counting heads—almost desperately searching for something going wrong.
His gaze fell on Phillipe, who was engaged in a furious battle with the man known as Rogers.
Phillipe was tall, but had a fencer’s build—all supple wiriness. He was lethally fast with any blade. He was currently fighting with the traditional sword most captains favored; the blade flashed and gleamed as he countered Rogers’s every strike.
But Rogers was stronger, heavier, and had a longer reach—and was wielding a much heavier, wickedly curved blade. From the feverish anticipation in Rogers’s face, he believed he had Phillipe beaten. Phillipe was, indeed, hard pressed but still countering fluidly, his elegant features distorted in a snarl.
Caleb knew better than to distract his friend.
Then Phillipe gave Rogers an opening.
With a triumphant roar, Rogers swung and struck—
Empty air. Phillipe wasn’t anywhere near where Rogers had expected him to be.
Phillipe straightened behind Rogers. He slammed the hilt of his sword into Rogers’s nape, then plunged a knife that seemed to appear out of thin air into the man’s back.
Rogers gasped and collapsed. Phillipe whirled, saw Caleb watching, and snapped off a grim salute.
In concert, they turned toward the main barracks and waded anew into the fray, assisting their men as they swept on toward the porch, leaving nothing but dead slavers behind them.
Caleb tapped two of their men on their shoulders and, with a hand sign, set them to scout the edges of the fight to ensure no slaver, sensing impending doom, attempted to slip away. It was imperative that no word of Kale and his men’s fate reached Freetown.
Rogers falling had marked the turning of the tide, but Caleb and his company were too experienced to let down their guard. As Caleb and Phillipe pushed forward, their men fell in around them, forming an unstoppable wave. Together, they put paid to the last of the slavers.
All except Kale.
His back to the raised front of the barracks’ porch, the man was a dervish, keeping a semicircle of Caleb and Phillipe’s men at bay with a pair of flashing blades.
With Robert’s description of Kale’s potential menace etched in his brain, Caleb had warned their men that unless they had an easy and definitely lethal shot at Kale, they were to hem him in but not engage.
As Caleb and Phillipe joined their men, the circle drew back fractionally, leaving the pair of them standing shoulder to shoulder facing Kale.
They’d halted at a respectable—respectful—distance. Kale took stock of them, his blades now still.
The slavers’ leader was shorter than Caleb, shorter than Phillipe, but Kale was the very epitome of wiry, and the way he held himself, at ease but on the balls of his feet, poised to explode into action, with his curious twin blades—slightly curved like elongated scimitars—held firmly and perfectly balanced, but with loose, supple wrists, screamed to the initiated that he was lethally fast.
Fast, fast, fast.
There was a flatness in his wintry eyes that stated he’d killed so many times it had become all but instinctive—a part of his nature.
From the corner of his eye, Caleb saw Phillipe’s jaw set, then Phillipe reached to his other side—to Reynaud, who understood the unspoken command and placed his loaded pistol in Phillipe’s hand.
Kale had tracked the movement. He sneered. “What? No honor in your justice?” He spat the last word, but not at Phillipe. Kale’s gaze had fastened on Caleb, and the challenge was clearly directed at him.
Caleb met Kale’s gaze. In the art of manipulation, Caleb knew beyond question that he could give Kale lessons, but...that wasn’t the point here. He knew he was being goaded, that Kale wanted to fight him, believing he, Kale, would win, and that doing so would somehow win his freedom, at least from immediate dispatch. In situations such as this, for men such as Kale, surviving even an hour more meant an hour’s more chance to escape.
Or to take others with him on his journey from this world. A revenge of sorts.
If Caleb had been operating as he usually did, he would have responded immediately, and he and Kale would fight; he’d never walked away from a challenge—or from a fight—in his life. However, this time...what was right?
Head tilting, Caleb continued to regard Kale while weighing the pros and cons. He’d lectured his men against taking undue risks; shouldn’t he hold himself to the same standard regardless of Kale’s baiting?
But what of that sticky wicket called leadership? How he dealt with this situation would inevitably impinge on his standing with his men, and with Phillipe’s, too.
More, Kale had questioned—had maligned—justice. Not Caleb but the concept of justice they were there to serve.
Didn’t that demand some answer? Not just on his part but on behalf of their whole company?
Didn’t Kale’s challenge speak to and question the validity of why they were there, and more, the justification for what they had done—the lives they’d already taken that day?
Beside him, Phillipe shifted, darting a glance at his face. “Caleb...we are judge and jury here. Curs such as he have no claim to the honor of a fair fight in lieu of sentence.”
Who said I intend to fight fairly? Kale certainly won’t.
Kale’s pale gaze hadn’t left Caleb’s face. Phillipe might as well not have spoken for all the reaction Kale gave.
But Caleb’s steady regard was something Kale found more difficult to tolerate. His lip curled in a sneer. “What, son—cat got your tongue?”
Caleb smiled. “No. I’m merely debating the irony of engaging with vermin such as you over the value of justice.”
Kale blinked—then he exploded into action. Blades swinging, he launched himself at Caleb.
Phillipe cursed and stepped back, smoothly bringing the pistol to bear. Startled, all the other men leapt back.
But Caleb had seen Kale’s muscles tense. Without a blink, he’d whipped up his sword and a shorter blade and slapped Kale’s slashing swords aside.
Then it was on. Caleb could not—dared not—take his eyes from Kale’s. He tracked the man’s whirling blades by the infinitesimal shifts in Kale’s attention; Caleb didn’t fall into the trap of trying to keep both blades in view.
In less than a minute, Caleb was wishing he’d let Phillipe shoot the bastard; Kale was beyond lethal—and he was a better swordsman than Caleb. He was no slouch, but Kale was in a class of his own.
Unfortunately, the time for justice via pistol had passed. He and Kale were moving too quickly for even a marksman like Phillipe to attempt a shot.
Although Kale knew that, he also knew that with Phillipe standing just out of reach with the pistol in his hand, Kale wasn’t leaving the circle alive.
That realization was
