The bodies of the dead slumped from their horses to the ground, and the bodies of the living jumped after them, pulling swords from sheaths, yelling, screaming unintelligibly, a mindful one or two drawing arrows. Katsa ran toward the men; Po continued shooting. The first came at her with wild eyes and a screeching mouth, swinging his sword so erratically that it was no trouble for Katsa to dodge the blade, kick another rushing man in the head, pull the first man’s dagger from his belt, and stab them both in the neck. She kept the dagger, grabbed a sword, and came out swinging. She knocked another man’s sword from his hands and ran hers through his stomach. She whirled on two men who came from behind and killed them both with her dagger while she fought off a third with her sword. She hurled the dagger into the chest of a soldier on a horse who aimed an arrow at Po.

And suddenly only one man was left, his breath ragged and his eyes wide with fear. That man backed away and began to run. In a flash Katsa pulled a knife from another man’s chest and ran after him; but then she heard the smooth release of an arrow, and the man cried out and fell, and lay still.

Katsa looked down at her bloodstained tunic and trousers. She wiped her face, and blood came off onto her sleeve. All around her lay murdered men, men who hadn’t known any better, whose minds were no weaker than her own. Katsa was sick and discouraged, and furious with the king who’d made this bloodbath necessary.

“Let’s make sure they’re dead,” she said, “and get them on the horses. We must send them back, to put Leck off our trail.”

They were dead, every one of them. Katsa pulled arrows and blades from chests and backs and tried not to look at their faces. She cleaned the knives and daggers and handed them back to Po. She carried Bitterblue’s knife back to her and found the girl standing, arms crossed against the cold, eyes alert now, lucid. Katsa glanced down at her bloody clothing. She found herself hoping the child hadn’t witnessed the massacre of men.

“I feel warmer,” Bitterblue said.

“Good. How much of that fight did you see?”

“They didn’t have much of a chance, did they?” It was her only answer. “Where are we going now?”

“I’m not sure. We need to find a safe place to hide, where we can eat and sleep. We need to talk about what happens next.”

“You’ll have to kill the king,” she said, “if you ever want him to stop chasing us.”

Katsa looked at this child, who barely came up to her chest. Po’s sleeves hanging almost to the girl’s knees; her eyes and her nose big under her hood, too big for her little face. Her voice a squeak. But a calmness in her manner of speaking, a certainty as she recommended her father’s murder.