Reign of Iron by Angus Watson

axe and breathing like an angry ox.
    “If they prove too much,” she said, “I’ll try to hold them while you get across the river and break the bridge. I don’t trust the child and the old man.”
    Atlas turned and grinned whitely. “We’ll be all right. But if we need to run, you run first. And you, Senlack.”
    Senlack nodded and hoicked a thumb over his shoulder, as if to say that he’d be out of there the moment it started looking bad, thanks very much.
    The trickle of Germans coming from the tents petered out then stopped. One last man appeared, fell and lay still.
    The first of Felix’s dark legion appeared.
    Chamanca looked at Atlas. He raised an eyebrow. She looked back.
    Walking from the edge of the camp were four smallish, slender men. They were clad entirely in leather, including hoods and face coverings. The only gaps in their outfits were eye slits. Each held a slim, slightly curved, single-edged sword. As they neared, Chamanca saw that their blades were bloodied and their leathers shone with gore.
    She knew that you couldn’t necessarily judge a fighter by appearance – she herself looked more like a beautiful princess than a Warrior, for example – so she should have been cautious. But she had the idea that the four of them were smiling under their masks, mocking her. So she charged.
    The foremost stepped to meet her. She swooped her ball-mace in a graceful, duckable curve at his head, then lashed with her blade at the last moment for the gut shot. For the first time ever, the move failed. The Leatherman sidestepped with viper speed. He grabbed her sword hand and pulled her past him, tripping her and slicing at the back of her leg as she went down. She was so surprised at his pace that she almost forgot to block, swishing her blade round as she fell, just in time to bang his sword off target, then back for the disembowelling blow. He leapt like a deer so that her blade found only air, but she’d gained the space to land on her hands and spring over into a fighting stance.
    Her opponent stepped away but she saw his eyes flicker to something behind her. She dropped into a crouch as a sword parted the air where her neck had been an instant earlier, and swung her ball-mace back in a knee-crusher. That missed, too. By Fenn, they were fast !
    But not as fast as she was. They couldn’t be. Chamanca charged back at the first Leatherman, blade whirling. He dodged. She’d expected the dodge and had already compensated by swinging her ball-mace. He dodged that, too – she hadn’t expected that. A fist hit her jaw like a hurled boulder. She was stunned. He darted behind her and pinned her arms in an unshakeable grip.
    The second Leatherman came back at her, sword stabbing at her exposed midriff. She stamped and kicked, but dancing feet avoided her heels. She was caught, about to take a sword in the guts. She could see the smile in the swordsman’s eyes. He pressed the tip of his weapon into her stomach. Skin punctured and she felt the blade cleave muscle.
    An arrow nicked her ear and sliced through the stabbing swordsman’s eye slit. The grip on her arms loosened for an eyeblink and Chamanca managed to wrench her arms free, slap a hand back, grab the man’s bollocks through leather, fall and twist … and he went limp, too, an arrow in his heart.
    She stood. Twenty paces away, Senlack was dying, his stomach sliced open. Atlas was wrenching his axe from a Leatherman’s corpse. The other assailant was lying nearby, an arrow through his head. She looked towards the bridge. There was Spring, new arrow nocked, ready for anything else that emerged from the tent city. Chamanca herself had killed none, Atlas had killed one and the girl had done for three. Walfdan was nowhere to be seen.
    “Come on,” said Atlas, “let’s go.” He set off for the bridge at a run.
    Chamanca caught up with him. “I do not run!”
    “Without Spring’s bow I would have died just then. You, too, by the looks of