dressed as they were, of the same stature and seemingly just as deadly-was actually a Numrek. Calrach! Mena could not leap down from the wagon fast enough.
She reached Perrin at a sprint, just as he managed to get off an attack. He swung high. Calrach blocked likewise. Mena came around her officer, holding her sword in two hands at midheight, her left shoulder so near him that she touched his hip. The King’s Trust hissed around her and landed exactly where she wanted it, with the full energy of her swing. She expected it to slice into the Numrek’s side as far as his spine. Then she would have kicked him with her left foot as she yanked back on the blade, carving it to the side as she did so to maximize the damage. She would have fallen against Perrin and the two of them would have danced back as Calrach followed his guts in their spill to the earth. She saw all this in the rapid screen of her mind’s eye. She had seen such visions a thousand times in battle, always able to shape her rage sight so that the reality of it followed. Not so this time.
The sword kicked back against her, torquing her wrists so badly she nearly lost her grip. Damn their armor! Mena thought. I keep forgetting it.
Calrach stumbled back, clutching his side and cursing in a guttural barrage. He frowned at Mena and then grimaced whatever pain the blow had caused into hiding. His sharp features contorted for a moment, then settled. Composed again, Calrach twinned his tongue around Acacian words as if he only wanted to release them after he had strangled them. “Ah, the princess comes to this boy’s rescue? Do you hold his thing for him when he pees? I think he would like that.”
“I’ll happily hold yours,” Mena said, “before I slice it off.”
Calrach’s mouth cracked open, full of mirth and large, even teeth. “None of that, little girl. I have too many uses for my manhood. I have sons to make. Many sons to make. When they are still but babes I will tell them how I killed Princess Mena Akaran with a naked blade. They will like the tale. I know it.”
“You’d be dead already if you weren’t dressed in that suit,” Mena said. “What sort of thing is that for Numrek to wear? I thought you were warriors not afraid to die.”
“Warriors enjoy slaughter. Warriors bring pain to others. Warriors find a war. I have done this. All this I will do, and bring joy to myself.”
“Fine. Please yourself.”
Calrach plucked the devil’s forks from his belt, a short, three-pronged metal weapon. Mena knew the weapons from her practice of the Third Form. Calrach was no Bethenri, though, and the King’s Trust no normal sword. He stepped forward, brushing back black hair as long and flowing as any Mein’s. He gestured casually that he would fight them both at once.
Mena could feel Elya in the air above her, watching, begging to come to her, but she held her back. “I killed Greduc, you know.”
“I have heard this but don’t believe it.”
“I enjoyed it. He and the other Numrek cried like girls.”
“I don’t think so. But anyway, that doesn’t matter. You killed Greduc, but I am not him. I’m Calrach. Calrraaacccchhhhh!” He bellowed the name, then added in a softer, matter-of-fact voice, “Come, let’s fight.”
Mena and Perrin moved without speaking. They circled to opposite sides of the giant. Calrach turned sideways to them, offering a weapon to each. The princess attacked first. She snapped her sword out. It was a quick motion, intended to catch him off guard, but her blade had hardly moved before he caught it with his devil’s forks. He twisted his wrist, pinching her blade between one of the tines and the main stem. He made it look casual, but Mena could feel the strength of his forearm. He released the tension a moment and slid the fork up her blade, testing it even as he looked the other way and parried Perrin’s flurry of swordplay.
Savagely, Mena yanked the King’s Trust free. She hated the touch of those metal fingers on her sword. She came in again. Calrach called out as he blocked her and Perrin, as he shifted and dodged, high and then low. He spoke Auldek, sounding like he was praising them or teasing them, commenting on their technique like an adult taunting a child. It was infuriating, but he was too fast, too aware of what she or Perrin was going to try next. Mena varied her attacks. She searched for weaknesses. She fought against her instincts and did things surprising even to her. None of it worked, save to amuse the warrior. So frustrated, she forgot that she and Perrin were still living along with him, fighting him-though it took two of them-a draw.
A glob of pitch landed near them. It broke their dance as they all jumped back. Its mother whoomped down a second later, far enough away that they were safe from the splash. The Numrek stepped over the edge of the flaming puddle with a disdainful glance at it, as if it were animal dung. He said something, gesturing with the fingers of his sword hand. He seemed to be explaining that the falling pitch was not his fault. Mena and Perrin circled, keeping him between them.
I’ve killed Numrek, she said to herself. Don’t forget that. “Perrin-I’ve killed Numrek. This is no Auldek. He has only one life.”
“Let’s take it, then,” Perrin replied.
Calrach did not make that easy for them. “I’m my clan leader!” he shouted. “You know what that means? It means I’m not Greduc. Not Crannog. Who am I?”
A smug bastard who needs to die, Mena thought. And then-why not-she repeated the answer out loud. This was all taking too long, the two of them stuck here fighting one man, when there were so many others. I want you dead, bastard. It should be possible. It should happen right now! So thinking, she swung low, hoping to take out his legs, at least to break them or injure them. Calrach jumped over her blade like a child over a rope. In midair, he caught Perrin’s sword in his forks. His toes touched down for a moment, but he leaped again, spinning and landing a kick on Mena’s head. Though the force of the blow sent her reeling, she watched Calrach bring his sword down on the flat of Perrin’s trapped blade. With a resonant crack, the tip of it twirled away.
Released, Perrin sprawled backward. He landed beside the puddle of burning pitch. He did not rise immediately, and Mena feinted to draw the Numrek’s attention. It worked, but it made her head swim. She tried not to show it, but she saw two Calrachs. One stepped out of the other and both of them spoke to her in Auldek. She heard that arrogant, boulder-grinding voice doubled. She watched him set two pairs of fists, weapons clenched in them, on his two waists. Two grins.
“Calrach,” she said. She had something else to follow it, but forgot it in effort not to stumble. “Calrach…”
Behind him two versions of Perrin rose. Calrach noticed them. Both of him turned and rushed toward them. Both of them dropped their devil’s forks and cocked their swords far back, two-handed.
“Cal…”
The two Perrins turned, both of them holding flaming swords. They snapped out their blades at exactly the same time, in a manner that sent two lines of pitch from the sword through the air, scorching a path right into both Calrachs’ faces. They howled, and in howling merged into one. Calrach dropped his sword and wiped at his face, but that only made his hand come away flaming as well. Perrin stared at him, horrified by what he had done, his sword still on fire.
Mena walked forward. She raised her sword and thrust it with both arms and the full weight of her body. The blade pierced Calrach’s flaming face, into his skull cavity, and beyond. His head flew back as the point hit the back of his skull. Mena, still dizzy, clamped her gloved hand over the naked blade just in front of his face. She yanked it back and forth, cutting whatever was inside his skull to scrambled ribbons. He toppled, arms thrashing. Mena went with him, riding his chest all the way to the ground.
She rolled away and lay for a moment on her back. Through panting breaths, she said what she had started to before, without knowing that she would finish it: “I killed Greduc. And… I killed… Calrach.”
“Are you hurt?” Perrin asked, as she rose. He still held his broken sword, smoking now and blackened. He looked strangely sheepish, considering the carnage they had just lived through.
Mena shook her head. Regretted it. Flexed her jaw instead. She wiped sweat from her forehead, and then realized too late that she had smeared her face with blood. “Perrin, we’re overrun. We must organize a retreat. We’ll have to get everyone to head for the stashes we left for the return. Everybody who can make it and all the wounded who…”
That was as far as she got before another Auldek strode into view. Mena recognized her immediately. She groaned inside.
Sabeer.
