Everything tensed, and I struggled to keep my eyelids relaxed, knowing I’d be the first thing our attackers saw when they reached the window. I couldn’t afford to give Harthon away.
Harthon is here, and you know how to fight now.
I was no longer the girl whose only defense was to run, and the most feared leader in the Territories was prepared to defend me.
How long did it take for someone to climb to my window, anyway?
The scraping noises suddenly stopped, replaced by fumbling at my metal window frame. A creak, and then cold night air washed over me, my skin prickling at the knowledge of what that meant.
There was a shuffle.
And then a gargled choke had me launching out of bed to see a man garbed in black prone on the ground, and another in a chokehold beneath Harthon’s forearm, his mouth open and searching for air that would never come. Harthon slowly lowered him to the floor beside his partner, who had a blade protruding from his neck. Both had faces covered in dark mud. Camouflage for the night. Thin, coarse rope—the kind that Koerlyn had bound my hands with—hung in loops from their trousers, and a small glass vial of dark liquid laid just beside one of their pockets, apparently having fallen out.
It was all that was needed to incapacitate and take someone.
Harthon glanced out the window, retrieved his knife, and then rushed toward me, scooping up my boots on the way. I hurried to put them on as he did the same and whispered to me. “Only those two were coming through the window. There are more in the hallway, but they’re waiting. Probably for these two to grab you and bring you out. We’ll let them come to us. It’s a localized attack.”
He finished tying his boots and brushed my hands aside, which were still working at my own laces. With quick efficiency, he knotted them in place.
“How do you know they aren’t everywhere in the Citadel?”
“Even if we were taken by surprise, someone would have had time to raise the alarm. This wing is separate from the soldiers’ quarters. It’s a quiet area to infiltrate. Still, I don’t know how they got past the guards.”
“We have to signal for help.”
“Signaling for help will give us away to them. Our fight should draw enough commotion.” He pulled me to my feet, and white teeth flashed. “Besides, we don’t need help. Stay out of the way, and this will be over soon.”
His cockiness settled some of my fears as he towed me to the door, tucking me against the wall behind him. A finger on his lips indicated that the time for talking was over, and he unsheathed two knives,becoming unnaturally still.
A hunter, waiting.
Pressing my ear against the stone wall, I heard it—the slight intakes of breath, the shuffling of fabric just beyond my room. Chances were they were Koerlyn’s men, here to take me to him.
Or we had other enemies I simply didn’t know about.
I should be upset with Harthon’s demand to stay out of the way, but I wasn’t too proud to think I could be nearly as effective as him in a fight. Besides, I had no weapons, nor training to use them. I would hang back, but the moment he got into trouble, Iwouldintervene. If these people were here to take me, then I was too valuable to them to kill, and that was a weapon of its own.
Tension stretched time, and it felt like ages when the handle to the door shifted just so. They must have already picked the lock. The slab of wood began to swing, opening inch by inch to reveal a darkened hallway and a clothed wrist that grew into an arm. I briefly noticed they’d blown out the torches in the hallway, and then an entire man was standing in front of Harthon. Mud covered his face, and he was heavily armed. His focus on the bed and window, he was completely ignorant of the deadly threat beside him.
Harthon moved so quickly I couldn’t even track his dagger, but the man fell on his face, motionless. A moment later, a second body joined him, and then the time for surprise was over as our attackers realized exactly what was happening. Their kidnapping attempt had suddenly turned into a fight for survival.
There was a pause as they quietly regrouped, Harthon standing ready just inside the doorframe, murderous intent splayed across his features. The narrow entranceway would force them to enter one-by-one, a strategic advantage for Harthon. Still pressed against the wall, I couldn’t know how many there were, but no matter their numbers, I knew they would only survive if they ran.
Either they knew this too, or they were delusional.
The metallic scrape of weapons being unsheathed indicated they were the latter. Harthon only grinned. With a low chorus of grunts, they charged through the doorway in a line. Harthon easily swooped beneath a short sword, driving his fist into a chin and severing a neck before the next man was upon him. This one was more skilled than the last, deflecting Harthon’s first three strikes with a speed I’d never seen in Koerlyn’s men. The short delay allowed the last two men to enter the space, forcing Harthon to stop his assault and step back.
For a moment, no one attacked, the three mud-covered assailants flanking Harthon, calculating. Two wielded something between a knife and a sword, and the third held daggers as deftly as Harthon.
These weren’t ordinary soldiers. Hired mercenaries, maybe.
I rose to my feet, prepared to intervene if I had to. The movement drew attention, two of the men marking me with dark gazes. As one, they attacked, a flurry of movement around Harthon. I watched him deflect and spin, moving like lightning, but then my focus shifted to the man with the daggers who was bearing down on me.
He sheathed the weapons and manacled my arm in a brutal grip.
It was a scenario I’d practiced with Callen. Twice.
For a moment, I let him drag me toward the door, pulling back in weak attempts to dislodge him. And then I threw my entire weight into his big body. He didn’t expect the change in momentum, and my fist easily drove into his throat. He released me to grab his neck but recovered before I could think of how best to strike him.
