The two men stood brave before it. They were defending Dualayn and the sick.
Acting was easier than cowering. She didn’t have to think as she hiked her skirt and plucked her binder from its hidden sheath. Dualayn shouted behind her, his words swallowed by the pounding heat in her ears. She leaped out of the carriage and landed on the street, heavy skirts and petticoats swirling.
She activated her binder and rushed forward.
*
The mob charged.
Men, mostly young and angry, surged down the street, brandishing cudgels made of broken chair legs or barrel staves. They rushed at Ōbhin. His blade hummed. These men had every reason to be furious, to be snarling avalanches of rage, but they were venting it in the wrong place. Smashing buildings and beating king’s men wouldn’t redress the crime. If the guard had killed the high refractor, they should be storming the Palace of Light perched on the Ivorystone Cliffs, a bluff north of the city.
Not rushing to harm Ōbhin’s charges.
Lead weighed down his boots. There were so many of them. He’d have to kill. Realization pierced Ōbhin’s heart with black pain. He’d murdered coldly before his reawakening, but now . . . He wanted to run from the butchery about to descend on the mob, but Dualayn, Avena, and Miguil were behind him. Smiles stood beside him, ready to—
Avena burst into view at the peripheral of his vision, clutching a binder, impractical skirts swirling about her feet.
“Niszeh’s Black Tones!” he snarled in Qothian. “Get your uncovered face back to the carriage!”
She shook her head, her expression tight. “You need all the help you can get.”
“Elohm, polish us with your Colours,” Smiles whispered, between Ōbhin and Avena.
“Now, Avena!” Ōbhin barked, the men almost on them, the pound of their footsteps hurtling closer. “You’re not—”
A cudgel flashed. Ōbhin reacted. His resonance blade sliced in the air before him, cutting through the weapon with smooth ease. Already he leaned to the right to let the severed end hurtle past his head, acting out of his training. His blade flicked downward, hissing before him. He hoped it would drive back the mob.
They didn’t retreat.
The man swung his now shortened weapon, the tail of his white armband flapping. Ōbhin swiped upward, the blade slicing through bone and flesh, severing the man’s hand, maiming him for life. He gaped. Ōbhin kicked him back into the mob.
Purple flashed on his right, a rioter falling to the ground. Ōbhin’s black-gloved hands tightened as he hacked through the next cudgel. His soul yearned for a binder. To capture instead of harm. His blade sliced through wood and then found flesh.
Another hand joined the ground.
Anger roared from the mob. They didn’t care about those clutching severed stumps. His vibrating tulwar flashed and hacked before him, slicing through bone as easy as wood. He took a man in the leg, severing and sending it bleeding to the street. Anger burned through Ōbhin at these idiots for forcing him to harm them.
Blades flashed. Knives appeared in the hands of some. They rushed him to stab. A foot slipped on blood, tripping on the slick cobblestone. The scent of copper filled Ōbhin’s nose as he elbowed a man in his face. Avena rushed forward in the corner of his eye, swinging at a man with a rusting blade.
“Get back!” he snarled at her and flicked his blade at the attacker’s arm.
A hand flew in an arc of crimson.
*
Avena’s blood sang as she swung her binder and cracked the steel rod into the ruffian’s chest. Purple bands of energy sprang around him. He gasped as his limbs tangled around his torso. Her next swing cracked him in the knee, a hard disabler just like Ōbhin had taught her.
He fell and landed with a crash.
She smiled. Wild exultation surged through her veins. She wasn’t standing by helpless, a useless, stunned thing incapable of lifting a finger to save Evane. She fought. Life blazed through her. She threw herself into the fray. Ōbhin attracted most of the attention, his resonance sword inflicting horrific damage.
She fought at Smiles’s side, guarding Ōbhin’s flanks.
“Avena!” Miguil shouted behind her. “Get back!”
He appeared on her right, standing badly and holding a makeshift cudgel, perhaps a piece of firewood he’d stashed beneath the carriage’s driver seat. Avena grimaced as he made a clumsy, if powerful, swing at a rioter. The rioter blocked it, shouted, and attacked back. The tail of a green armband fluttered in the wake of his strike.
She performed a stop thrust, ramming rod forward like a spear and slamming the tip hard into the man’s chest. He grunted and stumbled back, the binding energy springing around his body, but not before his club cracked onto Miguil’s shoulder. Cursing, Miguil’s cudgel slammed into the ruffian’s head, knocking him into two of his scruffy fellows.
“You should get back,” Avena said. “You don’t know how to fight.”
“I know how to keep from getting my head split open!” Miguil snarled as more skirted around the edge of Ōbhin’s whirl of humming death.
Blood splashed across the cobblestones as the Qothian danced. For a moment, Avena watched him. She could almost forget his sword dealt death. Everything felt natural as he flowed from one attack to another. Her feet suddenly felt heavy while his glided.
“Avena!” Smiles barked.
The shout drew her attention back to the fight before her. She gasped at the sight of the attacker lunging at her, knife in hand. She grinned. The energy pumping through her veins had her shouting like a hero in a story, Boan Sword-Arm facing the darklings, Captain Branglid holding back the Roidians at the Battle of Corpse Pass,
