Pyrre turned to the man, a smile on her face, and opened her arms as if for an embrace. “Kwihna!” she said brightly. The word was nonsensical, but the language was familiar, and the warrior paused, confusion flitting across his face. Pyrre stepped into the pause, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him close for a long, passionate kiss. When she let him go, the man toppled. Gwenna never even saw the knife.

They made it a few more streets before the alarm went up—shouting and bellowing followed by long blasts on a horn. The angry, accusatory note sounded again and again, chasing them through the night, drilling into Gwenna’s ears until she half wondered if she’d lost her mind. There was no telling which of the eight or nine corpses they’d left behind had finally done them in. It hardly mattered. The camp—shivering with screams and ululations—knew they were loose. The whole Urghul army knew.

“So much for discretion,” Pyrre said.

The next few minutes were all jolting flight, hot breath between the teeth, scrabbling to keep footing in the treacherous mud, Urghul faces stretched tight with fury, and killing. Lots and lots of killing. Pyrre cut down the warriors without breaking stride, slipping her small knives into throats and stomachs, skewering eyes and slitting tendons, each motion delicate, birdlike, and precise. Gwenna was anything but delicate. The Urghul swords she’d picked up off the dead guards were longer and heavier than the smoke steel with which she’d trained, and trying to keep pace with Pyrre it was all she could do just to hack at the bodies as she passed, huge sweeping motions that jarred her shoulder whenever the sharp edge bit.

“Less screaming,” Pyrre called back.

“What?” Gwenna shouted, burying her blade in some woman’s gut, twisting it, then wrenching it free. Blood ran hot over her hands. Hopefully someone else’s.

“You don’t need to scream each time you hit someone,” Pyrre said. “Try being more circumspect. They’ll still die.”

Gwenna started to snarl that she wasn’t screaming, then realized that her throat was raw, her ears ringing. Not that it made any difference, really. The whole camp vibrated with violence. The part of her that wasn’t screaming and hacking, running and panting, tried to tally up the odds. It seemed incredible that they were still alive, but here the fury of the Urghul actually worked in their favor. If all the horsemen had fallen silent and stood still, it would have been impossible to escape. The chaos and confusion covered their flight even better than the darkness. They were just three more bodies in a thrashing sea of flesh, three women among tens of thousands. Better yet, the camp was thinning as they approached the perimeter.

Keep your eyes on the ’Kent-kissing fight, Gwenna, she snapped at herself. Quit looking ahead.