CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

THE VIPERSTRIKE

Sali couldn’t believe this was happening. Actually, she could. A double cross was the first thing she had expected when she had agreed to ally with the shadowkill. Sali had had reservations about working with the infamous Consortium, but Qisami had come across as awkwardly earnest and believable. Besides, it wasn’t like Sali had had any other leads.

The arrangement had been simple and straightforward: The silkspinners had paid to have Iron Steel lure the Prophesied Hero down to them. All Sali and the shadowkill cell had to do was kill the Hero of the Tiandi and anyone else who got in the way.

For most of the night, the gamble appeared to have paid off. Iron Steel brought the boy and his friends. The cell took care of most of the others while Sali and Qisami focused on Taishi. The fight had ebbed and flowed, but they emerged victorious. Now all Sali had to do was to kill the eventual murderer of the Eternal Khan. Just as she was on the cusp of saving her people, the double cross came.

And still Sali found herself somewhat shocked and dismayed. “Release my tongue.”

Qisami obliged and threw up her hands. “Sure, fine, but before you get all stabby, hear me out. I know you were very much looking forward to stopping the kid’s heart forever. I get it. Murder is the best part of an assassination, but…” She held up a finger. “…I have another idea. How about we not kill him? At least not yet. What do you think of that? This little kitten here would grow up to be so much more valuable alive and fresh on the open market as a big lion with sharp fangs. We just have to hold off a few years. In fact, I already have a buyer. Let me hand him over and we’ll split sixty–forty. You don’t even have to thank me. We can just snuggle.”

Sali blinked. “You think I’m doing this for money? Do you actually think I can be bought?”

Qisami winced. “ ‘Bought’ sounds harsh.” The shadowkill tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry. He’ll die, just not right away. Trust me, nobody wants him alive.”

“Hey!” exclaimed Jian.

Qisami ignored him. “The buyer isn’t interested in the boy fulfilling some stupid prophecy. He just wants him killed at a more appropriate and dramatic time. You know, more fanfare and spectacle. Like a ripe banana.”

“Like a what?” Sali’s eyes narrowed. “No matter. I’ll save your buyer the hassle.”

Qisami reached for the spear again. “I know I just sprang this on you, but trust me when I say I’m thinking about us. So how about this: We’ll club the kitty over the head, stuff him in a sack, and you let me take you out for a nice dinner. Afterward, if we can’t square up, then you can lop his head off or carve out his spleen to your heart’s content—”

Sali didn’t wait for her to finish. The shadowkill’s blades flashed in the air. One deflected the tongue just enough to miss the boy. The other she brought up to Sali’s throat as she lunged forward.

“This is your last chance. Don’t push me. I’m having a really rough day.” The playfulness was gone.

Sali relaxed the tongue to swing it at Qisami, then immediately hardened it again. The shaft was like a drawn bowstring, launching the shadowkill into the air. Qisami squawked as she flew across the room. Sali turned her attention back to Jian when something slammed into her back, knocking the tongue out of her hand completely and sending her sprawling face-first to the floor.

The edge of a sharp blade once again kissed the back of her neck. Qisami hissed in her ear. “I said don’t push me! That was not nice.”

Sali exploded upward and bucked the small woman off easily. She rolled to her feet and faced the shadowkill. Oddly, even though she had been betrayed, Sali wasn’t eager to fight Qisami. A warrior was trained to fight without emotion, but now facing Qisami with their blades drawn, Sali couldn’t help but hesitate when facing the assassin. She was a curious creature, this shadowkill. There was something untethered about her that irritated Sali like a slime beetle that found its way into your sleep sack. Yet it was her oddities that made her so intriguing.

In their next life, the two might have become friends. Sali raised her guard. Which, for one of them, could be happening sooner than expected. Only one of them would survive this night. The two women stepped back and circled each other.

Jian, who stood nearby, frozen, raised a hand. “Should I just get out of your way?”

“You stay put!” both Sali and Qisami snapped, their eyes still on each other.

Sali settled into the classic Serpent Fang stance, which was a Nezra home-brewed style that had achieved widespread popularity among her people centuries ago. Mastery of it was now a prerequisite for any who aspired to join the sect. Sali stayed in her coil with her palms flattened and arms waving in slow circles, and waited as Qisami came at her with a barrage of blade thrusts and kicks.

The light shining through the grating in the ceiling offered all too many opportunities for Qisami to retreat and emerge. She would leave Sali bleeding from several gashes in her arms, back, and legs, and then reappear elsewhere.

Sali soon wised up. The next time Qisami disappeared, Sali turned and leaned to the side. Her coil guard snapped forward and slapped the knife out of Qisami’s hand as she reemerged. She clutched Qisami’s wrist with one hand, and the other slithered up the shadowkill’s arm to bite into the soft flesh of her armpit, transitioning into an arm lock. Qisami managed to twist away, but not without suffering several more hard shots on the way out.

Qisami rubbed her jaw as she retreated, her face contorted with rage. “We could have made such beautiful murders together.”

The shadowkill’s aggressive style matched Sali’s suffocating Serpent Fang defense well. Qisami would charge forward like a rampaging ox, and Sali continuously slipped away to create distance, using her long reach for counters. They danced, their exchanges carrying them from one side of the room to the other.

Sali wasn’t sure how long the shadowkill could keep this impressive pace up, but after several furious exchanges, Qisami did not appear to be breathing heavily, let alone tiring.

Whenever Sali had a moment to catch her breath, she would survey the room. Jian hadn’t moved from where they had left him. He sat there on his knees with his mouth agape, watching. The windwhisper was still lying in a pool of expanding blood on the other side of the chamber. At various points during the fight, Sali would notice the others, but she wasn’t too worried about any of them.

Sali managed to trap Qisami’s arm on her second attempt and flipped her over, tossing her headfirst to the ground. Qisami fluttered her legs, striking Sali in the face several times before she crashed. Both women collapsed in a heap. Sali recovered first and pounced on top of Qisami. She grabbed the shadowkill’s tunic, lifted her off her feet, then slammed her back down. To her dismay, Qisami fell through the ground with Sali’s fists pounding nothing but hard stone. This trick was starting to get annoying.

No sooner had she looked up than Qisami sprinted up to her and kicked Sali in the face, snapping her head back and knocking her to her backside. The shadowkill climbed on top of her and drew yet another knife. She plunged it down at Sali’s heart.

The only thing Sali could do was use her forearm as a shield. The blade sank into her flesh from one side and came through the other, its tip managing to keep going and wedge into the gap between three pieces of scale armor.

Sali muffled a cry and sucked in several short hard breaths, calming her agonized nerves, willing her body to relax. The knife in Qisami’s hands continued to press downward, slowly digging deeper. The overwhelming pain threatened to rob her consciousness.

Sali steeled herself, then launched her head forward. The first blow fractured Qisami’s orbital bone, the second shattered her nose. The shadowkill reared back just enough for Sali to follow with a hard kick to her knee that cracked and bent it to an unnatural angle. Qisami cried out and fell to the ground.

Sali rolled onto all fours, gasping, her chest heaving and blood gushing from the wound in her chest and half a dozen other cuts, but not from her arm, where the blade was still lodged. She found herself short of breath as she tore at her scale armor until she popped out the three scale pieces that were digging into the gash. Sali fumbled for a small sack hanging at her belt. She ripped it open with her teeth, and with two fingers clawed out a dark-green spotted paste, then muffled an agonized cry as she applied it liberally on her chest. The paste from the hong fruit tree oxidized with her blood and burned like fire as it cauterized her wound. Thankfully, slowly, the pain wore away.

A few long, deep breaths helped Sali regain control of her functions. The wound had closed, but the seal could just as easily break open again. She had to repeat the agonizing process with the fruit paste on both wounds through her arm. She bit down on a leather strap of her armor as she yanked the blade out and cauterized as quickly as possible. Sali was drenched in sweat and blood by the time the pain finally faded.

She could barely stand, let alone fight, and she had no idea where her tongue had gone. Her armor had chipped and lost its shape. Hampa was going to have his hands full with repairs when they get out of here, assuming she ever made it out of this mess.

Qisami, still on the floor a little ways away, appeared to be in equally bad shape. The shadowkill’s face was a wreck. The left side had puffed up, nearly completely closing one eye. Blood poured freely from her broken nose down her chin and neck. Qisami moved her jaw back and forth until she plucked out a tooth, spat out a glob of blood, and smeared her face and arms. She caught sight of Sali staring, and then broke into a wide unsettling grin, exposing red-stained teeth and a black gap up front.

What a puzzling creature.

Sali glanced over to where the Prophesied Hero was sitting on the ground and found him missing. “Oh damn it.” She should have expected this. The fool wouldn’t have stayed there like worm bait forever. She craned her head back to where Taishi had fallen, and found that the windwhisper had disappeared as well. She listened for sounds of footsteps or voices or anything and found none. Sali grunted and slammed her fist onto the stone floor, but then remembered which tunnel the other woman had disappeared into and reemerged from. That had to be the way out.

She shot to her feet and instantly regretted not taking it a bit more slowly. The room swayed. The balm she had applied to her wound had stemmed the bleeding, but she had already lost a lot of blood. Sali bent over and sucked in a few deep breaths, and then returned to the chase after the Hero of the Tiandi, running with a lopsided gait that threatened to rip the wound open with each step.

“Hey, where are you going? This is just getting fun.” Qisami called out, trying to stand. “Ow, you broke my leg.”

Sali glared back and lobbed the balm at Qisami. She wasn’t sure why she did it. A moment later, just as Sali entered the tunnel, she heard a bloodcurdling scream, and her lips curled into a smirk. She refocused her attention on the Hero of the Tiandi. His fate was now all that mattered. The cramped passage closed in on her as it faded into darkness. Sali concentrated her jing, focusing it into her vision until the uniform blackness broke apart into different shades of darkness.

The sewer system under the city stretched everywhere between the outer walls. It was a maze of passageways, catacombs, collapsed structures, and natural caverns. The old city had been razed centuries ago by a long-dead clan. The Zhuun had rebuilt over bones. Several of the buildings that still stood now formed much of this current iteration’s sewer system.

If she had led the now-extinct Qadan, this cursed place would have been salted.

Sali was grateful that she had demanded to see a map of Jiayi’s sewer system before agreeing to tonight’s plan. She had no idea how Taishi’s group had found which tunnel to take. Sali knew this tunnel led to the rendezvous point where Hampa was waiting with their horses, as agreed with the shadowkill and the Iron Steel. With the betrayal, however, who even knew if the rest of the plan was still intact.

The tunnel curved around a wide bend, and all remaining light shining from the chamber disappeared, pitching her into total darkness. Sali didn’t fear moving in darkness. The tall foliage in the Grass Sea often blotted out the sun. The viperstrike’s night gaze was especially useful then. She soon caught the sounds of footsteps splashing in water, which were accompanied by heavy breathing and loud whispers. Sali stayed against the left wall, moving as quietly as still air. She caught sight of a single spark of light in the distance. Someone up there was holding up a spark stone, which, while it illuminated their way, blinded them to the darkness. The Hansoo was carrying something, or someone, in his arms, likely the windwhisper. The woman with the short hair was leading them with the hero at her side, while the Longxian boy and the little acupuncturist brought up the rear.

Sali reached for her tongue and cursed. What a foolish thing to have forgotten back in the chamber. She drew her long dagger instead and continued to creep closer. If found out, she wasn’t sure how effective she would be in her current state. However, the element of surprise made the kill simple. After that, what happened to her was unimportant. She still preferred to survive this encounter in order to get back to Mali and the exodus, but that was just a bonus.

Sali was nearly on top of the group at the end of the tunnel when they all fell flat on their stomachs in unison. She became as still as a statue as she listened intently, just making out several garbled and echoey voices coming up from the next room. The hero’s group moved away from the tunnel’s mouth and disappeared from view. Sali followed until she reached where they had lain down overlooking another chamber directly below. A set of stairs curved from her hiding place. This chamber was different from the previous, showing only a half oval with a large curved wall save for a set of iron gates set in the middle, flanked on one side by a guardhouse.

A small group of soldiers with their bowl-shaped helms huddled around a small fire beneath a kettle passing around gourds of wine. They were chatting with an equal number of rough-looking individuals, likely Iron Steel henchmen. This had to be the sewer garrison stationed at one of the three underground passages leading out of the city. It was also the route the Iron Steel used to smuggle contraband out of the city. In this case, Sali and Hampa were the contraband. This was their way out.

She scanned the area below. Her neophyte was nowhere within sight. A moment later, three figures emerged from the guardhouse. Hampa appeared in the light first, with two uniformed men holding his arms. Her neophyte had his wrists and ankles trussed up like a snared rabbit, and they marched him toward the fire.

The one who looked like he was in charge, wearing a pitchfork on his helm, shoved Hampa roughly to the ground next to the kettle. “The mangy gutter toad won’t speak.” The guard nodded appreciatively at the Iron Steel. “Thanks for lending him to us anyway. He’s a little worse for wear, but who cares.”

A bald Iron Steel with a long mustache that flared out like a catfish’s whiskers waved it off. “Don’t mind it one bit. Always willing to do favors for friends.”

The guard captain, missing half a nose, crossed his arms. “I don’t like owing favors to the underground.”

“Oh no,” the bald catfish said with a wave, offering one of the gourds. “I only meant it was a courtesy, a gesture of goodwill based on our long-standing business arrangement.”

Half-Nose grunted. He drank deeply from the gourd and tossed it back to the Iron Steel. Then he unlatched a clasp at his waist and hoisted a small ax. “You want us to take him off your hands? Free of charge.”

Catfish waved it off. “Hold off. The shadowkill might want him.”

Hampa had risen to his knees next to the fire. The bright flames licking from under the cauldron reflected off his face and brought to light the beating they had given him. Blood ran down his cheek, and a piece of his ear had gashed open. The boy’s eyes were purple, and his lips were cut so badly the wound would need to be sewn shut. He stared intensely out into space. A muffled cry escaped his lips when one of the Iron Steel walking by smacked him. He struggled back to his knees with a grunt and continued to keep his head up.

Fury coursed through Sali’s veins. These land-chained had beaten Hampa badly, but they could not break him. He was too hard for them. Sali had no intention of escaping this city without her neophyte. She stayed close to the ground and considered her options. Navigating the situation below would be tricky. The hero’s group was creeping down the stairs and making their way toward the gate. Could they escape without detection? Likely not. The gates would be locked, and not even the Hansoo could break through them. That meant a confrontation was inevitable. With their injuries, Sali wasn’t sure who would win the fight against soldiers and Iron Steel. They would certainly lose if she intervened, but those guards and Iron Steel would just as likely turn on her the moment she revealed herself. In the end, she decided to heed the wisdom of her warchief mother: If two of your enemies choose to fight each other, let them.

The group around the fire had no idea what was coming. One of the Iron Steel was half dancing, half acting as he told a joke, each hand gripping a gourd. The man took a swig of his gourd and was about to down the other when he stared off into the darkness and stopped. One gourd slipped from his hand as he pointed, his fingers shaking.

Sali followed his gaze just in time to see the large silhouette of the Hansoo emerge from the shadows like some monstrous creature out of a nightmare. His roar echoed as he charged into the light, his rings jingling around his wrist. The torn shreds of his robe streamed behind him, making for a terrifying scene. His giant arms swung wildly, pounding the ground and knocking over chairs and barrels, as if he were some sort of devil from the lower levels of the ten hells.

The war monk crashed into the group, running over one Iron Steel and sweeping two off their seats with his long arms, inadvertently knocking over the black kettle of stew. He was followed close behind by the hero and the Longxian boy. Her focus was initially on the hero, but the Longxian boy stole her attention. He flew at a guard with a flying kick, then knocked down an Iron Steel with a spectacular assault of his blurred movements. He had talent.

Jian, on the other hand, was several steps beneath his peer. He fought competently, but his lack of experience was blatant. He was just good enough to knock down one of the Iron Steel thugs, if barely. Jiamin would have squashed him like a brittle bug had their paths crossed. Sali had to remind herself that the hero was still just a boy.

A melee erupted around the fire, throwing giant shadows up on the walls. It quickly became apparent that these guards and Iron Steel were more incompetent than she had given them credit for, and they were drunk. That was probably why they were all relegated to assignments in the sewers. Interestingly, the windwhisper was nowhere in sight. Just how badly was she hurt?

The door to the guardhouse slammed open as the remaining guard, with only one boot and a chest plate dangling off one shoulder, ran out. He made it two steps before he clutched his neck and toppled over. The two women appeared from behind the building. One ran inside while the one with the wild hair checked her handiwork, sticking the downed guard with more needles and locking his joints before running off to help the hero, who was losing decisively to Half-Nose.

The Longxian and Hansoo were doing the bulk of the work, keeping at bay five times their number. The Longxian especially was doing an admirable job fighting off two soldiers, as well as a spearman, when Catfish struck him across the face with his club. Longxian’s eyes immediately glazed over, and he dropped to his knees. Before Catfish could finish him off, the Hansoo came to his rescue. He picked up Catfish by the neck and threw him screaming all the way across the room.

Sali refocused her attention on the Hansoo, who now stood alone, looking spent, breathing and bleeding heavily. What was wrong with the Longxian? She had witnessed people freeze during battle like that, but rarely war artists. And where were the rest of his friends?

The short-haired woman reappeared a moment later, swinging a large black ring of keys in her hand. The Hansoo picked up the Longxian and threw him over his shoulder like a bag of rice, and they retreated toward the gates.

The head guard barked orders to the few remaining people around him. “You, pull the bell rope to alert topside. You, put that pathetic Kati dog out of his misery. The rest of you, come with me. They can’t escape.”

This was her cue. Sali waited until the main group went off to pursue the Prophesied Hero, then rose, feeling her body groan. The injury in her chest flared, and her left arm felt like a lead weight. Even in her weakened state, she could still clear that rabble below. She leaped off the ledge, diving headfirst toward the fire. She rolled roughly onto her feet—it was not one of her more graceful moments—and glared at the spooked soldier who was making his way to Hampa. She kicked high, sending him sideways into the dying fire.

She offered her wide-eyed neophyte a curt nod. “I’ll be back. Stay put.”

“But—”

Sali sprinted to the guardhouse. She kicked the door down just as the other soldier was about to ring the bell that would send alerts throughout all of the guardhouses and summon patrols down to investigate.

Sali threw a dagger, slicing first through the rope and then into the soldier’s throat. The unfortunate young man flew into the wall as the blade thudded into the hard wood. The thick rope at neck height, now dangling by a thread, fell to the floor a second later.

Unfortunately, she had been a few seconds too late. The soldier had managed one pull. Somewhere above her, Sali could just make out the faint tinkling of a bell. It was soon followed by others.

She cursed, plucked her last dagger from the wall, and burst out of the building and toward the gates. That meant she had only minutes to catch and finish the boy. Who knew if they had already made it into the tunnel or how far they had gone. If she didn’t get to the hero before reinforcements arrived, it would be over.

To her surprise, the hero and his friends still hadn’t made it past the gates. The woman with the keys was trying to find the right one, the needle-thrower was squatting next to an unconscious Taishi and the Longxian boy, while the hero and the Hansoo were finishing off the last of the soldiers.

The Hansoo was holding Half-Nose by the arms and slamming him to the ground. Then the war monk’s strength finally gave and he fell onto his knees and hands. He barely had the strength to raise his head as she approached. With a resigned look and sigh, he summoned whatever he had left inside and came at her, half running, half crawling into a dive.

Sali skipped over the attack and planted a boot to his face. She landed behind him and sliced him twice across the back in a crisscross. To his credit, he only flinched. Two more exhausted swings missed by miles, and then she was on top of him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She avoided his futile grabs at her as she yanked him drunkenly side to side. He eventually lost his balance and crashed to the ground. His breathing became tortured and slowly faded. Sali stood over him and placed a heel to the side of his face.

“Stop!”

Sali looked up to see Jian standing right there gifting himself to her. “Are you sacrificing yourself for your holy warrior? There’s irony in that, Hero of the Tiandi.”

“No, this is a formal challenge. Leave the others out of it. I’m the one you want.”

Sali let the war monk go. She stood and faced Jian, the hero, the boy. “Very well. I accept your challenge.”

“What are your terms?” he asked.

“That’s not how it works.”

“What?” His bravado momentarily broke.

“When you challenge another war artist”—she couldn’t believe she was explaining this to the supposed Champion of the Five Under Heaven—“you’re the one offering the challenge. The one you challenge is the one who requests formal terms.”

“Oh.” Realization sparkled in Jian’s eyes. He frowned once more. “So, uh, are you going to ask me?”

She shook her head. “I feel no need to parlay.”

“But…” He swallowed hard and looked down at his fallen Hansoo friend. “Can you at least let them go?”

“Are you surrendering to me?”

“No, I’m going to fight you.”

Sali was about to slap him down again when she realized she was wasting time. “Your friends can go.”

The Hero of the Tiandi turned his head without taking his eyes off her. “Meehae, Zofi, help Pahm up and get out of here.”

“What about you?” one of the women said.

“Just go. I’ll catch up.” He refocused on her and began to stomp the ground like an eager colt being freed from a pen.

Sali stared blankly. “What are you doing?”

“I was…never mind,” he growled. “You killed Master Guanshi. You almost killed Taishi. You’ll pay.”

Sali didn’t waste any time. She attacked as soon as he finished speaking, aiming for a quick death. She was sapped from the night’s long encounters, but was confident she had enough strength left to kill the Hero of the Tiandi quickly and unceremoniously. The boy had eluded her too many times already. To her mild surprise, Jian blocked her first few strikes, sidestepped a low kick, and escaped when she grabbed a fistful of his shirt. He even landed a solid punch to her wound that momentarily wobbled her knees.

Those would be his only highlights.

The boy put up a respectable fight and made a fair account for himself in the same manner toddlers surpassed expectations for not pissing their pants. Sali ignored his meager attacks, cracked a few ribs with her knee, and followed up with two good clean punches. Then she caught his arm dangling out and put him in a joint lock, disabling his elbow. She yanked his head one way and his body the other. One more crank and the Hero of the Tiandi would be no more.

“Your prophecy will plague the Katuia no longer.” The time for ceremony was long past. Jian fought against her but was helpless in her grasp. His breathing became labored. A high-pitched squeal echoed through the chamber walls.

Something sharp and hard punched Sali in the back, piercing her scale armor and lodging in her collarbone. She stumbled, losing control of the boy. Grimacing, she reached over and broke the shaft of the arrow. She turned around to face this new threat just in time to take an ax into her shoulder. Sali stared, and then her legs gave. She fell to the ground as several soldiers surrounded her.

“What happened here?” shouted one.

“It’s a Kati! She killed the entire garrison!” One soldier pinned Sali with a spear to her chest.

“Are you all right, son?” Another helped Jian to his feet. “What happened here, boy? What are you doing here?”

Another, who was checking the bodies, reported back. “By the Tiandi, sir, everyone in the garrison is dead.”

“There’s one more Kati back there. He’s tied up.”

“The gates are unlocked, Captain. Someone escaped.”

Sali looked to the side and saw Jian slowly retreat to the gate while all the soldiers focused on her. She pointed at him weakly. “You don’t understand. He’s…he’s the Hero…”

The soldier pressed the edge of the spear to her neck. “Not another word, Kati scum. What should we do with her, Captain?”

The Zhuun soldier with the two bright-red plumes on his helmet nudged her lightly with his toe. “This one looks half dead already. Kill her. We can interrogate the other one.”

“Yes, Captain.” The soldier who had a spear pointed at Sali’s neck raised it. He was about to send her to her next life when his head violently snapped back, a small black throwing dagger in one eye. The remaining soldiers barely had time to look around before they too went down.

Sali struggled into a sitting position as three shadowkills stepped out on all sides. They all looked in pretty poor shape, but Qisami most of all. She limped badly and was using Sali’s tongue as a walking stick.

“You had all this fun without me.” The shadowkill surveyed the carnage, and then glanced into the tunnel past the opened gates. “Did the mark get away?”

Sali nodded.

“That’s going to be a problem,” Qisami muttered. “Those wrist-wagging silkspinners are going to shit a fit when they find out I lost their golden egg.” She glanced down at Sali. “You’re going to live, right?”

Sali was too weak and weary to go another round with her. “Depends. Are you going to kill me?”

“There’s no point anymore. Besides, now you owe me a favor.”

Sali struggled to stand. She was in so much pain she didn’t actually know where she was injured anymore, other than the obvious arrow in her back and the ax head still buried in her shoulder. She couldn’t even feel the Khan’s Pull. In a way, she actually preferred it this way. “I owe you nothing. You betrayed me and then tried to kill me.”

“I know you’re good for it.” Qisami smiled sweetly. Her teeth were still bloody and the gap still very conspicuous. “Now get your grunt and get out of here before more of these tin-cans arrive.”

Sali didn’t need to be told again, especially with her current luck. She wasted no time untying Hampa and helping him onto a piebald horse tied to the guard stand. Sali mounted a nearby dun and led both straight for the gate, passing the three shadowkills without saying a word.

They were just about to pass through the gates leading into the gates leading out of the city when Qisami called out. “Hey, Salminde.”

Sali turned the horse around. Qisami picked up the hardened tongue, aimed, and threw it at Sali, with force. Sali caught it with one hand and relaxed it, letting it coil back around her saddle horn. She tipped her head. “Why are you letting me go?”

“No reason. Maybe I want to see you again.” Qisami shrugged in an exaggerated fashion as she twirled a knife in her hand before accidentally losing control and dropping it. “Our paths will cross again someday, yeah?”

Sali turned her back to her. “We’re still not even.” But this time the harshness in her voice was gone. She glanced over at Hampa. “Come, little brother,” she said, ignoring the startled look on his face, “let’s go home.”