocket I'd sewn into my underpants for such occasions. In fact, I could already conclude that this ruby had never existed in the eyes of the rest of the world.
That was the end of my work, and I left immediately without compromising the mission by stealing any more items. The plan was to leave the house conspicuously empty-handed and waste no time inside. I crossed the corridor in a hurry, descended the stairs almost as quietly as I had climbed them, and trotted on tiptoe to the front door. Even if the old lady had heard me, I'd be miles away before she could drag herself there.
I stopped in front of the door and took a deep breath, both to gather my courage and to calm myself. Finally, I stepped out with such a serene expression on my face that even if the owner had seen me at that moment, he would have mistaken me for an ordinary boy going out to do his boring daily chores.
Damn it! I glanced toward the corner where Chrissam should be waiting for me to make sure everything was okay. He wasn't there. However, there were two Karcepian guards advancing nervously on foot. Unfortunately, one of them caught my eye, even if only briefly. I immediately lowered my head and took off in a slight hurry to the opposite end of the street. I hadn't gone five meters when two more guards turned in my direction, coming from the first intersection in front of me. The one closest had a halberd on his back and the one behind him had a crossbow.
Fear washed over me like a downpour in the spring - sudden and devastating. Had I been in this situation a few years ago, I would have panicked or petrified on the spot. This time, however, I kept my composure and walked straight ahead, keeping as much distance as possible from the approaching guards so as not to attract their attention by being too peculiar.
To my horror, they also changed direction to react to my movement by blocking my path. It all happened in a matter of seconds. The one at the back reached for the crossbow behind him. It was already loaded. The one closest to me lunged forward aggressively, grabbing his halberd with both hands. Not more than three meters separated us. At the same moment, someone ten meters behind me shouted
"DON'T MOVE!"
Time was of the essence, but for someone of my caliber, reflection was not necessary in such a situation. Instinct and experience were my greatest assets. I turned and ran back to the house. Nothing good could come of my surrender now, and running down the street could only lead to one result: being shot like a dog without the slightest hesitation on their part. All the more so as they would probably have received congratulations and a few coins of yellow gold as a reward for having saved Karcep from a future criminal in the person of a juvenile delinquent who had barely come of age.
I ran with all my might and reached the door before the one with the crossbow had managed to unhook it from his back to aim at me, and before the other two had blocked my path and prevented me from fleeing in that direction.
"STOP if you want to live!" one of the guards shouted.
But that only served to intensify the fear that was giving me wings at that very moment.
I rushed inside and, without stopping, slammed the door behind me to slow them down as much as possible. Their footsteps echoed only a few feet back. I fled up the stairs. At the bottom, the guards burst in before I'd even finished the climb. They saw me and ran after me.
Without wasting any time, I entered the second room on the floor, knowing it was unlocked, reached the window, and banged my shoulder against it. It was solid and too narrow to throw myself through. I had to break it and then squeeze through. The glass shattered, but the frame didn't budge an inch. Before I could make a second attempt, one of the guards burst into the room just as I was assessing the situation and slowly approached me, ready to grab me. Crawling through the window was out of the question.
Every second wasted was to the advantage of my pursuers, so without wasting a second, I rushed forward. I managed to surprise the guard in front of me and rammed my fist into his nose as he tried to grab me. I pushed him out of the way, at the same time using the inertia of our collision to throw myself towards the door and out into the corridor. Another who had been running towards me slowed his pace and prepared to confront me in close combat. My eyes watched for the slightest flaw in his defense or a chance to get past him in the narrow corridor, but I simply saw none. I attempted a desperate attack on his face, which he parried with ease. He then took my kick in the thigh without flinching.
The next thing I knew, someone had belted me from behind, threw me down and pinned me to the floor. The guard in the room had meanwhile recovered and was now standing victoriously over me, spraying me with the blood dripping from his broken nose. I started to get up, but a powerful blow with the palm of his hand on the back of my neck knocked my head against the floor and I sank instantly into unconsciousness.