Chapter 31
‘As I was saying,’ Abu Abdallah resumed, speaking between choking coughs, ‘this Remedy’s nothing but sound and fury.’
The chamber was filled with evil-smelling smoke and with the splutters of two dozen men – not roasted, but only lightly toasted. Sinan, dazed, amazed to be alive, flicked frizzled fragments from his beard and eyebrows and spat out the acrid taste of the fumes. By the light of a lone torch that had not been blown out by the blast, he saw the Grand Vizier brushing his own singed beard and turning to Abu Abdallah. ‘I believe the technical term is . . . ’
But it was lost in a yell that rang through the chamber and through Sinan’s head: ‘Al-mawt al-ahmar!’
Red death . . .
And then they were on them – shades materializing into men, coming at them from half-seen tu
