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Tynisa felt her legs tremble, and knew that if she also fell now, she would lose. She was the winner only so long as she stood. Salme Elass’s paralysis would not survive any show of weakness.

Tynisa turned, very carefully indeed, to see Che’s agonized face, Thalric’s grim one, and fewer bandits than she had remembered. They were standing uphill from her, of course, curse them.

The pain had become a constantly expanding fire in her, battering at her mind, demanding that she give in to it, tearing at her self-control. She remained upright only by application of pure will.

With the utmost precision she placed one foot in front of the other and began to walk.

Forty-Five

They could do nothing but watch Tynisa’s tortuous progress back towards them, even as some of the Salmae’s people began to approach their own kneeling champion. Tynisa swayed, and each time she put weight on her right leg a shudder went through her, like a dying thing, but somehow she was still on her feet when Che reached out to clasp her arm, and take her weight. The duellist’s face was a mess of blood, the wounds impossible to trace beneath it. One eye was clear and open, but focusing on nothing. Her teeth were clenched together hard enough for Che to hear them grinding.

‘Into the trees,’ Dal Arche snapped. ‘Get beyond the treeline. Keep her on her feet until then.’

When Che rounded on him furiously, he made a wild gesture at all the Salmae’s people. ‘They’re staying where they are because she won, and even when the princess gets her voice back and starts telling them that the fight meant nothing, a lot of them will hold back. Tradition, just useless, rotten tradition, but this once it works for us. Our champion won, so going after us now counts as bad form.’ He spat the words disgustedly. ‘Oh, they’ll come, sure enough, but we have some time so long as it’s us that won.’

‘But . . .’ Che started, already moving for the trees with Tynisa leaning on her, barely more than a dead weight.

‘That fellow she took down is still alive back there, for all her sword’s sticking in him,’ Dal shot back. ‘If she just keels over in full view, well, she might be dead, then. In that case their man won, and we’re all dead a moment after that.’ He glanced back anxiously. ‘Tell the truth, I’m not sure who did win there. Bloody mess, all of it. Soul—’

‘Stay by the treeline and watch what they do,’ the Grasshopper pre-empted him. He had an arrow to his bow, his eyes flicking left and right across the breadth of the enemy host, and then up to the sky.

The trees loomed sooner than Che had expected. ‘A doctor, there must be,’ she said. ‘We have to . . .’ She looked down in horror at the sheer quantity of blood. ‘Bandages, medicines, something . . .’ She tried to catch Maure’s eye but the magician would not look at her.

‘Carry the girl into the woods,’ Dal stated flatly. He glanced at Thalric, who bristled for a moment, but then got an arm round Tynisa’s back and simply gathered up her knees with the other, hoisting the girl in his arms. She gave out a wretched, rasping cry, and Che almost hoped she would pass out, escape for a moment from the agony she must be in. But instead, Tynisa rested her head on Thalric’s shoulder, sheer willpower twisting her face.

‘Go,’ Dal urged, and he and Mordrec set the pace, letting the other two keep up as best they could. Released from Tynisa’s weight, Che’s injured leg took the chance to register its own complaints, for all her durable Beetle nature. She let herself lean on Maure’s arm, while Thalric strode and stumbled ahead, trying to balance Tynisa’s weight. If Mordrec had been unwounded then the two bandits might have got clear of them and simply vanished into the trees, but his shoulder was troubling him still, sapping his strength, and Dal hung back to match his friend’s pace.

‘She’s dying!’ Che called out, not caring who heard her now. ‘I need to tend her wounds, please!’

Dal looked back, and she saw the internal conflict on his face, the man who wanted to run for it fighting desperately with the man so many