“Surprise,” she said flatly.

Kyra quickly spun, still clutching the sack, and hurled it with all her might. As she did, the sack opened and the feed went flying through the air, spraying all of her attackers’ eyes.

The men shrieked, clutching their eyes in the dust storm, all temporally blinded, while Dierdre, picking up on Kyra’s cues, did the same, swinging the other sack in a wide arc and blinding the rest of the men. It all happened so quickly, before the startled men could react. Clearly, they had not anticipated that.

Without hesitating, Kyra drew the staff from her back, stepped forward, and with a great shout, brought it down hard on the leader’s head, smashing him in a downward strike. The man fell to his knees and as soon as he did, she kicked him in the chest, sending him to his back. She then brought her staff straight down, breaking his nose.

In the same motion, Kyra spun her staff sideways and behind her, cracking another oaf across the jaw; she then sidestepped and jabbed straight back, breaking the nose of another. She then clutched her staff with both hands, rushed forward, raised it high overhead, and brought it down sideways into the faces of two men before her, knocking them both down.

While the others still clawed at their eyes, trying to extract the feed, Kyra rushed forward and kicked one between the legs, then raised her staff back and struck him downward across the face, knocking him down. She then grabbed her staff with both hands, raised it high and brought it down like a knife into the chest of another man, sending him stumbling back, crashing into a table and knocking it over.

Kyra whirled through the group like lightning, so fast that the stunned men didn’t have a chance to react. She was in such harmony with her weapon, all of her sparring lessons with her father’s men coming back to her, it was as if she and her staff were one. Her countless nights of sparring alone, long after the other men had left, came flooding back. Her instincts took over, and within moments several of her attackers, cracked by her staff, lay writhing on the floor, bloodied, groaning.

After the chaos, only two men were left standing, and these two, grain finally cleared from their eyes, stared back at Kyra with death in their eyes. One drew a dagger.

“Let’s see how that stick of yours does against a knife,” he growled, and charged.

Kyra braced herself for the attack when suddenly there came a crashing noise and she was surprised to see him collapse, face-first, at her feet. She looked up to see Dierdre standing behind, holding a broken stool, hands shaking, staring down as if in shock at what she had just done.