So, I changed the situation. I shouted, “Follow me!” and sprinted down the edge of the dock to my right without looking back. In just a few seconds, I reached one end of the semicircle of charging soldiers, and two were close enough to attack me. I saw they carried clubs rather than swords, so I supposed Memweck really did want to slay me with his own hand.
I blocked the first man’s swing, slammed into him with my shoulder, and knocked him into his friend. They both staggered and blocked the men behind them. That opened a gap between me and the dock’s edge, and Halla raced through it behind me, her spear ready. Bea followed right behind her.
The mass of soldiers shifted in my direction to follow us. I glimpsed Leddie standing in the back, motionless. Before the two staggering soldiers untangled themselves, I hamstrung one and thrust my sword deep into the other’s chest. They fell, and I roared at the men behind them as I attacked. Pil, Dab, and Wentl ran through the gap behind me while I fought two and then three men swinging their clubs hard. I killed one, but two more arrived, threatening to surround me.
Whistler reached the gap, tripped on nothing I could see, and fell on his face. He squirmed on the ground and seemed stunned.
“Whistler, come on!” I bellowed. “Hurry up, you slug!”
One of the soldiers whacked my left arm, and it went wobbly. Another grazed my left knee, which hurt like ants in the eyes. I stabbed a man in the throat, and he grabbed the man next to him to keep from falling. I cut that one’s arm deep as he struggled, and they both went down. More were running around behind them to cut me off, though.
Whistler was up on his hands and knees, but a soldier kicked him in the ribs and knocked him over. For three seconds, I attacked like a wild man with nothing to live for, and I cut two men, one badly. When the soldiers eased their attack for a moment, I glanced at Whistler, who was lying facedown and surrounded by four men. I broke away to follow Halla and the others.
The soldiers didn’t remain bemused for as long as I would have liked. They chased just a step or two behind me, and more raced along on the inland side trying to flank me. I reached the end of the dock and ran up onto the dirt road just as Halla jumped up from kneeling behind a stack of crates. She swung her spear twice, near decapitating one man and knocking another down. While soldiers gaped at her, I spun and gave two of them fatal wounds. Both those men staggered and fell.
Halla and I fled, the time-honored battle tactic. We led the soldiers by at least three steps, and I started to believe we might escape. Pil and the others led us by forty feet, running along the edge of the water. Then Bea stumbled and fell. When Pil helped her, Bea came up hobbling.
“Fingit’s fat fingers and ass!” I shouted. We had killed or disabled close to half of them, but they showed no sign of running away. Pil and Wentl were half carrying Bea, but at her speed, the soldiers would run us down in seconds. “Over there!” I pointed to two white houses with a ten-foot gap between them. I didn’t see anywhere else to make a stand that was within a ten-second run.
Halla planted herself twenty feet from the gap in the houses, facing the soldiers. Then she made a ferocious face and howled. The soldiers’ pace faltered just a bit.
“Pil!” I shouted. When she turned, I pointed at the other side of Halla. She ran to cover that side and pulled her knife. I jumped to Halla’s other side. “Bea, if they come from behind, yell!” I didn’t glance back to see whether she understood. I shoved Dab to stand on my left, and Wentl followed him.
As the soldiers reached us, I lunged out to meet the first two, and in the next thirty seconds, I killed two men and wounded a third while almost getting my shoulder crushed. The club scraped down the side of my face instead, just missing my eye. I stabbed that man in his eye and laughed.
My fight lulled for a few seconds, and I glanced left. Dab lay on the ground. Wentl had picked up a club someplace, and a soldier was driving him back with furious swings. On the other side, four bodies lay on the ground around Halla, but Pil was one of them. Halla stood over Pil, fighting off attacks from three sides. I took one step that direction, but two soldiers jumped in my way, having decided it was important for me to kill them without delay.
When I had murdered those two men, one of whom grabbed at my shoulders and apologized as he fell, I turned to help Halla. She faced three soldiers and still stood over Pil, who lay shaking her head. I attacked from the side, but before I’d even made a good cut, one of the men let out a short scream and stiffened. A second man, the foulmouthed sergeant, retreated toward his screaming friend, who swayed and fell forward. Leddie stepped out from behind the falling man to thrust her sword into the sergeant’s back.
A third soldier stared at Leddie. I did too, since she carried a bloody sword and wore nothing but boots. Blood had sprayed or splashed over a good amount of her pale skin.
Leddie swung and cut into the third man’s neck. Then she dropped her sword and backed up fast, her hands in the air. She stopped thirty feet away, raised her chin, and struck a pose. Her face and chest were badly scarred. She
