She leapt, landed in a crouch, spun in a circle on one heel as her sword came out, blade a silver flash as it went snicking through a booted ankle and hamstring in a drawing cut, stripped her buckler off its clip on her belt. Ian was beside her a quick breath later, saber working in a frantic X as he guarded her back with steel and round shield. The Rangers poured forward in a leaping shouting glitter of steel. The four-foot blade of John Hordle’s greatsword swung in three quarters of a circle and broke a shield and the arm under it and gouged into a face hard enough to shatter it in a spray of teeth and blood. Alleyne was beside Astrid too, lunging and cutting and striking like a big golden cat.

“Arise, ye Saints!”

The Mormons poured after them, nearly as quick. A dozen of them locked shields and smashed into the display window, where the glass had already been weakened by the punching bodkin points of the arrows and javelins. It turned into a glittering wave of fragments, and then their hobnailed boots were trampling the mannequins and sending sprays of gold and platinum, diamonds and rubies and tanzanite into the body of the store.

The Dúnedain followed, on their heels and then past them with a dreadful bounding agility, accompanied by one swearing, scrambling member of the Force.

Ritva vaulted a display rack, rolled under a thrust from a pila and cut backhand and upward into a groin; the man screamed astonishingly loud and thrashed, and blood sprayed across her torso. Another was beyond him, swearing as the dying man tangled his feet and display cases on either side pinned him in place; she charged, shoulder-checking him in his shield as he staggered. That was like ramming her shoulder full tilt into a brick wall, but he went over backward and two Mormons jumped on him, their sword-arms pumping like pistons.

It was obvious where the two Mrs. Thurstons and their children were; as agreed they were clutching at pillars and cabinets and screaming at the top of their lungs as their guards tried to drag them to what they thought was safety, adding one more element of chaos to the scene. The spot they’d picked to linger was cluttered, too; big leather sofas, discreet and heavy display cases with marble bases, and the desks and counters of the shop staff.