Akadra’s sword scraped free of its scabbard. Blades clashed with a banshee screech. Lips parted in a snarl of surprise, he gave ground through the hissing rain.
Katya kept pace, right hand clamped over the failing left to give it purpose and guide it true. She hammered at Akadra’s guard, summoning forth the lessons of girlhood to the bleak present. The forms of the sword her father had drilled into her until they flowed with the grace of a thrush’s song and the power of a mountain river. Those lessons had kept her alive on the ridge at Zanya. They would not fail her now.
The wayfarers made no move to interfere.
But Akadra was done retreating.
Boots planted on the cobbles like the roots of some venerable, weather-worn oak, he checked each strike with grace that betrayed tutelage no less exacting than Katya’s own. The claymore blurred across grey skies and battered her longsword aside.
The fire in Katya’s veins turned sluggish. Cold and failing flesh sapped her purpose. Too late, she recognised the game Akadra had played. She’d wearied herself on his defences, and all the while her body had betrayed her.
Summoning her last strength, Katya hurled herself forward. A cry born of pain and desperation ripped free of her lips.
Again the claymore blurred to parry. The longsword’s tip scraped past the larger blade, ripping into Akadra’s cheek. He twisted away with a roar of pain.
Hooves sounded on cobbles. The leading wayfarers spurred forward, swords drawn to avenge their master’s humiliation. The simarka, given no leave to advance, simply watched unfolding events with feline curiosity.
Katya’s hands tightened on her sword. She’d held longer than she’d believed possible. She hoped Josiri had used the time well.
“Leave her!”
Akadra checked the wayfarers’ advance with a single bellow. The left side of his face masked in blood, he turned his attention on Katya once more. He clasped a closed fist to his chest. Darkness gathered about his fingers like living shadow.
Katya’s world blurred, its colours swirling away into an unseen void.
Her knee cracked against the cobbles. A hand slipped from her sword, fingers splayed to arrest her fall. Wisps of blood curled through pooling rainwater. She knelt there, gasping for breath, one ineluctable truth screaming for attention.
The rumours about Akadra were true.
The shadow dispersed as Akadra strode closer. The wayfarers had seen none of it, Katya realised – or had at least missed the significance. Otherwise, Akadra would have been as doomed as she. The Council would tolerate much from its loyal sons, but not witchcraft.
Colour flooded back. Akadra’s sword dipped to the cobbles. His bloodied face held no triumph. Somehow that was worse.
“It’s over.” For the first time, his expression softened. “This is not the way, Katya. It never was. Surrender. Your wounds will be tended. You’ll be treated with honour.”
“Honour?” The word was ash on Katya’s tongue. “Your father knows nothing of honour.”
“It is not my father who makes the offer.” He knelt, one gauntleted hand extended. “Please. Give me your sword.”
Katya stared down at the cobbles, at her life’s blood swirling away into the gutter. Could she trust him? A lifetime of emissaries and missives from the north had bled her people dry to feed a pointless war. Viktor’s family was part of that, and so he was part of it. If his promise was genuine, he’d no power to keep it. The Council would never let it stand. The shame of the gallows path beckoned.
“You want my sword?” she growled.
Katya rose from her knees, her last effort channelled into one final blow.
Akadra’s hand, so lately extended in conciliation, wrenched the sluggish blade from her grasp. He let his own fall alongside. Tugged off balance, Katya fell to her hands and knees. Defenceless. Helpless.
No. Not helpless. Never that.
She forced herself upright. There was no pain. No weariness. Just calm. Was this how Kevor had felt at the end? Before the creak of the deadman’s drop had set her husband swinging? Trembling fingers closed around a dagger’s hilt.
“My son will finish what I started.”
The dagger rasped free, Katya’s right hand again closing over her left.
“No!” Akadra dived forward. His hands reached for hers, his sudden alarm lending weight to his promises.
Katya rammed the dagger home. Chain links parted. She felt no pain as the blade slipped between her ribs. There was only a sudden giddiness as the last of her burdens fell away into mist.
Josiri held Calenne close through the clamour. Screams. Buccina calls. Galloping hooves. Barked orders. Josiri longed for the thunder’s return. Bravery came easier in moments when the angry sky drowned all else.
The church spire passed away to his left. Desperate townsfolk crowded its lychpath, seeking sanctuary behind stone walls. People filled the streets beyond. Some wore council blue, most the sea-grey of Eskavord’s guard, and too many the garb of ordinary folk caught in between.
Ravens scattered before Josiri’s straining horse. He glanced down at the girl in his charge. His sister she may have been, but Calenne was a stranger. She sat in silence, not a tear on her cheeks. He didn’t know how she held herself together so. It was all he could do not to fall apart.
A pair of wayfarers emerged from an alleyway, their approach masked by the booming skies. Howling with courage he didn’t feel, Josiri hacked at the nearest. The woman slumped across her horse’s neck. Josiri rowelled his mare, leaving the outpaced survivor snarling at the rain.
More wayfarers waited at the next junction, their horses arrayed in a loose line beneath overhanging eaves. The town wall loomed through the rain. The west gate was so close. Two streets away, no more.
A glance behind revealed a wayfarer galloping in pursuit. A pair of simarka loped alongside. Verdigrised claws struck sparks from the cobbles.
To turn back was to be taken, a rat in a trap. The certainty of it left Josiri no room for doubt. Onward was the only course.
“Hold tight to me,” he told Calenne, “and don’t let go.”
Thin arms redoubled their grip. Josiri drove back his heels.
Time slowed, marked out by the pounding of hooves and the beat of a fearful heart. Steel glinted. Horses whinnied as wayfarers hauled on their reins.
“For the Southshires!”
The battle cry fed Josiri’s resolve. The widening of the nearest wayfarer’s eyes gave him more. They were as afraid of him as he of them. Maybe more, for was his mother not the Phoenix of prophecy?
Time quickened. Josiri’s sword blurred. A wayfarer spun away in a bloody spray. And then Josiri was through the line, his horse’s greedy stride gobbling the last distance to the west gate. The mare barely slowed at the next corner. Her hooves skidded on the rain-slicked cobbles.
Calenne screamed – not with terror, but in wild joy – and then the danger was past, and the west gate was in sight.
The portcullis was down, its iron teeth sunk deep. A line of tabarded soldiery blocked the roadway and the branching alleyways to either side. Halberds lowered. Shields locked tight together, a flock of white hawk blazons on a wall of rich king’s blue. Wayfarers filled the street behind.
Thunder roared, its fury echoing through the hole where Josiri’s heart should have been. He’d failed. Perhaps he’d never had a chance.