“Give me a dagger,” Haern said.
Kayla at first thought to refuse, then decided it couldn’t possibly make things worse. She gave him one.
“Keep the pointy end away from me,” she said.
Three more guards poured through the door and shouted for them to surrender.
“Damn it,” Kayla muttered.
“You handle them,” Haern said. “I’ll get us out.”
As if completely unaware, the boy used his dagger to slice into the wood surrounding the nails. Kayla thought him crazy, but he worked the wood like an expert. In a handful of seconds, the first nail popped into his palm.
Still, many nails and many boards remained. Kayla drew two more daggers and faced the guards. Pressed into the corner with Haern at her back hampered her style, so she ran to the side, hurling dagger after dagger to keep their attention. A couple glanced off their mail, another ricocheted off the flat edge of a blade, but one sank deep into the flesh of a soldier’s thigh. He swore and pulled it out while the other two rushed closer.
Kayla dodged and rolled, her lithe body narrowly avoiding the swings. Once she was on the far side, she turned and sprinted, rolling past the two nearer soldiers and straight for the wounded man. Down on one knee clutching his wound, he only had time to look up and curse again before she stabbed a dagger in his eye. She yanked it out as she passed, wincing at the eyeball lodged halfway up the slender blade.
When she reached Haern, she leapt into the air and spun, her hands a blur as the daggers flew. The two guards crossed their arms to block their faces, but she had anticipated such a basic defense. Sharp points dug into their legs, hands, and feet. Blood poured across the faded floor.
“Hurry,” she heard Haern shout. She turned to see him toss her dagger back, hilt first. Three boards lay by his feet. He climbed up and out the window, not pausing to see if she followed. Kayla blew the wounded soldiers a kiss, then sprang after him.
“How fast can you run?” she asked Haern when she landed outside. The drop from the temple was farther than it looked, and she felt her knees ache.
“Not fast enough.”
“Limp if you have to,” Kayla said, grabbing his arm. “But we’re still going to run, even if it’s on one foot.”
He hesitated only a brief moment before looping his arm around her neck and running alongside. Shouts echoed behind them, and Kayla felt her heart thud in her ears. She had killed a second soldier, as well as wounded two more. There would be no jail cell waiting for her if they were caught, just a short fall from a taut rope.
They hobbled down the road, Kayla desperate to add distance between them and the guards. She asked questions in a rapid-fire manner as they ran, hoping against hope for a plan to emerge in her mind.
“Where is Thren’s hideout?” she asked.
Haern refused to answer at first, but then she cuffed him on the side of his head.
“I’m trying to save your life, and mine, so tell me where we’re going.”
“The western district,” Haern said, elaborating no further.
“No good,” Kayla said. She knew she couldn’t take Haern there anyway, not until they lost their pursuers. Leading half the city’s soldiers to Thren Felhorn’s secret hideout was another good way to end up dead, regardless of her somewhat noble intentions.
“Any other safehouses?” she asked.
“None I know of.”
“Friends that can hide us?”
“Friends are dangerous.”
Kayla rolled her eyes.
“Are you useful in any way?”
Haern shocked her by blushing.
“Not yet. But I will be. I’ll kill as well as you, milady.”
She laughed, even as a pair of soldiers turned into the alley ahead of them. She wished she hadn’t killed earlier; then she might have been able to turn Haern over and save her own life. Daggers twirling, she accepted her only other recourse. Haern let go of her to free up her movements.
“Keep your eyes open for a place to hide,” she said.
Two more guards stepped out behind them, shouting for them to surrender. Haern grabbed a dagger from Kayla’s belt and kissed the blade.
“Your name?” he asked.
“Kayla,” she replied.
“If we separate, I’ll find you. As long as I draw breath, I’ll ensure my father rewards you well.”
Back to back, they faced the approaching guards. At first it seemed they would wait for more to arrive, but when Kayla flung several daggers through the air, one sinking into the flesh above a man’s knee, the soldiers decided subduing the unarmored woman and the hapless boy would be easier than dodging an angry barrage of steel. Kayla felt worried knowing Haern faced two, but she remembered how he had fought back at the temple. Maybe he could survive long enough for her to finish her own and switch over to help him.
The first soldier slashed his sword at her chest. She parried it with the dagger in her left hand, stepped in closer, and then cut across his face with her right. Blood spilled across her arm, and he howled as the tip hooked the underside of his eye. His companion lunged, forcing Kayla back and preventing a killing blow. The wounded man clutched his face with his free hand, glaring with his good eye. The other man struck again, a weak thrust that revealed just how green he was. She batted it aside, slashed his wrist, and then hurled her dagger. Deadly accurate from over fifty yards, the man had no chance standing mere feet away. The dagger struck just above his gorget.
She heard shouts behind her, followed by a cry of pain. Knowing her time was short, she pressed an attack on the wounded soldier. He parried a couple of her stabs, but he was woozy from the loss of blood, and his movements awkward from still clutching his face with his other hand. Kayla curled about him, always drifting to his wounded side, and then one of his blocks came in too soon. Her daggers sunk into the flesh of his throat and stomach. Gasping, he fell and died.
Feeling certain the boy was dead, she spun around and brought her daggers up to defend herself. Instead, she saw Haern dancing between the two soldiers, his dagger a blur of steel. Both soldiers were bleeding, and one in particular was soaked with blood from a gash underneath his arm. She watched as the boy ducked a sideways slash, spun on his heels, and then lunged to the side of a thrust. The sword pierced the air inches from his face, but he seemed not to care how close he came to death. His dagger punched underneath the breastplate, slicing open the flesh and spilling intestines to the cold dirt of the alley.
He never hesitated, not even after such a cruel killing. The other soldier’s strike would have severed his spine, but instead it clacked against the ground. Haern slashed his wrist, danced about, stabbed his side, and then as the guard turned he continued dancing, continued twirling. His dagger buried into flesh, finding two more exposed slits in the armor. Blood ran freely, and when the boy kicked out his knees, the guard fell without the strength to return to a stand.
Kayla shook her head in amazement. He would not one day learn to kill as well as her. He already did.
Haern sheathed the dagger and joined her side.
“Your limp,” she said, realizing he had shown no hint of the injury during battle.
“I hurt it worse,” he said, wrapping his arm around hers. “But I’ve been shown how to ignore such things. Better to live torn and in pain than die in perfect health.”
He spoke as if the saying were memorized, and the gasps of pain he made with each step of his wounded leg seemed to mock him.
“We’ll never escape,” she said as they turned down a small alley between rows of houses that stank more like a sewer. “Not leaving a trail of bodies behind us.”
“We just need to keep going,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where.”
“Why not,” she asked.
“Because my father’s eyes are in all places. Once we are seen, he’ll come for us.”
Kayla smirked.
“Can’t rely on your father like that. He’s not the Reaper, able to see out of all shadows and end your life with a kiss of his scythe. The night is deep, the soldiers are about, and if we’re to see the dawn we’ll need to hide.”
Haern looked upset at her dismissal of his father, but he refused to argue the point.
