this quality, however. Would you accept an alternative form of payment?”
“As in?”
“Excuse me.” Reaching down her tunic front, Hualiama liberated a ruby the size of the top joint of her thumb from a secret pocket. A shadow fell upon her spirit as she remembered Inniora’s plight. Please let Ra’aba have mercy on her … “Will this do?”
Jarrik raised the gemstone to the light. “It’s more than adequate, aye. You will require a quiver and arrows? My best for you, lady.”
“And a few leather belts,” said Lia, measuring rapidly in her mind as an idea popped into the forefront of her mind. Aye, she could ride Grandion alright. He was about to be thoroughly vexed by her plan, however. She knew exactly how she would pull his leg, or wing, or whatever …
Having settled with Jarrik the Armourer and wrapped her more obvious weapons in a cloth he provided her, Lia stepped out into the dazzling suns-shine. Unease tickled her spine. In the narrow road to her left, a dozen youths played a strategic game of stone-tossing against a wall. Right, a similar number, standing and staring at her with the peculiar intent of those inciting each other to mischief–not of the humorous kind. Pretending to rub her eyes, Hualiama adjusted the cloth to provide easy access to her swords, knowing in her bones that if Grandion was prowling somewhere high above, these youths were already dead.
The youths closed in rapidly from her right, limbering up a motley assortment of weapons. Lia had expected a few insults, perhaps a way she could use her feminine wiles to slip by. No posturing from these. This confrontation was planned, organised and dangerous. She spied the town guardsmen looking on from the mouth of the alleyway with bored inattention. No help there.
“Sword-wearing rajal!”
“You trying to start a riot, foreign girl?”
“Beat her!”
Thankfully, the viler comments were swallowed up in a general ruckus as the youths broke into a run.
Little Lia briefly considered retreating into the weapons shop, but a fierce fire burned in her breast. Bullies. She hated bullies. Lia dropped her bundle, leaving a sword in each hand. Stepping out into the cobblestone street, she gathered her concentration as Master Khoyal had so painstakingly taught her. Mentally, Lia saluted him. ‘I never appreciated you enough, Master. This is for you.’
The thudding of feet matched the thudding in her senses as Lia’s mindfulness expanded in concentric ripples. The footing, the precise quality of the dust in the air, the smell of silverback trout baking in a nearby shop, the sound of Jarrik pumping the bellows to bring his forge up to heat, all filtered into her awareness. Time seemed to slow. The foremost youth charged in with his iron-shod staff levelled at her belly, his fellows just a couple of steps behind. Lia stood still, arms relaxed at her sides, her blades hanging toward the dirt. But inside, she was as taut as a coiled spring.
Now.
Let the dance begin.
A step off her left foot allowed the staff to slide by her torso, not an inch from her skin. Her red-tinged Nuyallith blade lifted gently, severing the youth’s arm at his wrist. Spinning beyond her howling victim, Lia gutted an intrepid swordsman with a clean slash across his belly, her right arm rising into a vertical parry, the left swinging beneath a club to spear a man in the thigh. These were ill-trained fighters, but the onrush caught up with her. Lia collected a cudgel blow to the shoulder and a painful stamp upon her foot, momentarily arresting her dance. Her blades shimmered darkly, left and right, leaving attackers screaming in their wake. Those at the back skidded to a halt. Vaulting a fallen dark-headed man, Hualiama rebounded off a shop wall, smashing her head into the jaw of a man just behind her.
She stumbled, dazed by the violent clash of heads. Crossbow quarrel! Her left blade, the red one, deflected the incoming quarrel before its presence even registered in her mind. Where was the archer? Springing upright, she executed the double windroc technique on a luckless rogue who was still facing the wrong direction when her blades pierced his neck and right kidney simultaneously.
Here came the other dozen youths, aware now that their intended victim was not about to lie down and beg for mercy. Lia whirled out of the dancing crane into a modified kingfisher skill, pausing just long enough to allow a blade to swish past her stomach, before leaping high into the