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were coming
from everywhere.”
    “Impossible,” Tosh Karv argued. “Mutah don’t
use arrows.”
    “I’m not lying,” Deneson shot back.
    “Then why haven’t any of us been hit since
our arrival?” the man questioned him.
    The rest of the group paused. They had taken
immediate action once they’d realized they were under attack, but
since their first defensive move there’d been no sign of
retribution. The man turned to one of his subordinates.
    “Find out how many are dead. Purst, find a
way to get some men up on the roofs. Find our shooters. I also want
to talk to some of the Mutah.”
     
    * * * *
    Several Cleaners broke away from the phalanx
to obey orders, spreading out into the main market area. Atty
watched from her vantage point and wondered what to do next. She
wished she was closer so she could see who the new men were. It was
obvious that one was a leader, possibly the main leader of the
group. Whoever he was, he knew war and he knew how to draw a
defensive posture. Even if she had more arrows there was little
chance she could do any more damage to their ranks.
    She watched guardedly as the cluster of
Cleaners approached the bound prisoners. Temporary relief swept
over her as they were partially untied and herded into one of the
shops. They might have escaped death this time, but there was no
guarantee how much longer they would remain alive.
    The cluster seemed to divide into four
smaller groups. One group began to retrieve the bodies of the
fallen Cleaners. Another group took over the removal of the cooked
badger, while the third group spread out and disappeared into the
narrow pathways between the apartments. Mutant hunting.
    Atty shuddered. She’d been so close. And to
make matters worse, the morning fog was beginning to descend,
obscuring her view of the men in the market area. To add insult to
injury, her right leg had gone to sleep. It was the leg she used
for balance when taking aim. She tried to stamp some feeling back
into it, but it felt more like a lump of dead weight. She tried
slapping it, poking it, and banging it with her fist. After some
moments the leg began to tingle with familiar pain, and Atty
stretched the limb to hurry along its revival. It was only by sheer
luck that she spotted the helmeted figure rushing at her through
the gray-black mist.
    The Cleaner swung his sword, aiming for her
head. Instinctively Atty threw up her bow. The blade struck the
thick, dense wood, bouncing off. She rolled to one side, and barely
missed the sword slicing the air where she’d been. She tried to get
to her feet but her numbed leg wouldn’t support her weight, and she
listed to one side.
    Atty warded off another blow coming sideways.
The heavy sword continued its arc. The Cleaner following through by
turning around and bringing it over his head to smash downward. In
those precious seconds she notched her last arrow and let it fly
without aiming.
    The shaft punched a hole through the man’s
face with enough power to penetrate the skull in the back. The
impact pushed him backwards toward the edge of the roof. The
sword’s movement brought it down and away, swinging out of the dead
man’s hand and over into the marketplace, the length of its steel
reflecting the firelight as it fell to the ground.
    Gasping for breath, her body singing from the
adrenalin, Atty watched as the Cleaner finally toppled from the
roof. Engrossed in the man’s descent, she never saw the blow that
glanced off the side of her face and sent her sprawling over the
tiles.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Five
    Captured
     
     
    “This is the Mutah?”
    “This is the only one we’ve found... so far,”
the Cleaner quickly added.
    Dizzy and nauseous, Atty felt her cheek and
mouth pressed into the dirt. She tried to make sense of where she
was but her head felt like it was about to explode. Her right eye
wouldn’t open. Her left would only give her blurred images of
people walking around her, but her sight seemed to