The door of the house was opened to Katetheuna, Hotzeh and Chloe by a tall, stunning woman with dark hair, in a cream dress and knee-high boots. Despite the late hour, she was fully dressed and seemed to be wide awake.

“What are you doing disturbing us so late at night?” said the woman.

Katetheuna started to say something in reply but, before she could, Chloe heard someone shout out “NOW!” She felt Hotzeh turn at her side.

Everything went white for a moment and as she screamed she felt herself being knocked forwards into the house, past the woman, who stepped out of the way. She put her arms out to break her fall, taking a nasty bruise to them, then quick as she could she yanked herself up to see what had happened.

A cluster of men—or monsters, she wasn’t sure what they were—in black armour were coming through the door. Shulites! So they were real. Chloe had still almost hoped that Katetheuna and the others had made them up. It was a good thing that they had expected to find them here, that they had been warned by the Ubal wayguides. But she did not have the luxury of time to ponder this now. She had to draw on her last months of training quickly.

Chloe reached into her robe and pulled out the hilt of her sword, extending the enchanted metal blade with a mental effort as a Shulite soldier charged at her.

A battle began. Chloe’s sword reverberated in her hands as it clanged off the soldier’s own blade.

She heard the voice of Romaphaia, the Swordmistress of Ayin, echoing inside her head. We do not fight to kill, only to repel; not to dominate, but to subdue; not to obliterate, but to protect. With your gifts, you will be able to see what the enemy is about to do before they do it, especially when you are in danger.

Chloe had practiced this technique in sparring training, but never in the heat of a real battle. Now, to her great relief, it came to her instinctively. Every few moments or so, she would see where the solder was about to aim his sword, a picture of it darting across her mind’s eye, or feel a sense of it, a tremor passing through her gut and compelling her to move out of the way. Each time this happened, she reacted accordingly, bringing her weapon up to meet her opponent’s just as it arrived at its intended target or dodging out of the way just as she was about to be impaled. The Shulite was bigger, stronger and faster than she was, but he did not have this advantage.

Using her gift, Chloe had the upper hand over the soldier. But she was still yet to master the art of going on the offensive, as well as defending herself from her opponent’s blows. She tried to look for places to throw in strikes of her own to knock the soldier off balance or immobilise him, but she struggled to find them. She could only hold off the soldier with defensive maneuvers. She feared for her life and her heart raced in her chest, but her desire to find Hannah drove her on.

As she fought, she tried to get a measure of what was going on around her, as she had also been trained to do. She was aware of Katetheuna off to one side of her, fighting with the woman who had opened the door to them, who had now produced her own weapons from somewhere. She was aware of Hotzeh on the other side of her, contending with other Shulite soldiers and another man with dark hair who must have been inside the house already. The Shulites seemed to be concentrating their attention mainly on him, judging him to be the biggest threat.

Before long their opponents had the three of them surrounded, back to back, in the middle of the room, panting for breath.

“What are they doing here?” said the man with dark hair who had already been inside the house.

“They are looking for their heir,” said the tallest of Shulties, whom Chloe presumed was their leader.

“The one that was mentioned in the last directive?” said the woman who had tried to kill Katehteuna.

“Yes,” said the Shulite leader again. “A young boy with brown hair and a scar on his cheek. The hunt brought us here. For all we know, it might be one of those children. Kill them, Georges, for Echthros’ sake!”

That was when Chloe noticed the other occupants of the house for the first time.

In the next room, through a large set of open double doors, were three boys. One of them could be the heir they were looking for, Chloe realised. She couldn’t see if any of them had a scar on their right cheek, but they all had brown hair. A Shulite soldier stood in front of them with a huge scythe, poised to cut them down.

“NO!” Katetheuna shouted, and sprang over the ring of soldiers that surrounded them, twisting and flipping over in the air. Chloe’s mouth nearly dropped open. She had not realised that Katetheuna, or any woman of her age, whatever age she was, could do that. Of course she had known that Katehtheuna must have skills and gifts as a swordmistress and a teacher at the Larakian school, but she had not realised just how much. Katetheuna landed outside the circle of Shulites and rushed over to defend the boys.

“Chloe, duck!” said Hotzeh. She did so, and Hotzeh brought his staff around in an enormous circle, sending it smacking into many of the soldiers on the way with a series of ear-splitting cracks, throwing them in all directions. “Now go help Katey!”

Chloe did not need telling twice. She dashed through the doors to Katetheuna’s aid, but before she knew it the woman who had answered the door was in front of her, slicing at her with two terrible long knives.

Chloe fell back into her defensive seeing technique by reflex. But this woman was faster than the soldier had been. Chloe could just about keep up to defend herself, but she still wasn’t even able to contemplate counterattacking with strikes of her own at all. The woman had her on the back foot; she could only react to the crazed, deadly movements of the knives.

“Jake! Assist me!” said the woman.

Something careered into the back of Chloe, sending her to the floor again. She was exposed to the woman’s blades. By the grace of the One True King, Hotzeh caught up with her at the critical moment and sent the unprepared woman flying backwards with a mighty blow from his staff, no doubt using his own gift of supernatural sight honed over a lifetime of practice. He leapt after her, keeping up the pressure.

Chloe looked up to see who had knocked into her. It was one of the boys from Ubal. He might be the heir they were looking for, though he didn’t have a scar on his cheek. What was he doing? Couldn’t he see that they were trying to help him? That the woman with the knives and the Shulites were evil murderers?

“What are you doing, you moron?” Chloe said to the boy. “I’m one of the good guys!”

“No you’re not!” said the boy. “You attacked this house late at night!”

“No we didn’t! You saw for yourself! We were just looking for someone!”

“Well who are you looking for then?”

They were looking for the next heir to the Steward Throne of Larkia, but not only that person, and right now Chloe did not care about that so much. Right now she had another priority.

“A girl about the same age as me, with long hair.”

“What, you mean that girl tied up by the wall over there?”

A jolt of surprise surged through Chloe. She looked over to where the boy was pointing. Sure enough, there, occasionally obscured by a black soldier or a white robe or a panicking boy dodging in and out between them, was Hannah, bound by ropes and gagged. She was wriggling around where she lay, but unable to free herself from the cords or to move any significant distance. She had been put down by someone on the floor near to the door of the house in the entrance hall. In the chaos of the battle Chloe had not spotted her.

“Hannah!” Chloe called out. She ran through the battle and into the entrance hall, using her gift to dodge the flailing weapons and bodies on the way. The boy followed in her wake. Hotzeh and Katetheuna moved about as two white blurs among the black soldiers, fending them off and protecting the boys from them.

Before Chloe could get to Hannah, a Shulite somersaulted over their heads with a roar and landed in between them.

“Hands off my catch!” he said to them. It was the same soldier who had blocked the boys’ path earlier, the one who carried a scythe, which he swung at Chloe. She jumped backwards out of the way. His second swing reached further, but she managed to bring up her sword in time to parry it. This soldier was not as skilled as the woman with the knives had been. She was still absolutely terrified and feared for her life, but she found that she could see and meet his blows coming much more easily. Now if she could just find that offensive strike… Here! No… There! No… Whoops!

Chloe had thrown a strike at the soldier, but she had judged it too late and missed, overextending herself. Now she was left wide open to him. She could see his next blow coming and would not have time to defend herself!

Something hit the soldier so hard he was sent back into the wall with a horrendous crunch. The Shulite collapsed onto the ground several paces away. Katetheuna had arrived again and kicked him in the chest. She no longer had her sword.

“Come on Chloe, we’re leaving, we need to regroup,” Katetheuna said, running over to Hannah and picking her up to carry her with two hands. “Boys, follow us! We’ll get you to safety!”

Chloe glanced round, stealing a look at the scene behind her. Katetheuna and Hotzeh had left most of the soldiers unconscious or groaning on the floor, including the woman and the man who had already been inside the house. One of them, the leader, the largest and most fearsome, had been pinned to the wall by Katetheuna’s sword through his shoulder. This one was currently shouting with malice and venom, his voice tremoring and gurgling with malice.

“You filthy Larakians! You Echthros-hated mongrels! We will find you and kill you! Vandals! Thieves! Pollutants! You will fail in your mission to find your heir! You will all fail and perish!”