11

Acting fast, I swing the hoe again, this time with enough force to wedge the blade into a soldier’s forehead. I grip the handle tighter and kick the now-dead man’s chest, freeing my weapon for more work. In the pandemonium, I spot Narder the jailer, spiked iron ball in hand, hiding behind a stack of crates, his expression a mix of fear and distress. The coward sees me marching toward him, and he doesn’t know whether to sneer or shriek. He makes his choice, squaring his shoulders. “You should’ve picked my bed.”

“And you should’ve run the moment you saw me,” I spit, my breath hot.

Narder swings his spiked ball at me.

I duck.

He grabs at my dress.

I stomp on his foot.

He yelps, but his cry is lost in the noise of fighting.

I swing my garden hoe.

But he knocks me off-balance, and I miss him with my swing.

I scramble away from him and find my footing.

He swings the flail again.

I dodge, but the ball catches the sleeve of my dress. Heat crackles up my arm, and the spikes gouge long lines into my skin. I grab a wood shield from the ground and swing it just as Narder whips his flail at me. The ball embeds into the wood, cracking it.

Narder yanks, trying to free his weapon, not paying attention to the hoe’s blade in my other hand. My weapon finds its mark, right in his throat. Blood spurts from the wound, and he howls, falling to the ground, clutching at his neck.

Before I turn back to the chaos behind me, I spot a ring of giant keys hanging from Narder’s belt as he thrashes on the ground. “I’ll take these,” I say, grabbing them. “ Tah , bitch.”

He doesn’t respond as life drains from his panicked eyes.

I straighten, catching my breath. Where am I? Where’s the jail?

Over there. Way over there.

Shit.

I leap over dead villagers and injured soldiers, booting a soldier charging at me with his sword lifted. I weave past horses rearing back and kicking high. I stumble in the bloody mud, and the key ring flies out of my hand but I catch it with my other. As I regain my balance, my borrowed dress snags on the tip of a dead man’s sword. The taffeta rips as I yank it free. I wince— shit —and then lunge toward the jail as though it is a safe harbor.

Where’s the entrance?

On the other side.

Fuck .

Breathing hard, I push my back against the wall, trying to stay hidden from soldiers and villagers while wearing a shredded bright-blue dress.

“Hey!” Two soldiers spot me at the same time and sprint toward me from different directions. Both men raise their weapons. I duck right as they swing and slice each other’s ear and chin.

Careful now to stay out of sight, I make my way around the corners of the clink.

There’s the door! I hurry forward, hands shaking, and I try one key after the next on the cumbersome key ring. Why did Narder have half a dozen keys? I push and wiggle and twist, one key after another, but none fit. I wipe my sweaty fingers on the front of the dress. Only two keys left. I growl, suck in a deep breath, and try the second to last key on the ring. It takes several tries to slip that key into the lock, but finally, a click and a clack and I push the door open and peer into the jail.

The prisoners—one, two…four of them—blink up through the darkness.

“I’m getting you out of here.” I step over the waste and trash piled everywhere, charging deeper into the single cell. I help the weakest to their feet and lead them out of the stagnant death trap. They’re all filthy and ragged, and in this dim light of night, I can’t tell which prisoner is Jamart’s daughter. Unsteady on their weak legs, the group stays close, one gripping the other as one clutches me. I feel their collective panic as they glimpse the frightful battle surrounding us.

Under the cover of darkness, to the dissonant harmony of bloodcurdling screams and the frantic clash of weapons, I lead the prisoners to Jamart’s shop, which blessedly still stands amid the wreckage. In fact, it looks stronger than it did this afternoon.

Jamart is hiding just inside the door. Once he spies me, he tumbles out of his house and greets his daughter with tears and hugs. To me he says, “You’ve blessed me again.”

There’s no time for blessings. I point at the candlemaker, Lively, and the other prisoners. “Go. Find hiding places. Stay out of sight of the soldiers.”

And pray a good prayer to Jamart’s Lady of the Verdant Realm.

Keep them safe is my own prayer as I return to retrieve my hoe from beside Narder’s body. I scoff at the jailer’s empty eyes—his death gives more good to the world than he ever gave to it alive. Unspeakable things led him here, to this eventuality, and ending him felt good. Even better than taking care of these soldiers, especially since the soldiers haven’t made this fight personal.

I scan the violence around me and find Jadon battling two soldiers at once. I race over, ducking horses and swords again, sliding and weaving my way over to him. I swing at the back of one of the soldiers hitting him, striking the warrior in the neck.

Jadon swings at the other soldier, bashing that warrior in the face.

Both men collapse in front of us. But more soldiers take their places, popping up like mushrooms after a storm.

“Where have you been?” Jadon shouts over the fray, the gray-bladed sword back in his hands. “You get scared?”

“Of course not.” I knock one soldier back and stomp his head. “I just had to take out the trash.”

To my left, a soldier leaves a house carrying a wooden chest. Is it not bad enough they have to kill these people? They’re stealing from them, too? “Hey,” I shout, running over to the thief. “Is that yours?”

He scowls and growls, “Fuck you, you mudscraping—”

“That’s a no.” I kick the side of his thigh, and the chest falls out of his arms.

He’s now free, though, to pull the sword from his scabbard.

I give him no time to swing or insult me again. He’s already dead from a hoe to his head.

Across the village square, the site of yesterday’s market day, I spy another soldier looting a cart of pitiful carrots and potatoes. “Stop that!” I shout, marching toward him.

He pulls out his sword even as fear flashes across his face.

“Yeah, you should be scared.” I swing the hoe’s splintered pole.

The soldier ducks my charge and jabs his sword at my hip.

I hop back, but the tip of his weapon still rips my skirt. Damn it!

The soldier inches forward, cocky now that he’s actually made contact. His breath comes loud and fast.

The hoe’s handle has softened, squishy and wet now with blood and bone. The blade wobbles at the end of the stick, one swing away from flying off completely.

With a fierce cry, the soldier lunges.

I jab using the blade for the last time. The metal wedge falls off, leaving behind a splintered end. Perfect. I spear the jagged wood into the soldier’s mouth and up through his nose. Down he goes. And then there’s silence. Except for the booming of my heart. And the groans of dying men. And the clucking of manic chickens. The ground oozes, slick with blood. The emperor’s men lie dead and defeated around us, their armor and swords glinting dully in the torchlight.

Before I can knead any tension from my shoulders, something shifts in the darkness toward the edge of the village. And then, out of a bank of smoke, he steps forward. A titan of a soldier protected by a mine’s worth of iron.

Jadon whispers, “Shit.”

I gawk at the behemoth headed our way. “What the hell is he? Not human.”

“Otaan,” Jadon says.

“How do you know?”

“His mouth.”

Long canine teeth. Severe underbite. No lips. His forehead and his bald scalp bristle with pointy spikes. And he’s completely covered in blood.

“Cannibals, Kai, that’s what they are. Wake’s soldiers always travel with one, as insurance against loss. He’s been eating dead villagers.” A swatch of blue tunic is caught in his teeth. Jadon glances over at me. “And a few of his fallen fellow soldiers.”

With my eyes still fixed on the giant, I wrest away a sword from the clutches of the closest dead soldier. The handle is slick with blood, and there is no time to clean it. I tighten my grip as best I can and ask Jadon, “Can he die?”

“Probably?” Jadon pushes out a breath. “Ready?”

My amulet heats, and my muscles tense.

The titan closes the distance between us, bringing with him the smells of fire, rotten meat, and the musk of all humanity. The Otaan looks at me, and his eyebrows lift. “You.” There’s a spark of recognition in the giant’s eyes that I can’t place. He snarls at me, and his hatred rolls toward me in waves. Whoever he is, he’s no friend of mine.

“Remember why we fight,” Jadon says, almost to himself.

To keep Jadon and Olivia alive. To reverse the wrongs I’ve done but can’t recall. To succeed instead of failing at something I don’t even remember.

The mountain of a man charges toward us, clumsy in his armor, a bear in a teakettle.

Jadon and I rush to meet him, a battle cry erupting from the depths of our souls, perfectly entwined. I swing first, and the giant’s great sword clashes with mine. It sounds like thunder, and the vibrations traveling up my arms make the sword wobble in my hand.

The giant notices my momentary confoundment and slaps me away from him.

My feet leave the ground, and I fly back until I hit an overturned wagon.

Oomph! All the air leaves my body, and sharp pain zips up my spine.

The Otaan lurches toward me. “You let them come,” he growls, his voice as heavy and jagged as stone.

What? Through watery eyes, I see Jadon swing his sword, and the blade bounces off the behemoth’s breastplate. I let who come?

The giant blocks another swing, then backhands Jadon just as he slapped me, sending him crashing into the remains of a chicken coop.

The Otaan rushes over to him the moment he hits the ground, swinging his sword at Jadon. The blade whooshes as it misses Jadon’s head by a hair.

I see a weakness: the titan’s breastplate has no back. He’s too big for a full suit of armor. His undertunic has ripped, and round bony knots the size of crabapples run from the top of his bare spine to the end of his lower back. His skin looks as tough and leathery as a lizard’s.

But that is exposed skin—even if it’s tough. And if he breathes, he bleeds.

Jadon has recovered, and he swings and blocks desperately, though the giant shows no sign of fatigue.

Just hold him off a little longer , I think at Jadon as I creep toward the Otaan. I focus on that band of exposed skin, on the smooth spaces between those balls of bone along his spine.

Jadon’s attention flashes at me, as though he, too, can read my thoughts. He nods and renews his attack, keeping the Otaan distracted.

Closer… The sound of metal, the heat of striking blades, the growl of a monster. Closer… Strain and fatigue slow Jadon’s motion. He catches my eye again. “There. Go, Kai! Now!”

I close the distance, sword ready and—

The Otaan howls as my blade finds its mark in the center of his spine.

Jadon whirls away from the startled warrior and jams his own blade in the space above mine. Together, we push in our swords. Jadon’s blade jammed near the titan’s head, my sword in his lower back.

“They destroy us,” the Otaan screams as he falls to his knees. “You let them!”

The sound of the giant’s agony hurts my heart, and I shout, “Surrender!”

The Otaan growls, “I curse your name—”

I jam my sword in the base of his skull.

Jadon kicks him, and the giant tips forward and into the bloody soil.

Unable to remove the blade, I stumble back, bloodied and exhausted.

Jadon, bent over and breathing hard, keeps his eye on the giant just in case he’s not as dead as he seems.

But he is as dead as he seems.

I crouch, my body weak now that all stores of adrenaline have been spent. Every injury from the fight is now making itself known, including the cuts down my arm from Narder’s flail.

They destroy us.

You let them.

Who is “them”? Who is “us”?

I curse your name.

Who did the Otaan think I was?

And was he right?

Eventually, Jadon stoops before the fallen Otaan and wrests away the giant’s great sword. He staggers over to me and presents the weapon. Even though it’s covered in gore and mud, the blade’s engravings twinkle in the torchlight.

I peer at the markings running along the blade and make out a repeated image of a beast resembling a wolf or lion, encircled with stars linking the circles together. Letters unfamiliar to me have been inscribed on the cross-guard.

“It’s yours,” Jadon says, his voice hoarse.

I stand, taking this gift. The sword is heavy but… not heavy . A rush of icy-warm power sluices through me. Clearly, I know my way around weapons—both those forged for the purpose of battle and those crafted to till land. I’m a soldier. That’s undeniable now. Maybe this is why I’m here. To protect this village. To protect people like Jadon.

But if I am a soldier, where is my army? Now, though, I mutter, “Wow.” Even in torchlight, I can clearly see the mess in the town square, including dead soldiers and dead villagers. But there are survivors. A handful of people are leaving the shelter of their cottages and barns. They find each other in the darkness, hold each other tight, peck foreheads with teary kisses.

“Maford lives to see another day,” I say, finding Jamart’s shop in the dim light. Still standing. Unblemished.

Jadon grins. “Thanks to you. That was incredible !” He tilts his head back and howls, “Yes!” to the sky.

“I know I’m good, but how about you?” Awed, I shove him and say, “I saw how you slipped your blade under that guy’s breastplate—”

“But you using that ?” He points to the fallen blade of the hoe, his mouth widening. “That was fucking wild—”

My smile dies as my eyes shift from Jadon to the scene behind him.

Jadon, seeing my expression change, turns around.

Some of the surviving men in the village have fallen to their knees. Some women are draped over the bodies of their dead. Parts of soldiers not consumed by the Otaan are scattered across the dirt road. Women clutch their injured sons to their breasts or drape their husbands’ arms around their necks, and together, they stumble through the streets and back to their homes. The first wail pierces the night. And then another wail. And then prayers and curses.

I squeeze the handle of the Otaan’s great sword as sadness squeezes out my triumph.

They destroy us.

You let them.

Some protector.