was a mustache that his fingers
followed long below the mouth. The beard was thin, sprouting from the
chin only. One of the Tartars. Simon felt the face move under his touch.
Thank God, the man was alive.

He reached beyond the Tartar and felt a shoulder. This must be the other
Tartar. But no--the shoulder was high, as high as the Tartar's head.

Just as he was about to jump back he felt something brush over his hair.

A cord was around his neck.

It jerked tight with such force that Simon's breath was instantly cut
off. Pain circled his neck like a band of fire.

His scream forced its way through his throat as a drawn-out grunt as the
cord tightened still more. He could feel the blood in his head pressing
out against his temples and eyeballs. He felt as if nails were being
driven into his head.

He had his scimitar. He raised it and drove it back over his right
shoulder. It went through empty air. The killer had felt it coming and
ducked out of the way. But for a moment the cord cutting into Simon's
throat let up just a bit.

He heard voices all around him. The others knew what was happening. They
stumbled about, but they could not see to reach him. He felt himself
being dragged backward, pulled away from his comrades. The cord was
digging into his windpipe harder and harder. In a moment his mind would
go black. He would not even know when he died. He fought his terror,
knowing that if he yielded to it, he would surely die.

He _would_ live. He _would_ see Sophia again.

He tried to lean forward, to bend his knees, to find some purchase on
the stone for his iron-shod feet. Still, the attacker pulled him. Simon
felt he had only a child's strength compared to the man in black.

Dizzily Simon remembered tug-of-war games when he had been a page at the
royal palace.

_When one side lets go, everyone on the other side falls down._

With his last bit of consciousness, Simon squeezed his whole body into a
crouch, then sprang up and backward, like a bow released.

His mail-clad weight and the attacker's momentum threw them both
backward. They crashed together against shelving, and Simon heard
porcelain shatter. Clouds of ground spices enveloped them, and they fell
sideways to the floor, Simon on top of his attacker.

He heard a gasp as the man's breath was knocked out of him. And now _he_
could breathe. He choked on air saturated with cinnamon and curry, but
the cord was loose.

The fall had knocked his scimi