Chapter 6: Karsk Pass

I lasted an hour before the first wound hit.

I was in the wagon yard checking Biscuit's hooves when a spike drove into my left thigh.

It was deep and hot, and it went straight to the bone.

I screamed and fell against the wheel.

Finola dropped a bucket.

"What is it? What?"

"He's been stabbed. A spear. In the leg."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

I tried to stand, and the pain shot up my hip.

I swore until Finola put her hands under my arms.

"We have to go," I said.

"We have to what?"

"Get me a horse."

She stared at me for a moment.

Then she ran for the stables and came back leading a tall brown mare with a saddle cinched on.

"Her name's Dumpling. She's fast, and she hates everyone."

"Perfect."

The road to Karsk Pass was nine miles of switchbacks along a cliff.

I rode them in forty minutes, with pain flaring in my leg every time Dumpling struck a stone.

Twice more the pain hit me.

A slash across the ribs came first.

Then a blow to the back of the head made the road go white.

I clung to the saddle and kept going.

The watchtower stood on the lip of the pass, black against the sky.

Smoke rose from its roof.

The fight had moved down into the narrow gorge.

I heard steel and shouting, and a horn blowing again and again.

A boy in a green coat ran up the slope with blood in his hair.

"Miss! You can't go down there!"

"Where's the Commander?"

"In the thick of it. He took a lance in the leg and he's still fighting."

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