“You know I will be,” Larel promised.
“Thank you,” Vhalla whispered. “Good night, Larel.”
“Good night, Vhalla.” Her friend replied, holding tightly to Vhalla’s hand as she drifted into sleep.
The door eased open quietly and the soft sigh of the hinges lingered on Vhalla’s ears. Fritz had stayed out with Craig and Daniel after the restaurant. Vhalla wondered how drunk he was to come crawling into her room again. She rolled over, pressing her face into the pillow.
The footsteps barely made a sound. Her ears picked up the movement of air more than the noise upon the floor. There was something amiss, but her sleep-filled mind couldn’t quickly place what it was. Something about the footsteps ...
Footsteps. Two sets of footsteps.
Vhalla yawned, bringing a palm to her eyes. She expected to see Craig and Daniel, or some combination of them with Fritz. But when Vhalla blinked the sleep from her eyes, the figure standing at her bedside was a nightmare come to life.
She recognized the Northerner staring down at her. Vhalla remembered a night of fire, a night of running through burning streets with a prince on her heels. She remembered being attacked but cautioning the prince that despite there being four assailants, two were still missing.
Moonlight glinted wickedly off the wavy blade the Northerner raised. Vhalla stared in frozen shock.
Another sword cut through the air, and Vhalla turned instinctually toward the sound. The first blade sliced deeply on her back, narrowly missing impaling her due to her sudden and unpredicted movement. The pain of the weapon digging into her flesh didn’t even register as Vhalla’s mind tried to process what was occurring.
She stared at the blade of another swordsman, plunged straight through Larel’s stomach. Blood, inky black in the darkness, poured out from the wound. Larel’s dark eyes were jolted open in shock. A strangled gurgling noise accompanied the loll in her friend’s eyes as they drifted to Vhalla, blood bubbling through her gaping mouth.
Vhalla screamed.
THE NOSE VHALLA released sounded more animal than human. It was a high-pitched shriek, wordless but perfectly expressing the agony that rushed through her veins on the back of adrenaline. The sword was pulled from Larel’s stomach and the assassin twisted it through the air quickly, preparing for a second attack. The woman behind Vhalla was doing the same.
A singular instinct overtook Vhalla: the instinct to survive. She launched herself at the male assailant before her, scrambling across the bed and over the body of her friend. The swordswoman’s blade narrowly missed for a second time, slicing Vhalla deep across the calf as she was mid-lunge.
Vhalla tumbled with the swordsman, biting and scratching like a rabid beast. A heartbeat overwhelmed her senses, and Vhalla allowed Aldrik’s knowledge of combat to take over. She wanted to know every horrible way he could ever conceive to reap pain and torture upon these vile creatures.
She moved a hand, quickly disarming the man. He was well-trained and swung with his opposite hand, sending Vhalla off him with a jab to her face. She rolled, recovering quickly despite the searing pain in her calf.
The woman was upon her, and Vhalla barely had time to wave her hand through the air and deflect the blade mid-swing. That movement allowed the man to recover his weapon, and Vhalla was forced to duck to miss another attack. She was outmaneuvered and outnumbered in the small room.
Vhalla made a dash for the door, having to push it open from her knees to avoid the blade that sunk into the wood where her head had been moments before. Vhalla scrambled into the hall, other guests of the inn opening their doors in confusion as the Windwalker sprinted down the narrow stair. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping her upright.
The female assailant let out a cry of frustration, quick on Vhalla’s heels. “Die, Wind Demon!”
Vhalla half-turned to dodge a dagger thrown at her, tripping down the last of the stairs. The night owls roosting in the lobby were quickly pressed against the outer walls as the Northern assassin and Windwalker rolled head over heels. Some were soldiers who quickly reached for weapons that weren’t there. One lunged bare-handed only to be cut down by the Northern man.
She had no time to consider the demise of the nameless Southerner. Her calf burned with what Vhalla suspected was more than pain. Her movements were becoming sluggish and delayed, despite Aldrik’s instincts remaining sharp with every pulse of her heart. She bumped into a chair and lost her balance. The swordsman raised his sword as the woman recovered from a gust of air Vhalla had sent her way.
A woman plowed into his side, knocking the Northerner off-balance and sending his blade in a wide arc. Vhalla met the unfamiliar pair of eyes. “Run!” That was the last word the brave woman said as the Northerner plunged the curved blade through her throat.
Vhalla didn’t know what running would do, but she did so anyways, barreling through the doors of the inn and into the square. The army was unarmed and off-guard. The soldiers were fat and lazy from the days of peace and relaxation that the Crossroads had afforded. It was so far from the North that they’d all so wrongly assumed they were safe. Even if they had been armed, half of the Crossroads was drunk by this time of night anyways.
But there was one ally ready to greet her. Vhalla felt the wind and quickly turned it on the man racing out to her. It sent the Northerner tumbling head over heels, his head cracking hard against the wall of the inn.
She had expected that to kill him, knock him out, daze him at least, but the man seemed to be made of metal or stone as he just blinked and rose again to his feet. She took a step back, sending another gust of wind at him, but it was equally ineffective. She had killed these people before—why couldn’t she kill them now?