Markswoman (Asiana #1)(19)

But not now. Now there was only the fight.

She ducked behind another yurt, ignoring the cries of pain and fear around her. Four down, she thought. How many left?

She sensed, too late, a malevolent presence behind her. A noose slipped around her neck—which was still sore from having been squeezed by Maidul Tau. Kyra’s katari dropped to the ground. She gasped and brought her hands up to her throat, trying to tug the thin, silken rope off. But all she did was tighten it even more. Panic fogged her thoughts as the noose cut off the supply of blood to her brain.

“Die, scum of Kali,” hissed a woman’s voice behind her.

It was the name of the Goddess that galvanized Kyra’s fading strength. She drove her elbow hard, behind and up, and connected with the woman’s groin. There was a gasp of pain, and the hands that held the noose momentarily lost a bit of their desperate power.

That moment was enough. Kyra gripped the hands and twisted up the fingers, breaking several with an audible crack.

The groan turned to a scream and her assailant stumbled back. Kyra sprang up and delivered a hard back kick to her chest, then spun around and followed it up with a front kick to the throat. The woman tumbled to the ground, blood frothing from her mouth.

Tonar appeared behind the yurt in a half-crouch, her face nearly unrecognizable in a twisted snarl.

“Any more?” she hissed.

Kyra grabbed her katari and massaged her neck, trying to breathe normally and still the fierce roaring in her head. “Not that I know of. Let’s check the camp.”

They circled the camp twice, throwing aside the canvas of the yurts, kicking open the wooden-frame doors. All were empty; the Kalams had fled to safety farther up the grassland where their horses were grazing.

Four dead bodies were sprawled on the ground; the man whom Kyra had bound with the Inner Speech sat in front of a yurt, a vacant look in his eyes. It would be a long time before he remembered who he was.

Three Kalam men and one woman had been injured by arrows; Kyra stopped where they lay whimpering and tried to soothe them with the Inner Speech as best she could, although she hadn’t much of herself left to spare. Fatigue stole up her limbs and spine, and she longed to lie down on the grass and close her eyes.

A hand grasped her shoulder. “Enough,” said Tonar, her voice hoarse. “Don’t empty yourself, or you’ll be the one in need of healing.”

Kyra got to her feet, but it was hard; her legs felt like rubber. She took in the scene of destruction around her—the bodies, the burned and broken yurts—and shuddered. It was beginning to sink in, what had happened. She had taken down her second and third marks, and not one of them had been a Tau. “Goddess,” she muttered.

“It could have been worse,” said Tonar. “The Goddess watched over us all right.” She wiped her damp brow with a sleeve. “Let’s get those fools back here so they can clear up the mess and explain themselves.”

Kyra glanced at Tonar’s exhausted face. “Who was Asindu Matya?” she asked quietly.

“My first mark,” said Tonar. She pointed with a boot to the body of a man who lay crumpled on the grass a few feet away, his head caved in. “His father was my fourth.”

Kyra swallowed as she gazed at the corpse. She couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, whoever he was. Then she remembered the children kept hostage in the yurt—the children these people had been ready to kill—and her pity vanished.

“Don’t be sorry for them,” said Tonar, as if she had read Kyra’s mind. “His son killed a woman after abducting and violating her. A violent criminal, who deserved to be put down.”

Kyra nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Tonar walked to the edge of the camp and summoned the Kalams, using the Inner Speech.

One by one, they straggled back. Some were wounded and limping, leaning on their kinsmen for support. Some wept openly. A few hurried to help the injured, headed by the black-robed medicine woman of Kalam. Parents had their arms protectively around their children. The sight smote Kyra. She hoped Tonar wasn’t going to punish them.

Aruna Kalam was one of the first to return. She knelt in front of Tonar, her face gray. The elders of Kalam clustered behind her, looking equally abject. “I have betrayed you, Markswomen of Kali,” Aruna quavered. “I beg the mercy of your blade.”

“Oh, do get up, Auntie,” said Tonar irritably. “Tell me what happened, although I think I can guess.”

The headwoman stood and wiped her eyes. “They arrived a week ago,” she said. “Four men and two women, four armed with swords, two with bows . . .”

“That means one escaped,” interjected Kyra in dismay.

Tonar’s face hardened. “She won’t get far. The Order of Kali will find her, sooner or later. Go on, Auntie.”

“They had two of our children at sword-point,” said Aruna, wringing her hands. “They must have found the children on the steppe, grazing the horses. They threatened to kill them unless we did as they asked. They rounded up all the other children, and made us write a letter to the Mahimata, asking for your presence.”

Tonar pursed her lips. “Fools,” she said loftily, “thinking they could fight a Markswoman of Kali.”

Kyra didn’t say anything, but she knew Tonar would have been dead in the first hail of arrows if she hadn’t pushed her aside.