A moment of pause aroused a mad, desperate hope. Maybe they’d listened. Maybe they’d…
Then, the air shifted. The men moved, and their swordsflashed, rising higher. She didn’t need words to know they were going to strike.
Trisha pulled the bowstring taut as her pulse roared inside her eardrums. Did she dare to shoot? To take a life?
Please, please, please.
But these men didn’t hear Trisha’s silent plea. They drew closer.
Her hand trembled as she aimed, and still, she hesitated.
She exhaled.
Thwip.
An arrow loosened. A squelch as it sank into flesh. The moaning one fell with a thud.
She reached for another arrow, but Dapple skittered away in a frenzy, freaked out by the sharp smell of blood, the violence, the movement. Instead of an arrow, her hand met only air.
Scrambling, she backed off, blindly grasping for Dapple and her quiver. All her hands found were the shapes of the saddle, the roughness of his coat.No.
The two remaining men kept approaching. Shadows hid their faces, but their eyes promised death.
Help.
Trisha’s breath came in frantic bursts as she clambered off, the bow slipping from her grip. A sharp pain lashed her cheek as an offshoot of a supple bush whipped at her face; her feet tangled its roots.
Somewhere behind her, Dapple let out a high-pitched neigh. Trisha fell.
A spasm struck her lower back as she hit a bough buried under leaves and moss. The impact with the earth knocked the wind out of her lungs and left her gasping for air. Every thought disappeared. Then the men were upon her, their swords hilts raised high in the air.
“Eichlandt’s whore,” one of them spat.
Trisha kicked against the earth and the roots. The ground scraped her back as she crawled away. Damp leaves clung to her fingers, the rot of the forest floor soiling her skin.
Nononono.She squeezed her eyes shut and hunched. Accepted whatever may come.
First, silence. Then, a sound—not the whooshing one you’d expect when a blade slices through air, but a strangled one, like someone drowning. And the sickening crunch of sinews tearing apart.
Her eyes pried open just in time as one of the men stumbled and collapsed, like a puppet whose strings had been severed.
The dead soldier fell, and his limp arm struck her knee. It was heavy and warm. Cringing, Trisha jerked herself free, refusing to look at the corpse. Her eyes were fixed instead on a familiar shape. The sole reason for her predicament—Blainor.
The darkness obscured his face, but she could picture his expression: cold, emotionless, focused solely on survival. The face of a man who wouldn’t hesitate to kill. She’d witnessed it. Feared it. And yet, here and now, she was thankful, for it was the only thing she could be sure of to keep her alive.
The lone soldier spun and retreated, recognizing the greater threat. His breathing came in bursts of exhaustion, fear, and defiance.
“At least I have my chance,” he growled. “You killed my father,monster.”
“I’ve killed many,” said Blainor in an emotionless tone. “I’m sure yours was no different from the rest.”
The soldier’s breath hitched. Then, he snarled, like some rabies-infested creature, and struck out. “Die!”
Silent, Blainor met the soldier. The edge of his longsword gleamed as he moved. A blunt thud resounded as his shieldreflected the strike. They withdrew. Dead twigs crunched as they circled each other, and soft rings echoed in the forest each time their swords met.
Once. Twice.
Then, the Warlord of Eichlandt launched into an attack. He struck with speed, precision, and ferocity. Blainor’s opponent floundered under his force. It wasn’t even a fight, but one brutal assault to remove an obstacle in his way.
