Shadowplay: Prologue
She's going to fall.
Not because of the dirt her boots have churned to bloody mud. She's up to her ankles in it, rooted like a tree, couldn't be more stable. In fact, it's going to take the blow of the hammer headed for her back to even knock her free of the muck. She goes to her knees, and she's going to fall, but not yet. Gets up, swipes mud and hair out of her eyes, looks around.
The man with the hammer was just passing, giving her a lively little tap for a hello. Now he's going, and now she’s following, and now he's falling and his blood’s on her face. There's a face beyond him she knows. Breath comes back into her lungs, clots of smoke and screams. For a moment she's human again. Then the burly knight ahead is no longer smiling, but taking her arm and turning her, giving her a mighty shove - she's going to fall. But not yet. Back to work.
She stumbles with foolish grace, ducks a slash, puts her weight behind the sword in her right hand. Sliding it in is easy - the tip finds the joint in a Blackguard's plate and nuzzles into warm, wet depths. She can't dodge the frisson that runs across her skin, a satisfaction more sensual than sadistic. It's driven out first by shame, and then by the unbalancing jerk of her arm when the blade catches in his chain. Stupid girl, clumsy girl, dead girl. He turns, baring bleeding gums and shoving his shoulder into her chest. She's going to fall.
Instead of toppling back, she leans in, pulling on one blade to bring the other around opposite it. Blind, she finds the corresponding joint on his other side, and tightens her embrace until her swords cross in his gut. The weight of his body crashes into her and she howls as she throws him off, though she doesn’t know it and can’t hear her own voice. This time her swords come free. The blood soaking her sleeves is red. That one was human.
She straightens up and snaps her wrists, sluicing blood from the fullers. She's looking for her company, for any sense of structure in this melee. Plans go to shit out here. A battlefield looks nothing like a map; she can't remember anything but the faces she should see nearby, and she doesn't see them.
Except her knight. His head is high, his gold hair dark with sweat, his face muddy and teeth clenched. There is no battle-joy in his face, only grim serenity, and his steady eye takes her in as he counts heads and matches them to necks. Not far away, but he doesn’t need her closer. Concentrate. Give him room to swing. He's not going to fall.
She scales the bloody scree ahead onto a low rise and finds that from the top, dim through morning’s fog, she can see the White City's minarets in the east, bathed in the sunlight that should have prevented this rout. She moves toward them, scanning the corpses she steps over for the sellswords of Seventh Company. Now there you are. Pain as remote as the sun-drenched spires, only a cold inventory at this distance, crossing off names. Too many. Far too many.
"SHENA!"
Wet curls fly and her head comes up, an unwonted lovely curve to her neck as she turns, and the start of a smile that is more than reflex. Her knight is just in sight. His face is so pale! She opens her mouth to call out in answer... and tastes the axe now crashing into her face as it opens her from lash to lip. Can't smile anymore. Can't see.
She's going to fall.