The room was smaller than it looked from the plaza. The ceiling was low, a cot sat against the far wall, crates were stacked two deep along both sides, and one window had served as a firing position for the better part of two days.
Ulf had come through the back shutter with both pistols loaded and the ringing silence of who had spent fifteen seconds outside on stone with nothing between him and a thirty-foot drop, and he was still catching up to the fact that he had made it.
The crossbowman was three feet from the window, facing into the room. The companion was between them, and he was already moving.
Ulf fired his first pistol.
The ball went through the center of the companion's chest. It entered through the sternum and drove into the right lung and stopped somewhere against the muscle of the back without exiting.
The man went down, not backward, down, the legs failing all at once beneath him, and hit the floor on his side. He put both hands to his chest. He opened his mouth.
