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Horinkkit … rinkkit … kit … it.

It never fails to amaze me how fast Galva gets a shield off her back. It probably amazed whoever threw the spear that hurtled for Worrig’s neck, too. She dove with that springwood beauty, flipping it one-handed so it tipped the spear, changing its course. It went down and to the right. Unfortunately, that’s the way Worrig dove. The broken rendezvous between spear and neck was taken up again by spear and hip.

While Worrig yelled, then swore more colorful Gunnish swears, Galva whipped the shield back onto her left arm and skinned her spadín out of its sheath. I had my bow out now and was nocking an arrow, but here came their volley.

Whut whut whut!

One went into the donkey’s packs and earned a hee-haw just as I was ducking behind the beastie. I saw the flash of a brownish hood up in the snowy rocks and flung a shaft. Don’t think I hit anything, but a near miss might have earned enough respect to make the archers shyer about poking their heads up.

Galva got the injured Wostran closer to the rock wall, behind some dead vines offering partial concealment if not proper cover, but we were in a hell of a killing-room.

“Keep their heads down, thief!” Galva barked at me, stripping off her furs and now working on her chain and gambeson. The Wostran made surprised sounds along with his painy ones; I guess a dam taking her top off in the middle of an ambush in a snowy pass was new to him. Was to me, too, if I’m being honest. But I knew what she was after.

I had my next arrow out and blooded that one—a woman came up with a horn bow, took too long sighting me. I shot at her face. Heard her scream, pretty sure I pinned her drawing-hand to her cheek. But another arrow flashed at me so close to my own head I blinked.

Now Galva had her mammetless, flat, tattooed chest bare. A small wing flashed out from the corvid tattoo, making a wound of it, spraying blood from under her collarbone. Here came the beak. Galva was in a deep lunge, her shield extended to give some cover to her, and the Wostran, and this fast, violent sort of birth.

Whut-clack!

An arrow hit the shield’s steel boss, which was in the shape of a blowing storm cloud, and its head snapped off as it bounced fletch-first high in the air.

The war corvid—you’ll remember Dalgatha was her name—was out now and growing.

Growing though she was, she did so on the move. Two arrows hit the rocks and bloody snow where she had just been standing, but she leapt. Her wings, not capable of lifting her into true flight, nevertheless caught wind and elevated her jump, even as their span grew from four feet to seven to twelve, and then she was on the ledge with our attackers.

Much to their embarrassment.

Rather, much to their screaming, slobbering, pants-filling terror.

This was when they started dying in earnest.

That bird was like a siege engine, punching holes with her beak, knocking her foes off the rock ledge—I set down my bow and stabbed my rondel dagger through the mailed ribs of one too-young lad, earning a great, bloody wheeze from him as he dropped at my feet like a calf out of a cow. Soon, the ambush was routed, the remaining brigands running in different directions. My eye tracked the leader, her twin blond braids bouncing as she disappeared into snowy scrub. I could have told our attackers how it went when I was part of a band that tried to ambush the Spanth. That was how we met, you’ll recall. She laid us low. She and that wicked, beautiful bird.

“Follow!” said the Wostran, pointing at the receding braided woman; he was speaking with difficulty, and I saw that he had grown an arrow quite near the spear wound he already had. “Is. My wife. Ylda her name. Has cave. I thought she. Dead. Kill her. Bring me. To cave. Before dark.”

And then he laid his head down and looked like he was trying to decide whether or not to die.

“Dalgatha! Rimau! Nu mounja ruč!” the Spanth yelled at her war bird.

Don’t eat the donkey.

Always good advice.

Now Galva and I ran.

I was faster than Galva in the mountains. She wasn’t a bad runner, mind, but climbing fast is such a big part of thieves’ training at the Low School that Pranks like me were half-goat by the time we got out. I was gaining on the woman, and she knew it. She glanced behind her, and when she saw it was just me getting close because Galva was farther back, she turned, hunkered behind her shield. Got a nasty-looking short spear out of a kind of quiver on her back. Can’t fault her reasoning, I look a lot more fightable than Galva.

But I’m quick.

I loosed an arrow at her less protected leg, the bodkin point going so far into her thigh meat that just the fletching stuck out on my end. She screamed and threw that spear, but I ducked it. She already had a seax out, was limping down at me with a look in her eye that made me think she wanted to give me a big, knifey hug. I climbed left to get some distance, then spun and drew.

“Stop!” I yelled, but she didn’t.

What was Gunnish for stop?

I loosed at her foot and missed.

Got some distance, got above her, but here she came. Her stubbornness was likable, if annoying. I got a good look at her face. Damn if it wasn’t the woman I saw back in Headlongasfuck, with the bowl on her head, getting clotted with poo by delinquents.