By some miracle, Luthene’s efforts had been enough to quell the spread of the illness. It had taken the boy who served Domnall and who had alerted Luthene to Domnall’s illness. Dyfdd’s woman, Gabriela, also passed, as much from grief as from plague. They were the last, however. Galin had insisted that even the huts of the dead were to be burned, along with their beds and clothing, and those were used for Domnall’s and Dyfdd’s funeral pyres.

Teaching Galin his letters was harder. He could write his own name at least, and knowing five letters was better than none, but any further progress was slow. Luthene didn’t push him, and when he appeared to be getting frustrated, the lessons would stop. It was already trying enough for him to learn the bow— or rather, a crossbow, which didn’t require such significant training to use effectively. That was hard enough on him, she knew, and there wasn’t a way for her to make reading lessons any more enjoyable. They could wait until a better time, when he wasn’t under so much pressure.

Luthene had not, as of yet, requested a transfer to Galin’s unit. Her plan had been to befriend the women, first, but had no solid idea how to do that, yet. Duties as the closest thing the men had to a physician came first, anyway; these had even kept her too occupied to train with the men of her unit. While she missed training, she wondered what it would be like to do so without Galin there. Did the men truly accept her, or just tolerate her for his sake?

With fewer people falling ill and needing her attention, Luthene closed her books for the day and left her hut (where the old physician’s things had been moved so his could be fed to the fire), headed to the training yard to find Galin. Maria caught up with her along the way, and handed her the needle and sutures Luthene had given her for Cooper.

“Been meaning to give you these,” Maria said. “Owen wouldn’t let me go near him with a needle, all, ‘I’ve seen you sew, woman!’ and anyway, he’s healed up well enough without them. A scar, perhaps, but that’s what he deserves for fighting, anyway.”

Luthene couldn’t help but laugh. “Aye, Galin complained as well, when I was washing his cuts. ‘Watch that cloth, woman!’” she said, deepening her voice to match his a bit better. “He said I was cruel, not offering him wine for the pain, and I told him to remember that if he picked a fight again.”

Maria laughed as well, and Luthene wondered if it might be this easy. “I’m sure he forgave you quick enough,” she added with a wink. “Though you’ve been so busy I imagine you fall asleep before you hit the bed! Tell me, is Galin the sort of man who would wake you?”

“Uh, no. No, he lets me sleep,” Luthene said, flushing.

“Gods, I wish Owen would! If those two stop fighting—“

Maria was cut off by Galin yelling Cooper’s name. The two women exchanged a glance, then together they took off towards Cooper and Maria’s hut, where the yelling had come from. Luthene, being the faster of the two women, got there first, in time to see Cooper draw his blade. Other men, mostly from the skirmishing unit, were leaving their huts to see what was happening. Somehow, Luthene needed to stop this before one or both of them ended up dead, but getting in the middle of it wasn’t an option; she might get hurt herself that way, and the damage to Galin’s reputation would be irreparable if his woman was the one to drag him away.

Maria arrived, and there was a big of fear in her expression before she hid it with something blank. Was she as smart, Luthene wondered, and hoped Maria was.

“Follow my lead,” Luthene whispered. Then, loudly, she said, “I haven’t told Galin yet, but I think I might be pregnant!”

Really? Maria mouthed, before saying, just as loudly? “Congratulations! You know, I’d like Owne to give me a baby. I think that’s the only way he’ll make an honest woman out of me! There’s just one problem!”

“What’s that?” Luthene replied, giving her head a slight shake.

“He can’t get it up!”

Around them, some men were watching the women more than the fight. Good.

“Oh, that’s easy to fix!” Luthene went on. “Get some dried mandrake, grind it up, and put a pinch in his drink at dinner.”

“Don’t you think he’ll notice?”

“Galin hasn’t figured it out yet!” There was some laugher. “And we could be at it all night if necessary.”

Despondent. That was the word for it, Mathuin thought, as he caught the bundle of his gear from the sailor aboard the merchantman that brought him and Lajaka to Adeluna. Ever since the ritual failed on that windswept hilltop, she had been withdrawn and bitter, seeking solace in Mathuin's quickly diminishing store of spirits. She spent more time drunk than sober during the voyage and, if he did not miss his mark, she was hungover that morning as they went ashore. “Thanks mate,” he called and tossed a crescent to the sailor who caught it with staggering speed. “Now, which way’s the East Gate?”

“East, I expect,” said the sailor, laughing at his own joke and Mathuin cracked a smile.

“With directions like those, I can’t understand how we won’t get lost.” Mathuin, with Lajaka in tow, headed East, past the Winking Mermaid, and out along the high road to the East. He could see that the plague had been particularly harsh in the portside areas, with houses still boarded up for fear of infection, marked with their red exes. “Looks like it was a real bastard of a time,” he muttered to Lajaka. It was strange to have someone traveling with him after years of being completely on his own and he was not entirely sure he was comfortable with the idea yet. But she was, for lack of a better word, family and he wanted to ensure that she was safe. If he could not make it back to his time he would have to make the best of the one he had and to do that he would have to give up some of his most precious solitude. He had decided, during the voyage, that he would likely have to join with the mercenary company to keep contact with Lajaka, as she was dead set on being near Luthene. He did not care for that sort of life anymore but it was a sacrifice he would have to make to keep hold of his only family.

The camp looked like it had been plucked straight from a valley in the North, a strange sight among the dressed stone and tile of Adeluna’s finer buildings. Strange as it appeared to an outsider, it was a piece of home for the two travelers and Mathuin appreciated that at least. The timber palisade around the camp was stout and of good workmanship, Mathuin noticed, and its guards seemed to be alert. They were all good signs about the company’s professionalism in spite of the plague and even though Mathuin had little enough desire to stand and take orders, he was glad that it would be with men that took their trade seriously. When they reached the gate, one of the guards shouted down at them from the fighting platform. “Oi, you lot, what’s got you out this way?”

“Two new recruits,” replied Mathuin dryly. “Well, one new recruit,” he shoved Lajaka a little, “ and one old one. We’re acquainted with Alyson and looking for work. Mind taking us to whatever one of you bare-arsed hill people is in charge?” The man bridled a moment then saw Mathuin’s easy smile and broke out into one himself.

“Just wait a moment, old man, and make sure you don’t forget why you’ve come here while you’re waiting.”

Chuckling, Mathuin slipped through the slowly opening gate and clapped the man on the back. “Maker’s bollocks, why am I here again? I swear, at my age, I’d forget about my damned cock if it weren’t attached… Oh, right, I remember. I’m here to each cocky little sons of bitches like you how to fight properly!”

The guard laughed and pointed up to the hall. “He’s up that way, but like as not he’ll be around the yard training with the lads. Alyson and Galin’re up to the left, far end. Skirmish troop, if you’re looking for them first. Galin’ll be the one with a scowl a mile long and the swollen eye. Him and Cooper, one of the skirmishers, got into it a few days back and Cooper’s got a punch like a Dunholm heifer kicking.” Mathuin pulled a crescent out of his pouch and gave it to the man for his information.

“So,” he asked Lajaka as they walked further into the camp, “where do you want this little family reunion to start?”

Lajaka didn’t remember most of the trip back to Adeluna, mostly because she was either drinking, drunk, or sleeping it off. The hangover was especially bad when the ship finally docked in the city. Mathuin asked a sailor for directions to the hall, and might have saved himself a crescent if he’d asked Lajaka first; she had been there already. But him not asking meant that she didn’t have to answer, and that was just fine, too, since her head was throbbing worse than a lad in a brothel for the first time.

Mathuin had taken the loss easier than she had. Considering Lajaka’s goal had been to get him home, he’d handled her failure rather well. Then again, he never really believed it, not like she had. Lajaka had cried, and he’d comforted her as best he could; she was, after all, a stranger to him, even if the reverse wasn’t true. When they left the hill, however, Lajaka tried not to think about it, and she definitely didn’t talk about it. She was hopeful again when they got to Dunholm and learned that a blonde Adelunan woman and a Highland man had been looking for her. Then Lajaka remembered that, while they might look similar, the people here weren’t the same as the one she’d left, and never would be. There was more to drink in Dunholm than on the hill, though.

Back in Arri, Mathuin had said that if he couldn’t get back, at least neither of them would be alone anymore. He’d helped his word, too, even knowing Lajaka planned to find Luthene and join the Company. That had been her plan before meeting Mathuin, and seeing as she didn’t have a better one, she’d stick to it, though she had questioned the idea many times on the ship. Her policy was never to make important decisions while drunk, however, and she never sobered up long enough to change her mind. Some of the excitement was coming back as they got closer to the hall, and when the guard was shouting at Mathuin where ‘Alyson’ and Galin were to be found, Lajaka didn’t really mind.

“Hut would be best,” Lajaka whispered. Best to do things privately first, and then they can all agree on a story to tell the rest. A good thing so many Highlanders were related one way or another, since it would make the story all the easier. “Head there first, and I’ll wait there while you go to the yard and find them.” There was a knot in Lajaka’s stomach that wasn’t because of the drink, and she wasn’t sure she could hide her expression when she saw Luthene again. That would have to be in private, too.

A kind-looking, dark-haired woman pointed out the right hut when asked, and Lajaka pulled back the flap, stepped inside… and smirked. Mathuin wouldn’t have to go to the yard after all. There they were, on the bed— the only bed, Lajaka noted— and while they both still had their tunics on, it look like that wasn’t going to be true in another minute. Lajaka cleared her throat. “This a bad time?”

Luthene shot up so fast it was a wonder she didn’t hit Galin. She tried to compose herself, and her hair was out of place,but that was forgotten when she realized who was standing there. “Lajaka?” she whispered, her eyes wide. When Lajaka nodded, Luthene stepped forward and embraced the other woman.

“You know me?” Lajaka asked, hardly daring to believe it might be possible.

“I started to remember after we met,” Luthene said, “but I didn’t really piece it together until Galin and I were in Arri. The memories have stopped, they’re fading, but I wrote them down, as much as I could. Yes, I know you. Lajaka… Lunar… my daughter.”

For a minute the two women held each other, both blinking back tears. Then Luthene caught sight of Mathuin, and cocked her head as she stared at him. “I remember you. From the clock. And…”

“He’s who you think he is,” Lajaka interjected. For Galin’s sake, she gestured to Mathuin and said, “Mathuin’s here to join the company with me. The two of you are gonna have to come up with a story, in case she ain’t the only one who notices. Her and I, might be I’m a bastard cousin or something? It’s just the eyes with us. You two, it’s more. Don’t suppose your Da liked to sow his oats, Galin?”

At the clock, Luthene had thought something was odd about Mathuin, but wasn’t sure what it was. Now, seeing him in her hut, with Galin beside her, Luthene wondered how she could have missed it. He was older, wore a beard, the hair was different, and the scar across his face was distracting, but Luthene knew those eyes better than Galin himself did. The smile, too; Mathuin wasn’t smiling now, but she remembered it from the clock. Same height, same build, though Mathuin was a bit leaner than her Galin. How had she missed it before?

Lajaka’s confirmation wasn’t necessary. Luthene nodded along when she mentioned needing some story to explain the resemblance, half listening. Then the mention of Galin’s father came up, and Luthene reached for his hand— the hand that was about to reach for his knife, she noticed, also stepping in between Galin and the newcomers. At first she thought the anger in his eyes was because of what Lajaka had said, but he was looking at Mathuin.

“Timedeath, Galin,” Luthene said, hoping an explanation would calm him. “Portals from other worlds, people coming her from other worlds. That’s where Lajaka came from. In her world, I— or another version of me— am her mother. Remember when I had that fever, and I said… something that was uncharacteristic for me? I told you, if was something that this other me, Lajaka’s mother, said to another version of you.” But Mathuin was someone else. “You were there when I met Lajaka, in Vilpamolan. Mathuin… you’ll just have to take my word for it when I tell you how I introduced myself. And I would not lie to you, Galin.” She looked back at Mathuin, and hoped she was right. “But they both know the name I gave was a lie, I think. And Lajaka certainly knows who I really am.”

“Aye, Luthene, though he was the one to tell me the truth before you ever did,” Lajaka replied.

“How would she know me? When would I have ever have told her?” Luthene was pleading with Galin to believe her. “She’s from another world, Galin, a world where she is my daughter. And him…” Again, she looked back at Mathuin before returning to meet Galin’s gaze again. “He’s from another world, too. Just like the scholars said. I told you about it in Cittapache. Not exactly the same, but I look at you more than you look at you. He’s… cavalry.”

Galin heard the rustle of the leather hanging be drawn aside and stopped what he was doing long enough to curse under his breath. "I swear to the Maker, Cooper, if you are here to bother me, I'll fucking gut you." When he looked up, there was a smirking woman clearing her throat, one who seemed familiar. Even so, his hand fell easily to the hilt of his knife and he stood uneasily at the rear of the hut while Luthene and she embraced. It was strange, stranger than fiction, and then the leather moved aside again and a bearded stranger arrived. He looked like a capable fighter, a man of about Galin's size, and his weapons, Galin noted, were well-made but not ornate and very well worn. He would be the real threat, the Northman decided, and smiled coolly at the man who returned his smile with one of his own.

Apparently the man was one of the people Luthene had run into in Arri when they were separated. She had mentioned him briefly but Galin was never really sure on the details. It always felt like Luthene was unsure of something and was holding back until it all made sense to her. "Recruits. Lovely. A bit old, ain't you Mathuin?"

The older man smirked, the scar on the side of his face pulling and giving him a sardonic look. "Old enough to whip you yet, boy."

Before Galin could reply, Lajaka, apparently, decided to make a comment about his father. His bastardy was not always a sore subject with Galin but in his current mood, he was more than willing to take proper offense. "My father was a cheating bastard who killed my mother by means of her birthing me, so if you say another damned thing on the matter, you won't have to worry about your eyes. I'll tear 'em out of your head with my hands." He was working himself into a rare anger now, and turned to the man. Something was truly unsettling and his urge to fight him grew until Luthene's hand restrained him. "And what in the nine hells is this about another damned world and him being me. It's some lie or some sorcery and the quickest way to settle both is to gut him and be done with it. Maker's bollocks, I can't believe you believe this," he said, his body tense and eyes fixed firmly on the man the women claimed was him.

"I'm bloody me. I was born, I'll die, and that's the end of it. There ain't two of me or a hundred of me. Just the damned one, and that's plenty for any world." He spat at the man's feet, spittle flecking his boots. "I don't know what your game is, mate, but you aren't me. So shift it." Luthene's words made no sense. Other worlds, the babblings of those drunk scholars, and people coming between them? It was madness of the highest order. Lajaka was a fevered dream that Luthene had worked into a story in her illness, nothing more, and the man was something else entirely. He let go of the hilt of his knife and felt Luthene's hand drop, trusting that he would not draw it. Instead, he took one step forward and cracked Lajaka across the face with a vicious backhanded slap. When he spoke, his voice was practically vibrating with controlled fury. "Use her name again and you'll get worse. We've got too many ears around this shit heap and her name getting out is something I've avoided for months. If you bugger that up, you answer to me." He turned back to Luthene. "If she's your daughter, teach her to mind her mouth."

Luthene was desperate to believe this farce and Galin regretted indulging it as much as he had. He sighed heavily through his nose and looked at her sadly. “You can’t really believe this, worlds we can’t see out there where we are and we’re still here? It’s…” He shook his head. “You, old man, what’s your angle. If you want money, you two can take what coin we’ve got, no need to try and trick it out of us later. If you’re here to expose her, I’ll see you dead first or die trying. Anything else, I don’t give a tinker’s damn.”

The old man chuckled and fingered the hilt of his sword. “I’m here because the one you just graciously smacked insisted she meet you two. And no, the two of them are over-complicating things, though with her,” he jerked his head at Luthene, “what else would you expect. Best answer I have, I’m a man that looks like you that’s got a life that’s a bit like yours, but mate, I’m certainly not some second-rate, flea-bitten mercenary with a bunch of skulking skirmishers. If I wanted to lie, I’d do bloody better than that.”

Galin gawped at him a moment, stunned, and the man continued with a grin. “And I have to thank you for smacking her, Maker knows I’ve wanted to since I met her. Got something of a mouth, ain’t she? I would have done it myself but she was too busy snoring like a damned hog, covered in my booze and her own vomit on the ship. Didn’t hardly seem fair.” Galin’s gaze softened a little and some of the tension began to ebb out of him. Something about the man was likable and he certainly had a fair outlook on Lajaka. “Now I do believe there’s got to be a bottle around here somewhere. Talk like this is heady enough, don’t need to be sober as well. That’s just torture.”

Galin sighed again and then tossed the man a bottle of local wine. “Cups are at the table there.” The older man broke the wax seal and poured wine for the four of them. Galin sat heavily on the edge of his bed, wine in hand, next to Luthene. “Now I’m not sure I can trust you, either of you, but the man’s got some good points. No sense doing this shite sober.” He downed the cup at once and refilled it. “Now, you, Lajaka, from the top. And mind your damned tongue or I have a mind to let your friend there get his own slaps in as well, and it sounds like you’ve had them coming.” He leaned against Luthene and groaned, wishing with all his heart that it had just been Cooper to bother him and not this new mess. The Maker was a capricious bastard, Galin thought, and could almost hear the laughter in the clouds.

Maybe Luthene didn’t see it coming, but Lajaka did, and she didn’t flinch. When Galin pulled his hand away, she cocked an eyebrow at him, but her expression was otherwise blank. She’d just been answering Luthene’s question and trying to prove the point, for all the good it would do. It sounded like this wasn’t the fist time he’d heard about this, but even with her and Mathuin standing there, it wasn’t enough. Lajaka didn’t try to explain further, not with Galin as mad as he was. Not the worst I’ve seen, she thought.

It was Mathuin who eventually calmed Galin down and suggested a drink. Lajaka took the cup she was offered, and drank most of it in one go. Her headache was back with a vengeance after Galin slapped her, but the drink took some of the bite out of it. Luthene was done looking indignant after Mathuin’s quip about her complicating things, and she’d reached up to squeeze Galin’s shoulder as he leaned against her. “What I remember is you always having proper whiskey about somewhere,” Lajaka mumbled. “But when in Adeluna, I guess.” She drained the wine from her cup and leaned against the wall of the hut.

“When I was young, back in my world, there’d been a vicious bloke who called himself a god, and he wanted to claim the Highlands as his own. There was a war, a bloody one. You,” Lajaka said, indicating Galin, “or the version I knew, lived in a place called Dun Caric, only it was bigger there than it is here. Dun Caric fought against him, and you were a big part of the reason why he was defeated.” This time, she was careful not to mention a united Highlands, nor that Galin was actually leading the clans. Mathuin never really believed it, and this man wouldn’t, either. “Years later, the men who supported that bloke found a way to try again. Some crack opened, connecting my world with another one.” Lajaka indicated Mathuin. “His world. There, they fought the same war, only they hadn’t won it. Their plan was to use this crack connecting both worlds to win the war in his world, and crush Dun Caric in mine.

“I’d been born in the south, but lived in the Highlands for the most part. My mother, Luthene, didn’t go by that name. She’d been a blacksmith. Don’t suppose you are?”

Luthene shook her head at Lajaka’s question. “No. My father was, so I know a little about the trade, but I never really learned it myself.”

“Well, I knew she was using a false name, and that once she’d been involved in that same war you two were involved in not all that long ago. Only you’d had quite a large falling-out over it. When I found myself in Dun Caric, I met Galin, who up until then had just been a man from her stories, and I asked if you were my father.” She looked at Galin, and her gaze softened a bit. “And you were, at least in the ways that really mattered. Anyway, when I wrote my Ma to tell her where I was, she came to Dun Caric, too, and then two two of you wasted no time getting reacquainted and making up for lost time. Don’t suppose you remember that?”

Luthene turned red. “A little.”

Lajaka smirked. “Well, no long after that, people loyal to that now-dead death god started poking the bear, meaning to draw Galin out. Killed someone Galin knew, tried to kill me, tried to kill his son, too. We had to respond, of course, attack their hall. But there was a part of that hall we couldn’t get eyes inside, and we only ever counted three hundred-odd men. Not enough. Wasn’t until we were about to leave that we realized there was a lot more going on, and a good ten thousand men unaccounted for, ready to march on Dun Caric itself.

“When we got to the hall, that’s when we found the crack, and figured out their plan. There was another army on the other side, one they were preparing to bring over. Somebody had to close the crack, and I was the idiot who volunteered. That’s where I met this second-rate, flea-bitten skirmisher for the first time. What I saw of that world, it seemed a lot like mine. And like this one. I managed to close the crack, though I’ll spare you the details seeing as I don’t want to over-complicate things. That was about two years ago, which happens to be about how long Mathuin here’s been in your lovely world.

“I made it back to my world, and life went on for a while. Then one day, it’d be nearly four months ago by now, it was like my world was coming apart. Sky was falling, and not like in the story you might tell wee ones. I saw another crack, and I went through it. That’s how I got here, and as far as I know, I’m stuck. Don’t know nobody who’s gone back, and not for lack of trying.”

Lajaka’s ears pricked and she was silent, waiting to see if the person approaching would pass by them. Then:

“Alyson?” The dark-haired woman poked her head in the hut. “Don’t mean to bother you, but there’s been another fight in the yard, and I think you’ll need your needle.”

Luthene stood up and fetched a kit. “I’ll be back as soon as I’m finished.”

As soon as their footsteps faded, Lajaka spoke again. “Alright, needless to say, this meeting ain’t going as well as I hoped it would. Now, I had planned to join with your merry company, but I ain’t sure that’s such a good idea anymore. I know she’d want us to stay, which is why I ain’t asking her. Our being here, that might be a problem for you, I think, and if you’d rather us not be here, I don’t want to put you in the position of having to say so in front of her. I ain’t the kind of asshole who would stop you from getting laid tonight, my entrance here notwithstanding. So if you’d prefer I leave tomorrow, say so, and I won’t even say I had wanted to join to her if you don’t want me to. Back home, you and me were a team that way, not telling her things she didn’t need to know if all they’d do is hurt her. So, what’s your answer?”

Maria was a godsend, even if her man was a blight on Galin’s life. When she arrived to get Luthene in her new, unofficial capacity of camp physician, he was left along with Lajaka and Mathuin for the first time. He had listened to Lajaka’s rambling story about worlds like theirs, a death god, wars, portals, and he lost track of how many versions of himself and Luthene there were. It was a child’s tale, he told himself, and rolled his eyes as he listened. Now, though, the woman came to the point of their visit and he weighed her words carefully. “So…” He stood up from the bed, wine forgotten on the floor and paced around the confined space, working matters out in his head as he chewed his lip pensively. They wanted to stay on and had the good sense not to ask in front of Luthene who clearly believed the madness Lajaka had been peddling as truth. It was the smart play, putting the power in Galin’s hands and letting him do what he would like without putting Luthene in the middle of it. The old man watched, seeing some of himself in Galin, the pacing, the chewing, and the restless eyes, but kept his silence. He knew that the young man would come to his own answer in his own time and anything to rush him would be met with resistance and bile.

“You’re damned right it ain’t going well. You come here, throwing about names and stories that are like as not to get the woman you think’s your… mother, I think, killed, and then your only evidence is a half-baked story about cracks in a falling sky and worlds that cease to exist and the Maker knows what else.” He paused in his pacing to snap at her and then continued, five paces, about face, five paces again, as though he was talking a post on the fighting platforms at night. “But you did well not asking in front of her, so I will give you that. My first reaction is to tell the both of you to head for the hills and never show your damned faces in my sight again but with the way Luthene’s latched onto this, I would never be able to hear the end of it. The trouble is, I can’t really trust you, neither of you, so long as you’re on about other worlds and other me’s. So it leaves me in a bit of a bind, you see.” He scratched the back of his neck, trying to unravel the tangled issue in front of him. He would rather keep them far and away but there were some good reasons to have the pair join.

For one thing, if they joined, he would know where they were and for folks he did not trust, Galin preferred knowing to not. And if the man was anything as seasoned as he looked, he would be a valuable addition to the company, even if Galin did not want to admit it. The woman too, he added as an afterthought. She fought with Aelle before and he had seen her with the Sanders affair. It was not much to go on, but she seemed capable enough. On and on he paced, five steps, turn, five steps, turn, his mind turning the problem over and over until he came upon an idea that might solve all his concerns at once. “Frankly Lajaka, Mathuin, I’d like to see the backs of you and be done with it but it looks like my lot is already more or less decided. But that doesn’t meant I’ll make it easy for you.” He smirked a little, stepping back so he could see them both. “I need to know I can trust you. So here’s how this will go. First, the two of you will head out to the training pit. No practice blades, but real steel, and you two fight til I tell you otherwise. Need to make sure you ain’t lying about being fighters neither. Second, only one of you will serve in my troop. The other will be shipped off to another one, can’t have the two of you plotting while my back’s turned. In time, if you aren’t useless bastards, we may revisit this. So, do we have an agreement?”

The old man nodded curtly and left the hut, heading straight for the pits without another word and the woman soon followed him. Galin smiled to himself. Maybe one would kill the other and halve his problem, he thought as he followed them, calling for the men to come out and watch the spectacle. Soon the wooden railing around the training ground was packed with observers and a brisk business in betting was happening, with odds firmly on the younger woman. “Pick your weapon,” Galin called down, pointing to racks along the rail, “or use your own. When you are ready?” He waited a full minute, letting the pair arm themselves, before shouting for them to begin. Even as the words left his mouth, steel rang in the enclosure and the crowd began to shout. The fight had begun.

In spite of her lackadaisical attitude, Lajaka very much wanted to stay, but she wasn’t going to exploit Luthene’s feelings to do it. Besides, that would only get herself in. It wouldn’t help Mathuin, and Galin didn’t seem like he was in a kind mood. Lajaka had decided that if they didn’t take Mathuin, she wouldn’t join, either. Watching Luthene, she had realized that, for the first time in Lajaka’s life, her mother was living without much regard for her daughter. Because, of course, this wasn’t really her mother, even if she remembered at least some of the things her mother knew. And at the end of the day, Luthene and Galin had each other (and probably more than once). Mathuin, on the other hand, was alone, and Lajaka decided that if he was willing enough to make sure she wasn’t alone in this strange world anymore, she’d do him the courtesy of doing the same.

Lajaka had no problem with either of Galin’s conditions. She didn’t know much about Mathuin’s fighting style, having only really seen him once, in Arri, which hardly counted, but she assumed he would be a better fit for Galin’s unit. She was shit with a bow, or any ranged weapon, really. The wall was a better place for her. Lajaka had no problem proving herself, either. Like Mathuin, she only nodded, and took the time on the way to the training yard to think.

The only weapon Lajaka had with her when she jumped was a broadsword, which she drew; better to use her own steel than someone else’s. Sharp, too, since she’d just gotten in sharpened before getting swept away to Arri. Looking at the shields, she picked a round one, held in the centre rather than strapped to the arm. Mathuin drew his blade, a longer bastard sword. No shield for him, and she noted the knife at his side.

Galin called out for them to start and their blades came together. Lajaka leaned into the blind, getting a feel for Mathuin’s strength, meeting his gaze before stepping back. What was his plan, she wondered, using her shield to knock his first attack away before stepping in and trying to knick his side with her blade. He was fast, however, and his sword was over her shield before she could complete the attack. Surprised, Lajaka stepped back. She hadn’t counted on his speed and that was a mistake.

The next few blows Lajaka parried with her sword or deflected with her shield, without trying to counter him. None of the attacks were serious, as she was watching how he moved and he was hoping to draw her in. He was a bit slower on his left side, she noticed. As soon as Mathuin moved away after another half-hearted attack, Lajaka took another step back, then started to circle around him. Her shield was between him and her sword hand, so he didn’t see her attack coming. Her shield between his sword and her body, she lunged in, and swiped at Mathuin’s left leg before he could pull away.

“First blood,” Lajaka said. That was enough for her. The final victory would be his, Lajaka knew. She stepped back to let him recover, and took a second to change hands. She was a bit better with her sword in her right, but still quite capable in her left. Better than most people expected, and she’d be able to show off a little. Lajaka lunged at Mathuin again, this time looking to cut into his torso. Her blow was parried as she suspect it would be; Luthene fought with her left, after all. It was a bit slower than Lajaka expected, though. Was he tired? She waited for a counter attack from him, but none came. Again, she leaned in to attack him, this time going for his hand. She thought she had him, too, until he parried her sword down at the last moment. Then, in a move she wasn’t expecting, he brought the pommel of his sword up and into her face. Lajaka staggered back, off-balance a little, and spat red.

Another few minutes were spent trading attacks, blocks, and parries. Lajaka’s head was pounding again, and she had to spit blood again, but she held her own. All the while, she worried hMathuin was getting tired, and wondered when Galin was going to call the fight. Surely they’d proven themselves both capable fighters by now?

Lajaka’s next attack wasn’t especially strong, and Mathuin moved back rather than trying to parry. Again she pressed him, then before she knew it he was bringing his sword around to her legs. She was forced to step back, but when she brought her left food down, there was a slight depression where the ground should have been. Bastard probably knew it, too, she thought as she tried to recover her footing. Mathuin never gave her the chance. He lunged again, and the only way Lajaka could avoid getting her middle sliced open was to let herself fall. The wind was knocked out of her when she hit the ground, but she still had her sword in hand and her shield was in front of her. Then:

“Alright, enough!” Luthene shouted in that tone another Luthene, in another world, had once used with Lajaka when she wanted no argument. “Now will you let me see to his leg, Galin?”

“You say that bit about age and treachery, I swear…” Lajaka mumbled.