Valyn debated seizing the lance as it loitered around his chest, using it to pull the woman off-balance, then wrapping his bound hands around her throat. Huutsuu was fast—he remembered that from the first night in the rain—but he was faster. Or he had been, before spending the better part of a month lashed to a horse. Now, he wasn’t sure. He’d managed to stand, but his legs wavered beneath him and his fingers felt weak and stupid when he tried to clench them into fists. His belly might have been made of mud. The weakness and helplessness were infuriating—years of training scrubbed out in a few weeks—but they were real. He’d managed to stay alive this long. Little point in getting himself skewered now. Besides, Huutsuu had said the others were hardened. Hardened wasn’t killed.

“Where are they?” he demanded.

She nodded past his shoulder, and he turned to find a young ksaabe prodding Gwenna forward, a bared knife at her back. For the first time in what felt like years, Valyn smiled. Gwenna was filthy and battered. Both eyes were swollen half closed, the sockets fading from purple to brown, one cheek crusted with blood. She was battered but awake. She was walking. Valyn glanced at the ksaabe behind her, and his smile widened. The Urghul woman had a fresh bite mark on her own cheek, a gash closing above her eye, and fury in her eyes. When they reached Valyn, she smacked Gwenna across the head with the pommel of her knife, then kicked her legs out from beneath her. Gwenna twisted as she hit the ground, lashing out with her own foot, but the ksaabe danced back, spit in her face, then snapped something angry at Huutsuu.

“I am going to slaughter that little Urghul bitch,” Gwenna snarled, rolling to her stomach, then shoving herself to her knees. “I’m going to kill her, then eat her.”

“Looks like you already made some headway,” Valyn observed.

Huutsuu just laughed and flicked a dismissive hand at the younger warrior.

“You look like shit,” Gwenna said, turning her attention to Valyn with a frown.

“You’re no princess,” Valyn replied. “You seen any of the others?”

The others, as it turned out, were in similar condition—beaten, battered, but alive. One by one they appeared out of the turmoil, each escorted by an Urghul. Talal seemed the most hale, which made sense—he would have offered the fewest insults. Laith’s captor, on the other hand, had leashed him with a length of rawhide, the cord leaving angry welts ringing his neck. Despite his wounds, the flier still managed a fierce grin.