Shadowdance 01 - A Dance of Cloaks

door, expecting soldiers to come barging in at any moment.
    “And what might that be?” she asked.
    The doors opened, a pair of guards with swords drawn standing at the entrance.
    “Here!” one shouted, the last word he ever spoke. A throwing dagger speared his left eye. The other guard swore, and then another dagger sailed through his open mouth and jabbed into the back of his throat.
    “Follow me,” Kayla shouted as she grabbed Haern’s shirt. He did his best to follow, but she noticed his limp had returned.
    “The door,” he said, nodding to where the dead guards lay.
    “No time,” she said. “They’ll be there soon.”
    On the opposite side of the temple was a boarded window. Kayla reached up and yanked on the boards. The wood was old and weather-beaten, but she was not the strongest of women. She tugged and pulled, but the wood refused to break.
    “Give me a dagger,” Haern said.
    Kayla at first thought to refuse, then decided it couldn’t possibly make things worse. She gave him one.
    “Keep the pointy end away from me,” she said.
    Three more guards poured through the door and shouted for them to surrender.
    “Damn it,” Kayla muttered.
    “You handle them,” Haern said. “I’ll get us out.”
    As if completely oblivious to the danger, the boy used his dagger to slice into the wood surrounding the nails. Kayla thought him crazy, but he worked the wood like an expert. In a handful of seconds, the first nail popped into his palm.
    Still, many nails and boards remained. Kayla drew two more daggers and faced the guards. Remaining in the corner defending Haern was counter to her methods of combat, so she ran to the side, hurling dagger after dagger to keep the guards’ attention. A couple glanced off their mail, another ricocheted off the flat edge of a blade, but one sank deep into the flesh of a soldier’s thigh. He swore and pulled it out while the other two rushed closer.
    Kayla dodged and rolled, her lithe body narrowly avoiding the swings of the guards’ swords. Once she was on the far side of the temple, she turned and sprinted, rolling past the two nearer soldiers and straight for the wounded man. Down on one knee clutching his wound, he only had time enough to look up and curse again before she stabbed a dagger in his eye. She yanked it out as she passed, wincing at the eyeball lodged halfway up the slender blade.
    When she reached Haern, she leaped into the air and spun, her hands a blur as daggers flew. The two guards crossed their arms to block their faces, but she had anticipated such a basic defense. Sharp points dug into their legs, hands, and feet. Blood poured across the faded floor.
    “Hurry,” she heard Haern shout. She turned to see him toss her dagger back, hilt first. Three boards lay by his feet. He climbed up and out the window, not pausing to see if she followed. Kayla blew the wounded soldiers a kiss, then sprang after him.
    “How fast can you run?” she asked Haern when she landed outside. The drop from the temple was longer than it looked, and she felt her knees ache.
    “Not fast enough.”
    “Limp if you have to,” Kayla said, grabbing his arm. “But we’re still going to run, even if it’s on one foot.”
    He hesitated only a brief moment before looping his arm around her neck and running alongside. Shouts echoed behind them, and Kayla felt her heart thud in her ears. She had killed four soldiers now, as well as wounded two more. There would be no jail cell waiting for her if they were caught, just a thick stone and an ax.
    They hobbled down the road, Kayla desperate to add distance between them and the guards. She asked questions in a rapid-fire manner as they ran, hoping against hope for a plan to emerge in her mind.
    “You said Haern’s your first name. What’s your last?”
    Haern refused to answer at first, but then she cuffed him on the side of his head.
    “I’m trying to save your life, and mine, so talk.”
    “I … I’m the son of a guildmaster.”
    Kayla rolled her eyes. Well, that matched one of her earlier theories.
    “A thief guildmaster, I take it?” she said, and he confirmed it with a nod. “That’s what I thought. I’m sure you have a hideout, so where is it?”
    “The western district,” Haern said, elaborating no further.
    “That’s too far,” Kayla said. Not that it mattered. She couldn’t take Haern there until they lost their pursuers. Leading half the city’s soldiers to a thief guild’s secret hideout was