A second later there was silence. With one blow, the Shaiksa struck his opponent’s head from his body and put an end to the screams.

I felt sick to my stomach. The assassin was too good. What chance did I have against such a warrior?

Jenny kept shaking her head, her face pale. “It was awful,” she said, her voice quavering with emotion. “At the end, just before he fell into darkness, he was so afraid.”

I put my hand on her shoulder in sympathy. It was a terrible thing to have such empathy. But I was proud of her. She had faced up to it. Back in the County, at the haunted house, she had run away, but not this time.

Grimalkin seemed unmoved by the death we’d just witnessed. The watching crowd was subdued after seeing Kauspetnd triumph yet again. With each victory he demonstrated the superior powers of the Kobalos. No human challenger could match him.

“Well, what have you learned today?” Grimalkin asked as we walked back toward our camp across the frozen ground.

I thought carefully about what I had seen.

“He fights with two blades but has more skill with his left. I should press him on his right side.”

“No,” said Grimalkin. “Press him on his stronger side for the first fifteen minutes. He will think that you have failed to spot his slight weakness. Make no mistake, he knows each facet of his combat abilities and has worked hard to improve them. But then you should switch suddenly and press him on his right. In this way, you might just win an early victory.”

“Wait for fifteen minutes?” cried Jenny, aghast. “I doubt whether any challenger has ever lasted even five against him.”

Grimalkin glared at her angrily. “Your master will last the course, but it may be a long fight,” she insisted, turning her gaze back to me. “If things go badly, it might take you more than an hour to kill him. Tomorrow I will begin your training. Soon you will start to feel more confident. Listen well, for I will speak truly now. You are already an excellent swordsman. I think you have the potential to become great—perhaps peerless. To achieve that, you will need just two things: practice and self-belief.”

I had fought successfully against opponents before, but I still felt that Kauspetnd was more than a match for me. Grimalkin was simply trying to bolster my confidence. That was why she’d looked so angry when Jenny challenged her.

The witch assassin was as good as her word. Each morning we went in among the dark trees and fought for hours. Grimalkin had trained me before—I still had the scars to prove it—but here she pressed me so hard that at times I feared for my life. Jenny looked on and winced from the sidelines.

On the first day of training, while I was resting between bouts, trying to get my breath back, Grimalkin turned to stare at Jenny. “One day, girl, you too may have to fight for your life. Have you any skill with blades?”