“I’m neither lost nor your sister.” Kettle ignored the woodsman, though her eyes continued to point in his direction. She drew in the halo of peripheral vision that surrounds what we see, searching for any hint of motion. Her ears opened to every whisper of the trees, every creak, rustle, or scrape, hungry for the telltale crack of a twig.
The one that allows you to see them is the distraction. The one that will kill you is hidden, waiting their moment. That was how Apple always opened the first lesson on ambush. It wouldn’t take long for a novice to ask why they both didn’t stay hidden and attack together. “Because in conversation you may reveal information that they are interested in. But mainly because you will be more vulnerable with your attention on the one before you,” Apple would say, and she would lift her hand, wriggling her fingers in a puzzling motion. At that moment her assistant, Bhetna for the last few years, would rise behind the curious novice and lay a blunt knife across her throat. “As we have demonstrated,” Apple would conclude.
“So, where would you be heading?” The trail behind the man lay thick with evening shadow.
Kettle spared him a moment’s attention. He had pallid skin, short brown hair, pale eyes. His garb was convincing enough, but it didn’t suit him. The hand-axe at his hip gleamed as if sharp enough to shave with.
Sometimes you need to wait for an enemy to reveal himself, sometimes you need to take the initiative. Knowing which to do, and when, makes the difference between those who live and those who die.
“I could give you directions?” The man seemed relaxed enough but his questions were too pointed.
“I’ve been invited to dance naked for the battle-queen,” Kettle said. A nonsensical statement can create a moment of confusion in which the Grey Sister acts. A flexing of her wrist dropped an envenomed throwing star into her cupped fingers, the edges slightly dulled to avoid poisoning herself. Kettle was already turning as she released the star. She dived between the nearest trees, closing off as many angles as possible, scanning the confusion of undergrowth, the lines of the trunks, the branches interlocking against a purple-grey sky.
Kettle heard the thunk of her star hitting home: she’d aimed for his upper arm. There was always the chance he was simply a woodsman, and if not, she would want someone to question. Either way she didn’t want him dead.
Two bolts hissed above her as she dived. Heavy bolts, not the knitting needles Nona had been hit with. The killing kind. Poor shots though. Hunskas could move with great speed but they couldn’t fall faster than anyone else: the shots should have been on target and required Kettle to deflect them both.
Crashing among the undergrowth, Kettle saw flickers of motion between the trees, and not in the direction the bolts had come from. At least five attackers then!
Under the canopy the light was so poor that it would leave most blundering, but pushed into darkness as she was Kettle had no problem seeing. She scurried around the bole of the thickest tree on knees and elbows, a throwing star in each hand.
They came fast, silent, knives in both hands, weaving between the pines with hunska-speed. Kettle was faster. She rose, launching herself to her feet from her knees, spinning both her stars towards the nearest two attackers, waiting for them to get almost close enough for blades. At a separation of three yards and driven with the speed of a hunska full-blood Kettle’s throwing stars allowed no opportunity for evasion. The left one would hit the closest woman somewhere in the neck; the right one would take the other woman in the right eye. Kettle was more accurate with her right arm.
Kettle fell backward, ripping two of her knives from their hidden sheaths over her upper arms—not her best pair for close work but the easiest to reach. She let herself drop since it was likely to be the last thing her opponents expected. Unseen attacks could be coming her way and the only defence was not to be in the place they expected her to be.
The first of Kettle’s remaining attackers came at a flat sprint, daggers bared, showing some skill and remarkable night vision by avoiding tripping on any root or briar. Kettle could see the confusion in the man’s eyes as she fell away from him. Her outstretched foot hit his knee. He toppled forward, blades stretched out towards her, the pain from his shattered joint not yet having reached his brain.
Kettle, her back thumping into the forest floor, extended her knives, points reaching for the falling man. She thrust between his arms, pushing them wider with her elbows so that his daggers drove hilt deep into the soil, missing her shoulders by an inch on each side. Her own blades punched into his neck, grating over each other as they met in his spine.
Both knives came free with a spray of blood and Kettle rolled aside. She was clear before her victim had dropped half the remaining distance to the ground. She saw the last two attackers closing as she twisted onto her front, facing them. Both were fast, and both had abandoned their crossbows in favour of swords. If they weren’t hunska Kettle could have got to her feet and brought them down with throwing stars, but their speed promised they would hack her to death on her knees if she tried that. Hunskas would very rarely be shadow-weavers, though. They would see little but confusion in the forest gloom. Kettle banked on their blindness and rolled to use the nearest tree as cover.
Both ambushers veered unerringly towards her. Prone, the advantage of Kettle’s greater speed was considerably lessened. One ambusher swung to split her head but branches blocked the arc of his blade. The other, wise to the limitations of a longsword in woodland, thrust to skewer her. Kettle rolled onto her back again, bringing her knives up to deflect the thrust. She barely managed it and the blade sliced through her coat before driving into the ground.
In desperate straits, Kettle focused on the only opponent she could reach. Taking advantage of the momentarily trapped sword, she sliced one knife across the wrist of the hand holding it. The other she stabbed up into the man’s groin.
The last attacker stood revealed as his companion doubled up, an ugly grin on his face, the point of his sword less than two feet from Kettle’s chest. On her back, arms extended, she knew she had no real chance to avoid or deflect this thrust. But she gave no space to fear or regret, only gathered herself to try.
At the back of Kettle’s mind Nona knew the nun had no hope. The man had moved with the speed of a half-blood at least. Nona, unable to help, or leave, or even scream, tensed for the blow. She would share the pain. It would be the last thing she could ever do for Kettle.
Nona knew that, even for those without hunska blood, at the sharpest edge of things the world would slow to a crawl. It might not offer you the opportunity to act but the inevitable happened slowly. Nona watched the point of the sword. It filled Kettle’s vision, finding glimmers in the gloom. She watched the killer’s face, met his stare, and knew those eyes would see the death of one of the few people she treasured and of her last hope.
When the man’s face began to distort, bulging outwards, Nona could make no sense of it. When blood suffused his skin and began to erupt from eyes, nose, and mouth, both Nona and Kettle stared in vacant disbelief. Suddenly, as if their terror had released its hold on time’s flow, the face exploded and a red fist emerged from the tumbling gore.
Moments later Kettle was on her feet facing a figure so wrapped in shadow that even her dark-sight struggled to make out any detail. The pair of them stood for a moment in silent regard. Kettle became aware of the moans from the groin-stabbed man by her feet, and of his hand reaching into his jerkin. She stamped on his neck, breaking it with a detachment that startled Nona. Her gaze never left the figure before her. “Who are you?”
The darkness smoked away by degrees. The newcomer stood of a height with Kettle, clad in a range-coat.
“Sister?” Kettle cocked her head, staring into the midnight still gathered beneath the hood.
The figure made no reply, only stepped back, shaking the blood from her fingers as the last of the shadows left her.