Oil-fed torches mounted on walls or atop street posts broke the dark streets into patterns of bright orange and deep shadow.  Few people traveled the streets of Aekara at that late hour, and none walked boldly - save two plainsmen, one scarcely more than a youth, the other, his lean, weather-worn mentor.  A slender girl waltzed between them, watching the swirling folds of her mid-calf skirt turn orange and red, then black as they passed from light to shadow and back.  The elder warrior wore a lion's black-maned pelt as a jerkin.  She slew the beast with a dagger, so the Euzadi called her the lion-hawk, Chimquar.  All believed Chimquar a man.

The ringing clash of steel on steel ended the quiet.  The handful of people abroad halted to mark the direction of the sounds.  Their errands would not bear close inspection and a fight meant first brigands, then guardsmen.  Chimquar and her wards suddenly became the only people on the streets for many blocks around the clash.

Chimquar paused, listening to the sound of fighting coming from the direction in which they traveled.

"Do we go on?" Hazier asked.

Chimquar nodded, her hand resting on the hilt of her Sharan longsword.  Her wards dropped back a short way as she had taught them.  Makajia produced a long dagger from beneath her skirts.

A Sharan war cry carried down the street.  "Aroana!  Goddess defender!"  Chimquar halted.  It had been several years since she heard that cry on any lips save her own.  For the first time she hesitated to answer it.  She planned to join her sister, ending her long exile.  Anaria, alone, would understand her concealment in men's raiment, first of her race in the far lands of men.  The others would not, and Chimquar would once more be the scarcely tolerated outcast in their midst.  Chimquar longed increasingly to see her homeland.

"Aroana!  Aroana!"  The cries came again, insistent, desperate.  The Sharans had no allies, no aid.  Chimquar drew her sword, thrusting aside her concerns.  They would have aid.

Chimquar saw three women at bay near an alley, encircled by swordsmen.  The Sharans had taken toll of their attackers, their swords gleamed red in the torchlight.  Yet they could not hold much longer against so many.  One woman fell as Chimquar reached them.  The remaining pair moved to stand over their fallen comrade.  A man lunged in; one Sharan shifted slightly, avoiding his thrust and opening a long gash in his side.

"Aroana!" Chimquar shouted, entering the fray.  The first man to turn died.  Momentary confusion ensued among the men at the unexpected attack by Chimquar and Hazier.  Makajia darted about, wielding her dagger to great effect.  Three men fell in the first minutes of surprise.  Chimquar's sword whirled in a circular motion, parried the attack of two foes, then slashed out, felling one.  She eluded a thrust and lunged in under the man's guard; the dagger in her left hand catching the returning move of his sword and she sent her own blade home.  Chimquar moved on another man.  She had neither time nor light enough to mark the nature of her foes, yet she recognized the moving patterns of their attack.  She fought Euzadis - renegades.