We ducked into a side room stacked high with bolts of cloths for drying, baskets of Aleppo soaps, eucalyptus fronds, and rose-scented oils. Moonlight glowed through the square window to the right. Taram and Humusi carefully took off their tunics to reveal their breastplates and scaled capes. Their eyes were watchful. Wary. Taram drew a dagger and a battle-ax from her arsenal, and rotated the ax with quick, calculated flicks of her wrist. She looked skilled. Dangerous. Like death personified. Humusi drew a short dagger and a mace from her belt, and the effect of her muscles pulling taut beneath her shoulders as she tightened her grip on each and grinned, her bright smile shining through the gloom, was enough to make all the hair stand to attention on my head.

Tucking the herb knife from my satchel into my waistband, I warily eyeballed Dagan as he unsheathed both daggers from his waist and moved into the corridor, and down a dark, curved hallway that seemed to lead to the main bathhouse chamber. Iltani pulled her blade from the band around her thigh as Dagan held a dagger to his full lips, shushing us, and we crept slowly toward what we could only hope was Uruku. Iltani and I stayed close behind him with Taram and Humusi following, weapons chinking softly.

As we rounded the corridor into the main breezeway, two guardsmen stood, flanking a thick, heavy door upon which the lion and blooms crest of Lugal Marus was carved. Torches crested the wall.

One pockmarked, the other as wide as Dagan, the guardsmen flinched in surprise as we filed into the breezeway. But Taram and Humusi were on them before they could even draw their weapons.

With stealth and efficiency, they slit the men’s throats with their daggers and had their bodies dragged away to the side of the room before I could even open my mouth to protest.

“Dear Selu!” I hissed.

I walked to the men and knelt, as they spasmed, gasping through their severed windpipes.

“Did you have to kill them? They were just doing their jobs! We could have tied them up until we got Uruku!”

“Yeah, well.” Iltani grinned malevolently. “Now they can do it for Alani in the Netherworld.”

“You could have just put them to sleep.” I stared hard at the warriors.

“Too much of a risk, A-zu,” Humusi said.

Sickened, I dug into my satchel and found the nerium, then dabbed a little on each of their tongues so they wouldn’t suffer as they met the Boatman. I knelt there as they stilled, then tore my eyes away as I stood, bile rising in my throat. It wasn’t right. But I was on this path and could not get off it. I’d chosen to align myself with bloodshed.

The warriors nodded to Dagan. His face grim, he took a torch from the wall as Humusi held up three fingers. Then she dropped to two. Then one. And when the final finger dropped into a fist, Dagan flung open the door and Taram and Humusi charged in, weapons drawn, bellowing like beasts. A woman screamed, and Dagan slipped inside with the torch and one of his daggers.