“Save Temra!” I shout, even as the men pull me toward the nearest horse. “Get her out of here!”
An elbow connects with my cheekbone, knocking my head to the side. It throbs painfully. I don’t stop the words, but they come out quietly now, almost like a prayer. “Save Temra. Save Temra. Save Temra.”
I’m raised higher into the air, angled toward the saddle, kicking anything my legs come into contact with. I catch a glimpse of the sky, the clouds gray and full, almost ready to let down rain.
And then I’m falling.
I hit the dirt, the air expelling from my lungs once more. I hear a scuffle, but most of my attention is on breathing.
Come on, lungs. Remember how to work.
When air finally rushes back in, it hurts so much to breathe. I can barely think. Barely make sense of what’s happening.
Kellyn is there, bent down, helping me to my feet, cutting my binds. All the guards around us lie like rag dolls on the ground.
But if Kellyn is here, then that means—
I shove him aside and run for my sister. She’s just broken another soldier’s weapon. The man leaps away, trying to grab one of his fallen friend’s still intact weapons, but she stabs the pitchfork straight into the ground. One of the tines runs through his wrist.
But she still twists, and the bone snaps, the magic compelled to break whatever catches between the tines.
Then Kymora is there, and while Temra’s distracted by the soldier she’s just rendered useless, the warlord swings.
“No!”
Temra notices her just in time, dodging the strike, but Kymora doesn’t let up. She sends out slashes in rapid succession, careful not to let her broadsword catch in between the prongs of Temra’s pitchfork.
Kymora steps out of reach, turns her head to me, sees that I’m watching. And then she attacks in earnest.
I’m halfway there.
Kymora feints, swings for my sister’s feet, but Temra jumps.
She thrusts the pitchfork forward, trying to get in her own strike. Kymora dodges and brings down her blade, and though I can’t see where the weapon lands, I know it strikes true.
Temra’s screams fill my ears as I bend down to retrieve my hammers from where they fell. My eyes blinded by tears, I watch Kymora strike Temra with her free hand, knuckles colliding with her skull to silence her cries. She hits the ground.
Blood spills everywhere, but Kymora doesn’t finish the job. She turns to me. “You should have come when I said. I warned you what would happen. You’re going to watch as I hack her apart piece by piece.”
She points her sword toward the ground, resting it against Temra’s side, and jerks the weapon upward, opening another wound.
And then I’m finally there.
I scream and rage and fly at Kymora with my hammers. The warlord smirks as she dodges my swing, raises her own sword.
I catch it on my shield, and the warlord’s arm flies backward from the force of the magic.
And then Kellyn is there, taking up position on her other side.
Kymora crouches to retrieve a fallen bastard sword with her left hand. She doesn’t blink as she takes us both on at once.
The most skilled swordswoman in all of Ghadra.
She swings her swords at impossible speeds, and I’m barely able to bring up my magicked hammer in time to catch them. Kellyn’s weapon’s magical ability is of no use to him now. He has only one opponent, and the sword can’t help him with what’s right in front of him.
Kymora is better than he is. I knew that already, but to see him pitted against her, it’s so painfully obvious.
We’re both blocking for our lives, neither getting an opportunity to throw our own strikes. I try once, ducking below my shield after catching her broadsword on it to swing out with my hammer.
She kicks it. Her boots must have metal at the tips, because the hammer makes a clank when the two strike and I nearly fall over.
“You can’t beat me,” Kymora says. “You’re only prolonging the inevitable. Your sister will be dead in minutes from those wounds, and I can keep this up for hours.”
Though sweat dots Kymora’s forehead, I believe her.
She spins away and gets a sword around the edges of my shield, but she doesn’t press forward; she hooks on to the invisible boundary of my shield and flings it away from me.
The hammer goes flying to the ground, and I race for it, daring to put my back to Kymora because I know she doesn’t want me dead, trusting in it.
When I have my hammer back and spin around, it’s to see Kymora flying at Kellyn with both swords. Only with the superior length of his longsword does he keep her at bay for one slash, two slashes.
She means to kill him before taking me.
I run. I throw myself between the two fighters, raising my hammer-shield, my grip like iron.
Kymora slams into it, but she’s already used to the way the magic works. She plants her feet to catch herself from the force of her strikes rebounding. Again and again she batters at the shield, while Kellyn tries to strike her from above it.
It’s not going to work.
My strength was once impressive with a hammer. I could beat at metal all day, but I’ve grown soft on the road with nothing to do but exercise my legs.
My strength is failing.
Only the knowledge that Kellyn will die, just like my sister did or will do soon—a whimper escapes my lips at the thought—keeps me standing. Keeps me fighting.
Because even if I lose, I can’t stop if I don’t give it my all.
And then a fourth figure joins the fight. I nearly sob at the thought of one of her men helping her, until I realize who it is.
Petrik.
He’s finished dispatching the rest of Kymora’s men, and now he’s joined us.
He has not an inch of skill in fighting, but he still swings the axle. Kymora is forced to turn half her attention on him, raising one sword to block the axle, while another fends off Kellyn’s strike.
With every ounce of my strength, I swing around my shield, allowing myself the vulnerability, and this time when I strike out with my unmagicked hammer—
I connect with the bone at her knee.
A crunch. A scream. I fall toward the warlord as Kellyn advances, throwing me into her, but I don’t care.
Because we finally hit her.
With the three of us, she shrinks toward the ground, little by little, until Petrik finally strikes her on the head.
And she collapses, limp.
Just like Temra.
I toss aside my weapons and run for my sister. Her chest is rising and falling, but blood is oozing out of wounds on her arm and right side.
So. Much. Blood.
I press my hands firmly against the sources of the bleeding before looking up at the two men around me for help.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
My body convulses, wishing to dispel my last meal.
But I’m not allowed to do anything until Temra is safe.
She wakes not a second after I touch her, and her cries oscillate between screams and whimpers as she tries to get ahold of the pain. When her breathing turns to wheezing, tears rain down my face anew.
“This way,” Kellyn says. He takes off down the dirt road at a run.
The bleeding is more severe at Temra’s arm, so I risk releasing her side to hoist her up to a standing position. She screams at the movement, and I stifle a whimper of my own.
“Don’t worry about Kymora,” Petrik says. “I’ll watch her. You take care of—” He cuts off, unable to say my sister’s name.
I slide my free arm under Temra’s knees and lift her up, cradling her, so I can move more easily. I’ve barely heard Petrik’s words. I know I should probably worry about whether he’ll try to help his mother get away, despite how he took our side at the end. Familial bonds are strong, as I well know.
But nothing will keep me from running as fast as I can until I know Temra is safe.
Kellyn knocks on some door and lets himself inside before anyone answers. He says very little before an older woman with long hair in gray braids instructs us to lower Temra onto a bed.
The healer urges us to boil some water. Before I turn, I watch her elevate my sister’s arm carefully on a pillow, applying her own fingers to the wound.