Her only chance was to fight through and make for Elgin’s cabin, and there they might make a stand.

She hacked off a clawed hand that reached for Bluebird’s bridle and blocked a descending hatchet. She drove her saber into the groundmite’s neck.

These groundmites were cloaked in rags and hides, pitiful, really. None appeared to be wearing armor, which improved her chances.

Bluebird kicked one from behind and she heard a wet sound like a melon being smashed. A club hammered her left thigh and she swept her sword over Bluebird’s neck to slash the groundmite’s face. It mewled in pain and fell away.

Bluebird plunged at their attackers, kicked and bit them, trying to break free even as he received blows all over. It only enraged him more and he bellowed a challenge before striking down another groundmite with his front hooves.

Laren was tiring, and she knew Bluebird was, too. If they did not break free soon, they’d be in deep trouble.

None of the groundmites seemed to be armed with a sharp blade, and just as she was thanking the gods for it, a short sword swept at her from out of nowhere, catching her coat. Chestnuts poured from her slashed pocket.

She parried a second blow, then hacked into the skull of another groundmite that clubbed at Bluebird’s face. Her saber stuck in bone, and in that moment, the short sword flashed toward her.

She saw the inevitable. She would fall, and so would Bluebird.

ARROWS

As the short sword drove toward Laren, everything slowed. It had happened to her before in battle, this stretching of time, allowing her to absorb minute details. She saw the twitch of the groundmite’s catlike ears, its yellow fangs, and its gaunt form beneath its rags and patchy fur. Yes, it was definitely suffering from starvation.

She saw the blade, rusted and dirty and notched. She discerned individual snowflakes drifting down between her and the groundmite.

Even as time stretched, however, she could not free her own sword to block the thrust.

What a pity, she thought, for there was so much left to do, so much left unresolved. She would not be around to support Zachary as his kingship was tested to its utmost. She would not be there for her Riders when so many of them were young and untried.

And what about Melry, on the cusp of womanhood? A difficult age. Laren had adopted her when she was found abandoned as a baby in the Rider stables. Now Laren was abandoning her.

As the sword’s point closed in, hoofbeats that were not Bluebird’s pounded the ground.

“Red!” Elgin cried.

Just before the sword impaled Laren, just at the last, possible moment, Bluebird reared.

The sword missed. It missed and stabbed into her saddle, through leather, into the wooden frame.

Before Bluebird reached the apex of his rear, arrows whispered by her, skimmed so close she felt the trailing air. White arrows slicing through the flurries on a resolute and deadly course.

They were not meant for her.

They were aimed as if to anticipate her movements and Bluebird’s, so perfectly coordinated she wondered if the archers moved through time differently. If everything slowed for them, too.

The arrows thudded into the groundmites and they fell away. By the time Bluebird’s front hooves touched ground again, none remained standing. Groundmites lay piled around her, bristling with white arrows.

Bluebird’s sides heaved and he blew puffs of steam from his nostrils. Elgin sat astride Killdeer some paces ahead of her. Even at this distance she saw how wide his eyes were.

Taking a breath—had she breathed at all during the attack?—she turned her gaze toward the source of the arrows. There, all in white against the backdrop of snow, stood three Eletians, each holding a longbow.

Elgin was the first to move, trotting up on Killdeer and glancing sidelong at the Eletians.

“Red! You all right?”

“I ... I think so,” Laren replied, stunned just to be alive. Westrion was not ready to deliver her to the heavens this day after all. She nudged Bluebird forward, and once she was clear of the corpses of groundmites and the trampled, crimson snow, she dismounted, staggering when she touched ground. Already the exertion was catching up with her, and she’d be feeling it for days. Her thigh throbbed where she’d been clubbed.

Not as young as I used to be, she thought, as she often did. She wiped the blood off her saber in the snow and sheathed it.

Elgin dismounted and led Killdeer over to her. The mare did not look the least bit winded, despite what must have been a hard ride from the cabin.

Elgin looked Laren over as if to make sure she was all right for himself. “I heard that howling,” he said, “and knew you were in for it. Killdeer was practically busting the wall down to get out.”

Laren noted he’d ridden out bareback, hadn’t even taken the time to saddle the mare. He wore his old Rider-issued saber, the sheath and belt well oiled. She guessed the blade was in just as fine shape and honed to a razor’s edge.

“Who are your friends?” he whispered.

Laren glanced at the Eletians. Two were picking among the dead groundmites, retrieving arrows. A third approached, striding effortlessly through—on?—the snow.

Laren recognized her flaxen hair, drawn back in braids and adorned with white feathers. Graelalea was her name. She was sister to Jametari, prince of the Eletians.

“Greetings, Captain,” she said, coming to a halt before Laren and Elgin. “This is an auspicious meeting.”

Laren swallowed back a surge of hysterical laughter. The words were said as if it were some everyday occurrence, like they’d bumped into one another on market day.