An Excerpt

The sun is just above the horizon when the dry-bones rattle of the Stickmen’s drum calls Michaela to the fighting ring. The two priests she saw earlier wait there, along with another one, at least a foot taller, who wears a tiny triangular hat on his bald, chitinous head.

“A high priest,” Karina says from behind her. “I’m impressed. We only got an under-priest when they took Vanaheimr.”

Michaela turns. The other woman’s heavy cloak is gone now. Instead she wears a loose cotton tunic and knee-length leggings. A two-handed broadsword is slung across her back.

“You were at Vanaheimr?”

Karina nods.

“Why are you still alive?”

“I didn’t fight,” Karina says. “I got one look at the Stickmen, and I ran.”

Michaela stares up at her as the other fighters fill in around them.

“I don’t understand,” Michaela says finally.

Karina shrugs.

“What’s to understand? Now, there’s nowhere left to run.”

Michaela thinks to respond, but before she can, the high priest begins to speak in a voice like the buzzing of a swarm of bees.

“Today,” it says, “the people make claim on this city. Who comes to defend it?”

After a pause, Karina raises one hand.

“I do.”

One by one, the others gathered around the ring echo her, until finally only Michaela remains. The high priest’s flat black eyes fall on her. Michaela sighs.

“Right,” she says. “I do.” She folds her arms across her chest and looks up at the Stickman. “By the way, I like your hat.”