When the intruder was halfway to the cot, Roran tore his blankets off, threw them over the man, and, with a wild yell, leaped toward him, drawing back the dagger to stab him in the gut.

“Wait!” cried the man. Surprised, Roran stayed his hand, and the two of them crashed to the ground together. “Friend! I’m a friend!”

A half second later, Roran gasped as he felt two hard blows to his left kidney. The pain nearly incapacitated him, but he forced himself to roll away from the man, trying to put some distance between them.

Roran pushed himself to his feet, then he again charged at his attacker, who was still struggling to free himself from the blanket.

“Wait, I’m your friend!” cried the man, but Roran was not about to trust him a second time. It was well he did not, for as he slashed at the intruder, the man trapped Roran’s right arm and dagger with a twirl of the blankets, then slashed at Roran with a knife he had produced from his jerkin. There was a faint tugging sensation across Roran’s chest, but it was so slight, he paid it no mind.

Roran bellowed and yanked on the blanket as hard as he could, pulling the man off his feet and throwing him against one side of the tent, which collapsed on top of them, trapping them under the heavy wool. Roran shook the twisted blanket off his arm, then crawled toward the man, feeling his way through the darkness.

The hard sole of a boot struck Roran’s left hand, and the tips of his fingers went numb.

Lunging forward, Roran caught the man by an ankle as he was trying to turn to face him head-on. The man kicked like a rabbit and broke Roran’s grip, but Roran grabbed his ankle again and squeezed it through the thin leather, digging his fingers into the tendon at the back of the heel until the man roared in pain.

Before he could recover, Roran clawed his way up the man’s body and pinned his knife hand to the ground. Roran tried to drive his dagger into the man’s side, but he was too slow; his opponent found his wrist and seized it with a grip of iron.

“Who are you?” Roran growled.

“I’m your friend,” the man said, his breath warm in Roran’s face. It smelled like wine and mulled cider. Then he kneed Roran in the ribs three times in quick succession.

Roran bashed his forehead against the assassin’s nose, breaking it with a loud snap. The man snarled and thrashed underneath him, but Roran refused to let him go.

“You’re … no friend of mine,” said Roran, grunting as he bore down on his right arm and slowly pushed the dagger toward the man’s side. As they strained against one another, Roran was vaguely aware of people shouting outside the fallen tent.

At last the man’s arm buckled, and with sudden ease, the dagger plunged through his jerkin and into the softness of living flesh. The man convulsed. Fast as he could, Roran stabbed him several more times, then buried the dagger in his chest.

Through the hilt of the dagger, Roran felt the birdlike flutters of the man’s heart as it cut itself to pieces on the razor-sharp blade. Twice more the man shuddered and jerked, then ceased resisting and simply lay there, panting.

Roran continued to hold him as the life drained out of him, their embrace as intimate as any lovers’. Though the man had tried to kill him, and though Roran knew nothing about him besides that fact, he could not help but feel a sense of terrible closeness to him. Here was another human being—another living, thinking creature—whose life was ending because of what he had done.

“Who are you?” he whispered. “Who sent you?”

“I … I almost killed you,” said the man, sounding perversely satisfied. Then he uttered a long, hollow sigh, his body went limp, and he was no more.

Roran let his head fall forward against the man’s chest and gasped for air, shaking from head to toe as the shock of the attack racked his limbs.

People began to pull at the fabric resting on top of him. “Get it off me!” Roran shouted, and lashed out with his left arm, unable to bear any longer the oppressive weight of the wool, and the darkness, and the cramped space, and the stifling air.

A rent appeared in the panel above him as someone cut through the wool. Warm, flickering torchlight poured through the opening.

Frantic to escape his confinement, Roran lurched to his feet, grabbed at the edges of the slit, and dragged himself out of the collapsed tent. He staggered into the light, wearing nothing but his breeches, and looked round in confusion.

Baldor was standing there, as were Carn, Delwin, Mandel, and ten other warriors, all of whom held swords and axes at the ready. None of the men were fully dressed, save for two, whom Roran recognized as sentinels posted on the night watch.

“Gods,” someone exclaimed, and Roran turned to see one of the warriors peeling back the side of the ruined tent to expose the corpse of the assassin.

The dead man was of an unimposing size, with long, shaggy hair gathered in a ponytail and a leather patch mounted over his left eye. His nose was crooked and squashed flat—broken by Roran—and a mask of blood covered the lower part of his shaved face. More blood caked his chest and side and the ground beneath him. It appeared almost too much to have come from a single person.

“Roran,” said Baldor. Roran continued to stare at the assassin, unable to tear his gaze away. “Roran,” Baldor said again, but louder. “Roran, listen to me. Are you hurt? What happened? … Roran!”

The concern in Baldor’s voice finally caught Roran’s attention. “What?” he asked.

“Roran, are you hurt?!”