“How many soldiers are left?” she called out in Balcovian.
Back-to-back, Kuni and Graham turned around so that he faced Reddington’s camp. Graham had uncanny spatial ability that allowed him to register details and count vast numbers in the blink of an eye.
“Forty-nine,” he answered.
Good God, they’d barely dispatched half of them? The whispering in her joints grew to a murmur.
“How’s Stephen?” she asked as her sword crashed against an enemy soldier’s blade, spinning the handle up and out of his hands.
“Impressively competent,” replied her brother.
Despite being no doubt anxious and worried, Stephen was also capable of single-handedly manning a 360-degree command center with bells from each floor and telescopes and whispering walls on every side and dozens of levers and pulleys that detonated disasters he’d designed out of nothing more than an empty apothecary bottle and a piece of thread.
She loved that his machines had been such a boon to the mission. The trapdoor was brilliant, as were all the other tricks, from false portraits to hot paint catapults. When they finally beat Reddington, the first thing Elizabeth was going to do was tell Stephen he—
“By the bobbled horse-flowers,” gasped Kuni.
“What is it?”
“We’re out of daggers!”
Elizabeth tossed over the sword in her left hand without breaking stride from her current parries.
Long black braids swinging, Kuni caught the blade by its hilt and immediately employed it in the destruction of her enemy’s dapper redcoat. She and Graham were still fighting back-to-back… or at least, Kuni was still fighting. Without a blade, Graham was reduced to his fists. He was quick and strong, but speed and power were no match against the slice of sharp steel.
“Augh!” Kuni cried out.
Shite. “What happened?”
“Lost the sword,” she gasped. “Hadn’t practiced with that one and I—oh!”
She and Graham rolled out of the way as two soldiers swung at them in unison.
With a burst of tenaciousness, Elizabeth bloodied the arms and chests of all four of her attackers, giving her siblings a few seconds’ respite before new replacements arrived. She tossed her final sword to Graham, who handed it immediately to Kuni.
In seconds, the tip of Kuni’s blade met her opponent’s cheek.
“Huzzah!” cheered Graham.
Elizabeth felt less like exultation. Four new soldiers were bearing down, andtheyhad swords in their hands.
She bit her lip and risked a glance overhead at Stephen’s turret. She couldn’t see him, but she knew he was up there worrying her head was about to be chopped off and stuffed onto a pike, which normally would be a laughable concern, but under these circumstances—
A blade arced through the air and stuck into the ground an arm’s width from her body.
“Last sword!” came Stephen’s distant shout.
“One is all I need,” she murmured, and yanked the blade up from the grass.
The sword wasn’t one of hers, which meant wielding it wasn’t quite as natural as breathing. But all she needed was a blade.
“Aargh!” Kuni yelled again. “There went my last weapon, too!”
“Go to the murder room!” Elizabeth called out in Balcovian. “If they make it inside, the traps will take care of them. I’ll hold them off as long as possible to give you a head start.”
How long was “as long as possible”? Sixty percent had now come and gone. She was at fifty-five. Maybe fifty.
And there were forty more soldiers left to go.
