Dart rolled to the side and to her feet. She lifted the stolen sword to face the three across the room.
In her hand was no wooden sword-this one was steel.
The bolder of Pyllor’s two friends clutched his forearm. His shirt had been cleaved and darkened with his blood. His eyes had narrowed with pain, but burnt with a fiery anger.
In the glow of the single brazier, Dart’s stolen blade shone brightly. As did Pyllor’s own blade as he pulled it free. A squire’s blade. No black diamond adorned its pommel, marking a true knight, for certainly no honor was to be found here.
“Leave her to me,” he called to the others unnecessarily.
His wounded partner’s sheath was already empty. The other had simply backed away, plainly refusing to be drawn further into the struggle here.
Pyllor sneered. “First I’ll bloody you, then we’ll get you branded up good-for all to see.”
Dart remained silent and took a warding stance. But this was no sparring match. Pyllor came at her with a brutal and heavy lunge.
She refused to be drawn into a block, not against the more muscled attacker. She simply turned her blade and let his steel sing along hers. She leaned her left shoulder back and Pyllor’s sword tip passed her harmlessly.
Surprised, her attacker was momentarily off balance.
And close.
Expressionless, Dart demonstrated how well she had learned Pyllor’s prior lesson, how sword fighting sometimes required more than a blade. As he stumbled near, she kneed out with her other leg, striking him square in the groin.
He cried out and fell back.
At that moment, motion stirred at the corner of her eye. Pupp burst through the latched door. He was a molten glow, a blur of impotent fury.
Though relieved, Dart kept her focus on Pyllor. He wobbled, clutching himself with one hand, but the other lifted his sword.
“You’re dead,” he hissed.
Pupp danced up to her, but she had no time to bloody him, to use the Grace in her most essential humour to call him forth.
Pyllor came at her again, more hobbled and more cautious. She read the cunning reflected in his eyes. She readied herself, but she knew he was the better swordsman.
He thrust, testing her this time.
She parried, but he smacked back her blade and came in with a feint, followed by a savage thrust. She barely nicked her hilt up to block the tip. Still, the blow reverberated up her arm and knocked her back a step.
Pyllor sneered and lowered his sword.
Dart took advantage of the satisfaction in his expression. She lunged out, sweeping into the opening. He dropped his hilt even farther, lowering his guard. Dart realized her mistake-but it was too late. She was committed. Her momentum carried forward her attack.
Pyllor suddenly shoved out his elbow and twisted his sword’s tip in the opposite direction. Dart recognized the opening maneuver. A perfectly executed Naethryn’s Folly.
And she had been drawn inescapably into it.
He looped his sword in a side-sweep, trapping her thrusted blade-then tugged his elbow to his side and turned on his back heel.
Dart’s sword sprang from her fingertips with a ring of steel. It sailed, hilt over tip, through the air, and clanged against the stone floor.
Pyllor did not wait-he drove his sword for her belly.
Dart had only one lesson left. One again taught to her by the squire. She grabbed bare-handed for his blade. Her fingers closed over the steel. She shoved with her palm.
Steel sliced with a painless kiss.
She would lose fingers.
Before she could react, a crash sounded to her right, and the door cracked open with a pop of its latch. Pyllor faltered in surprise. Dart pushed his sword aside and dropped back.
Light flooded the dim room from the hall outside. A dark figure stood limned in the doorway. In the stunned silence, he took in the scene before him.
Pyllor turned his sword toward the intruder. He eyed him, judging him. This was no knight, but someone in a rather plain cloak. Someone of no consequence.
“Begone! This is none of your concern!”
Ignoring him, the figure stepped inside. The blinding light fell from his shoulders and revealed face and form.
The bronze boy.
Brant.
How…?
“Let her go,” he said with a dread calm.
Dart glanced back to Pyllor. Surely this was over. Agony flared up her arm from her sliced palm. She clenched a fist against it, trying to squeeze it away.
Pyllor refused to back down. His fury, stoked by the thwarted attack, found a fresh target in the intruder, believing the younger man to be no more than one of the faceless underfolk, what with his worn leathers and scuffed boots.
Pyllor dropped his sword lower. But Dart knew this was another feint, a trick meant to dull an opponent’s guard. At his back, Dart spotted a dagger, hidden out of sight.
“Don’t-” she said and reached with her injured hand. Blood spattered from her fingertips and spilled from her palm.
But it never struck the floor.
The humour splashed upon the waiting form below.
Dart felt Pupp appear, blessed with blood, drawn fully into this world. He burst into solidity with a flare of ruddy fire. He leaped toward Pyllor at the exact time the squire twisted and flung his dagger toward the intruder.
Pupp sailed through the air, a molten bronze arrow. He hit Pyllor in the arm, taking it off at the elbow. Pyllor screamed.
The attack, though late, proved unnecessary. The thrown dagger missed its intended target as Brant sidestepped it, as if anticipating it all along. It clattered into the hall outside.
Pyllor fell back onto his rear, holding up his severed arm in disbelief. The edge of his shirt still smoked. The stump of his limb stuck out, blackened and seared.
More shouts of horror rose from Pyllor’s companions. They fled toward the door, away from Pupp, who now circled Pyllor on the floor.
Brant allowed the others to flee as he moved toward Dart.
Pyllor cowered, wide-eyed in terror and shock. He blubbered incoherently, scooting away, abandoning his sword as he pushed with his remaining hand.
Brant touched her arm. “We should be away. Now.” His eyes were on Pupp, but he seemed little surprised.
Dart allowed herself to be drawn toward the door.
“Call off your daemon,” Brant said.
Dart had no strength to argue. “To me, Pupp.”
His fiery form continued to circle Pyllor, hackles raised, snarling fire.
“To me,” Dart urged more firmly. She remembered what had befallen two other men, back in the rookery in Chrismferry. She had witnessed Pupp’s mercy then. A part of her wished the same for Pyllor.
Pupp seemed to sense this, glancing back at her. Beyond the fire of his eyes, she saw her own fury reflected. And again something not of this world. Beyond her ability to fathom.
Dart met that fiery gaze, acknowledged the bloodlust, both in Pupp and in her own heart. Still, she felt
