Last time, Katsa helpfully yanks out arrows.

So, they flee. Poor concussed Metaleyes is getting jolted around on the horse, and also he’s still losing blood. He must have lost twice his body weight in it by now, I guess he’s an anime character.

When she suggests tying him on so he can sleep, he says he’s got to be awake to sense Leck.

So they weren’t completely without his Grace; but he was completely without his reason, to make such a comment while Bitterblue sat directly behind him

Or he could just be too tired to care. He’s actually not being particularly wordy and he’s making no reference to any particular ability of his – for all Bitterblue knows, he could mean that he has better hearing, or that they need every pair of ears possible, or just that he’s fixated on this because he’s concussed in the first place.

As the night wore on, her stumbling increased, and it occurred to her that she was tired. She sent her mind back along the past few nights, and counted. It was her second night without sleep, and the night before that they’d slept only a few hours.

One of the many, many problems with this story is that the author doesn’t understand the purpose of feeling pain. Being cut off from those things is not a survival trait. Something optimised for survival shouldn’t accidentally not get enough sleep because they forget about it or have to figure out if they’re tired before they break an ankle.

A real survivalist model would be to always sleep when there’s nothing to do, to gorge on food whenever it’s available, and to react as fast as possible to injury or fatigue so that can be planned around.

Furthermore, a real survivalist would know to cook food before you get going. Now, Katsa’s considering what to do with the fish she caught.

Once light came they wouldn’t be able to risk even the smallest fire.

I think Katsa’s confused about how light works.

Presumably she’s worried about smoke while she could build up a wall around the fire to block light, but Katsa doesn’t know how to do the latter. Metaleyes directs her to a cave instead, because apparently mindreading powers let you sense stone and air now.

She must dress Po’s shoulder again, because it still bled freely no matter how tightly she bound it.

It really sounds like he should be dead by now.

He convinces her to take a nap so she’ll be able to keep going, so she tells herself to sleep for precisely a quarter hour, because that’s apparently under the umbrella of “survival” too.

When she wakes up, Metaleyes tells her what happened.

Unlike these idiots, apparently Leck is capable of planning and adapting. When Metaleyes goes after him, he finds Leck is constantly babbling to himself about how much he loves his daughter.

“I got through the outer guard easily,” Po said. “I came within sight of him, finally, in the early afternoon. His inner guard surrounded him so closely that I couldn’t get a shot at him. I waited forever. I followed them. They never once heard me; but they never once moved away from the king.”

These are some amazingly well coordinated bodyguards for the time. Especially for someone who’s never had to worry about this before and had no reason to want to make sure his guards were trained to know how to do something like this.

So Metaleyes tries to shoot one out of the way.

But the instant he fell, of course, the king jumped for cover. I shot again, and my arrow grazed Leck’s neck, but only barely.

Aside from the fact Metaleyes was apparently too dumb to wait and only do this when there wasn’t cover nearby, arrows are really nasty things. Not only is anything that “grazes” your neck probably going a whole lot of damage, but these people don’t have antibiotics. Even a small wound can be fatal.

I mean, they certainly can’t rely on that, and it’d be a slow death even if they’re lucky, so fleeing is a good idea, but they shouldn’t be treating this like it’s a simple matter of either Leck was killed instantly or he’s totally fine.

Anyway, this story makes Bitterblue no longer afraid of him because he’s proven he’s trustworthy by trying to kill the king. Even though for all she knows it could be a story her dad told him to repeat, because Leck can do that. She didn’t see the attempt, after all, she has no idea what actually happened.

Inexplicably, Metaleyes improves a little the next day, despite the fact he’s lost so much blood he should be struggling to even stay conscious. And Bitterblue’s fear is totally gone now and she’s taking care of him because being terrified of people based on gender isn’t an emotional, irrational thing at all and will go away as soon as she learns that the guy is helpful.

At the end of the day, he says that they’re not moving fast enough so they’ve got to ditch him. He’s not going to do any good giving them advance warning of the soldiers, because they know the soldiers are chasing them and all they can do is try to outrace the army. She doesn’t need him to remind her what’s going on, because they’re doomed if the soldiers are close enough to talk anyway.

Running is the only hope for the child.

About that. There are actually a number of children involved here. I mean, better to save one than to save none, but it seems like the focus really should be on stopping Leck because Leck is hurting a lot of people, while the book seems to think that it’s because stopping Leck was the better way to be sure Bitterblue was safe.

Katsa says that she won’t leave him when he can’t even walk on his own, followed by saying she doesn’t need to because he’ll get better soon, because we need to make it clear Katsa is stupid and irrational.

“I won’t get my balance back for some time, I think,” he said, and something strange in his voice stopped her.
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter, Katsa.

Katsa does not remind him of how he promised to not keep secrets from her since she can’t keep secrets from him, because that would imply Katsa is capable of handling emotional stuff instead of needing Metaleyes to do it for her.

Metaleyes says that if they leave him, the two of them can ride the horse. I want to applaud him for actually thinking about logistics. But. Considering the terrible terrain they’re crossing means the horse shouldn’t be able to go faster than Katsa on foot, and that Katsa apparently needs less sleep than a horse, I don’t think it’s actually going to do anything.

Unless you and Bitterblue ride the horse fast, you’ll be overtaken

They literally cannot ride the horse fast. It will break a leg and die and then they won’t have a horse at all.

If the path is meant to be clear enough for a horse, then the book needs to stop going on about Katsa tripping over things on it all the time, because humans are better on uneven ground than horses. It’s a miracle the horse didn’t already snap something.

Metaleyes reminds her that they have to think of Bitterblue.

For it was about Bitterblue. They’d come all this way for Bitterblue

Oh, and here I thought you did it because Leck was hurting lots of people and killing little kids. But I guess they aren’t important unless they’re princesses related to Metaleyes.

The next morning Metaleyes has convinced her and she cries.

The child’s teeth chattered as she knelt beside Katsa. She had no coat, and the blanket she wore as they traveled was threadbare. The girl carried their packages to the horse, brought water to Po, and shivered.
Why had Katsa not saved the hides of the rabbits she’d killed?

Because you’re really dumb? I wasn’t aware you were throwing them out. Damn it, Katsa. And you too, Metaleyes, you’re supposed to be the brains.

She resolves to do something about this, so I guess she’ll go strangle a lion Hercules-style.