"Kill her!" shouted an unfamiliar voice, and the Southerner walking past her drew his sword and swung.
The blade struck her side, slashing cloth but not flesh; she wore chainmail beneath her civilian tunic. The Southerner's dusty shirt concealed no such protection; her quick-drawn dagger sank to the hilt in his chest. She pushed the body off her dagger and drew her sword.
A heavy blow to the back knocked her off her feet. Her knees struck gritty cobblestone with a painful crack. Gasping for breath, she twisted around to see a second swordsman. He gaped in astonishment; he'd clearly expected his blow to cut her in half. She disemboweled him.
She hadn't seen this man when she'd entered the short, narrow street called Ribbonmakers' Lane. How many other ambushers had been hidden from her sight?
Hearing fast footsteps, she turned her upper body and saw a man running toward her, a desertman raising a nomad's curved sword. She struggled to her feet barely in time to parry his head-cut.
The unfamiliar voice shouted again, from the far end of the street. "Kill Aedra, damn you!"
My name's not Aedra! Rishara thought, parrying another scimitar-blow. The ambushers had attacked the wrong woman. But she didn't say anything. They wouldn't believe her. They'd think she lied to save her life.
The desertman sidestepped her dagger-thrust and swung again at her bare head. Her helmet was in the Guard armory, with her spear, truncheon, and shield. Her badge was in her belt-pouch.
Guardswoman Rishara hadn't been expecting trouble. She'd had no reason to. She wasn't in uniform; she was off-duty and walking home. Her adopted city, Khobbossee, was capital of a growing empire, so its City Guard was large and well-trained, patrolling the streets in hundreds of pairs. Rishara's own patrol ended at midday, when the streets were near-empty; people fled the desert sun and shops closed for a couple of hours, and even starving dogs disappeared.
Rishara had no reason to expect danger when she entered a narrow street and saw two men. They were at opposite ends of Ribbonmakers' Lane, and were from opposite ends of the world, one a black Southerner and the other a white Northerner. Both had swords, but that meant little; swords were common in Khobbossee.
Rishara had no more reason to expect a midday attack than she had reason to expect the world to turn upside down and drop her into the sun.
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