The Hawk kicked out once, and the Ox reeled back, clutching at her stomach and nearly tumbling over. The Ox whipped her knife at the Hawk, but in an instant, the Hawk’s sword was out of its sheath. She batted the knife away, steel clanging and ringing out so loud Anji was sure the others would come clattering out of the cathedral at any moment. The Ox hissed and leapt across the short distance.

The next few seconds passed in a cacophony of grunts and thuds. The two women rolled in the dust, each in turn wrestling the other to the ground. Anji took an unsure step forward and felt a sharp bite at her ankle. Heart thundering, she whipped around, expecting to see the Goat jabbing a knife into her foot. But it was only the sliver of rock she’d hid in her boot. She bent and fished it out.

The fight around the corner barreled on. The Ox pivoted on her knees, hurled a punch into the Hawk’s stomach, and pushed her writhing to the earth. She straddled the Hawk, shoulders heaving, her back a broad swath of black leathers, the skin of her neck exposed. Drawing a third knife, she whispered something in a shaking voice and raised the blade high.

Anji dashed forward and, just as that bovine mask turned toward her, plunged the sliver of rock into the Ox’s exposed throat.

Rust red blood bubbled around Anji’s fingers. She grunted and drove the rock deeper, then ripped it forward, teeth mashed together. She felt more than heard the Hawk scrabbling up, the anguished curse that issued from the woman’s mouth. Anji sank to one knee as the Ox crashed to the ground, pushing the woman’s limp form to her back and climbing onto her chest.

“It’s done! Stop!”

Anji ignored the Hawk’s shove to her shoulder, the pain of her lost fingers a distant thing. She gripped the shard so hard its edges cut into her skin.

She flipped the mask up.

The Ox’s shock of blond hair framed an elegant, angular face. Her sharp cheekbones and prominent chin harbored dark brown eyes over an aquiline nose. Her mouth was thin and pretty but for a chunk missing from most of her top lip. Unlike the Hawk’s, her face showed hardly any evidence of age save for neat laugh lines at her eyes and the corners of her mouth. Her skin shone ashen, lips and teeth coated with blood. Her hands twitched to her throat, trying to pull the rock free.