Rise of the Valiant by Morgan Rice Read Free Book Online

the man who appeared to be their leader. It was the one who
had dropped the girl, and as he set his sights on Merk he drew a sword from his
belt and approached, as the others encircled him.
    Merk looked only
at the girl, checking to make sure she was alive and unharmed. He was relieved
to see her squirm in the mud, slowly collecting herself, lifting her head and
looking back out at him, dazed and confused. Merk felt relief that he had not,
at least, been too late to save her. Perhaps this was the first step on what
would be a very long road to redemption. Perhaps, he realized, it did not start
in the tower, but right here.
    As the girl
turned over in the mud, propping herself up on her elbows, their eyes met, and
he saw them flood with hope.
    “Kill them!” she
shrieked.
    Merk stayed
calm, still walking casually toward her, as if not even noticing the men around
him.
    “So you know the
girl,” the leader called out to him.
    “Her uncle?” one
of them called out mockingly.
    “A long-lost
brother?” laughed another.
    “You coming to
protect her, old man?” another mocked.
    The others burst
into laughter as they closed in.
    While he did not
show it, Merk was silently taking stock of all his opponents, summing them up
out of the corner of his eye, tallying how many they were, how big they were,
how fast they moved, the weapons they carried. He analyzed how much muscle they
had versus fat, what they were wearing, how flexible they were in those
clothes, how fast they could pivot in their boots. He noted the weapons they
held—the crude knives, daggers drawn, swords poorly sharpened—and he analyzed
how they held them, at their sides or out in front, and in which hands.
    Most were amateur,
he realized, and none of them truly concerned him. Save one. The one with the
crossbow. Merk made a mental note to kill him first.
    Merk entered a
different zone, a different mode of thinking, of being, the one that always
naturally gripped him whenever he was in a confrontation. He became submerged
in his own world, a world he had little control over, a world he gave his body
up to. It was a world that dictated to him how many men he could kill how
quickly, how efficiently. How to inflict the maximum damage with the least
possible effort.
    He felt bad for
these men; they had no idea what they were walking into.
    “Hey, I’m talking to you!” their leader called out, hardly ten feet away, holding out his sword
with a sneer and closing in fast.
    Merk stayed the
course, though, and kept marching, calm and expressionless. He was staying
focused, hardly listening to their leader’s words, now muted in his mind. He
would not run, or show any signs of aggression, until it suited him, and he
could sense how puzzled these men were by his lack of actions.
    “Hey, do you
know you’re about to die?” the leader insisted. “You listening to me?”
    Merk continued
walking calmly while their leader, infuriated, waited no longer. He shouted in
rage, raised his sword, and charged, swinging down for Merk’s shoulder.
    Merk took his
time, not reacting. He walked calmly toward his attacker, waiting until the
very last second, making sure not to tense up, to show any signs of resistance.
    He waited until
his opponent’s sword reached its highest point, high above the man’s head, the
pivotal moment of vulnerability for any man, he had learned long ago. And then,
faster than his foe could possibly foresee, Merk lunged forward like a snake,
using two fingers to strike at a pressure point beneath the man’s armpit.
    His attacker,
eyes bulging in pain and surprise, immediately dropped the sword.
    Merk stepped in
close, looped one arm around the man’s arm and tightened his grip in a lock. In
the same motion he grabbed the man by the back of his head and spun him around,
using him as a shield. For it wasn’t this man that Merk had been worried about,
but the attacker behind him with the crossbow. Merk had chosen to attack this
oaf first merely to