The thunder of hooves tears through the heavy silence. Three of the baron's mercenaries charge onto the square at a gallop. The leader wheels his horse so brutally that it rears onto its hind legs, grazing dangerously close to the old man. His gaze catches on Romi. A dirty grin steals across his face as he sizes her up like prey. He signals his men.

All three dismount at once, the leather of their armor creaking as they move slowly toward Romi, forming a loose half-circle. Their leering eyes make their intentions unmistakably clear.

The leader steps close to her, using the shaft of his heavy mace to lift her chin roughly. "Well, what exquisite piece of meat do we have here?" he booms while his men laugh crudely. "That black leather fits like a second skin. Almost a shame to cut it open later."

His breath—a mix of cheap liquor and rot—hits her full in the face. Romi does not even blink. Instead of raising a hand against the weapon at her chin, she only smiles at him with pity. Then she turns slowly. With a smooth, deliberately slow motion that accentuates her athletic stance in the tight leather, she walks three or four steps away from him into the middle of the square. It is not a retreat—it is a calculated provocation, pulling the greedy stares of the mercenaries like magnets.

After the fourth step, she stops and spins around in one fluid turn. Her braids whip briefly through the air before settling calm on her shoulders again. Romi looks the leader directly in the eyes. Her hands hang loose at her sides, but a mocking, razor-sharp glint smolders in her green eyes.

Three men, the thought glides coolly through her, clear and without stir. Three mistakes of nature who believe flesh and greed make them invincible.

She breathes shallowly through her nose; the men's smell reaches her senses—heavy, filthy, stale. Their stench is worse than their weapons.

"Is that all?" she asks, her voice dripping with cheeky arrogance. "You talk big for a man who only feels safe behind a baron's walls. Tell me, do you actually drink the water you're stealing from the starving children back there, or do you just guzzle cheap swill to forget the stink of your own failure? You're nothing but a fat dog on a short leash."

The other mercenaries' laughter dies instantly. The leader flushes dark red, the veins in his neck swelling as he realizes how thoroughly she has mocked him in front of his men and the villagers.

"You little brat..." he grinds out.

Romi smiles now—a cold, challenging smile. She makes a small, inviting gesture with two fingers. "Come on then, big man. Show me whether you handle the iron in your hand as well as you handle your filthy mouth. Or is that thing in your trousers the only bulge that makes you tremble today?"

The mercenary roars with rage and raises his mace. He charges the few meters toward her, blinded by his wounded ego. The villagers hold their breath. Others see a young woman who looks fragile, but Jeff sees only the coiled spring that nine years of training have made her.

Romi does not move until the mercenary raises his mace for the first strike. Her hands snap simultaneously back over her shoulders. Drawing the katanas breaks through the silence of the square with a single, dangerous hiss.

Before the attacker can come close to completing his swing, she stands unshaken. Both blades are lowered at a deep, perfect angle, the steel catching the dull light.

"Stop," she says, her voice cutting as sharp as the steel in her hands. "I have no wish to let your blood soak into this dusty ground. Lay down your weapons."

The lead mercenary stumbles two steps back. He barely saw the movement—one moment her hands were empty; the next, she held two blades, their sharp points angled toward the ground. His pride turns into raging, stupid fury.

"A rebel!" he screams, baring yellow teeth. "Kill her! Kill this thing!"

All three mercenaries rush her at once. Jeff watches from his horse as Romi slips into the state he has spent years teaching her: mushin, the mind without mind. The white of the tribals against her black sleeves creates a sharp contrast with every movement, unsettling the mercenaries' sense of orientation.

As the first mercenary swings his saber, she ducks beneath the strike. Her right katana flashes. The steel cuts through the man's leather harness as if it were parchment. Without a sound, he collapses and lies still.

At the same moment, she parries the second attacker's sword with her left blade. With a short, hard twist of her wrist, she applies the leverage of her martial art. An ugly crunch of breaking bone sounds as she shatters the man's arm. Before he can retreat, she completes the turn; her blade finds the gap between helmet and breastplate. He too collapses without a sound.

The leader is the last one standing. He roars and raises his heavy mace for a killing overhead strike, intending to crush her with the sheer mass of the iron. Romi steps forward, straight into the shadow of his swing. Her two katanas cross above her head, edges turned upward.

CLANG.

The wooden shaft of the mace breaks under the force and sharpness of her blades, splintering dryly apart as the heavy iron head spins uselessly into the dust. Before the pieces hit the ground, Romi completes her motion with a double, crossing cut.

The leader stands for a single heartbeat, eyes wide, staring at the remains of his weapon in his hands. Then he topples forward, lifeless.

Three men lie in the dirt. There is no more groaning—only the silence of death.