She darted toward Bucket’s head, seized one of the thick bands of leather hitching him to the wagon, and with a sure, swift stroke, slashed it with Breadlee’s glimmering steel.
He parted the leather like shears through silk.
“This is undignified!” the knife protested.
The cart jerked and tipped and now both wheels were over the edge and the wagon slammed down upon its bed, canting perilously, dragging the horse back several more handspans. His hooves left fracturing trails in the ice.
Fern dashed between Bucket’s legs, heedless of the heaving weight of him, and grabbed the strap on the opposite side, slicing it in two effortlessly.
Trace-buckles higher on his chest popped at the rivets with a metallic snap, and the horse staggered free, even as the cart rumbled over the edge and out of sight. Several soundless heartbeats later, a terrific crack resounded as it struck the rocks below.
Free of the weight at last, Bucket wheeled and reared again, his massive hooves lashing out at Kell the orc, who stumbled away with an arm upraised.
Fern backed up, then tripped over Zyll, who still wrestled with Marv amongst twisting serpents of windblown snow. As Fern rolled onto her knees, red cloak whipping up her back and around her face, she caught a glimpse of Astryx again. The Oathmaiden parried another strike and howled at Tullah, her voice raw with anguish and rage. With a mighty stroke, she caught the haft of Tullah’s axe halfway between the orc’s two fists and sheared it in two.
The lower length of her axe handle went spinning off the edge of the bridge, and the orc was left staring with nearly comical surprise at the much-shortened weapon in her right hand.
“Hells yeah!” hollered Breadlee.
Fern heard a feral hiss from Zyll, then a kick from one of Marv’s boots caught Fern in the shoulder and knocked her sidelong, where she almost lost her grip on the knife. When she recovered, Astryx was sprinting toward them both while trying unsuccessfully to resheathe Nigel and free her hand. She snarled in frustration and pain and gave up, reversing her grip and tucking him under her arm where blood from her wound immediately spilled over his blade and poured down the fuller.
An arrow clattered off the stone between them but whickered away harmlessly.
The Oathmaiden did not pause, reaching down to scoop Fern up with one hand. In another two strides, she reached Bucket, tossed the rattkin over his back sideways, and seized his bridle with her newly freed hand to wheel him around.
Fern scrabbled frantically for the loose straps of leather still buckled to the horse and found herself staring into Kell’s shocked gaze for a surreal split second, his maul forgotten in both hands.
Zyll landed on Bucket’s back beside her with a puff of breath and an angry,“Luffing shunks!”
Then they were moving, plunging through the thickening snow. Astryx tangled her hands in Bucket’s mane and wound her boot into the remains of his cart harness, dragging herself up so that she clung alongside the barrel of his chest.
Fern looked past Bucket’s head and the fog of his heavy breath. Tullah waited on the bridge before them, the top of her ruined axe still in hand, her face set in a snarl.
The horse shifted to pass the orc on her left, and as he did, Astryx pressed herself away from his side with a knee, slipping the blood-slick Elder Blade from under her arm. With no time to turn him blade-first, she drove the starburst pommel left-handed, directly at Tullah’s shoulder.
The combined force of Bucket’s gallop and the Oathmaiden’s strike spun the orc off her feet and face-first onto the snowy stone. The elf grunted and almost lost her grip on her horse’s mane, but held on.
And they were past, speeding over the last strides of the bridge and into the heavier snow beyond.
Fern felt Zyll drop away, snatching Breadlee from the bookseller’s nerveless fingers as she did.
“What are you doing?” she cried, struggling to look back the way they’d come.
“By the fucking Eight,” snarled Astryx.
It was the first and only time Fern ever heard the elf swear in Territories.
With a cluck of the tongue, the Oathmaiden brought Bucket to a skidding halt and struggled to untangle her boot from the wreckage of his tack.
Fern worked herself up to a sitting position, using her tail for balance as she watched the goblin dash back through the snow directly toward Tullah, her pocketed coat flapping behind her like the Territory’s ugliest flag, Breadlee clutched in one hand.
“Hey, hey, you’re going the wrongway!” wailed the knife.
The orc had found her knees and was staggering upright just as Zyll dropped to hers on the stone of the bridge. Breadlee flashed as she held him high, blade pointed down, then she drove him with all her might into the crevice between two massive blocks of stone.
He plunged in up to the hilt.
The goblin dug into a blue pocket with one hand—improbably to the elbow—then withdrew a long-handled metal soup ladle.
