To be sure, she removed a cloth she used for cleaning her blade from a pocket, wrapped it around her left fingers, and trailed them along the rough limestone wall. Behind her, the trapdoor opened, but then the stairs switched back on themselves and she was around the corner. Those men would think twice before following a serrin into the dark. They'd stop and find a lamp first. She used the burst of light from the trapdoor to locate and cut the warning cord that ran along the ceiling. Soon she found some light in the tunnel and descended all the faster, her feet a rapid patter on the stone. The more rhythm she found, the easier it became, even when the tunnel became black once more, around several more corners. Her soft boots made only a little sound.
Finally, she reached what she fancied was the last stretch of stairs-she had come down far enough and there was a lamp burning at the bottom. Had a warning reached the guards at the bottom of the stairs? There was no way of telling, and no way to make her descent safer. The stairs were a straight line with no cover. If one had a crossbow and she were caught halfway down…well.
She put the cloth back in her pocket, shifted her sword to her left hand and pulled a knife with her right. Then she began her descent as quietly as she could. Halfway down, she could see the rusted iron gates that led out to Dockside, dimly illuminated by the lamp above the guard's chamber. Just a few more steps and she'd be within knife range. Just a few…but then a man with a crossbow stepped from the guard's chamber, and Aisha knew the fates for frauds.
She hurled her knife anyhow, aiming high to make the distance-it hit the ceiling and bounced with a ringing crack…the crossbowman fired, and Aisha leapt, and felt her left leg kick away from under her. She fell crashing down the steps, somehow contriving to twist her small frame into a tight bundle and not decapitate herself on her own blade. The guard dropped his crossbow and pulled his sword. Aisha braced her arms and leg to stop her roll just short…her left leg screamed agony, her intended brace-stance collapsed and she barely managed to raise her blade in time to catch the full weight of the guard's blow. With no semblance of technique, it smashed her into the wall. Her head hit the stone, knocking her insensible, but her hands were moving of their own accord, her left hand snatching the second knife from her belt as she spun sideways to stab the man backhanded through the shoulder.
He screamed, and Aisha saw through blurred eyes a second guard in the guard room, his crossbow levelled at her chest. She sprawled forward, grabbing the wounded first guard, keeping him between her and the crossbow. The first guard swung around, trying to grab her. Aisha swung with him, ripping her sword across his leg. He screamed again, falling, Aisha catching his weight, or trying to, as her own leg gave way and her head spun, and she threw her sword in final desperation. It was a poor throw, and the second guard deflected it off his crossbow. He tried to re-aim, but Aisha tore the knife from the wounded man's shoulder, slicing her hand in the process, and threw that too. It was a worse throw, but the crossbowman ducked back behind his doorway.
The man at Aisha's feet grabbed her wounded leg and she screamed in agony, falling on top of the first abandoned crossbow. She grabbed it and swung arm-point first at the wounded man's head. It smashed into his helm, and his grip released. Aisha grabbed up his fallen sword, staggering to her feet, threw the crossbow at the emerging crossbowman who ducked back, and charged. Or tried to, as again her leg nearly folded.
The crossbowman fired in panic as she came through the guard chamber entrance, and Aisha felt a blaze of pain across her ribs, and a yank on her jacket that nearly turned her around. She swung in blind fury, but her hand was agony and her leg gave no balance, and he blocked the blow with his crossbow, then swung it at her head. Aisha tried to defend in the confined space, but her blade entangled with a wall, so she ducked instead and caught the full weight of the weapon on her shoulder, and a glancing blow off the head. She fell hard, face first on the stone and suddenly her mouth was bloody. The crossbowman was drawing his sword, backing around to the doorway for safety. Aisha rolled hard and slashed at his leg, and he leapt back, catching the tip across his shin.
He yelled, and hopped, and Aisha crawled for a desperate lunge, and stabbed one-handed through his thigh. He screamed and fell. Aisha was on him fast, as he collapsed on his back in the doorway, and she angled the blade across his throat. He got a hand on the blade's edge to try and stop its progress, but the steel was blunt on the reverse side and Aisha had a good, painless pressure with her left hand on the steel, while her right anchored the hilt. Blood flowed from the guardsman's hand. He sobbed and looked terrified. Humans were so dangerous when terrified. Aisha knew. She'd seen the ruins, the burned corpses, the strange fruit hanging from the courtyard tree. One shouldn't feel sorry for terrified humans. One couldn't.
She killed him, arterial blood spurting, drenching her face, an unspeakable horror on her victim's. Aisha left him dying on the floor, and crawled to reclaim her sword from where it had fallen alongside the guards’ bunks. Then she sat and considered her leg properly. There was a crossbow bolt straight through her calf, just missing the shinbone. The pain was horrible, and there was a lot of blood. Her hand was cut, her head swam and throbbed, and her shoulder felt like maybe something was broken, where the crossbow had hit her. The man she'd killed was still kicking. He wasn't dead yet. Death wasn't fair. Death never was.
Somehow she hauled herself up and staggered to the iron gate. The wounded man there had found her first knife, the one she'd thrown. He sat propped against the gate, the knife held hopelessly before him, his hand trembling. Clearly he had no idea how to throw it, nor was in any condition to do so. His leg was bleeding badly, and his right shoulder was bloody. She shouldn't leave him that knife, with its serrin steel edge. Nor the other one that she'd thrown at the dead man. But she'd forgotten that one, and taking this one off a second terrified, wounded man seemed too much effort. She had to get out.
“Move,” she said hoarsely. “Get away from the gate.” He moved, struggling, trying to keep pressure on his bloody leg with one hand, while shuffling with the knife hand. Aisha lifted the gate's heavy bar with difficulty and slammed the bolts open. The gate opened soundlessly as she pulled, its hinges well oiled. She limped out into the thicket of redberry bushes that obscured the entrance. Above, the high yellow cliff of Sharptooth soared toward the grey sky. Opposite, beyond the bushes, dark walls loomed, windows barred and bricked up.
Aisha limped past the bushes, then collapsed on the narrow, paved lane between wall and cliff as her head spun and her balance failed. She rolled on her back, and found that the pavings were wet, and a light rain fell onto her face. The tug in her heart did not pull so strongly, now. Perhaps, she thought, if she lay here long enough, the rain would wash her back into the sea, where the currents would carry her all the way to Enora eventually. She wished it so, more than anything she'd ever wished in her life. In the distance, above the gentle patter of rain and the cry of a gull, she could hear the sounds of battle.
