Just in time. Another Károvín stepped over the dead man and swung his sword around in a short deadly arc. Galena beat away his first attack, but though she made a thrust or two, he was much faster and stronger, and she could not break through his defense. For every time she pressed forward, he drove her back twice as far. Soon they were beyond the mass of fighting. Behind her lay the narrow spur of the highway leading west and north.
The Károvín swung at her neck. She leaped back and crouched, waiting for his next attack.
He hefted his sword and approached. “Let me pass,” he said in Veraenen.
“No.” She swallowed back the bile in her throat. Surely the fort would send reinforcements, but they had to battle through the enemy before anyone could reach her.
The man lunged toward her. Galena brought up her sword barely in time. Their blades met in a jarring crash. With a wrenching twist, the Károvín bent her wrist to the side. Galena jumped away before he could thrust against her undefended body. She turned his attack—just—but the next one nearly gutted her. He was faster than any of her drill partners. Stronger. He would kill her—
Again he swung his blade under her defense. Again she twisted hers around in time. Before she could jump away, he hooked his hilt with hers and pressed forward until her sword touched her own throat.
She had all the time to memorize that face—the swift sharp angles of cheek and jaw, the black eyes with the faintest cast of blue, a full mouth drawn tight in what might pass for anger, but what she knew was a soldier’s grim expression in the face of war. This close, too, she caught the rich scent on his clothes. It was the same green scent the wind had carried in from the storm. Magic.
“You should have let me past,” he said.
“Why?” she whispered. “You would have killed me anyway.”
His expression went blank, as if her words had struck a wound. With a grimace, he thrust her to one side. Galena fell hard against a rock. Stunned, she lay breathless and motionless, waiting for him to run her through with his sword.
The blow never came. With a gasp, she rolled over to see the man’s shadow as he rounded the highway leading north.
Galena staggered upright. Follow him. Stop him from getting away.
Her feet refused to move.
He’s too good a fighter. I don’t want to die.
A scream yanked her attention back to the fighting. She twisted around in time to see Piero falling to the sand. Lanzo rushed to Piero’s defense. Another Károvín intercepted him; a second one stood over Piero with his knife raised. Galena snatched up her sword and sprinted toward the battle. Her indecision had vanished: she felt reckless, invincible, as if she could live forever or die that same instant. Either would be perfect.
CHAPTER FIVE
LATER, MANY HOURS after she watched the soldiers march from the garrison, Ilse bent over her desk, hard at work on her quarterly report for Mistress Andeliess. She wrote steadily, rows and rows of numbers, in the neat hand she had learned as a merchant’s child. Light from the dying sunset streamed through her open windows, casting long sharp shadows across her desk.
A woman’s voice sounded loudly in the corridor outside. Another woman answered—one of the courtesans. It was a busy evening in the pleasure house. From the rooms beside and below hers, she heard murmurs, faint laughter, and the more intimate sounds of lovemaking. Usually she could shut these out—they reminded her too strongly of Raul’s pleasure house in Tiralien—but not today.
Ilse laid down her pen and rubbed her eyes. I’m tired. That’s all.
Tired and distracted by the day’s extraordinary events. In between her duties as steward, she had gathered details—the three Károvín ships, the storm which drove them onto the rocks, the outbreak of violence and the bloody skirmish that followed. Rumors flowed through the corridors and bedrooms, delivered from visitors to courtesans in private, then dispersed throughout in murmured exchanges. Even better, Falco had visited the common room that afternoon. Ilse had stationed herself close by his chair, and overheard his comments about the fighting. The captains and commanders were still dissecting what happened, he said.
Ilse thought she knew. Last summer, she and Raul Kosenmark had received word from their Károvín spies about strange maneuvers on land and in ships. Today’s events had to be connected. Would the regional governor see that?