“She’s not alone,” I said to his twitching body on the ground.
For one brief moment, I mourned him. Another death on my hands, one that didn’t need to happen. But I couldn’t afford to dwell.
I was tired. I’d been digging daily on little food and even less sleep. I channeled everything I knew about fighting—everything I learned from Baba and training with Maz.
But in the end, the last voice I heard dictating my steps was my grandmother’s.
Never show them your fear. The weak feed from fear.
Another guard leapt from around the corner, and I cut him down without glancing at him. The next followed and met my blade. I unsheathed the talwar and met three guards at once, never on the defense. Each hit was a killing blow, every move an attack. A guard with long dark hair and an eye patch rushed at me, meeting the slam of both my swords.
But he guarded his face with his own blade and pushed me back. He was big—much bigger than I was. I wouldn’t last fighting him like this; I needed to outmaneuver him. I sidestepped him but he followed, and two other guards joined. I dove for the soldier on his right, slicing his heel with my scimitar and rolling away as he fell to the floor with a tight gasp. He clutched his foot and moaned like a baying dog. My crossed swords met the curved steel of the taller guard, and I managed to parry his heavy attacks before spinning out of reach. A short guard with a long beard and shoulders corded like thick ropesswung his scimitar with a speed that took me off guard, giving me a shallow cut across the forearm.
I smothered my yelp with a low hiss as he gave a smug smile. The pain sizzled through my veins like cold fire. My face pressed into a fierce mask. To them, I would be impenetrable. To them, I wouldn’t show fear.
The weak feed from fear.
The large guard leapt toward me, slamming me to the ground and landing on top of me. My lungs compressed as all my air was snatched up by his meaty body against mine.
A thin smile stretched across his face and he was so close I could see every blackened pore on his cheeks, could smell the strong waft of sweat crawling up my nose. I couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, and couldn’t get him off me.
Panic beat at my chest.
I had no way out.
“Is your plan to kill me with your stench?” I said, hoping he’d lose his temper enough for me to take advantage of. My legs kicked at him, but couldn’t find purchase. His broad hand pinned my arms above my head, my swords pressed into the grass, useless.
He raised his sword, the tip pointing directly at my chest as if he were going to stake me to the ground.
My breath caught and I couldn’t exhale. It felt as though time froze as he brought down his blade. But as he did, his arms faltered. His beady eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed on me with a heavy thud.
I lay there, momentarily stunned. My palms pressed hard on his shoulders and I heaved his stinking body off me. Noor was poised above him, the hilt of the scimitar in front of her, as if she were about to stab herself. I blinked, my words catching in my throat.
“I thought you said you didn’t know how to use a sword?” I said finally, with a thick swallow.
She tilted her head and huffed out a breath. “I’m pretty sure I used the wrong end.”
Footsteps sounded behind us, and Noor whirled as another guard came upon us. I jumped to my feet, swinging my scimitar over her head and planting it in the neck of the guard. I tore it out, blood splattering us both.
A moment of weighted silence surrounded us. We walked around the corner of the infirmary and surveyed the damage.
All the guards in the yard were dead.
Noor whistled. “You did it, Dania.”
I didn’t celebrate. I stifled the urge to grieve the dead and swallowed the bile in the back of my throat. I yanked Noor’s arm in my own and dragged her toward the perimeter wall.
“We’ll have every guard coming for us in the prison in minutes if we don’t get out of here now.”
“Didn’t you just kill them all?”
I shook my head, counting the number of bodies and running through how many night patrol guards I had counted before my previous escape attempts.
“It looks like we’ve only been dealing with the night patrol guards, but they’ve raised the alarm, so soon we’ll have every prison guard descending on us. They believe one prisoner escaped. As soon as they see the massacre, they’ll be coming.”
Noor nodded, and then pulled her hand from mine. “But why are you dragging us to the wall?”
I gaped at her. “So we can climb over it.”
