The stallion, to his credit, didn’t make a sound as he bucked. Harthon circled my waist and crushed me into him, somehow keeping us in the seat as we floated.
The horse landed and stilled.
Ahead, Aric and Conrad skidded to a stop, eyes wild as they glared at me.
Ignoring them, I nodded at the ground beneath the bird. Without the jarring movements of the horse, what I suspected became startlingly clear.
The edge of the knee-high patch was bent into unnatural shapes, stems broken, like something heavy had crushed it.
But there was no thick, fallen tree branch nearby. No clear animal tracks in the surrounding dirt.
I slid a hand to my dagger.
The bird took flight, disappearing into the sky. The wind stopped.
Lightning shot through my veins, and I drew my weapon.
One by one, bodies separated from trees and boulders—to the right, the left, behind us. Their faces were smeared with mud, bodies garbed in tattered, earth-colored rags. I caught sight of a cracked sword, a thick branch, a rusted ax. Weapons as makeshift as their clothes.
They stared at us, eerily silent.
“Horrads?” I whispered in a quivering voice. I counted fifteen, maybe twenty.
“No,” Harthon replied. His sword jutted past my thigh. “Looters.”
One of them raised their hand, and the group began closing in. They approached quietly, like they, too, were afraid of making noise and calling attention here.
They weren’t the only predators in these woods.
Harthon hit the ground and ushered me down. “Take a moment to watch and decide if you take the offensive. If you get into trouble, call out. Doesn’t matter if I have five of them on me.”
I nodded, shaking out my arms.As if that tiny warmup is going to magically improve your skills. Stefano and Joris flanked me.
Aric tossed his sword in his palm and nodded to the left side of the incoming circle. “Let’s not wait for all of them to get within hugging distance, hmm?”
In a burst of speed that took even me by surprise, he, Conrad, and Harthon charged.
It was like cutting through butter. Within seconds, four of the looters were dead. The rest of them broke their circular formation and jolted into action, rushing us.
Stefano and Joris edged in front of me, gifting me three precious breaths before someone made it far enough to engage me. The man’s rotten teeth gnashed as he swung his club. I jerked to the side, then stepped in on his downswing and jammed the blade beneath his ribs.
He stumbled in shock, the club limp at his side. Blood sprayed as I pulled the dagger free and sent it into his neck. He dropped, lifeless.
I didn’t get to appreciate how easy that was because the next person replaced him, wielding a sword carved from bark. A woman, I realized, before spinning away to dodge the sharp wood.
Evade, then rush.
My arm extended at the end of my rotation, and the dagger struck her shoulder. Her lips parted on a silent gasp before she swung high. I ducked and swept back in, shoving up beneath her ribs.
Confidence tempered adrenaline as she fell and I searched for another opponent.
But there wasn’t one. I spun to see Stefano easily finishing the last man, while bodies surrounded Harthon, Conrad, and Aric. Blood speckled their clothing, but none of them appeared injured.
Harthon made quick work of the space between us, cataloguing my body for injuries as he approached. The worst he found was a blood splatter across my arm from the first man. From beginning to end, the fight had lasted less than a minute. The entire thing had been remarkably underwhelming.
“You’ve improved.” He said it objectively, like a commander might evaluate a trainee, but I caught approval in the curve of his lips.
He was right. Ihadgotten better.
