The other rogues would have loved to have taken her up on her challenge, but they had not been idle. Nor had the man named Fhundil, having only a second to watch her terrifying display before an assassin robed in rags made a leap at him, stabbing with his short sword. Abelard moved aside as if he had seen it from seconds before the attacker's initial movement. He angled his staff's butt to slip between the thief's legs, tripping him up. He hit the ground just as Abelard tapped his staff-head with the blunt side of his sword. A brass spike shot out of the staff's bottom, and Abelard used it to impale the downed man in the back. 

To the common eye, he looked vulnerable to the more cunning cutthroat that had circled behind with a kushite khopesh of bronze, but Abelard turned as if he expected him. His broadsword parried what would have been a fatal stroke as the priest himself stabbed at the man, cutting him in the side. The Iranistanian sliced and kicked out, doing whatever he could to regain his advantage. He hadn't counted on the swinging staff head that cracked his skull. He hadn't the time to realize he was dead until the broadsword was already through his body by its full length. Blood dribbled onto wretched sewer stone. Abelard withdrew his blade and stepped aside politely to let the corpse fall onto its face with a harsh crack of bone. 

He opened his eyes and saw the enemies still outnumbered them three to one, and so he held his staff aloft and raised it high as if he could reach the sun under the very streets of Kafir. Some God seemed to answer his call, as the central dias opened and light as pure as the very sun beamed out and blinded the attackers so powerfully, they felt as men who had never seen light in their life. They screeched and cried out, running in all directions, their morale broken as the two cut down what men they could reach with their swords. Blood flowed like running rain into the sewage as the docks became as silent as a tomb. 

Abelard approached Anya without fear or hesitation, though he perhaps cracked a small grin. Hard to tell behind his thick beard. "It seems Ibn-vakir sought to betray both of us. From what I can tell, his previous information on the treasure's location was credible. What demon or man got to him to have him wish for our deaths had pulled him into their claws [i]after[/i] he had spoken to me. I seek the Opal of Vulkur. Will you travel with me?"