Page 253 of The Sun He Buried

“Varrik.”

“You remember.”

“I remember refusing you.”

Two of Varrik’s men rush in from the yard, at Eirik’s back.

He turns.

The first gets a knife through the throat.

Eirik releases the handle and catches the second man’s wrist. The rogue tries to wrench free. Purple light flashes over the mask, and his face goes slack.

Every part of him stops fighting at once.

Eirik takes the sword from his hand and opens his stomach with it.

The man folds.

Eirik leaves him there.

Baldr’s already gone back into the yard.

Gold moves between the trees. His sword catches firelight, disappears, and returns red. A rogue strikes at him from the left. Baldr blocks, catches the man by the throat, and drives him into the side of the storehouse hard enough to break the boards.

Eirik goes after the next one.

One man turns and finds Baldr. Another gets past Baldr and reaches Eirik’s hand. They leave each other no open side.

I saw them with the same face before I understood they were brothers.

Now I can’t see how anyone missed it.

Varrik backs toward me.

His sword remains raised.

“Take her,” he tells the copper-eyed man.

The man beside the broken scale is still alive.

Apparently I was too hopeful about his neck.

He drags himself upright, catches the chair back, and pulls.

The short leg scrapes across the floor.

“Don’t touch me.”

He puts his knife against my throat.

The blade’s cold.

I stop moving.

“Call them off,” he says.

“They don’t take my orders.”