Joel Shepherd - Sasha

Sasha spurred Peg forward while sheathing her sword. She leaped from the saddle, running across the stones and onto the verandah. "Someone give me a lift!" she yelled at the men hammering at the door, which appeared to be firmly locked. They spun… and to her surprise, the leader was Jaryd, his young face streaked with sweat beneath his helm. "Get me onto the roof? I can get in from there!"

"The damn roof's on fire, fool!" Jaryd yelled back as his men continued hammering.

"I know! I spend a lot more time in these buildings than you do, just trust me!"

Jaryd swore and ran to her side, hands clasped together for a cradle. Sasha stuck her foot in it, grasped the support pillar for balance and shoved upwards. Jaryd lifted at the same time, with a great heave, and she caught the verandah roof with both hands. She got an arm over, braced an elbow and scampered with both feet upon the pillar… it propelled her over the edge and onto the wooden shingles. She rolled upright, immediately feeling the heat of the flames that roared and surged upon the right side of the roof, threatening to cave it in.

Sasha ran up the increasing incline, aiming booted feet for the nails, knowing that a misstep could break straight through (she'd done it before, playing games on various roofs as a girl). She manoeuvred around the forward triangle panel and rolled onto the upper rooftop from there. Moved along a little way, then simply started kicking with a heel at a likely spot. A wooden shingle broke, and she kicked several more, clearing a space of exposed beams through which dark smoke poured out. One of the big Lenay soldiers might have struggled to fit through it, but Sasha quickly knelt, got both feet in, took her weight on her arms and lowered herself through with a hand-hold reversal, gasping a deep, final breath as she went.

Smoke within the enclosed ceiling space made breath and sight impossible. She screwed her eyes shut, held her breath, and felt about upon the straw ceiling matting for an edge. Pulled it up and threw it aside, drew her sword and plunged it point first through the light planks below. Stabbed repeatedly, then got her gloved hands into the broken gaps in the wood and pulled. They broke easily. Sasha threw them away, sheathed her sword as the lack of air began to burn at her lungs, stuck her head out of the gap below and saw the broad, open space of the training hall divided by multiple tachadar circles amidst numerous wooden ceiling supports. There were more horizontal beams below, and she grasped the edges of her hole, thrust her body out and half-somersaulted upon that grip, legs swinging and catching a beam. She grabbed onto it, swinging upside down by hands and knees, and overarmed to the ceiling pillar, sucking air thinly as the smoke clustered about the ceiling. She grabbed the pillar and slid down the smooth hewn sides to the ground, gasping a deep breath as the air cleared near the bottom.

A crowd of villagers were clustered at either end around the huge doors, which appeared to have been barred and padlocked. "Padlocked from the inside, but not the outside?" was her immediate thought. "How did the person with the key get out?" A crash from the middle of the hall interrupted that thought as ceiling beams collapsed in a clatter of flames, charcoal and sparks. The low ceiling of smoke was growing lower, the visibility already terrible, blocking light from the small windows high in the walls. A hammering sounded above the screams and crackling of the fire-someone trying to hack through a wall with axe or sword. Neither would work, these walls were vertyn hardwood, four times the weight of regular pine and just as many times the strength.

"Stand aside!" she yelled to the villagers. "Get aside, give some room!" They turned in astonishment and pulled others aside who had not heard, clothing held to their mouths, eyes wide with panic. Sasha redrew her sword and examined the padlock, a big, heavy, iron contraption, no doubt imported from the lowlands where such things were commonly engineered. She pointed to the nearest woman. "Hold this lock! Like this. Keep this side facing up! Don't worry, you'll keep your fingers!"

The woman grasped it in fear, held as instructed, and shut her eyes. About her, Sasha was aware, there were children crying. She took stance, trying to relax her shoulders… without a clean breath to take, it wasn't easy. But then, for her, swinging a sword was easier than breathing, and serrin steel was far tougher than iron. The lock broke with a ringing clash and Sasha tore the lock aside, villagers crowding to lift the heavy bar across the door and crash it to the ground. Pressure from inside and out sent it rolling aside and villagers poured out, clutching children and coughing for air.

Sasha remembered the group at the other end and turned back to stare desperately through the smoke… but already they were coming, skirting the flames.

"That's all of them?" Sasha yelled as they came. "No others?"

"That's all!" answered an elderly, coughing man. "They locked us in here, threatened to kill a child on the outside if we did not throw the key out… we… we didn't know the roof was afire until…"

"Tell me later!" She ushered him out, onto the verandah, to find that most of the others had already been escorted across the square to the neighbouring inn. She moved down the stairs and across the square at the old man's side, several women hastening to help.

Halfway across, and a thunder of hooves and motion took her attention left… a horseman came to a skittering pause, several men on foot behind, weapons in hand and assuredly Hadryn from their dark grey cloaks. Their heads were bare, hair closely cropped in the Verenthane way, nearly bare at the back and sides in the northern style. Gleaming star symbols hung prominently about their necks.

"It is the Cronenverdt bitch!" yelled the horseman to the others, their eyes wild with the fury of recent combat, sweaty, dirt-stained and, in several cases, bloody. "We may have lost Perys, but this trophy shall be ours!"

"Run!" Sasha yelled at the straggling villagers, who ran for the inn. The horseman spurred his mount, pounding straight for her. Sasha switched her sword to her left hand, and waited. For a charging warhorse, it seemed to be approaching very slowly. Everything did. The Hadryn's face was contorted with rage and the lust of revenge. And Sasha felt a wave of hatred, calm and smooth, like fire in her veins.

She rolled aside at the last moment, the rider's sword flashing empty air, performed a simple roll to one knee, a hand to the knife at her belt, and threw. The knife struck the passing rider in the side and he clutched at it with a cry.

The first of the foot soldiers reached her at full pelt and unloaded with a huge swing fit to cleave her in two… Sasha sidestepped with a neatly angled, swinging deflection, and slashed him open from behind as he skidded by. The second swung high, low and sideways, Sasha fading smoothly before each, feet and hands shifting in unison. A third came at her flank with a ready blow, and Sasha reversed the parry into a swivelling footing-change that took half a length from the new attacker before he realised he was in range. Her swing cleft head from shoulders, before reversing in turn to slash at her original opponent, low backhand to high overhead… his footing entangled as his defence struggled to make that difficult transition, his guard faltering, and Sasha split him across the middle with a vicious cut. A fourth charged with a roar, a huge man with bare biceps rippling beneath his sleeveless tunic… Sasha saw the basic pattern of his attack before perhaps even he did, and simply invited the right-quarter cross that she knew would follow the halfstep fake and thrust. Deflected it straight past its target as he overbalanced, her blade circling in that singular, foot-sliding movement to remove arm and head in quick, precise succession.