Tinker's War (The Tinkerer's Daughter Book 2) by Jamie Sedgwick Page A

future. Then he exhaled his last breath toppled forward, landing dead at my feet. Suddenly I didn’t want to fight anymore.
    “Nice job!” Robie called out next to me. He handily dispatched one of the fighters by slicing the man’s wrist. The Vangar let out a cry and stepped back, dropping his heavy sword to the deck of the bridge. Robie plunged his dagger into the man’s chest and then twisted, parrying another blow with his cutlass.
    Another Vangar took a swing at me with his massive broadsword. I danced out of reach. He snarled at me and I saw pure unbridled hatred raging in his eyes. As I saw his expression, my thoughts reached back to another time, to a world where men and Tal’mar were mortal enemies, where Kanters were less than human and a half-breed like me would have been better off dead. I saw that world in the Vangar’s eyes and I wanted no part of it. I didn’t want to kill him, but I couldn’t allow him to have what he wanted. Looking into his face, I knew what would happen if the Vangars succeeded. I knew what their world would be like. My sympathy for them instantly turned to anger.
    The barbarian came at me again, and I sidestepped his heavy blow. The sword hit a steel rail in the bridge floor and rang like a bell. I lashed out with my blade, slicking open his arm. The gash was deep, but not enough to stop him. He spun around, waving his weapon in a wide arc through the air as if to behead me. I knew I couldn’t block that blow so I lowered my stance, preparing to leap away. Then, as the Vangar swung, Robie turned at just the right moment and thrust his sword into the warrior’s gut. The sword clattered to the edge of the bridge and fell, splashing into the icy waters below.
    As the warrior dropped to the ground, I realized that the three remaining fighters were wounded, and they were running in the other direction. Together, Robie and I had fought them off!
    The Vangars may have expected to find safety in numbers, but their numbers were dwindling fast. The Tal’mar archers had left the shadows of the forest now and they were crossing the bridge, driving the barbarians into each other at the middle. I stood watching them for a moment, transfixed, until Robie caught me by the arm and dragged me back towards land.
    A few yards from the bridge, we stopped to watch the Tal’mar finish off the Vangar warriors from a safe distance. To their credit, the Tal’mar dispatched their opponents with merciful speed. Still, I shuddered to watch it. I couldn’t help but wish that there had been some other way. The sight of all those bodies made my stomach churn. It brought back to mind all the old questions from my youth, the ones I had thought I’d forgotten about why men must hate and kill when there is so little to be gained from either and so much to be gained from compassion and cooperation.
    “Are you well?” Robie asked, wiping the blade of his sword on an oily rag.
    “Well enough,” I said. “I’m alive.”
    “You looked worried for a moment there,” he said, smiling. “Were you afraid you might have lost me?”
    I rolled my eyes and turned away. “I’ll let the others know we can leave now,” I said. “We’d better move fast.”
     
    There was little time for conversation as we took my grandmother and the other elders across the bridge. We pressed into the foothills northeast of the strait and made it to the Borderlands before sunrise. It was there, among the rolling hills of the Borderlands, under the red light of dawn, that the queen decided the fate of her people. There was a cold wind blowing and the wild grain waved back and forth in the distance, stretching as far as the eye could see. It was a daunting place without shelter or resources, a desert without sand. It was not safe to stay there in the open for long, but the Tal’mar had to choose their fate.
    Robie had been trying to convince my grandmother to move south. “There will be others like us,” he said. “Others who