Firemoon by Elí Freysson

woman held her right arm, which hung limp by her side and one the smaller Shade children clung to her leg.
    After four more hurried steps Katja saw a man writhe on the ground by the bridge with an arrow in his abdomen.
    Katja held the shield up and ran over the bridge in a crouch with her right arm behind herself.
    An arrow smacked into the wood and a moment later she saw the archer beyond the river. He hadn’t counted on the shield and retreated as she ran at him. But before her blow could land she sensed danger from another direction, and narrowly managed to defend herself as a man stepped from hiding by the bridge with a long spear and thrust at her.
    The tip damaged the battered shield but it still hung together.
    “COME OVER, COME OVER!” Katja shouted and ran past the spear’s reach. The man retreated and tried to strike at her with the shaft, but again the shield saved her. She pushed him into the river and turned in the direction the archer had vanished. She saw a faint, stationary silhouette and covered behind the shield. Another arrow hit it and someone came across the bridge.
    The dark, stocky Shade charged with an axe in his hands and the archer tried to draw another arrow but wasn’t halfway there when the axe sank into his chest.
    The Shade, Garan, bellowed like a bull and struck again after the man had fallen to the ground.
    “COME OVER!” Katja repeated and people reacted. Half-dressed people, old and young, wounded and healthy, armed and unarmed, flooded over the bridge fleeing their homes. She saw some of the Shades among them.
    “The house was attacked!” Garan shouted on the other side of the flood. Then he received Ebba and the child as they ran to him and the trio sped off.
    Katja crossed the bridge again and headed to the Shade home. She encountered a few stragglers on the way and took care to brace for combat each time, which did nothing to calm the villagers.
    She saw the flames on the roof before seeing the house itself. Anna came running towards her with a sack on her back and started at the sight of the sword.
    “What happened? Where is Serdra?” Katja asked before the woman could disappear.
    “I don’t know!” the woman shrieked. “She was outside, fighting them!”
    Katja heard the hoofbeats come their way and an exhausted, frightened man appeared at a hard run away from the sounds. Anna ran for the bridge.
    A moment later they appeared, three of them. The one in the lead had a spear, and upon spotting Katja he steered the horse at her with the tip leading the way. She evaded the attack but the next one was right behind and slashed with a long axe. The shield finally shattered from the heavy blow and Katja staggered back. The third one had a spear as well, but wasn’t as nimble with it as the first one.
    Katja dodged his attack and slashed him in the thigh. The rider screamed and lost control of his horse, shaking back and forth in the saddle.
    “I am injured!” he shouted.
    They had almost vanished into the fog when the two in the lead turned their mounts about, away from the villagers and back her way. Katja threw the remains of the shield in the ground and prepared for further fighting. The one with the axe reached for his stricken comrade and seemed to mean to aid him in controlling the frightened horse. A spear that came flying out of the night and into the wounded one ended that plan.
    The man fell to the ground and the horse fled. The other two had to struggle to contain their own mounts but then sent them back into a hard run around Katja, as someone approached them from the Shade house.
    Katja saw the face of the one in the lead as the light of a burning house hit him. Their gazes met a moment.
    “Vajan!” Katja shouted.
    They vanished into darkness and fog and she heard someone blow on a horn.
    “Katja,” Serdra said. Of course it was her. “Let’s go.”
    Katja was more inclined to charge east, but that would probably be stupid. They ran side-by-side over the