A Torch Against the Night. Sabaa Tahir

      “Why did you lean forward?” Shikaat roars at Laia. “And don’t lie to me.”

      Two: I flex the muscles of my left arm to prepare it, as the right is trapped beneath me. I inhale silently to get breath to every part of my body.

      “Where’s the Tellis extract?” Shikaat hisses, suddenly remembering. “Give it to me!”

      Three: Before Laia can respond to the Tribesman, I shove my right foot against the ground for leverage and spin backward on my hip, away from Shikaat’s blade, taking out the Tribesman at my feet with my bound legs and rolling up as he slams to the ground. I lunge for the Tribesman at my knees next, head butting him before he can lift his blade. He drops it, and I turn to catch it, thankful that he at least kept it sharp. With two saws, I’m through the ropes on my wrists, and with two more, the one on my ankles. The first Tribesman I knocked over scrambles up and bolts out of the cave—no doubt to get backup.

      “Stop!”

      I wheel toward the last Tribesman—Shikaat—who holds Laia against his chest. He has her wrists squeezed in one hand, a blade to her throat, and murder in his eyes.

      “Drop the blade. Put your hands in the air. Or I kill her.”

      “Go on then,” I say in perfect Sadhese. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t move. A man not easily surprised. I consider my words carefully. “A second after you kill her, I’ll kill you. Then you’ll be dead, and I’ll be free.”

      “Try me.” He digs the blade into Laia’s neck, drawing blood. Her eyes dart around as she tries to spot something—anything—she can use against him. “I have a hundred men outside this cave—”

      “If you had a hundred men outside”—I keep my attention on Shikaat—“you’d have called them in alre—”

      I fly forward mid-word, one of Grandfather’s favorite tricks. Fools pay attention to words in a fight, he said once. Warriors take advantage of them. I wrench the Tribesman’s right hand away from Laia while shoving her out of the way with my body.

      Which, at that exact moment, turns traitor on me.

      The adrenaline rush of the attack drains out of me like water down a sewer, and I stagger back, my vision doubling. Laia grabs something off the ground and spins round to the Tribesman, who grins at her nastily.

      “Your hero still has poison running through him, girl,” he hisses. “He can’t help you now.”

      He lunges at her, lashing out with the knife, aiming to kill her. Laia flings dirt into his eyes, and he roars, turning his face away. But he cannot stop the momentum of his body. Laia lifts her blade, and with a sickening squelch, the Tribesman impales himself upon it.

      Laia gasps and releases the blade, backing away. Shikaat reaches out, grabbing her by the hair, and her mouth opens in a silent scream, her eyes fixed on the blade in the raider’s chest. She finds my face, terror in her own as with his last bit of life, Shikaat seeks to kill her.

      Strength finally returns to my body, and I shove him away from her. He releases her, looking at his suddenly weak hand curiously, as if it doesn’t belong to him. Then he thuds to the ground, dead.

      “Laia?” I call to her, but she stares at the body as if in a trance. Her first kill. My stomach twists in remembrance of my own first kill—a Barbarian boy. I recall his blue-painted face, the deep gash in his stomach. I know what Laia feels in this moment all too well. Disgust. Horror. Fear.

      My energy comes back to me now. Everything is pain—my chest, my arms, my legs. But I am not seizing, I am not hallucinating. I call to Laia again, and this time she looks up.

      “I didn’t want to do it,” she says. “He—he just came at me. And the knife—”

      “I know,” I say gently. She won’t want to discuss it. Her mind is in survival mode—it won’t let her. “Tell me what happened in the Roost.” I can distract her, at least for a bit. “Tell me how you got the Tellis.”

      She relates the tale swiftly, helping me bind the unconscious Tribesman as she does so. As I listen, I’m half in disbelief and half bursting with pride at her sheer nerve.

      Outside the cave, I hear the hoot of an owl, a bird that has no business being out in weather like this. I edge to the entrance.

      Nothing moves in the rocks beyond, but a gust of wind blows the stink of sweat and horse toward me. Apparently Shikaat wasn’t lying about having a hundred men waiting beyond the cave.

      To the south, at our backs, is solid rock. Serra lies to the west. The cave faces north, opening out onto a narrow trail that winds down into the desert and toward the passes that would take us safely through the Serran Range. To the east, the trail plunges into the Jutts, a half mile of sheer fingers of rock that are death in the best of weather, let alone when it’s pissing rain. The eastern wall of the Serran Range rises beyond the Jutts. No trails, no passes, just wild mountains that eventually drop away into the Tribal desert.

       Ten hells.

      “Elias.” Laia is a nervous presence beside me. “We should get out of here. Before the Tribesman wakes up.”

      “One problem.” I nod out to the darkness. “We’re surrounded.”

      Five minutes later, I’ve roped Laia to me and moved Shikaat’s lackey, still bound, to the entrance of the cave. I secure Shikaat’s body to the horse, removing his cloak so his men will recognize him. Laia pointedly doesn’t look at the body.

      “Goodbye, nag.” Laia rubs the horse between his ears. “Thank you for carrying me. I’m sad to lose you.”

      “I’ll steal you another,” I say dryly. “Ready?”

      She nods, and I move to the back of the cave, laying flint to tinder. I nurse a flame, feeding it the few pieces of brush and wood I could find, much of it wet. Thick white smoke billows up, filling the cave quickly.

      “Now, Laia.”

      Laia slaps the horse’s rump with all her might, sending him and Shikaat thundering out of the cave and toward the Tribesmen waiting to the north. The men hiding behind the freestanding rocks to the west emerge, bellowing at the sight of the smoke, at their dead leader.

      Which means they’re not looking at Laia and me. We slip out of the cave, hoods pulled low, masked by smoke and rain and darkness. I pull Laia onto my back, check the rope I’ve tied to an unobtrusive and half-hidden finger of rock, and then swing down into the Jutts silently, going hand below hand until I’ve reached a rain-slicked rock ten feet below. Laia hops down from my back with a slight scrape that I hope the Tribesmen won’t hear. I tug on the rope to release it.

      Above, the Tribesmen cough as they enter the smoky cave. I hear them curse as they pull their friend free.

      Follow, I mouth to Laia. We move slowly, the sounds of our passage covered by the thudding boots and shouts of the Tribesmen. The rocks of the Jutts are sharp and slippery, the jagged edges digging into our boots, catching on our clothes.

      My mind goes back six years, to when Helene and I camped out at the Roost for a season.

      All Fivers come to the Roost to spy on the Raiders for a couple of months. The Raiders hated it; getting caught by them meant a long, slow death—one of the reasons the Commandant sent students here in the first place.

      Helene and I were stationed together—the bastard and the girl, the two outcasts. The Commandant must have gloated at a pairing she thought would get one of us killed. But friendship made Hel and me stronger, not weaker.

      We skipped over the Jutts as a game, light as gazelles, daring each other to make crazier and crazier jumps. She matched my leaps with such ease that you’d never guess she feared heights. Ten hells, we were stupid. So certain we wouldn’t fall. So sure death couldn’t find us.

      Now I know better.