White Spiral took two down with rapid shots before others collided with her. Ghillie's needles dropped another couple then she stood against the wall, needles held like daggers. She danced and feinted amid swinging knives and cudgels, plunging the points into knees and forearms while somehow avoiding every thrust and swing.
Feral's lunge for Braid missed as the man dragged the Valeer backwards. Feral stalked Braid. The man used the Valeer as a shield, looping a bronze wire tight about the poor slavant's neck.
A wordless cry of dismay spilled from Aida's lips.
She turned and ran with astonishing speed. Unfortunately, she was even more astonished than her thuggish pursuer. She collided with an alley wall and he tackled her. "Flight" having failed, "fight" kicked in. She tried to make up in ferocity and Dynast strength what she lacked in skill. Clothing ripped. The man's hair tore out in clumps. Bloody scratch marks quickly covered his face and arms.
A dirty, chipped bronze knife blade pressed against her throat. He growled a warning. She froze.
Her attacker graced her with a snarl of broken, browning teeth. He hauled Aida to her feet by her hair, her scream half-rage, half-pain.
Then White Spiral came from nowhere, crashing into him and driving a broken arrow into his neck. They went down in a thrashing tangle. Aida staggered into the wall.
As quickly and brutally as it started it was over.
Half-a-dozen attackers sprawled motionless. Others writhed, groaned, or screamed in the alley's filth. White Spiral lay unmoving, covered with discolored cudgel impacts and bloody knife wounds. Fallon had vanished. Ghillie chased down a few survivors. Blood-spattered Feral busied herself slitting the fallens' throats.
It all reeked like an outhouse in a slaughterhouse.
"Feral. Feral! FERAL!" Aida staggered towards the woman, shaking uncontrollably as everything sank in.
She grabbed Feral's shoulder to pull the woman up from her grisly work, but Feral slapped Aida's hand away. Fury, shock, surprise, and adrenaline made Aida reckless. She stepped up to the point of Feral's raised knife. "Where is the Valeer? Where is he?"
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Feral jerked her head toward the shadows deeper in the alley.
Aida found his body sprawled atop a refuse heap. The copper wire about the Valeer's neck had cut to the bone. Dark blood surged through the fingers clutched to his neck. His eyes stared sightlessly back at her.
Sobs wracked her. Her knees gave out. The release became a cathartic flow, an emotional tide crashing through in waves.
How long she spent screaming, moaning, and dry heaving she'd never know. When she became aware again, the Valeer's head lay in her lap. Blood soaked her dress, at least some her own from cuts she didn't remember taking but most from the letch. Its bloated body had ruptured sometime during the fighting, soaking her in her own blood.
Peeling it away nearly made her gag. Whatever muscular action held the critter's needle-like teeth slowly released in death. She carefully picked them from her flesh. She ripped a strip from the hem of her dress, wrapped her mangled hand, looked about.
Feral knelt nearby wiping her knife on a corpse, her half-lidded eyes barely visible in the shadows.
"This is on you! You did this!" Aida marched towards Feral, shaking and white-knuckled. "Him, White Spiral, maybe Ghillie and Fallon too! They were my responsibility and you got them all killed just when I was starting to think maybe I'd manage to do something right for once in my life! You will never, ever, do anything like that again. You will do nothing without my orders, ever, or I'll abandon you to starve. You hear me?"
Feral rose slowly as Aida approached, clearly unhappy with Aida's tone. She grabbed Aida's collar and slammed her against the wall, her knife pressing against Aida's throat. Feral thrust a finger in Aida's face, then pointed at a body. The Feral repeated the motion pointing at herself and the body again. A repetition in slightly different order conveyed a crude message.
You die, I die. I die, you die too.
When she saw Aida's shocked comprehension, Feral stepped back with her long knife pointed at Aida's chest. Feral snorted, waved the knife, shook her head, turned away, and toppled over backwards.
A long, red-tasseled needle jutted from Feral's chest. Up close, it resembled an extra-long acupuncture needle crossed with a throwing knife. Feral lay perfectly still. From that single, tiny wound?
Ghillie glided from the shadows as Aida stumbled stiff-legged towards Feral. They both reached her at the same time and dropped to either side. No pulse at Feral's neck or wrist. No breath at her nostrils.
Aida looked up into Ghillie's pale blue eyes. Nodded. "Thank you. I think."
Ghillie mimed Feral's message with a modification.
You die, I die. So she died.
The girl plucked her needle and stepped back as the clatter of galloping hooves echoed in the narrow space. Aida stood wearily and turned, feeling drained and hollow.
"My hero, riding to my rescue," Aida said dryly as Fallon showed up with the cavalry, two Ferals and a Valeer too late.