One of the soldiers must have seen him coming out of the corner of his eye. The soldier whirled, raising his rifle. Vetas slammed an elbow into the soldier’s throat. The soldier staggered to one side, gurgling painfully for air. The other soldier had his rifle up in time, but the long bayonet was impossible to use in such close quarters. Vetas grabbed the stock of the rifle and smacked the soldier in the nose with it. When the man reeled back, Vetas slid around him, dropping the garrote into place.
Nila’s mind whirled. She eyed the soldier’s fallen rifle — she could have used it on Vetas if not for the irons locking her hands behind her back. The two soldiers soon lay dead in the hall. Blood trickled across the floorboards, flowing to fill the grooves.
Vetas, his face still and unmoving as stone, searched the soldier for keys.
The creaking of the floorboards was the only warning. Vetas looked up and suddenly fell back into the hallway, out of Nila’s line of sight. Fell soared past, knife at the ready.
Nila could hear the dull thumps of flesh on flesh. Grunts, a few quiet curses — those came from the woman.
The pair tumbled back into the room. Nila screamed as both of them tumbled over her outstretched feet.
They struggled on the floor, legs intertwined, the knife pressed flat between them. Nila kicked indiscriminately. She wanted them away from her. The knives, the anger — one slip, and Nila could be dead.
Fell rolled off of Vetas and sprang to her feet.
She struck at him, fast as a viper. Vetas, still on his knees, caught the knife on the metal of his wrist irons. She struck again, and again, and each time Vetas moved impossibly fast to block her. Between the strikes he managed to regain his footing.
They circled warily, and Nila pulled herself into the corner as much as possible.
She hoped they’d kill each other. But what then? She had no way of getting the irons off her hands.
Fell and Vetas seemed at an impasse. Their circling stopped. Fell changed hands with her dagger, then changed back.
Nila didn’t hesitate. Months of anger and fear came to a head, and with a shriek of rage she kicked Vetas in the back of the leg.
Fell struck out at Lord Vetas at the same time. The blow to Vetas’s leg sent him leaning backward. The knife slid past his eye, cutting one cheek badly. He caught Fell’s hand, deftly sliding the garrote around her wrist, and swung about.
Fell had no choice but to follow his swing, or risk losing her hand. Vetas stepped close to her, and she tried to step away. It was like some kind of grisly dance.
Vetas slammed his head forward into Fell’s cheek. The woman staggered backward, hitting the window.
Vetas had let go of his garrote. Dazed, Fell couldn’t have seen the kick coming. She took a boot square to the chest, and tumbled out the window.
Vetas turned to Nila. There was a quiet click, and his wrist irons fell off. He held the key up in one hand.
Nila shrank away from the darkness in his eyes.
“You bet the wrong way, laundress,” he said. He tossed the key on the floor. “You’ll pay for that tonight. I promise. If not you, then the boy will.”
He left the room, leaving Nila to let the sobs wrench themselves from her throat. Her whole body shook. She crawled over to the key. It took a few minutes with her trembling hands to get it into the lock and free herself.
She stared at the destruction. Two dead soldiers, a broken window, and Lord Vetas was gone. She took the time to collect herself. Deep breaths stopped the sobs, and she dried her tears. This wasn’t the time to give in to emotion.
She could run. She knew that.
But if she ran, Vetas would do unspeakable things to Jakob. It was no empty threat. He wouldn’t hesitate.
Nila crept down the stairs, only to find the other two soldiers dead in the hallway on the first floor. One’s head was twisted at an impossible angle. The other had been bayoneted with his own rifle.
There was a crowd gathering in the street looking at the bodies through the open door. A woman was screaming for the police. Someone pointed at Nila.
It only took a moment to find a back door to the building. Nila took it, slipping down an alleyway and into the crowd.
She had to make her way back to Vetas’s house and try to get Jakob away.
Adamat put his head down and charged into the gaping hole left in Vetas’s headquarters by Bo’s sorcery.
He shot the first man to raise a weapon, and then tossed aside his spent pistol and drew his cane sword.
Oldrich’s soldiers were the first to follow Adamat into the fray, their bayonets making short work of Vetas’s goons. The eunuch’s men followed them in, and Adamat could hear pistol shots and the sounds of fighting from the other side of the buildings. They’d formed a cordon around Vetas’s headquarters. Now they just had to tighten it.
A horizontal pillar of flame shot through the wall of one of the rooms inside, missing Adamat by not more than a few feet, the heat of it sending him reeling to one side.
