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innkeeper.”
    Kai strode from her before she could point out that she had no idea how to fly a wingabeast. His sword rasped as he drew it from its sheath.
    Just overhead, the riders split from one another. As they neared, Shae could see their eyes gleaming through cutouts in their hoods. Their wingabeasts’ hooves touched ground, and they jumped from the saddle and onto the rock shelf with swords pointed at Kai.
    The first rider advanced, a hair’s breadth ahead of his companion, and as Kai met his lunge, swords clashed. Kai parried the second rider’s thrust and spun to deflect the first rider’s sword, which clanged against his armshield. Over and over, steel rang out.
    Flecht snorted and laid his ears back, dancing beneath Shae. She patted the wingabeast’s neck in an attempt to soothe him, but she felt less than calm herself. Although Kai fought well, how could he defend for long against two swordsmen? His knife weighted her hand, but she had no idea what to do with it. As a raena of Whellein, her training had included protocol and decorum, not fighting.
    The riders closed in on Kai yet again, and the swordplay moved nearer. Flecht shrilled, and stones scattered beneath his churning hooves. One rider turned to point his sword toward Shae, but Kai’s blade intercepted him. “Go now !” Kai called, and then whirled to stop another attack.
    His words kicked her in the stomach, for they told her he didn’t expect to survive. Her mind recoiled at the thought, and she sent a wordless plea to Lof Yuel. She turned Flecht’s head westward but hesitated. Even if she knew how to send a wingabeast into flight, should she? Turning Flecht toward the battle, she gave up the notion of escape. She might have to watch him die, and then fall by the sword herself, but she could never leave Kai.
    Anger flared through her with such radiance it pushed aside her confusion. She saw herself with Kai in her early days, throwing stones at a target on the far bank of the brook. The memory lifted her spirits, and she tightened her grip on the hilt of Kai’s knife. Heart pounding, she drew back her arm but then lowered it. The fighting was too close. She might hit Kai.
    A blade sliced through the air, just missing Kai’s head, and she gasped. If she did nothing, he might die. She had to take the chance. The knife weighted her hand as, with breath held, she leaned forward, concentrating on the advance and retreat of combat.
    Now!
    The knife flashed through the air and thudded into flesh. Kai lurched and stepped backwards, and her stomach twisted. But when one of the riders collapsed instead, she released a shaking breath.
    Kai flicked a glance her way, but then turned to meet a renewed attack from the fallen rider’s companion. Steel ground against steel as they strained together. Neither gave way, and at last they sprang apart, panting as they eyed one another.
    The rider feinted right but Kai thrust left, his blade cutting close to his opponent’s side. The rider jumped back, and they circled one another with shields raised in a crude imitation of a courtly dance. When his opponent lunged, Kai deflected his sword, and they faced off once again. Shae sucked in a breath. Was it just her imagination, or did the rider’s sword arm shake?
    A hand grasped her ankle, and the pale eyes of the rider she’d felled glinted up at her through the holes in his mask. Blood seeped from his wounded shoulder to mar the front of his black surcoat. On his knees, he levered upward, the knife she’d used against him clutched in a bloody hand.
    If she could find enough air she would scream. She kicked at him, but the rider dug his fingernails into her leg like claws and held tight. His arm drew back. The knife dripped blood.
    Shae’s hands convulsed on the reins, and a tremor traveled through Flecht. The wingabeast shrilled and reared, and the knife fell from the rider’s hand.
    A belated scream broke from Shae.
    Kai’s opponent lunged at him, but his