She dropped to one knee, gauged the distance and sighted two feet over the warrior’s head. She drew the compound bow’s string to her ear, held her breath to steady her aim, and loosed the arrow.
It flew nearly two seconds before striking the man in his breast armor. He jerked, caught off guard by the blow from nowhere. But the strike only slowed him a pace before he continued his charge.
Jordin had already notched her second arrow. Pulled back, let fly.
This time the Dark Blood was ready for the projectile, saw it coming, and jerked out of the way with stunning speed. Still running. Fast.
Too fast.
She’d never reach Jonathan in time!
The clip-clop of the horse-drawn cart edged into the street directly ahead of her, driver perched lazily on the cab, reins in hand.
Flinging her bow over her shoulder, Jordin bolted up and tore for the horse. There was only one way to reach Jonathan before the Dark Blood did.
A single strong horse pulled that cart. She needed it. Without warning to driver or animal, she launched herself at the horse, landing on its back like a black-clad wraith. Grabbing it by the neck, she jerked the reins from the driver.
The startled horse snorted and bucked, but she had ridden horses far stronger and wilder than this domestic dog and she hung on, heels digging into flank.
The horse bolted, terrified. She sent a vicious lash of the reins to its right hindquarter. Hooves pounded the cobblestone street as the horse picked up speed, the covered cart a forgotten distraction.
The driver cried out but when she glanced back he was gone, having fallen from his perch or jumped.
Thirty yards.
“Run, Jonathan!” Her scream echoed down the street. “Run!”
He ran directly toward her, face glistening from the dead sprint.
The Dark Blood had somehow picked up his pace. His sword was in his hand. He was going to throw it!
Jordin smashed her heels into the horse’s flanks, pulling it to the right to avoid Jonathan.
“Run!”
But the moment she passed him, Jonathan slowed, following her with wide eyes.
“To the back!” she screamed. She jerked the horse hard to the left, directly toward the oncoming Dark Blood.
She saw it all in a mosaic flash: The alarm on the Dark Blood’s face. The careening cart breaking free of its hitch. The horse jerking its head back at the sight and scent of the looming Dark Blood.
The cart veered to the left and slammed into a darkened light pole.
Then they were on top of the warrior.
He was far too agile, avoiding them again at the last instant, but he’d been thrown off guard.
The simple thought broke into her consciousness even as she acted out of instinct.
The horse was already galloping by the Dark Blood, whose back was now to her. She threw herself backward off the horse, feet over head, snatching her knife from the sheath in midair, twisting so that she would land facing the Dark Blood from behind.
She landed on the run, sprinting silently for his exposed back-four long paces. She was half his size and he was quick, but she now held full advantage, and she couldn’t afford to waste it.
He had just begun to turn back when she launched herself at him.
Landed on his back.
Wrapped both legs around his belly.
Jerked his dreadlocks back with her left hand.
Ripped the blade in her right hand across his exposed throat with a shrill cry.
Blood gushed to the ground as the Dark Blood staggered forward. She rode him to the ground, breathing hard. His body twitched once under her, and then lay dead.
Her rage caught her off guard. But of course it was rage. She would take a hundred like him if they dared touch the Sovereign. Her Sovereign.
Her head snapped up. He stood twenty paces away, staring not at her, but through the bars at the back of the covered cart that had crashed into the light post. The lettering on the side of the cart finally arranged itself into three cohesive words for the first time.
Authority of Passing.
This, then, was one of the transports that took frail or flawed Corpses to their living graves-Corpses like the ones they had seen on the way in to the city a few hours earlier.
The thought skittered through her mind like a piece of refuse blown by the wind, here, and then gone in the face of far more pressing matters. Where there was one Dark Blood there might be more. They had to get out of the city. And where were Rom and Roland?
She glanced behind her. Clear… except for two shadowed silhouettes running toward them, still nearly a quarter mile away. Mortals. Rom and Roland.
Relief flooded her. They would make it. Jonathan was safe, and she had been the one to save him.
She would harbor a quiet and small amount of pride, knowing that.
Jonathan, however, was fixated on the cart.
“Jonathan?” she said, striding toward him. “Are you hurt? What happened?”
He stepped closer to the cart, peering through the barred door at the back. Not only peering. He was absolutely fascinated. Wholly consumed by what he saw. She hurried to him, mentally steeling herself against the smell of Corpse.
She drew up against his side and looked inside. Two benches, one on either side. Chained to one of the benches sat a young girl, perhaps ten or eleven years of age wearing a torn gray dress that hung on her thin body like a sack. Her long dark hair looked as though it hadn’t been touched by a comb for a week; her face was smudged as though it hadn’t seen soap for a month. Even so, she was a beautiful girl, Jordin thought, even dirty and staring at both of them with large, unblinking eyes. Eyes so resigned as to be nearly absent of fear.
Nearly.
Jordin saw the reason she had been taken: her right arm was wrong, crooked at the elbow. The hand below it only had three fingers. How long had she hidden that condition? How many years had she been kept confined, away from the others who would report her out of fear for their own lives… and afterlives?
“What’s your name?” Jonathan asked in soft voice.
Jordin glanced over. “Jonathan? We don’t have time…”
He stepped forward, ignoring her. The girl pulled back a few inches, face round with worry.
“No…” He reached for the bars. “Don’t be afraid.” His voice strained. “I’m not going to hurt you. Please… what’s your name?”
The girl still didn’t answer. The stench of fear was so strong that Jordin felt compelled to lift her arm to cover her nose, but then immediately took offense at her own weakness. This young girl could have been her not so long ago…
“My name’s Jonathan,” he said quietly. “I was born with a crooked leg. I was also born to give life and hope to the dead. They take my blood.” He paused. “It hurts me.”
Jordin glanced at him. There were tears on his cheeks, but that wasn’t what caused her breath to stifle in her lungs. She’d never heard such a bold statement of pain from him, and hearing it now, spoken to a Corpse who couldn’t possibly understand, somehow crushed her.
She told herself that he could only confess it to one he couldn’t hurt. That he cared too much to burden the recipients of his blood with the truth of his suffering. And yet…
Jonathan had said this, knowing that she, Jordin, would hear and understand.
She stood rooted to the street, fixed by a deep and terrible love for him. Suddenly desperate to repay him for his love with her life.
For his life… with her love.
“You’re a beautiful girl,” he said, “Please, tell me your name so I can remember you always.”
