Karigan poised to punch his ugly face in, when she heard Jendara’s laughter. The swordmaster sheathed her blade and crouched beside them. “Seems I underestimated you, girl. You don’t need a sword to unman this idiot.” She chuckled mirthfully at Garroty. “You like dangerous women, do you? It seems to me it would be of service to all women if we permanently crippled you.” She reached for her dagger.

Garroty’s face swelled with such blood that Karigan thought it might explode. Instead, his fist slammed into Jendara’s face. The impact sent her flailing backward, her head striking the ground hard. She didn’t move.

Garroty grunted in satisfaction and leered down at Karigan. “This is going to be more interesting than I thought. When I’m through with you, I’ll finish off with her whether she wakes up or not.”

Not willing to leave himself unprotected a second time, he grabbed both of Karigan’s wrists, and knelt across her legs.

Karigan thought desperately. She thought back to summer evenings in an empty warehouse on her father’s estate where the cargo master practiced swordplay with her. For one lesson, he left the wooden practice swords leaning against the wall and devoted the session to what she could do with her bare hands.

“Now, Kari,” Sevano had said, as she sat cross-legged on the dirt floor. “There may be a time when no weapon you’ve got. I’m gonna show you how to use your hands and feet to maim, and if need be, kill some thug who tries to harm you. But first, let me tell you where it’s gonna hurt him most. . . .”

She had tried Garroty’s shins and groin already. What was left? She couldn’t pinch the nerves in his hands, and she couldn’t kick—she was too immobilized by him to do anything. Sevano would disagree, though. She thought frantically.

Once she decided, she breathed a short prayer and gathered herself up. Propelled by her elbows and shoulders, she slammed her head into Garroty’s face. Not a precision move, but it would have to do. There was a muffled cry and he fell back clutching his nose. Blood was splattered across his face. He curled into a fetal position on the ground, writhing in pain.

Karigan dared not breathe, fearing she had not damaged him sufficiently, and that he would be back on her to finish what he had begun. But he didn’t get up, and after several minutes, he stopped moving altogether.

She crawled to him on knees and elbows, and saw that his chest did not rise or fall. The cargo master had said that if the nose was bashed into an assailant’s head, the bone would shatter and pierce the brain, killing him. Karigan had killed a man.

She had killed Garroty and was appalled because it did not bother her.

Jendara still lay unmoving, rivulets of blood trickling down her cheeks from her nose. She wasn’t dead, for she breathed, but she didn’t look likely to wake up in the next few moments. This was Karigan’s chance for escape.

She espied Garroty’s discarded sword and drew it. She rubbed the rope that bound her hands against the blade, carefully so she wouldn’t slice herself. With relief bordering on joy, she watched the rope fall away—her hands were free!

She hastened to her feet to run to The Horse, but paused. The ring of Kariny G’ladheon gleamed in the moonlight on Jendara’s hand. Karigan slid it off the swordmaster’s callused finger and onto her own. It had always been a little loose on her, but now it fit perfectly.

A twig crunched behind her. Karigan whirled around.

“This is quite a scene.” Torne’s face was more grim than she had ever seen. “Somehow—I’m not sure how—you’ve killed my friend and hurt my partner.” His sword shooshed out of its sheath.

Defend yourself, the voice thundered in Karigan’s head. Jendara’s sword, still sheathed at her side, was closest. She grabbed the hilt and drew it. The black band seemed to disconnect the blade from the hilt. The sword was of the best balance she had ever held—of course, it belonged to a swordmaster.

“Foolish girl,” Torne said. “You are no swordmaster. You dirty her blade by touching it, but you will die on mine.”

Torne thrust without preamble and Karigan barely deflected it. She tried to remember the exercises Arms Master Rendle had drilled into her head, and the hints and tricks Sevano had taught her, but Torne was relentless and all she could manage was to duck and block the onslaught of blows. Each strike from Torne jarred her body and numbed her arms from her fingers to her elbows. If there was any time she was going to die, it was now.

Torne’s speed and rhythm was a dance. Karigan had never seen anything like it, and was enthralled by his deadly skill. His feet barely shifted, he never swung the blade more than required. His economy of movement was grace itself.

After just moments of swordplay, Torne raised his sword for the death blow, but time stilled. Cold filled Karigan’s body—not a chill really. It was like being a glass filled with cold water. Then there was something else . . . an awareness of another.

Her arms were buoyed by another’s strength, and her reflexes guided by another thought process. Her own awareness grew dim, and she became a bystander in her own body. Or was it her own body? Two points of severe pain in her back twisted her insides.

The action resumed, and the would-be death blow was miraculously blocked. Raven’s sweep to the side. The voice echoed from far away in her head. The same voice that had told her to fight and defend herself. The same voice that had tried to speak to her at the settlement.

One and two and three and upthrust, five. The voice and her body matched and countered the rhythm of Torne’s attack. She recognized some of the techniques named, but many more were new to her. All of the various moves, the balance and steps, the angle of the cutting edge, fell into place within her in a way they hadn’t when taught by Sevano or Master Rendle.