against the sky on the valley’s edge, drawing level with them, horse’s hooves a blur, standing in his stirrups with masterful skill and already pulling back his string again.
‘Shit!’ She dropped down and the shaft flitted over her head and clicked into the parapet on the other side. A moment later another joined it. She could hear the rest of the riders now, shouting to each other just at the back of the wagon. She put her head up to peer over and a shaft twitched into the wood, point showing between two planks not a hand’s width from her face, made her duck again. She’d seen some Ghosts damn good at shooting from horseback, but never as good as this. It was bloody unfair, that’s what it was. But fair has never been an enforceable principle in a fight to the death.
She nocked her shaft, took a breath and stuck her bow up above the parapet. Right away an arrow flitted between the limb and the string, and up she came. She knew she was nowhere near as good with a bow as he was, but she didn’t have to be. A horse is a pretty big target.
Her shaft stuck to the flights in its ribs and it lost its footing right off, fell sideways, rider flying from his saddle with a howl, his bow spinning up in the air and the pair of them tumbling down the side of the valley behind.
Shy shouted, ‘Ha!’ and turned just in time to see a man jump over the parapet behind her.
She got a glimpse of him. Kantic, with eyes narrowed and his teeth showing in a black beard, a hooked blade in each hand he must’ve used for climbing the side of the speeding wagon, an endeavour she’d have greatly admired if he hadn’t been fixed on killing her. The threat of murder surely can cramp your admiration for a body.
She threw her bow at him and he knocked it away with one arm while he swung at her overhand with the other. She twisted to the side and the blade thudded into the parapet. She caught his other arm as it came at her and punched him in the ribs as she slipped around him. The wagon jolted and ditched her on her side. He twisted his curved blade but couldn’t get it free of the wood, jerked his hand out of the thong around his wrist. By then she was up in a crouch and had her knife out, drawing little circles in the air with the point, circles, circles, and they watched each other, both with boots planted wide and knees bent low and the juddering wagon threatening to shake them off their feet and the wind threatening to buffet them right over.
‘Hell of a spot for a knife-fight,’ she muttered.
The wagon bumped and he stumbled a little, took his eye off her just long enough. She sprang at him, raising the knife like she’d stab him overhand, then whipped down low and past, slashing at his leg as she went, turning to stab him in the back, but the wagon jumped and spun her all the way round and grunting into the parapet.
When she turned he was coming at her roaring, cutting at the wind and her jerking back from the first slash and weaving away from the second, roof of the wagon treacherous as quicksand under her bootheels and her eyes crossed on that blur of metal. She caught the third cut on her own blade, steel scraping on steel and off and slitting her left forearm, ripped sleeve flapping.
They faced each other again, both breathing hard, both a little bit knifed but nothing too much changed. Her arm sang as she squeezed her bloody fingers but they still worked. She feinted, and a second, trying to draw him into a mistake, but he kept watching, swishing that hooked knife in front of him as if he was trying to snag a fish, the broken valley still thundering past on both sides.
The wagon bounced hard and Shy was off her feet a moment, yelping as she toppled sideways. He slashed at her and missed, she stabbed at him and the blade just grazed his cheek. Another jolt flung them together and he caught her wrist with his free hand, tried to stab at her but got his knife tangled in her coat and she grabbed his wrist, twisted it up, not that she wanted the fucking thing but there was no letting go of it now, their knives both waggling hopelessly at the sky, streaked with each other’s blood as they staggered around the bucking roof.
She kicked at his knee and made it buckle but he had the strength, and step by wobbling step he wrestled her to the parapet and started to bend her over it, his weight on top of her. He twisted his knife, twisting her grip loose, getting it free, both of them snarling spit at each other, wood grinding into her back and the wagon’s wheels battering the ground not so far behind her head, specks of dirt stinging her cheek, his snarling face coming closer and closer and closer—
She darted forwards and sank her teeth into his nose, biting, biting, her mouth salty with blood and him roaring and twisting and pulling away and suddenly she was right over backwards, breath whooping in as she tumbled over the parapet, plummeted down and smashed against the side of the wagon, breath groaning out, her fallen knife pinging from the road and somehow holding on by one clutching hand, all the fibres in her shoulder strained right to the point of tearing.
She swung wriggling around, road rushing underneath her, honking mad sounds through gritted teeth, legs milling at the air as she tried to get her other hand onto the parapet. Made a grab and missed and swung away and the whirling wheel clipped her boot and near snatched her off. Made another grab and got her fingertips over, worked her hand, groaning and whimpering and almost out of effort, everything numb, but she wouldn’t be beaten and she growled as she dragged herself back over.
The mercenary was staggering about with an arm around his neck Temple’s face next to his, both of them grunting through bared teeth. She lunged at him, half-falling, grabbed hold of his knife-arm in both hands and twisted it, twisted it down, both arms straining, and his jowls were trembling, torn nose oozing blood, eyes rolling towards the point of his knife as she forced it down towards him. He said something in Kantic, shaking his head, the same word over and over, but she wasn’t in a mood to listen even if she’d understood. He wheezed as the point cut through his shirt and into his chest, mouth going wide open as the blade slid further, right to the cross-piece, and she fell on top of him, blood slicking the roof of the wagon.
There was something in her mouth. The tip of his nose. She spat it out and mumbled at Temple, ‘Who’th driving?’
The wagon tipped, there was a grinding jolt, and Shy was flying.
Temple groaned as he rolled over to lie staring at the sky, arms out wide, the snow pleasantly cool against his bare neck—
‘Uh!’ He sat up, wincing at a range of stabbing pains, and stared wildly about.
A shallow canyon with walls of streaked stone and earth and patched snow, the road down the centre, the rest strewn with boulders and choked with thorny scrub. The wagon lay on its side a dozen strides away, one door ripped off and the other hanging wide, one of the uppermost wheels gone and the other still gently turning. The tongue had sheared through and the horses were still going, no doubt delighted by their sudden liberation, already a good way down the road and dwindling into the distance.
The sun was just finding its way into the bottom of the canyon, making gold glitter, a trail of treasure spilled from the back of the stricken wagon and for thirty strides or so behind. Shy sat in the midst of it.
He started running, immediately fell and took a mouthful of snow, spat out a tiny golden coin and floundered over. She was trying to stand, torn coat tangled in a thorn bush, and sank back down as he got there.
‘My leg’s fucked,’ she forced through gritted teeth, hair matted and face streaked with blood.
‘Can you use it?’
‘No. Hence
He hooked an arm around her, managed with an effort to get them both to standing, her on one good leg, him on two shaky ones. ‘Got a plan yet?’
‘Kill you and hide in your body?’
‘Better than anything I’ve got.’ He looked about the canyon sides for some means of escape, started tottering over to the most promising place with Shy hopping beside him, both of them wheezing with pain and effort. It might almost have been comical had he not known his erstwhile colleagues must be near. But he did know. So it wasn’t.
‘Sorry I got you into this,’ she said.
‘I got myself into this. A long time ago.’ He grabbed at a trailing bush but it came free and tumbled hopelessly down in a shower of earth, most of which went straight into his mouth.
‘Leave me and run,’ said Shy.
‘Tempting…’ He cast about for another way up. ‘But I already tried that and it didn’t work out too well.’ He picked at some roots, brought down some gravel, the slope as unreliable as he’d been down the years. ‘I’m trying not to make the same mistakes over and over these days…’
‘How’s that going for you?’ she grunted.
