She tried to pull Bitterblue’s arms through the sleeves, but the girl wouldn’t loosen her grip on the knife. “Let it go for a minute, child. Just a second. Hurry, there are soldiers coming.” She pried the knife from the girl’s fingers and fastened the coat into place. She handed the knife back. “Can you walk, Bitterblue?” The girl didn’t answer, but swayed, her eyes unfocused.
“We can carry her,” Po said, suddenly at Katsa’s side. “We must go.”
“Wait,” Katsa said. “She’s too cold.”
“Now. This instant, Katsa.”
“Give me your coat.”
Po tore off his bags, his quiver and bow. He tore off his coat and threw it to Katsa. She tugged the coat over Bitterblue’s head, wrestled with the fingers around the knife again. She pulled the hood over the girl’s ears and fastened it tight. Bitterblue looked like a potato sack, a small, shivering potato sack with empty eyes and a knife. Po tipped the girl over his shoulder and they gathered their things. “All right,” Katsa said. “Let’s go.”
They ran south, stepping on pine needles and rock whenever they could, leaving as little sign of their passage as possible. But the ground was too wet, and the soldiers were quick on their mounts. Their trail was too easy to follow, and before long Katsa heard branches breaking and the thud of horses’ hooves.
Po? How many of them?
“Fifteen,” he said, “at least.”
She breathed through her panic. What if their words confuse me?
His voice was low. “I wish I could fight them alone, Katsa, and out of your hearing. But it would mean us
separating, and right now there are soldiers on every side of us. I won’t risk your being found when I’m not there.”
Katsa snorted. Nor will I allow you to fight fifteen men alone.
“We must kill as many of them as possible,” Po said, “before they’re close enough for conversation. And hope that once they’re under attack they’re not very talkative. Let’s find a place to hide the girl. If they don’t see her they’re less likely to speak of her.”
They tucked the child behind rocks and weeds, inside a niche at the base of a tree. “Don’t make a sound, Princess,”
Katsa said. “And lend me your knife. I’ll kill one of your father’s men with it.” She took the knife from the girl’s uncomprehending fingers.
Po, Katsa thought, her mind racing. Give me the knives and the daggers. I’ll kill on first sight.
Po pulled two daggers from his belt and a knife from each boot and tossed them to her, one by one. She collected the blades together; he readied the bow and cocked an arrow. They crouched behind a rock and waited, but there wasn’t long to wait. The men came through the trees, moving quickly on their horses, their eyes skimming the ground for tracks. Katsa counted seventeen men. I’ll go right, she thought grimly to Po. You go left. And with that she stood and hurled a knife, and another and another; Po’s arrow flew, and he reached for another. Katsa’s knives and daggers were embedded in the chests of five men, and Po had killed two, before the soldiers even comprehended the ambush.
The bodies of the dead slumped from their horses to the ground, and the bodies of the living jumped after them, pulling swords from sheaths, yelling, screaming unintelligibly, a mindful one or two drawing arrows. Katsa ran toward the men; Po continued shooting. The first came at her with wild eyes and a screeching mouth, swinging his sword so erratically that it was no trouble for Katsa to dodge the blade, kick another rushing man in the head, pull the first man’s dagger from his belt, and stab them both in the neck. She kept the dagger, grabbed a sword, and came out swinging.
She knocked another man’s sword from his hands and ran hers through his stomach. She whirled on two men who came from behind and killed them both with her dagger while she fought off a third with her sword. She hurled the dagger into the chest of a soldier on a horse who aimed an arrow at Po.
And suddenly only one man was left, his breath ragged and his eyes wide with fear. That man backed away and began to run. In a flash Katsa pulled a knife from another man’s chest and ran after him; but then she heard the smooth release of an arrow, and the man cried out and fell, and lay still.
Katsa looked down at her bloodstained tunic and trousers. She wiped her face, and blood came off onto her sleeve.
All around her lay murdered men, men who hadn’t known any better, whose minds were no weaker than her own.
Katsa was sick and discouraged, and furious with the king who’d made this bloodbath necessary.
“Let’s make sure they’re dead,” she said, “and get them on the horses. We must send them back, to put Leck off our trail.”
They were dead, every one of them. Katsa pulled arrows and blades from chests and backs and tried not to look at their faces. She cleaned the knives and daggers and handed them back to Po. She carried Bitterblue’s knife back to her and found the girl standing, arms crossed against the cold, eyes alert now, lucid. Katsa glanced down at her bloody clothing. She found herself hoping the child hadn’t witnessed the massacre of men.
“I feel warmer,” Bitterblue said.
“Good. How much of that fight did you see?”
“They didn’t have much of a chance, did they?” It was her only answer. “Where are we going now?”
“I’m not sure. We need to find a safe place to hide, where we can eat and sleep. We need to talk about what happens next.”
“You’ll have to kill the king,” she said, “if you ever want him to stop chasing us.”
Katsa looked at this child, who barely came up to her chest. Po’s sleeves hanging almost to the girl’s knees; her eyes and her nose big under her hood, too big for her little face. Her voice a squeak. But a calmness in her manner of speaking, a certainty as she recommended her father’s murder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
They kept two horses for themselves. Bitterblue rode with Katsa. They wound their way back to the stream to clean themselves of the blood of the soldiers. Then they turned west. They walked the horses through the stream, moving toward the mountains, until the land around them grew rocky enough to hide hoofprints. There, they struck out south along the base of the mountains and began their search for a suitable place to hide for the night. A place they could defend; a place far enough from Leck for safety, but not so far that they couldn’t reach Leck, to kill him.
For of course, Bitterblue was right. Leck had to die. Katsa knew it, but she didn’t like to think of it. For she was a killer, and the murder should be hers; but it was plain that Po would have to be the one to do it. Po kill a king guarded by an army of soldiers. By himself, and without her help.
You mustn’t go near his castle, she thought to Po as they rode. You’d never be able to get close enough to him.
You’re far too conspicuous. They would ambush you.
The horses picked their way through the rocks. Po didn’t acknowledge her thoughts, didn’t even look at her, but she knew he’d heard.
You’d do best to sneak up on him in the forest while he’s searching for the child, and shoot him. From as far away as possible.
Po rode before them, his back straight. His arms steady, despite his tiredness and the cold and his lack of a coat.
And then run away as fast as you can.
He slowed then and came beside them. He looked into her face, and something strong in his silver and gold eyes comforted and reassured her. Po was neither weak nor defenseless. He had his Grace and his strength. He reached for her hand. When she gave it to him, he kissed it. He rode ahead, and they continued on.
Bitterblue sat quietly before her. She had stiffened when Po came near; but if she thought their silent exchange odd, she said nothing.
———
They came to a place where the land dropped away to the left and formed a deep gully with a lake that shone far below them. To the right the path rose to a cliff that overhung the lake.