Two Edur stumbled back at the same time, both mortally wounded, one in the chest, the other with a third of his skull sliced away. This latter one turned away as the fighting continued, reaching down to collect the fragment of scalp and bone, then walked drunkenly back along the road.
Another Edur fell, his left leg cut out from beneath him. The remaining two quickly backed away, yelling at the Letherii who were now hesitating three paces behind the fight.
The stranger pressed forward. He parried a thrust from the Edur on the right with the longsword in his left hand-sliding the blade under then over, drawing it leftward before a twist of his wrist tore the weapon from the attacker’s hand; then a straight-arm thrust of his own buried his point in the Edur’s throat. At the same time he reached over with the longsword in his right hand, feinting high. The last Edur leaned back to avoid that probe, attempting a slash aimed at clipping the stranger’s wrist. But the longsword then deftly dipped, batting the cutlass away, even as the point drove up into the warrior’s right eye socket, breaking the delicate orbital bones on its way into the forebrain.
Advancing between the two falling Edur, the stranger cut down the nearest two Letherii-at which point the remaining eight broke and ran, past the wagons-where the drivers were themselves scrambling in panicked abandonment-and then alongside the row of staring prisoners. Running, flinging weapons away, down the road.
As one Letherii in particular moved opposite one of the slaves, a leg kicked out, tripping the man, and it seemed the chain-line writhed then, as the ambushing slave leapt atop the hapless Letherii, loose chain wrapping round the neck, before the slave pulled it taut. Legs kicked, arms thrashed and hands clawed, but the slave would not relent, and eventually the guard’s struggles ceased.
Silchas Ruin, the swords keening in his hands, walked up to where Udinaas continued strangling the corpse. ‘You can stop now,’ the albino Tiste Andii said.
‘I can,’ Udinaas said through clenched teeth, ‘but I won’t. This bastard was the worst of them. The worst.’
‘His soul even now drowns in the mist,’ Silchas Ruin said, turning as two figures emerged from the brush lining the ditch on the south side of the road.
‘Keep choking him,’ said Kettle, from where she was chained farther down the line. ‘He hurt me, that one.’
‘I know,’ Udinaas said in a grating voice. ‘I know.’