"Go, run," Calen cried. "Leave me."

"No," I said. My tears streamed down my face, swimming in my eyes, obscuring my vision. I shook my head impatiently and my eyes cleared, if only for a moment. "Get up! You're not going to die today."

I grabbed his arms and hoisted him onto my shoulders.

"Alyssa…" he moaned. "I'm dead weight. They won't kill me yet. Just…go…"

He pushed me away. As he fell to his hands and knees on the frozen, hard-packed ground, another arrow whistled through the air, narrowly missing my head and impaling itself in the tree behind me. I flinched, and ducked instinctively.

"Go!" he shouted, his voice hoarse. "Now…"

Another arrow. Striking the ground just at my feet. They weren't aiming to kill.

"Run!" he screamed at me. He sank lower. I hesitated.

"I'll come back for you, Calen," I decided aloud. "I promise."

The third arrow missed me by a hair, tearing a strip out of my loose-fitting sweatshirt.

I ran.

Behind me, two more arrows fired. I heard the twang of bowstrings released, and dropped to the ground. The arrows whistled over my head. I jumped up and kept running.

As I glanced back, the first three of them came through the thick undergrowth of trees. Though they were bare, the trunks served to block vision, especially when you wore gray. As they did.

They stopped at Calen. I paused for a moment. As I watched, the leader drew his sword. He slammed the hilt onto Calen's head. The boy needed no more encouragement to pass out. He went limp.

The leader pointed at me. I started running again.


I ran and ran. For what seemed like hours. The sun stayed in the same, irritating place in the sky, indicating that no matter how long it seemed to me, no more than half an hour had passed.

As I ducked under a low hanging branch, then leaped over a shrub, I sensed someone…somewhere…watching.

I crouched as I landed. I heard nothing. No crackle of dead leaves underfoot. No flap of wings. No sound of breathing, other than my own, labored, panting.

But there was someone out there. Someone with the stamina to follow me. Someone with the agility to not make a sound. And someone smart enough to know where I would turn and what path I'd take.

But where they invincible?

I drew a knife. A throwing one. Death, I'd named it. My lucky blade. My throwing blade. It had cost many of my enemies their lives, and I hadn't lost it for three years.

And now I raised myself to my full height. If they'd wanted me dead, they'd have killed me by now. They wanted to keep me alive, at least for the moment.

I held my breath. I turned in a circle, focusing on nothing, watching for that slightest movement that would give away even their beating heart. I heard no breath.

But there was someone there.

And I saw the rythmic movement of lungs. Raise, deflate. Raise, deflate.

And I threw my knife.

The blade flew, straight as an arrow, fast as thought. I watched it, as it went, almost in slow motion. It was perfectly aimed. I knew it would hit the target, as it had for three years.

And it struck the trunk of the bare tree, quivering, with a hollow thud that suggested the tree was dead, knocking bits of dry wood chips to the ground.

I instantly threw myself backwards. Years of fighting had taught me this. Never watch the blade. Never watch the shot. Never wait for them to attack; by then it was too late. I rolled into a crouch and leaped, hoping to dodge anything and everything my enemy threw at me.

I was a nanosecond too slow. A heartbeat too short. Or my enemy was too fast.

An arrow pierced my sleeve and hit my arm. Digging into the flesh, drawing blood. Probably a bad injury. Would probably have cost most normal people their limb.

But I wasn't normal, and I proved that now by snapping the shaft off, and throwing it away. Taking the arrow out safely would take too much time; tearing it out would only add to the injury; leaving it in would force it deeper. Ignoring the pain of the still-embedded arrowhead, I jumped to the side.

A second arrow whistled past. It hit a tree somewhere, but that was unimportant. In a game of reflexes such as this one, paying attention only to the urgent was essential to staying alive.

And I wanted to keep my life for the moment.

My enemy dropped into the small clearing. He had been crouching in a tree. I didn't know how he'd had the speed to dodge my knife blade, but: that wasn't urgent.

He slung his bow over his shoulder. I knew better than to use this movement as an opportunity to attack; his arm raised only reduced the time he needed to strike.

He drew a shortsword from the sheath at his waist. A detached part of my mind wondered how he had the speed to dodge my knife and keep up with my sprint, with a sword at his waist, but again, that wasn't urgent at the moment. Right now, I needed to stay alive. First kill this man, then run for the edge of the forest and get safe.

"Well, Alyssa," he said, in a deep voice. That I knew. "I thought you'd have learned not to come back to my woods."

"You have no right…" I hissed. "These are my woods. My people."

"These?" he asked, gesturing to the trees. He laughed and slashed a wide cut through the bark of the nearest trunk. And laughed again at my sharp gasp. "Does that bother you, Alyssa? Or this?"

He stabbed the sword's deadly point deep into the heart of another tree.

"You murderer," I growled. "Your head will hang on my wall."

"Oh, no," he said, smiling cruelly. "I think it's quite the other way around."

I drew two knives. Death was my throwing knife, as were Speed and Hawk. These two that I drew now, I had named Blood and Chaos. They were my dueling knives.

"Five knives," he said, looking me over critically. "Well, well."

He was wrong; I had the five sheaths across my torso, yes, but also one in each boot and one in a sheath where an inside chest pocket would be. But I wasn't about to tell him that.

"I will kill you," I said. "I swear it on the—"

He interrupted me with a savage cry, and charged.

His first blow was a quick, downward strike. It had enough force to stop a charging bull, and would have probably shattered the finest steel. My defense would have melted if I'd tried to stop it.

But I had no intention of stopping it. I danced to the sides, relying on my reflexes to save me in this coming battle. My enemy was strong, yes, and quick, but when I'd tangled with him in the past, I'd been a fraction quicker.

He growled and lunged. With a twirl of my knife blade, I deflected it and turned it away.

We fought. His sword was an arc of death; anything caught in its path was destroyed. But my knives were the hummingbirds. They danced and dodged, cutting away at his defense, opening him for the final death blow that only I can see.

And it came. I had been slowly forcing him back, thought he didn't even notice it, one step at a time. And I had been analyzing his fighting style, opening his stance just a bit.

Then the time came. I executed a feint to the right. His sword went up to block it. His wider stance lost his balance as his momentum moved the sword a fraction higher than he wanted. He stumbled, he hit a branch, my daggers closed, he swung his sword.

Too late. My knives were in his heart.

Before his sword came down, I rolled back. He grunted. A fountain of blood turned into a river down his shirt, staining the fabric a dark, angry red. His eyes rolled.

"A good fight, Alyssa," he murmured. "Well…done…"

And my enemy died. Alone but for his conqueror, in his forest that he'd taken from my people. My people. They were beginning to be avenged. This man's death had been arranged by me, years ago. He was second only to their leader. Now…now he was dead.

It had been too quick. But I wasn't complaining.

Now all that remained was for me to flush out the rest of this black-hearted gang of killers.