Aeron's face twisted into a sneer as he met the attack, and their swords clanged loudly as they parried. All of Soterius's anger and frustration found an outlet in his sword. He no longer felt the cold of the bitter night.
"Soterius!" Aeron made the name a curse. "Traitor! What kind of brigand are you?"
"Prince Martris's brigand!" Soterius wheeled to parry one of Aeron's wild strikes. Aeron had been drinking. The ale made his strikes less predictable, but the random blows delivered at full strength were as dangerous as any planned attack.
"Your girlfriend's dead." Aeron dealt a sideways blow that almost got inside Soterius's guard. "Took her to King Jared myself."
Soterius set his jaw, focusing all his skill on besting Aeron. He scored a deep gash on Aeron's thigh, and the tip of Aeron's sword opened up a cut on Soterius's forearm. Aeron dropped and rolled, slicing low, a street move Soterius knew wasn't taught in the army salle. Vahanian's training served Soterius well. He evaded the blade, anticipating
Aeron's momentum and delivering another deep cut, this time to Aeron's thigh. Limping, Aeron made it back to his feet. Blood coursed down his leg. Soterius closed for the kill, his sword ready. He brought his sword down two-handed, and the blow shattered Aeron's blade, knocking him off balance. With one forward thrust, Soterius sank his blade deep into Aeron's chest, feeling it scrape against bone and then slide free out the other side of the soldier's body.
"That's for Lila," Soterius said with a brutal twist of the blade. Aeron's mouth opened as if to reply, but nothing sounded except a bloody gurgle. The Margolan captain was dead.
Soterius wiped his blade clean on the snow and looked around. In the light of the burning tents, he could see bodies in the snow. The camp was quiet. The snow was trampled and blood stained. Sahila and Pell moved through the camp, counting the dead. Tabb and Tadrie set the surviving fighters to stripping the soldiers of anything useful. Andras sprinted toward him.
"Report."
"Got them all, sir. Mikhail took out two that ran for the forest, and the archers got about half. We finished the rest."
Soterius nodded. "Captives?"
"One girl. She's in pretty bad shape. Mikhail took her to the cave entrance."
"Casualties?"
"Better than last time, sir." It was Pell who answered, with Sahila a few steps behind him. "Two with serious wounds, a few more with minor injuries, none dead."
