Legs found his way over and grasped Da’s wrist. His hair stuck out, and fear shone plainly on his face. Da took Legs’s hand and kissed it. “Be brave, Shen, son of Sparrow, son of Sparrow, son of Shen.” Shen was Legs’s given name. He was an ancestor who had been a powerful man, and Da loved telling his stories. Da kissed Legs’s hand a second time.

By the time they had the breastplate buckled about him, Sugar could hear the fire above their heads and smell the smoke coming in through the cracks of the shutters.

“Peer out the back and tell me what you can see,” said Mother.

Sugar looked out a small hole in the shutter and surveyed their garden. Fancy neighed nervously and clopped about trying to pull free from the post. The soldiers stood away from the border of the yard.

“They’ve backed up,” she said.

“Did you see their faces?” asked Da. “Half of them are petrified. Those are not children out there. I should be stuck like a pincushion with arrows. But their fear has affected their aim. Would that I were a soul-eater. Then this whole so-called hunt would be at risk. With average luck, I’d kill the lot of them and green our garden with their blood.”

Mother came away from the window. “Perhaps we can make the break together,” she said to Da. “You can take off this armor. The children and I will ride off first. And in the confusion of them chasing us, you can get on Sot.”

Da fastened his helmet on. “It’s too risky. We need to split them. I should have run to the smithy to draw them away from you, but none of the pieces there would have fit me well. There’s no armor there but what’s made for these short whoreson Mokaddians.”

Heat began to press down upon them as if they were loaves in an oven. Smoke hung about the room in hazy streaks.

“It’s time,” he said. Then he took Legs’s face in his hands and kissed his cheek, embraced him, then kissed him again. He did the same to Sugar, but she could not let him go.

She would not. Lords, she would rather die with him. She had her knife.

“You are a delight and solace,” he said. “We named you perfectly. Take care of your brother.” Then he gently forced Sugar away.

He stood and looked at Mother with a fierce light in his eyes. “I could never have found a better woman,” he said. “Even in your arguing.”

“Take off the armor,” Mother said.

“We’re not going to be able to make the break together,” said Da. “It won’t work.”

Mother seemed oddly calm. “Sparrow, my heart. Haven’t you learned yet that I’m always right?”

What was Mother thinking? Then Sugar realized she had given up. She’d always said that if her babies died, she wanted to go with them. Sugar saw this logic extended to Da as well. And perhaps that was right. They would all die together.

“No,” said Da. “We’ll not take that route. We’ll not walk into their spears and arrows without a struggle. If they want my blood and the blood of my fine wife and children, then they will pay for it. You’re feeling battle dread; hold your course until it passes. You have a chance, Purity. A slim one. Don’t throw it away.”

“I’m not talking of giving up,” said Mother. “We do have a chance, but not in this way. They’ll cut you down before those out back even know what’s happening. You’re a mighty man, Master Sparrow, but even you cannot stand against fifty spears.”

Da’s face was full of confusion. “What better plan is there?”

“I will face them.”

Da’s face softened. “That, love, is my task. Now ready yourself.” He turned, but Mother grasped him by the shoulder and held him back.

She had gone mad with panic and grief.

Da tried to pull her hand away.

“I will face them,” she said calmly.

“Purity,” he said. “Love.” He removed her hands and tried to stride to the door, but Mother grasped him again.

“No,” he said and removed her hand. But she took him by the rim of his breastplate and, like a man heaving a sack of meal, threw him across the room. He stumbled over a chair and slammed into the far wall.

Many men came far and wide to wrestle Da. Few had thrown him. None had handled him with such force.

Da looked at Mother, his face full of shock. He shifted his mail tunic, then tried again to reach the door. But Mother planted herself in his path. He tried to push her out of the way, but could not budge her. He renewed his efforts, his arms and neck straining. But it was to no avail.

His expression turned from shock to angry determination.

He took a step back and then lunged at her, but Mother simply stepped out of his way and with one sweep of her foot took his legs out from underneath him.

Mother reached down to take his war maul. “I will face them,” she said calmly. “Take off your armor so you can ride more easily.”

Da grasped the head of the maul. “Purity,” he said.

“I will draw them to me,” she said. “And you will ride with the children. It will be best that way. They will not be orphaned or caught and sold as chattel. You can provide for and protect them as I never could.”

“I don’t understand,” Da said.

“Yes, you do,” she said, then she tugged the maul out of his grip.

Sugar stood back, confused and alarmed.

Mother turned to her. “The way to the woods will be clear. Be ready to fly.”

Then she walked to the front door and put her hand on the crossbar. She paused, taking them all in with her gaze. “I will be waiting for you in brightness.”

She lifted the bar, and in one fluid motion she flung open the door and raced outside. Clouds of smoke billowed in. The roar of the fire above them surged. Out back, Fancy cried with wild panic.

Luckily, neither Sugar nor Legs were standing anywhere within the line of sight from the doorway, for moments later more than a dozen arrows hissed through the smoke, some sticking into the walls, others glancing off a table or chair. Da had only just gained his feet when two struck him. One glanced off his breastplate, the other hit him in the mail over his thigh. He grunted at the second, but it did not have an armor-piercing head, and the arrow fell away.

Da stood and raced after Mother, but halted at the door. He coughed at the smoke and squatted to get under it. “Goh,” he said with a look of wonder on his face.

“Da,” said Sugar and rushed to shut the door. But as she grabbed the door, she saw what Da was looking at.

Mother had already reached the soldiers. Two men lay on the grass. One was dead. The other screamed out at the wound that had nearly taken his leg.

She moved like a snake, like the wind. She was graceful and absolutely horrible.

She swung into another man’s wooden shield and sent it flying. He cried out and stumbled backward, but before he could reach the ground, she smashed in the side of his head.

Sugar could not believe her eyes. She would not. Such speed and power was unnatural.

“Purity,” said Da, and Sugar could see the horror and disbelief on his face.

The great bulk of the men were falling back, some stumbling over one another. In his retreat, one of the bowmen loosed an arrow, but it flew wide of Mother and struck one of his fellows. Another man charged her with a spear, but she swung the maul with blinding speed and cleaved the spear into two.

The Crab yelled for his men to stand and close ranks.

Mother was about to put the whole mob on the run, but two men yelled and rushed her from behind, their javelins held high.

“Mother!” Sugar yelled.

Mother turned just as they cast them. She dodged one, but the other caught her in the shoulder and knocked her back.

Da roared.

He had been in shock, but fury now burned in his eyes.

Mother removed the spear and defended herself from the sword blows of the man who had thrown it.

A dozen archers came running round the corner from the back of the house. They began to form a line. Mother would not be able to dodge their arrows.