Thinking of Arko made her feel melancholy. I want to see him one last time.
An angry bark shook Kepi from her thoughts. The sun had begun its descent and the stones were growing dark. She should head due north, deep into the slanting gray rocks, to the stone circle where Seth had bade her to promise to meet him. It would be safer to flee the forest, but she had left Seth behind once already and would not do so again. So Kepi kept running, the voices of the ash-covered warriors coming closer, their grunts and barks sounding at times as if they were right behind her. She was on foot, alone, and still wearing the brightly hued gown that Dagrun’s soldiers had insisted upon, along with the light slippers of a lady. The San were fast-moving, a pack of wolves driven by hunger and blood. Glimpses of ashy-white skin flashed between the rocks; her foes visible for fleeting moments. The men carried crudely forged blades, their edges dull and ragged. They cudgeled their foes rather than cut them—it was a brutal death. Kepi had seen the remains of their victims with her father, the skull smashed in, the rib cage crushed.
She ducked as an ash-covered arm passed to her right. Then another. A flash of iron, a blade glinted in the darkness.
Hide. She was not going to outrun them much longer.
Kepi came upon a clump of stone shards three times her height, gray with flecks of pink that gleamed in the fading sunlight. Inside was a hollow crevice, accessible only by a crack barely large enough for her to squeeze through. She pushed herself into the ragged fissure, crouched on her knees, and waited.
Voices echoed between the rocks. The men from the High Desert spoke a crude tongue that bore little resemblance to the emperor’s speech. Their words sounded like curses, strings of consonants, hard on the ear. Her father knew their tongue and had taught her, and so she understood the gist of their conversation.
“Where’s the bitch?” one grunted, and another answered, “I can taste her stink. She’s not far.”
She pressed her shoulders against the stone, knowing what was in store if they found her, her memory of the night with Roghan vivid in her mind. They’ll take me. Or one will take me while the other cudgels me with his club. She saw a soot-smeared leg between the stones.
With a shout, Kepi drove her blade low between two stones and cut the man’s ankle, severing the tendon that connected the foot to the leg in a gush of blood and sinew. He collapsed, screaming for his companions, and she squeezed out of her hiding place, running as fast as she could while his cry reverberated through the stones.
She went twenty steps and found another small shelter, wedging herself inside and listening the way her father had taught her, counting footsteps: one, two, three, four. She waited. The outlanders twice passed her without catching her sight or scent, and she remembered what her father had taught her: When you’re outnumbered, draw your opponents apart. When you’re outmatched, tire your opponent before you attack. Don’t forget, Kepi.
I won’t forget.
Kepi slipped from between the stones, following far enough behind them not to be seen. She cursed her brightly colored dress, how visible it was against the gray, but she managed to stay behind the men, hiding whenever they stopped, throwing a stone the other way to divert their attention, trying her best to tire the men by making them chase her. She went ten paces and hid, then twenty more and hid again. They heard her running, heard her breathing, but could not catch her.
At a large clump of stones she was able to split them up, taking the north fork while throwing a fallen branch into the south fork and hoping the sound of the wood striking the stones would make them think she had gone that way. She hid behind a wall of stone. One followed, his skin sparkling with ash as he emerged from the shadows, a cloak of bones jingling on his back. The second, a taller man with scars wrapping his arms and face, went the other way. Kepi’s chest heaved with exhaustion. If she kept this up much longer, she would be too tired herself. Strike now. You can face them one at a time.
“Do you see the bitch—” The rest was unintelligible. She could no longer translate; her mind was a gray cloud of fear. She heard the fatigue in their voices, the frustration.
It was time.
The bone cloak rattled in the darkness. The ash-skinned warrior tore through the rocks, his breath coming in bursts, coming closer. Kepi cupped her hands around her mouth, turned in the opposite direction, and gave a cry that sounded like a raven. The call echoed off the stones, confusing her attacker.
When the San turned to look, Kepi struck.
The echoing birdcall cloaked her footsteps as she raced forward and swung the mighty Feren blade. The sword was made for a man twice her size, and it cleaved the man’s arm in two.
He screamed. The air was full of ash as he fell to the stones, struggling for a moment before his limbs went soft and his eyes closed.
Kepi spun, tried to flee, but the scarred man was upon her now. She started to lift the blade over her head once more, but it was too heavy, and she was too slow. Weaponless, the outlander clobbered her forearm with his fist. She had trained for this moment; she knew what to do. Kepi thrust her heavy sword at his chest. The blade nipped his skin, and his eyes went wild. His scarred face furrowed as he grabbed for the sword and with bare hands tried to wrest it from her grip. Blood poured between his fingers. He grunted and cursed, his teeth glowing blue in the moonlight, his eyes yellow, his breath stinking like spoiled amber. He thrust the sword’s tip between two stones and wedged it tight. Kepi pulled, but the sword stayed fixed. Gods! Her body was electric, her heart a hammer in her chest. She was defenseless, unarmed. What now?
He hit her twice, once in the head, opening a gash over her eye, then again in the chest, a hard blow that took her breath away. She let go of the hilt of the sword as the force of his blow sent her tumbling onto her back. The outlander cried out, his hands dripping with blood, the scars on his body animated by his every movement.
Not like this. Not here. I’m not meant to die here.
He fell toward her and Kepi planted a firm foot on his chest and kicked with all her strength, but he remained where he was, a sickening smile on his ash-dabbled face.
Kepi winced, preparing to die.
Wings rustled in the distance, a gray flutter passed overhead.
A shadow blackened the sky as a large bird with a wingspan greater than the height of a man crashed into her attacker. Its sharp, curved beak dug into his eye, ripping through the lid as it bit the flesh.